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Aztec medals?

It looks very much as if this Aztec officer, in the Codex Mendoza, is sporting medals earned on the battlefield - much as veteran soldiers do in armies nowadays. But he isn’t... In fact the glyph shows his title, as an important Aztec officer - a kind of ‘Constable’, who carried out public executions of criminals.

We can tell he’s a Constable because of his
• plain cape, with contrasting-coloured borders
• black body paint
• black-shading-to-brown face paint
• tubular earplugs
• long hair tightly bound by narrow white or red ribbons whose ends are knotted at the nape of the neck

What’s his title? He’s been called ‘Raining Blood’, ‘Blood Rain’, ‘Dried Blood’, ‘Shedder of Blood’... Clearly his name glyph shows drops of red-striped liquid - a vivid image of bloodshed! See him walking down the street and you knew someone’s life was about to come to a sticky end...