 On public and private ritual occasions, people drew blood from their ears, tongues, or calves, splattered it on pieces of paper, and gave it to the spirits as tokens of thanks for benefits received or as requests for future favors.The gods could be coaxed or rewarded, less by the physical fluid itself than by the tonalli (life force) it carried and transferred to them.Among most modern Nahuatl speakers, the state of the life force may even be determined from the movement of blood in the body, whether this movement is experienced as a tic, a pulse, or a muscular movement.