In an illuminating passage in his disquisition upon the Aubin

tonalamatl (p. 123) Seler says: “As I have remarked at the opening of

the section, the goddess Xochiquetzal is properly the expression of the

day-sign xochitl. But owing to the transference of the series of rulers

of the day-signs to the weeks in the peculiar way affected by the

calendar-makers, that is, by a general shifting of one member, [209]

Xochiquetzal has been brought into association with the sign ce

quauhtli (one eagle). But in Telleriano-Remensis at this week the

hand-mark [210] which indicates the feast-day proper of the ruler of

the week stands at the first day itself—the sign ce quauhtli, that

induced the calendar-makers to effect the above-described dislocation

in the second half of the list of rulers. For more than one reason the

day ce quauhtli must really have seemed to the priestly savants

specially appropriate to the goddess Xochiquetzal, and above all,

because this day was one of the five which fell at the beginning or

western quarter of the tonalamatl disposed in columns of five members.

Hence these five days were collectively regarded as dedicated to the

earth-goddesses, and as the days in which the ghostly women dwelling in

the west, the Ciuateteô, swooped down upon earth, striking the children

with epilepsy and beguiling the men to lust and sin.” These Ciuateteô

were stregæ, witches, succubi, and their characteristics, which are

touched upon in the section dealing with Tlazolteotl, will be more

fully outlined elsewhere.

Quecholli.—The people of Tlaxcallan held a festival to Xochiquetzal in

the month quecholli, when the Mexicans celebrated the feast of

Mixcoatl. At the Tlaxcaltec feast numbers of young women were

sacrificed to the goddess, “to the honour of love,” and the prostitutes

were also in the habit of offering themselves for immolation, we are

informed by Torquemada, [211] first haling the “honest” women through

the mire and subjecting them to the foulest abuse. The Tlalhuica, who

lived in the hot lands south of Mexico, themselves, like the

Tlaxcaltecs, a people of Nahua race, held a festival in honour of

Xochiquetzal in the month tepeilhuitl, which the Mexicans dedicated to

the Tlaloque, gods of rain, as is related by the interpreter of the

Codex Magliabecchiano. Torquemada, too, [212] states that the

Tlaxcaltecs sacrificed many children to Xochiquetzal and to the

mountain-gods (Tlaloque) evidently at this season. Xochiquetzal was

also connected with the festival of the atamalqualiztli, celebrated

every eight years. In the picture of that feast in the Sahagun MS. we

observe her seated at a loom. From these considerations it is manifest

that the verdurous and “watery” attributes of the goddess connected her

with the Tlaloque, but that she was not actually of their company.

TEMPLES

In Tlalhuica, not far from Cuernavaca or Quauhnauac, stands the pyramid

of Xochicalco, one of the most perfect specimens extant of Nahua

architectural skill. There is reason to believe that Xochiquetzal was

originally the local deity of one of these mountains the waters from

which irrigate the fields below, [213] and it seems probable that the

teocalli of Xochicalco typified this eminence. We know that the

teotlalpan, or “Place of Divine Earth,” in the sacred precinct at

Mexico, was sacred to Mixcoatl, a deity who was perhaps of Otomi

origin, and that it was probably symbolic of a mountain in the Otomi

country of which he was the presiding deity, so that the probability is

borne out by analogy. In the country of the Tlaxcaltecs stood the

heights of Xochtecatl, “Goddess of the Flowery Land,” a mountain,

according to Torquemada, about six miles in circumference, which was

the nucleus of a settlement, and was surrounded by graves hewn out of

the solid rock. This, perhaps, provides a fuller illustration of the

theory advanced above.

NATURE AND STATUS

The original home of Xochiquetzal seems to have been among the

Tlalhuica and Tlaxcaltecs. But as the latter were closely connected

with the Mexicans racially, there is good reason to believe that she

was also an original member of their pantheon. In any case she had a

place in the metropolitan calendar, and the contention of the compilers

of both interpretative codices, as well as of the native author of the

picture writings in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas,

that she is to be equated with Tonacaciuatl, the female member of the

creative pair, seems to have been a later development.

But Xochiquetzal is more especially the goddess of flowers, the female

counterpart of Xochipilli-Macuilxochitl. As has been mentioned, she was

probably at first the goddess who presided over some lofty mountain

whose streams watered the sun-dried plains beneath and clothed them in

abundant florescence, perhaps that very mountain of Xochtecatl to which

allusion has been made, and which stood in Tlaxcaltec territory. As the

“feminine” of Xochipilli, however, she certainly partook of his festive

and frivolous character, and thus presided over the song, the dance,

and all sportive amusements. By a further slight effort of imagination

she came to be regarded as the goddess of illicit love, or of the

sensuous side of intercourse between the sexes, not so much a goddess

of degraded animal passion, like Tlazolteotl, as a figure bearing a

close resemblance to the Apsarasas of Hindu myth, lovely and

voluptuous, and, like them, addicted to the game of throwing the dice

(patolli). A further step established her as the patron goddess of the

prostitutes who existed for the pleasure of the unmarried warriors and

who resided with them in the great common house of the bachelors. From

this circumstance arose the obscene character of the feast of Quecholli

among the Tlaxcaltecs and the Tepeilhuitl festival among the Tlalhuica.

Xochiquetzal was also in some measure the patroness of pregnant women,

according to the interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A, and these worshipped

and sacrificed to her in order that they should not give birth to

girls. She is herself figured in Codex Borgia as the great parturient,

and in Codex Vaticanus B (sheet 39) as has been indicated above.

She had also, like Xochipilli, an artistic significance, as the

patroness of weavers and artists. She was revered by the women who

practised the former art, the invention of spinning and weaving was

attributed to her, and many kinds of craftsmen paid her honours. She

had, moreover, a magical side to her character; in the Aubin tonalamatl

she is seated opposite the dancing wizard, and she is furthermore one

of the Tzitzimimê, or deities of the darksome night, among whom she is

symbolized by the spider.

MACUILXOCHITL = “FIVE FLOWER,” OR XOCHIPILLI = “FLOWER PRINCE”

Area of Worship: Tehuacan, Cozcatlan, Teotitlan del Camino, Oaxaca,

Mexico.

Minor Names:

Auia teotl = “God of Pleasure.”

Mazatl = “Deer.”

Auiatl = “The Jovial.”

Symbol: The sign five-flower.

Calendar Place:

Ruler of the eleventh day-sign, ozomatli.

Seventh of the thirteen day-lords.

Ruler of the twentieth day-count, xochitl.

Festival: The Xochilhuitl (“Feast of Flowers”), one of the movable

feasts.

Compass Directions: South; West.

Relationship: Brother of Ixlilton; son of Piltzintecutli.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Macuilxochitl)

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 15: In this place the god wears as breast-ornament

a human lower jaw, which, combined with the green band to which it is

tied up, may possibly express the day-count malinalli. He has a large

feather nape-ornament. The upper part of his face is white, with a dark

band over the nose and cheek, and white painting over the mouth, in the

semblance of an outspread hand. He wears a cap with vertically

projecting bands painted in the colours of the green jewel

chalchihuitl.

Sahagun MS.—Here he is represented with a white hand painted on his

mouth and a feather crown surmounted by a crest.

General.—Like the other gods of dance and sport, Macuilxochitl wears

the four balls of the toualli emblem on his shield and sometimes

carries the staff with the heart. Like Ixtlilton, he had probably once

a bird’s-head mask, which in the course of his evolution degenerated

into a feather crest and a wing on his back. The deterioration of this

feature can be observed in the stone effigies of his counterpart

Xochipilli.

STATUES

A stone figure of Macuilxochitl found in Cuernavaca represents the god

seated in a squatting attitude, and it is evidently intended to show

him as an onlooker at the ball-game. He wears a pointed headdress or

mitre, on the top of what would seem to be a cotton head-covering. A

head of the god in stone is included in the collection of the Natural

History Museum at Vienna. In this the nose-plug is prominent and he

wears round earrings. The wing-ornament stands well out behind the head

and the face seems to look out of a bird helmet-mask, on both sides of

which are large, circular holes, through which feathers or cotton

ear-plugs fall. The difficulty of working in stone has evidently

restrained the sculptor from representing the upper and lower portions

of the bird’s beak, and the helmet-mask bears a strong resemblance to

that of Xochipilli in the Codex Magliabecchiano, if the beak in that

representation were removed. A statue of the god found in the Calle de

las Escalerillas in Mexico City on December 13, 1900, is almost

identical with the first of those two statues, and agrees with the

second in that here we have the circular holes at the side of the

headdress with the dependent feathers or cotton plug. The best known of

the representations of this god, however, is the clay model found by

Seler at Teotitlan del Camino. It represents Macuilxochitl in a sitting

position and is brilliantly coloured. The face of the god looks out of

a bird helmet-mask, highly conventionalized, and which has practically

lost all its birdlike characteristics. The two circular holes below the

ear are, however, still represented. The upper part of the face is

painted yellow, but under each eye is an oblong patch painted in

variegated colours, such as appears on the faces of the gods of grain.

Around the mouth is a large white patch, in which we may see the white

hand motif conventionalized. The body-paint is red and the garment

white, except that portion at the neck, which is blue. Small golden

bells adorn the necklace and wristlets. In this statuette we have

evidently a very late and highly developed figure of the deity, showing

a considerable departure from the earlier drawings and statues of him.

In the Anthropological Museum at Berlin is a stone statue of

Macuilxochitl, also in a squatting attitude, in which the circular

motif above the ear, with its accompanying plug, is strongly in

evidence. A number of stone statuettes of the god were found at Tepeaca

in the state of Puebla and are now housed in the Natural History Museum

at Vienna. These do not differ from the examples already described,

save that in one of them the Greek fret-pattern takes the place of the

circular ear-plug motif. A stone figure of the god was found amid the

ruins of the Castillo de Teayo, a teocalli, or pyramid, in Vera Cruz.

In this, which is also a squatting figure, the god is covered by a

mantle which is surmounted by the bird’s comb, as seen in

Magliabecchiano and elsewhere. Around the head are three of the

circular holes above mentioned, one above each ear and one at the back

of the head, from which depend a double strip of cotton or other

textile.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Xochipilli)

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 26: In this MS. the god is painted a light

yellow colour. His light hair is bound with a jewelled strap ornamented

on the frontal side with a conventional bird’s head. Round his head he

also wears the fillet of the Sun-god, ornamented with a feather tuft.

As a breast ornament he has a large gold disk suspended from a broad

gold chain, hung with bells. His right hand clasps a bundle of grass,

and in his left he bears a staff embellished with turquoise mosaic and

flowers, probably intended for a rattle-stick. Above the twilight

symbol of the west in the water are instruments of mortification. On

sheet 32 he is represented as of a blue colour with a jewelled chain in

front of his mouth.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—The description of the god in this MS. is

similar to that just given. In his hand he supports a dish with

ornaments, a bangle for the upper arm, a feather tuft and a neck-chain.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 13: In this codex he is seen seated on a royal

throne. His body and the lower part of his face are coloured red, the

upper facial region is painted yellow, but contains a small,

rectangular field, half-red and half-white, while round the mouth is

executed a butterfly design, after the manner of Tonacatecutli and the

maize-gods. His blue ear-plug has a jewelled thong dependent from it,

and his nose-plug is reproduced in the colours of the chalchihuitl

jewel. On his head he wears the strap decorated by two large jewelled

disks. On the frontal side is the stereotyped bird-ornament, while from

the whole, four ends branch off. Surmounting this representation is the

symbol of the night-sky, the dusk-enveloped eye. His nape-ornament

consists of red and white feathers blended together. On his breast is a

large disk of gold, secured by strings of greenstone beads. His

loin-cloth is adorned with jewelled disks, and to the back-bow is

fastened a coxcoxtli bird’s head, which serves as a “mirror-tail,” or

back-mirror. A portion of the ends of his loin-cloth is coloured like

the chalchihuitl jewel. In front of his mouth is a flower from which

two jewelled thongs project.

Codex Magliabecchiano.—The mantles worn by Xochipilli are alluded to in

the MS. which accompanies the paintings in this codex as “mantas de un

selo señor o de Cinco Rosas y manta de Cinco Rosas” (see sheets 5 and

6). There is also a picture of him on sheet 47. The figure on the red

quemitl which he wears is similar to that worn on sheet 20 of Codex

Borbonicus by the god Cinteotl, and is, perhaps, a butterfly motif.

STATUES

Stone effigies of Xochipilli were set up in the tlachtli courts. In the

Museo Naçional at Mexico there is a stone statue of the god which

represents him as sitting cross-legged, as if watching the ball-game.

He wears the mask of a player or dancer. By the aid of such statues of

Xochipilli, which are found in considerable numbers all over the

eastern Mexican slope, the transition from the bird-helmet to the

rudimentary crest may be studied. [214]

MYTH

The only mythical matter of importance concerning Macuilxochitl or

Xochipilli is the nineteenth song in the Sahagun collection, which is

as follows [215]:

SONG OF THE GOD OF MUSIC AND GAMES

Out of the place of flowers I come,

Priest of the Sunset, Lord of the Twilight.

I come even now, my granddam,

Thou of the thigh-skin face-painting,

Lady of the Sunset,

I, priest of the Sunset, Lord of the Twilight.

The god of evil omens,

The lord Tezcatlipocâ,

Shall answer to me, the Maize-god.

In the temple of the octli-god

The rabbit has come to life again.

It runs about.

By my god was it created.

I will bring down the fire-drill, fire will I twirl

On the mountain of Mixcoatl in Culhuacan.

Raising my voice, I strike the little mirror;

The little mirror has grown weak

In the temple of the octli-god.

The white hair grows moist,

Ripe has the octli become.

I will endeavour to elucidate the above strophes, the obscurity of

which is apparent. The god declares that he comes from Tamoanchan, the

mythical paradise of flowers and vegetation in the west, and that he is

the priest of the sunset and lord of the twilight, both of which are

characteristic of that region. He invokes his mother, or grandmother,

Tlazolteotl, by names with which her worshippers were familiar. He

warns Tezcatlipocâ that he has the power to avert his evil omens,

probably by means of merriment and carousing. The rabbit was the

Mexican symbol of intoxication by octli. This strophe regarding it

comes, as it were, from the worshipper, who states that his god

Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli has created or re-created the rabbit, or

spirit of the octli beverage. Sahagun calls Xochipilli a god of fire,

and we know that he was associated with the sacrificial fire-drill,

which was also the symbol of sexual union and licence. Seler thinks

that this song shows “the relation which exists between the pulque

(octli) gatherings, the deity of feasts and the fire-drill.” [216]

FESTIVALS

Xochilhuitl.—Of the feast of flowers over which this god presided

Sahagun says: “The great folk made a feast, dancing and singing in

honour of this sign, decorating themselves with their feathers and all

their grandeur for the areyto. At this feast the king bestowed honours

upon warriors, musicians, and courtiers.” He states (Lib. II, Appendix

c, xix): “They made each year in his honour a feast called

xochilhuitl.... During the four days which preceded this feast all

those who were to take part in it, men as well as women, observed a

rigorous fast; and if during that period a man had commerce with a

woman or a woman with a man, they held that the fast was soiled; that

the god held it for a high offence, and that he would visit the

offenders with maladies in their privy parts.... Before the feast

everyone deprived himself of the use of chilli pepper. They fed upon a

kind of broth called tlalcuilolatolli, which is to say, ‘broth

decorated with a flower in the middle.’... Those who fasted without the

use of chilli or other savoury things, ate only once a day at midday.”

Those who did not fast ate fermented bread. The people ornamented

themselves with the symbols of the gods “as if they aspired to

represent their images,” and danced and sang to the sound of the drum.

At midday they beheaded a great number of quails and made offerings of

their blood before the image of the god. They also pierced their ears

in his presence. Others pierced the tongue with the spines of the

maguey, and passed through it a great number of osier reeds. Another

ceremony consisted of making five tamalli (cakes) of maize, which they

called “fasting bread.” These were placed beneath an arrow called

xochimitl (“flower-dart”) and were offered to the idol as from the

whole community. Those who wished to make a separate offering gave the

god five tamalli upon a wooden platter, and chilmolli soup in a vase.

Maize in all shapes and forms was also offered up. On the same day all

the great folk in Mexico who lived near the frontiers of an enemy

brought the slaves whom they had captured to the capital for sacrifice.

NATURE AND STATUS

This god appears to have had a highly developed cult among the peoples

of Tehuacan, Cozcatlan, and Teotitlan del Camino. He is primarily a god

of flowers and food, that is of abundance, and as such he equates with

the god Cinteotl, with whom some of the sacred hymns even seem to

confound him. But there are strong reasons why he should not be wholly

identified with Cinteotl, as Seler attempts to do, and as the Mexicans

certainly did not do, unless in later times. (See Cinteotl.) It may be,

however, that he was originally a god of vegetation, who later became

more especially a god of flowers, the cult of which was one

particularly favoured by the people of Mexico. However this may be,

there is no doubt that the joyous and sportive side of the god

developed at the expense of all others, and we find Sahagun speaking of

him under his two names as “the god of those who served for the

amusement or pastime of the great.” [217] He is, indeed, the god of

merriment, of dance and sport, of the ball-game, the jester or buffoon,

and moreover presides over the gambling game of patolli, which he is

seen patronizing in the Magliabecchiano MS. According to Jacinto de la

Serna, he is the god of the great gamblers who frittered away their

substance. As the god of sport he is frequently represented by the ape,

the beast of mimicry and diversion.

But he had also a more worthy side, for to artists of all kinds,

painters, weavers, and musicians in especial, he stood as the patron of

all artistic effort, and those engaged in it celebrated their worship

of him at the xochilhuitl festival. Several of the mantle designs in

the Codex Magliabecchiano indicate that as a flower-god he was not

forgotten by the weavers’ caste.

He has associations with several other gods besides Cinteotl,

especially with Ixtlilton (q.v.), who is spoken of as his brother, and

with the Ciuateteô, or deceased warrior women, probably because as a

food-god he was supposed to come from the west, the place of plenty,

where they resided, or, more likely, because of the hunger for earthly

excitement displayed by these pleasure-starved dead women, debarred

from the sensuous delights of earth. His connection with the octli-gods

as the god of merriment and abundance of victuals and festive good

things is plain; and he is very naturally the male counterpart of the

goddess Xochiquetzal (q.v.). As hailing from a locality where planetary

mythology was in an advanced condition, and where the worship of the

morning star was practised, he may have had an astronomic significance,

but what this was precisely is by no means clear. We probably assess

his nature correctly if we allude to him as a god of pleasure, feast,

and frivolity.

XIPE TOTEC = “OUR LORD THE FLAYED”

Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac, Zapotecs, Yopis.

Minor Names:

Tlaltecutli = “Lord of the Earth.”

Anauatl yteuc = “Lord of the Seaboard.”

Tlatauhqui Tezcatlipocâ = “The Red Tezcatlipocâ.”

Itztapaltotec = “Our Lord of the Flat Stone.”

Youallauan = “Night Drinker.”

Symbol: In Codex Borgia a quail with its head torn off seems

symbolical of this god.

Calendar Place: Lord of the fifteenth day, quauhtli, and of the

fourteenth week, ce itzcuintli; with the Fire-god, lord of the

twentieth tonalamatl division, ce tochtli.

Festival: Tlacaxipeuliztli.

Compass Direction: West.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 92: Xipe is depicted in this codex as clothed

in the flayed skin of the sacrificed human victim, which, after the

dreadful rite, was drawn over the priest’s body and worn for a number

of days. The slit eyes of the mask he wears shows that this also is

composed of human skin. He wears a nasal rod and plate having the

general appearance of the peculiar peaked cap with which he is

sometimes represented. The ends of his loin-cloth are slit and coloured

white and red. Sheet 62. As ruler of the fourteenth tonalamatl division

and god of the fifteenth day-count, Xipe is represented on this sheet

as a red Tezcatlipocâ. The limbless body is red, the costume of the

same colour, but with a face-mask of yellow, tinted to represent dead

human flesh, with the chapfallen jaw of the dead, narrow slit eyes, as

on sheet 92, and a red streak running over the eye, the full length of

the face, indicative, perhaps, of the place where the operation of

flaying was commenced. Here the nose-cap is also reminiscent of Xipe’s

peculiar peaked cap, its ends especially resembling those of that

headdress. Two red and white bands, the colours of the roseate

spoonbill, depend from the ear. The hair is bound by a fillet on which

are twin ornaments of dull gold, and above this rise two rows of

quetzal feathers.

Codex Vaticanus A.—Plate xiv, Duc de Loubat’s reproduction: As a

back-device he wears the three banners which are also shown of him in

the picture in Duran’s collection. As god of the fourteenth tonalamatl

division, he holds a shield, banner, and a bundle of spears, while half

of his shield is painted in dark and light red rings.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 49: In the Codex Borgia, Xipe is shown in his

character of the patron god of the warrior’s death by combat, or the

stone of sacrifice. He wears a wig made from the downy feathers of the

eagle, which, however, does not altogether conceal his flame-coloured

hair, two forelocks of which recall the hairdressing of

Tlauizcalpantecutli, the god of the planet Venus. Underneath is shown

his small petticoat or apron of green zapote leaves. From his mouth

protrudes a double-jewelled string, which, perhaps, signifies the

fertilizing rain, for as god of human sacrifice he has a connection

with the gods of fertility. He is similarly represented on sheet 25,

where he is also shown as ruler of the fourteenth tonalamatl division,

and the picture indeed bears a close resemblance to that in Codex

Vaticanus B, except that his breast-ornament, carved from a

snail-shell, is attached to his variegated feather necklace. In this

place he also wears a feather wig with a red crest made of the plumes

of the roseate spoonbill, alternating with chalchihuitls on leather and

the heads of rattle-sticks.

Image of Xipe found at Castillo de Teayo, showing him dressed in the

skin of the sacrificed victim.

Codex Borgia Group Generally.—In this group generally Xipe stands as

the representative of the sign of the day quauhtli. His insignia are

the same as those of the red Tezcatlipocâ, with striped face-painting,

but executed in red and yellow without the human skin, or other special

characteristics, and decorated only with the warrior’s headdress and

Tezcatlipocâ’s ring-shaped breast-ornament. The head and neck are

covered with cloth, on which are stuck downy feather-balls. He holds in

some places a severed arm, which he appears to be smelling or about to

devour.

Codex Borbonicus.—In this codex Xipe is represented as Tezcatlipocâ,

and has the face-painting of the red phase of that god, with the

smoking mirror at his temple, the characteristic white ring, and the

peculiar form of feather back-ornament, which is to be seen in some

other Tezcatlipocâ pictures of this codex. But he wears on his

head-fillet, instead of jewelled disks, an ornament of beaten gold, the

crown of roseate spoonbill feathers, the ends of the bands shaped in

swallow-tailed fashion, and other insignia pertaining to his own

regular dress. The quetzalcomitl on his back carries a banner painted

in light and dark red, his especial colours, and he also bears a shield

painted in light and dark red concentric circles. In this codex he

holds a fire-pan, painted with large patches of rubber gum, in which is

inserted the rattle-stick with Xipe’s bands and loops coloured red and

white, or light red and dark red with bifurcated ends.

Vienna Codex.—Xipe is represented here in the flayed human skin and

designated by the date “Seven Rain.”

Codex Nuttall (Zouche).—Sheet 83: In this codex there is a good

representation of the god, especially as regards his headdress. He is

depicted as the warrior secured to the stone of combat, whose eye sheds

tears at the thought of approaching death, and he bears in his hands

the bâtons with which the military victims defended themselves against

their adversaries (see Festival).

Sahagun MS.—This describes him as having a brown face covered with the

feathers of the quail, and with open lips (chapfallen jaw?). His crown

has parted ends, and he wears a wig of curled feathers. He has golden

ear-plugs. Round the hips he has a woman’s short skirt of zapote

leaves, and shells decorate his feet. His shield is red, with

concentric circles, and he carries a rattle-staff.

MASKS, VASES, ETC.

The well-known mask of Xipe in the British Museum represents the mask

of the sacrificed victim. On the back or inside, the carving of the god

shows him wearing his full insignia, with the peculiar headdress and

rattle-staff. Another mask of Xipe in the Bauer collection is of a most

individual character. It was found near Tezcuco, and bears both wind

and serpent symbols. On a stone at Cuernavaca is incised a good

representation of the shield, darts, and flag of Xipe, with date ce

ocelotl (“one ocelot”). On a cup in the Aldana collection Xipe is seen

wearing the flayed skin, with a necklace, evidently of intestines. His

hair is dressed in a manner resembling that affected by the warrior

caste, and he carries the rattle-staff.

STATUES

Representations of Xipe in statuary are considerably numerous. Several

found in the Valley of Mexico are housed in the Uhde collection,

Berlin. Two of these represent the god as wearing the victim’s flayed

skin and one of them is pitted with marks, evidently indicative of

blood-spots. The crown with feathers of the roseate spoonbill is well

exemplified in one of these, but in the other a mitre-like headdress

superimposed upon a circular crown, from which depend large ribbons or

paper ornaments, is noticeable. In another of these figures the

headdress is a sort of barret-cap with knobs or studs. Still another

figure of the same class shows the god with a very large stepped

nose-ornament. All carry a rattle-staff and three bear a shield. A most

striking statue of Xipe was discovered at the Castillo de Teayo site,

at Vera Cruz. The head, which is round and bullet-shaped, bears an

extraordinary resemblance to that of the well-known Egyptian figure of

the Sheik-el-Beled in the Boulaq Museum. In this statue the god wears

the skin of the victim, and the manner in which it was tied on to the

priest is well illustrated by the knotting at the back. The faces, of

course, are masks of the sacrificed victim.

ELEMENTS OF XIPE’S INSIGNIA

Although Xipe is so frequently portrayed as possessing the outward

characteristics of a red Tezcatlipocâ, few of the Mexican deities

possess insignia so individual, or so rich in manifold elements. The

Xipe dress was a favourite one with Mexican kings and military

chieftains, and, in the Codex Vaticanus A, King Motecuhzoma II is

represented as wearing the costume on the occasion of his victory over

Toluca. Tezozomoc also states that Axayacatl wore this dress, [218] and

on the eve of a fierce engagement Tlacauepan, brother of Motecuhzoma,

donned it at the latter’s special request. The elements of Xipe’s

costume are as follows [219]:

(1) The painted crown of feathers of the roseate spoonbill, with

bifurcated ends.

(2) The gilded timbrel.

(3) The jacket of spoonbill feathers.

(4) The petticoat or apron of zapote leaves, overlapping each other

like tiles.

(5) The jaguar or ocelot-skin scabbard.

(6) The round shield covered with red spoonbill feathers, showing

concentric circles of darker tints, sometimes noticeably bisected,

one-half of which is again subdivided obliquely into a smaller upper

portion containing a chalchihuitl on a blue field, and a larger lower

portion, covered with jaguar or ocelot-skin.

Xipe’s dress has three forms:

(1) That of the red god, of the colour of the roseate spoonbill.

(2) That of the blue god, of the colour of the blue cotinga.

(3) As a jaguar or ocelot.

MYTHS

The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says of Xipe: “Amongst those who

began to follow the example of Quetzalcoatl and his austerities by

their own acts of penance, Totec is very famous, who, on account of his

having been a great sinner, first stood in the house of sorrow called

Tlaxipuchicalco, where, having completed his penance, he ascended the

mountain Catcitepulz (‘the mountain which speaks’), which mountain was

covered with thorns. There continuing his penance, he cried from thence

very strongly, reproving his people of Tulan, calling to them to come

and do penance with him for the enormous guilt which they had incurred

in forgetting the services and sacrifices of their gods and having

abandoned themselves so much to pleasure. They say that Totec was

accustomed to go about clothed in a human skin and so it has been the

custom till those times. In the festivals, likewise, which they

celebrated to Totec, men clothed themselves in the skins of those whom

they had slain in war and in this manner danced and celebrated the

festival of the sign dedicated to him (for from him, they say, wars

originated), and accordingly they paint him with these insignia, viz. a

lance, banner, and shield. They hold him in the utmost veneration, for

they say that he was the first who opened to them the way to heaven;

for they were under this error amongst others; they supposed that only

those who died in war went to heaven, as we have already said. Whilst

Totec still continued doing penance, preaching and crying from the top

of the mountain which has been named, they pretend that he dreamed this

night that he beheld a horrible figure with its bowels protruding,

which was the cause of the great abomination of his people. On this,

praying to his god to reveal to him what the figure signified, he

answered that it was the sin of his people, and that he should issue an

order to the people, and cause them all to be assembled, charging them

to bring thick ropes, and to bind that miserable spectre, as it was the

cause of all their sins, and that, dragging it away, they should remove

it from the people, who, giving faith to the words of Totec, were by

him conducted to a certain wild place, where they found the figure of

death, which, having bound, they dragged it to a distance, and drawing

it backwards, they fell all into a cavity between the two mountains,

which closed together, and there they have remained buried ever since;

none of them having effected their escape, with the exception of the

innocent children who remained in Tulan.”

A few lines farther on the interpreter says: “The two masters of

penance were Quetzalcoatle and Totec, who was called by another name,

Chipe; who, having taken the children and the innocent people who

remained in Tulan, proceeded with them, peopling the world, and

collecting along with them other people whom they chanced to find. They

further add that, journeying in this manner with these people, they

arrived at a certain mountain, which not being able to pass, they feign

that they bored a subterranean way through it and so passed. Others say

that they remained shut up and that they were transformed into stones,

and other such fables.”

The first part of this myth is, of course, merely ætiological of the

practice of making vows to Xipe to capture and immolate an enemy in his

honour, as, we shall see in the paragraph dealing with his festivals,

was done on that occasion. But I would point out that it possesses some

importance as providing further evidence regarding the existence of the

ascetic life in Mexico, most of the myths dealing with which, like that

under discussion, are connected with the Toltecs, the people of

Quetzalcoatl. Xipe, who plays the part of the Toltec Jeremiah, is here

the subject of a tale which is also recounted of Tezcatlipocâ, with

whom he is frequently confounded or identified, perhaps because both

were great gods of the sacrificial stone, or for the reason that

practically all Mexican cults tended to gravitate towards Tezcatlipocâ

in late times.

That portion of the story which details the burial en masse of the

Toltecs is, of course, the widespread tale of the disappearance of the

old hero-race underground—the fate which overtook Charlemagne and his

peers, King Arthur and “the auld Picts” at Arthur’s Seat, near

Edinburgh, Barbarossa and his men, and many another group of paladins.

The whole may allude, in the ultimate, to mound-burial. It is strange

too—or quite natural, as we believe in, or doubt, the penetration of

America by alien influences—to find in Mexico an incomplete variant of

the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I should not be surprised to

find that Xipe piped the Toltec children into the Underworld, for

Tezcatlipocâ, with whom he was identified, or at least the captive who

represented that god at the Toxcatl festival, and who had a year of

merriment in which to prepare himself for his fate, went through the

city at intervals, playing upon a flute. This almost universal myth may

allude to the ancient belief that the souls of the dead travelled with

the wind, and were the cause of its sighing and whistling. [220] We

know, too, that the whistling of the night wind through the mountains

was regarded by the Mexicans as of evil omen, and that Yoalli Eecatl

(The Wind of Night) was one of the names of Tezcatlipocâ. [221]

The following song from the Sahagun MS. is in celebration of Xipe:

Wherefore dost thou disguise thyself, O Night-drinker?

Put on thy golden garment.

O my god, thy rich sacrificial water descended;

The lofty cypress tree has become a quetzal;

That which was a serpent has become a quetzal.

The fire-serpent, the famine, has left me.

It may be that I shall go thence to perish,

I, the young maize-plant.

My heart is like a chalchihuitl;

But I shall yet see gold in that place.

I shall be satisfied when I can say

The warrior chief is born.

Let the maize be ready in abundance, O my god.

I look towards thy mountain, I, who worship thee.

I will be satisfied

When the maize ripens,

When the warrior chief is born.

I believe the god to have been called “Night-drinker” from the

circumstance that, in the belief of certain barbarous peoples,

vegetation is more greatly assisted in its growth by night than by day,

that it “drinks,” or is saturated by, the mists and vapours of the

night season, which are believed to emanate from the moon. [222]

Indeed, dew is believed to be caused by the moon, [223] which is

regarded as the great source of all moisture, as the sun is the great

source of all heat. [224]

Xipe is here entreated by the young maize-plant to don his golden

garment, the rain, as, indeed, one translation of this song states it

to be, taking a reasonable liberty with the original. When the rain

comes the cypress glitters like a quetzal-feather, a Mexican euphuism

for a glittering gem, or anything very precious. The xiuhcoatl, or

fire-serpent, is the terrible weapon of Uitzilopochtli, with which he

slew his rebellious brothers and sister, the enemies of his mother

Coatlicue, as Indra slew those of his mother, both of these events

occurring immediately after the birth of the gods thus compared. (In

the case of Indra the weapon was a thunderbolt.) The fire-serpent in

this place evidently symbolizes the scorching, torrid heat which brings

about famine. If the rain continues not, the maize-plant, the young

heart of which is green as jadeite, and from which the golden maize

will emerge later, may perish. Finally the worshipper (?) states that

he will remain unsatisfied until the plumed and full-grown plant,

symbolic of the warrior and all that he fights for, has come to

fruition.

My reading of this song differs considerably from those of other

authorities, but I may, perhaps, be pardoned if I say that I prefer my

own elucidation as at least more circumstantial and more in line with

the facts of Mexican belief.

FESTIVAL

Tlacaxipeuliztli.—The best description of this festival is that of

Sahagun (bk. ii, c. xxi) who tells us that on the last day of the month

of that name the Mexicans celebrated a solemn festival to Xipe and

Uitzilopochtli. On the afternoon of the day prior to that on which the

feast was to take place they held a solemn areyto, or dance, and they

watched all the night in the temple called calpulco [225] with those

who were to be sacrificed on the morrow. They shaved the hair from the

tops of their heads, at the same time drawing blood from their own ears

to offer to the gods. When daybreak had come, they conducted the

captives to the temple of Uitzilopochtli, where they were sacrificed

and flayed, from which circumstance the feast took its name. Many of

the victims were called Xipeme or Tototectin (plurals of the god’s

name). The masters of the captives, or those who had captured them in

war, formally handed them over to the priests at the foot of the

teocalli, and these took them by the hair of the head to make them

mount the steps more quickly. If they refused to walk to the stone of

sacrifice they were dragged thence. When their hearts had been

withdrawn they were offered up to the gods, and the body cast down the

steps of the teocalli, where other priests received it for flaying. The

hearts of the unfortunates thus slaughtered were thrown into a tub of

wood and took the name of quanochtli, or “nopal wood,” of which the

tubs were made.

The flaying process was undertaken by a caste of elderly and probably

inferior priests, the quaquacuilton. [226] Before the bodies of the

sacrificed were so treated they were carried to the temple, where the

“master” of the captive had made his vow to capture and consecrate a

victim to the god. The body was broken up at this place, and a leg was

dispatched to court for the table of the king, the remainder being

divided among the great, or the master’s parents. The dreadful repast

was usually partaken of in the house of him who had taken the captive

prisoner in war. They cooked the flesh with maize and gave a little to

each in a small porringer. The dish was called tlacatlaolli, or “man

and maize.” After having eaten, the feasters became intoxicated on

octli. On the following day, having watched all the night, they went to

amuse themselves by examining the other captives, and in watching them

being baited on the stone of combat. These latter were known as

uauantin, “the pierced,” with reference to the wounds they received.

[227]

Before the sacrificial rites took place the captors of the victims

gathered together, and when the victims had been dispatched the

captors, or certain priests (it is not clear which), drew on the skins

of the flayed victims, and took up positions on hillocks of hay or

heaps of chalk or rubbish. Others approached them, and defied them to

combat by words and pinches. A skirmish ensued, and those who were

captured did not escape scot-free, being rather roughly handled. This

mock combat over, the real business of the day began in terrible

earnest. The wretched captive was secured by one ankle to the

temalacatl, or stone of combat, and wooden bâtons on which eagle-down

had been stuck, in imitation of a maquahuitl, or obsidian-edged sword,

were placed in his hands. Four warriors now came against the victim,

two of the ocelotl corps of knights and two of the quauhtli or Eagle

Corps, and having raised their shields and weapons to the sun, one of

them attacked the captive tied to the stone. If he defended himself

with address, two or even three of his opponents attacked him, and if

he still made good his resistance, all four fell upon him,

“intermingling their blows with dances and numerous poses.”

Prior to the combat a solemn procession was formed to the temalacatl. A

body of priests, dressed in the insignia of one or other of the gods in

whose honour the festival was held, issued from the yopico (“in Yopi

land”), the temple of Xipe, followed by the tecutlis, or knights,

already alluded to, who flourished their weapons and made a martial

show. Arrived at the temalacatl, they marched round it, and seated

themselves on carven stools called quecholicpalli (“perch of the strong

bird”). The priest who took charge of the proceedings was called

Youallauan (Night-drinker), one of the names of the god, and when all

were seated, an orchestra of trumpets, flutes, and conch-shells struck

up, mingled with whistling and singing. The performers wore on their

shoulders streamers of white feathers mounted on long staves, which, as

we have seen, was part of the Xipe dress, and sat between the priests

and the stone of combat.

When the frightful overture had concluded, a captive was placed on the

stone by the person who devoted him to sacrifice, and a beaker of octli

was given him to hearten him to fight well. This he presented to the

four points of the compass, and then sucked its contents through a

reed. A priest then took up his stand in front of the doomed man, and

holding a living quail before him as before a god, tore off its head.

Another priest clad in a bear-skin secured the captive to the stone and

handed him his weapons, and then his captor danced before him, as

before a divinity. The combat then took place, and in the unusual event

of a victim overcoming the four well-appointed warriors who opposed

him, a fifth, who must be a left-handed man, rushed in, raised the

exhausted victor in his arms and threw him to the ground, where he was

dispatched by the Youallauan.

The victim’s heart was then thrown into the wooden tub before alluded

to, after it had been held up to the sun. Another priest now took a

hollow reed and introduced it into the opening from which the heart had

been removed. Having drawn off a sufficient quantity of blood, he went

to offer it up to the sun. The master of the captive who had been slain

then filled a bowl with the blood of his victim, which vessel was gaily

decorated with feathers and which contained a tube, similarly

ornamented. With this he went the round of the temples, smearing the

blood upon the lips of the idols with the feathered tube. He next

divested himself of the gay feather cloak he wore for the occasion and

carried the flayed corpse of his captive, or what remained of it, to

his house, after royal and other requirements had been met. As has been

said, he feasted his family and friends on the body, but did not

himself partake of it, as he was regarded as the ritual father of the

deceased. “The skin of a victim also belonged to his captor, and this

he gave to those who dressed themselves in skins (in consequence of a

vow), and so attired, paraded the streets of the town. Others wore the

heads of wolves.” [228]

“When the captive had been slain, all who were present, priests,

warriors and others, began to dance the areyto round the temalacatl,

the captors of the victims carrying the heads of the slain. This

areyto, or dance, was called motzontecomaitotia (dance with decapitated

heads). The cuitlachueue (old jackal [229]), godfather of the captives,

took in his hands the cords which had held them to the temalacatl and

raised them to the four cardinal points in sign of adoration. After

that ‘he groaned, he wept for the dead.’

“The foreigners with whom Motecuhzoma was at war came to assist

secretly at the spectacle. These were the men of Uexotzinco, Tlaxcallan

and Nonoualco, Cempoallan, and many other places. The Mexicans

pretended not to see them, and they were thus able to behold the fate

reserved for captives in Mexico. When all was over, everyone ate a

tortilla called uilocpalli, or pigeon-seat, a kind of little paté made

with uncooked maize. Next day everyone assisted at an areyto of great

solemnity, which was commenced in the royal palace. All were dressed in

their best and carried tamallis and tortillas of roasted maize, called

momochtli, which they wore instead of collars and garlands. They

carried also red feathers and stalks of maize. The areyto ceased at

midday, and the nobles ranged themselves three and three in the royal

palaces. The king appeared, having upon his right the King of Tezcuco

and on his left the Lord of Tacuba. A solemn dance then took place,

which lasted until the sun went down, after which they commenced

another dance, in which everyone took hands and danced in a serpentine

figure. The old soldiers and recruits came to this dance, bringing with

them female partners and even public women. This lasted also on the

place where the captives had been slain till nearly midnight, and they

continued to celebrate these feasts for nearly twenty days, until they

had arrived at the kalends of the month which they called tozoztontli.”

Twenty days after the festival those who wore the skins of the slain

removed them, but it would seem, from what Sahagun says, that certain

devotees wore these from the festival of tlacaxipeuliztli at the end of

that month to the beginning of the following tlacaxipeuliztli. Persons

afflicted with skin diseases or weak sight frequently made a vow to be

present at this ceremony. The devotees then performed ceremonial

ablutions in a bath in the temple, in which water was mixed with maize

flour, or, more strictly speaking, they were bathed by others. They

then shampooed their heads and did penance for the death of the

captive. After this the captor erected a tripod in the court of his

house, on the top of which was a petlatl, or mat rolled into a ball, on

which he placed all the paper ornaments which the captive had worn at

his sacrifice. “He then chose a courageous young man who wore those

papers, and who took a shield in one hand and a cudgel in the other,

and went through the streets as if looking for an evil-doer. Everyone

was afraid, and cried, ‘Behold the telzompac (noble one) comes!’ If he

caught anyone he took his mantle, and all the spoil he took he brought

back to the captor. The captor then placed in the middle of the court

of his house a joist in the form of a column, which indicated that he

had made captives in war, and which was the blazon of his honour. Then

he took the thigh-bone of the captive, ornamented it with the papers,

and attached it to the top of the column in his courtyard. He then

invited his parents, friends, and the men of his quarter, in presence

of whom he hung the bone up, and then he gave them to eat and drink.

Family songs were sung. All these things were done in the twenty days

before they arrived at the uei tozoztli.

The goldsmiths, of whose caste Xipe was the patron, probably because

the yellow human skin in which he was represented as being clad

typified an overlay of gold-foil, held a festival during

tlacaxipeuliztli in the yopico temple sacred to the god, sacrificing

and burning victims to him, and covering a human representative of him

with ornaments and precious stones, a crown of feathers, golden

necklaces and earrings, and scarlet sandals. They then placed him upon

a throne and offered him the first fruits and flowers of the season,

together with bunches of maize-seed.

The mode of sacrifice by shooting to death with darts or arrows was

employed in connection with Xipe as well as in the case of Tlazolteotl

(q.v.). A captive was secured to a scaffold and shot with darts, so

that his blood might fall upon the ground. This usage may be regarded

as of the nature of sympathetic magic to secure rainfall.

TEMPLES

At least three buildings were erected to the honour of Xipe at Mexico.

[230] The first of these, known as yopico (“in Yopi land”), has already

been alluded to, and was probably the principal place connected with

his worship. It was at this temple that the ceremonies of the

tlacaxipeuliztli festival took place. The second, called yopico

calmecac, appears to have been situated in the quarter of Tlatelolco,

and, as its name implies, was evidently a monastery or place of

instruction. At another edifice, the yopoci tzompantli, the heads of

the victims slain at the festival of the god were exhibited. In front

of the first of these stood the temalacatl, the stone to which the

captives were secured when they fought with the Mexican warriors before

they were finally sacrificed.

PRIESTHOOD

The Xipe yopico teohua, or priesthood dedicated to the service of Xipe,

is enumerated among the various classes of priests charged with the

service of the gods, [231] and held in their keeping Xipe’s insignia

and the accessories for his festival. They resided in the yopico

calmecac or monastery.

NATURE AND STATUS

Xipe is pre-eminently a god of seed-time and planting. [232] He is the

Tlaltecutli, or “Lord of the Earth,” and in a secondary sense, the god

of the warrior’s death on the stone of combat, because of the

association between the food-supply and military service for the

purpose of gaining captives. There can be no question that Xipe was of

Zapotec origin; indeed, that is manifest from the name of his temple,

Yopico, which means the “land of the Yopi” or Tlappeneca, a people of

Zapotec affinities, and his cap was known as yopitzontli, “the Yopi

head.” One of his names was Anauatl itecu, or “Lord of the Coastland,”

and we know from Herrera [233] that he was especially worshipped in the

district of Teotitlan, which commands the road to Tabasco. Both Sahagun

and the interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A uphold his alien origin.

Just as the Egyptian priests of Ammon at Thebes once a year killed a

ram, flayed it, and clothed the image of their god in the skin, just as

the Celtic priest wore the skin of a bull at certain festivals, so the

Mexicans slew and flayed a man, in whose skin they clothed their

priests and those who desired to be closely associated with the god.

The idea underlying this practice would appear to be the renewal of the

life of the deity. It seems to have some bearing on the phenomena of

the system known as “totemism,” regarding the real significance of

which we know so little, despite the seeming erudition which has of

late years been lavished upon its consideration, for, as we have seen,

the captor of the slain victim was not permitted to eat of his flesh,

although that may only have been taboo to him because he stood to the

doomed man in the relation of a sponsor. Xipe represents the earth

“flayed,” that is bare, and ready for sowing. The flaying of the

captive and the dressing of the god’s representative in the skin may

have been of the nature of sympathetic magic, as a suggestion to the

earth to rehabilitate itself in its covering of yellow maize.

It is precisely the agricultural god whom in Mexico we must expect to

find clothed in all the attributes of the warrior, and truly Xipe does

not disappoint us in this respect. He is armed cap-à-pie, and his dress

was the favourite harness of Mexican royalty when it went forth to

battle, as witness the Spartan suggestion of Motecuhzoma to his brother

on the eve of a great combat. [234] The Codex Vaticanus A calls him “il

guerreggiatore attristato.” Thus at his feast the sacrifice takes the

form of a combat. Indeed, he represents the warrior caste, by the

efforts of whom the altars of Mexico were supplied with human victims,

and the maize-crop was consequently secured.

Xipe is in some measure associated with that sacred bird the quail,

which has been connected with sacrifice in many lands. This bird

frequently takes refuge in the last sheaves of grain in a

harvest-field, and thus, perhaps, came to symbolize the corn-spirit

driven from its last stronghold. In Normandy in the harvest-field the

reapers pretend to catch a quail and dispatch it. [235] The quail was

sacrificed to the Tyrian Baal, [236] and is associated by Robertson

Smith with the god Eshmun-Iolaos. [237] The bird-like character of

Xipe’s dress may assist us in the belief that he was partially evolved

from some bird of the quail species commonly found in the maize-field.

He bears a strong resemblance to the Maya god F.

Xipe was probably a maize-god of the Yopi who came to partake of the

character of an Aztec grain-and-sacrifice deity, his own type of

immolation, the shooting by arrows, being partially superseded by the

warrior’s death upon the temalacatl. It would seem that, as the god of

a people of Nahua race, but older in their occupation of the land than

the Aztecâ and Chichimecs, he probably took much the same line of

development after his worshippers settled in the Yopi country as

Tezcatlipocâ and Uitzilopochtli took in a more northern environment,

that the resemblance was recognized by the Aztecâ (as is shown by his

affinity with Tezcatlipocâ, with whom, indeed, he is identified as

Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipocâ, or “the Red Tezcatlipocâ”), and that under

their guidance his festival took a similar form to that of the gods in

question. His festival is certainly a mytho-dramatic performance

explanatory of the preparation of the earth for the sowing of grain,

the soil being rehabilitated by the death of the captive warrior.

XILONEN = “YOUNG MAIZE MOTHER”

Area of Worship: Originally Huichol tribes; later, Valley of

Anahuac.

Festival: Uei tecuilhuitl, in the eighth month.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The face is painted half red,

half yellow, and the goddess wears a crown of paper decorated with

quetzal-feathers. Her collar is of green precious stones and her

overdress is “the colour of spring flowers” (red). Her skirt is of the

same hue. She wears sandals, and carries a shield with horizontal

lines. In her hand she holds a red rattle-board.

FESTIVAL

The Uei tecuilhuitl.—The festival to Xilonen was the uei tecuilhuitl,

or “great festival of the chiefs,” which lasted eight days and was

celebrated when the maize-plant had almost reached maturity. Our chief

authorities for its events are Sahagun [238] and Torquemada. [239] The

former states that at this period of the year (June–July) the women

wore their hair unbound, in order that the maize might be prompted to

grow in equal luxuriance. During the days of the festival such persons

as visited the temple were permitted to drink abundantly of chian

pinolli (a beverage manufactured from the seed of the chian tree,

mingled with maize-flour and aloe honey) and as much maize-porridge as

could be grasped in the hand, to symbolize the plenty which would

follow the ripening of the grain. The food thus supplied was the gift

of the chiefs, from which circumstance the festival took its name.

Dancing commenced each night at sunset, and was accompanied by singing,

the scene being illuminated by the glare from burning pine-torches.

The dancer around whom interest chiefly centred was the xalaquia (“she

who is clothed with the soil”), a slave girl who represented the

goddess, wearing her red face-paint, large square headdress and

variegated raiment. She was constantly guarded by three old women

called her “mothers,” and was sedulously instructed in the

dancing-school for the part she had to play. In all likelihood she was

kept in complete ignorance of her impending fate. Day after day she

danced, surrounded by the women of the community, who shook their long

hair, and it was believed that the maize-crop would be vigorous or the

reverse as her terpsichorean exertions were spirited or listless. On

the last day of the rites, the priestesses of the Maize-goddess,

attired in her insignia, gathered together in the teopan, or

temple-precinct, and accompanied the victim in a performance which

lasted throughout the night. When day broke, the chief nobles and

warriors of Mexico joined the women and danced a solemn areyto, the men

dancing in front and the women behind them. In this manner they danced

to the foot of the teocalli of the goddess, which they ascended, the

victim being carried on the back of one of the priests, after the

manner of a bride being borne to her husband’s house. Arrived at the

summit, she was decapitated and her heart offered to the goddess. Until

she was sacrificed no one might eat of the new maize, lest it should

fail to ripen.

PRIESTHOOD

The Cinteotzin (Lord of Maize), says Sahagun, had charge of affairs at

the festival of Xilonen (see Cinteotl).

NATURE AND STATUS

Xilonen appears to be nothing more than a deification of the young,

tender ear of the maize-plant. Her name, the season at which her rites

took place and the youth of the xalaquia who represented her would seem

to bear this out. She was originally a goddess of the Huichol tribes,

and, by some circumstance of evolution or imagery, came to symbolize

for the Nahua the maize in the earlier stages of its ripeness, thus to

some extent resembling Cinteotl. Payne and also Seler in some places

seem to confound her festival with that of Chicomecoatl, and offer no

reasons for thus traversing the statements of the older authorities,

which are definite enough and which in this instance I prefer to

follow.

ITZPAPALOTL = “OBSIDIAN KNIFE BUTTERFLY”

Area of Worship: Originally Chichimec tribes; Mexican Plateau.

Relationship: Associated with Mixcoatl and the Centzon Mimixcoa;

one of the Tzitzimimê.

Symbols: The butterfly; Mixcoatl’s stone knife.

Compass Direction: Earth (?).

Calendar Place: Ruler of the sixteenth day, cozcaquauhtli; of the

fifteenth “week,” ce calli.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 92: In this representation and on the sheet

devoted to the fifteenth tonalamatl division and its ruler, Itzpapalotl

is depicted as furnished with human teeth, but is predominantly animal

in form, retaining, however, certain peculiarities which indicate the

intention that she should be regarded as an insect. She displays a kind

of butterfly wing, edged round with stone knives. Above her is figured

the flowering tree broken in the middle from which blood flows. This

symbol denotes the Tamoanchan, or House of Descent, the region of the

mythical west, home of the maize-plant and seat of the primeval gods,

where the wandering tribes were said to have made a long sojourn. In

sheet 63 she is represented as standing upon a platform, which seems to

be covered with a symbolic leaf—perhaps that on which butterflies are

most usually found. She has a dark body edged with white, and the claws

and face are flecked with ulli rubber gum. The head is an adaptation of

that of Tlaloc, and a short, wheel-shaped wing occupies the back from

nape to tail-root.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 11: In this place the goddess is depicted as a

woman with jaguar claws on hands and feet. The facial painting is like

that of Tlauizcalpantecutli, but the features are those of the

Death-god—a skull with a stone-knife nose. She wears a collar with the

form and colouring of a butterfly’s wing, and her dress is set with

stone knives at prominent points. She is accompanied by an animal of

rapacious aspect, perhaps a jaguar or ocelot.

Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—A butterfly with antennæ and wings acts as a

naualli, or disguise (a kind of helmet-mask), to a female figure which

has death’s-head teeth, animal claws on the hands and feet, and a

blue-coloured disk on the cheek. As in Codex Borgia, this face has a

stone knife on the nose, a collar studded with stone knives, and on the

head the warrior’s forked heron-feather ornament. The crown is of dark

feathers, the sombreness of which is lightened by quetzal plumes and a

loin-cloth like that of the Ciuateteô or Ciuapipiltin, the dead women

who had perished in childbed, and who were regarded as partaking of the

nature of warriors. The end of the loin-cloth and skirt is trimmed with

a hem of teeth. As a back-mirror she wears a death’s-head, below which

hangs a “star-skirt,” to the plaited thongs of which rattling

snail-shells are attached.

Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl (15th Division).—Here the goddess looks out of

a butterfly helmet-mask. Her face is painted a red colour and she is

decorated with dark plumage on arms and legs. She has a snail-shell

before her face, and wears a gold disk on the breast. Opposite her are

a broken tree and a beheaded captive, whose body spouts two streams of

blood in the shape of snakes’ heads. She is seated on a throne

ornamented with small disks.

Codex Borbonicus.—Here the goddess is pictured as a demon of darkness,

tzitzimitl, who descends from heaven in the form of an eagle.

Bas-relief.—A bas-relief, known as the stone of Aristides Martel,

represents the goddess as in the act of flight, and agrees with the

representations of her in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and the Codex

Borbonicus. The face is intended to represent that of an insect with

round eyes and almost reptilian mouth, and the headdress is flat and

covered with feather balls. The hands and feet are furnished with long

claws. In this place the feather-marking of the goddess presents a

distinctly serpentine appearance and she is surrounded by serpent

motifs, between the folds of which is seen the cross-hatching

symbolical of these reptiles.

MYTHS

The interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis regards Itzpapalotl as a

male deity, probably because, like the Ciuateteô or women who died in

childbed, who were regarded as the equals of the warriors, she wore a

male loin-cloth. He says: “He was called Xounco and after he sinned

Yzpapalotle. The sign of this name is a Knife of Butterflies, and

accordingly he is surrounded with knives and wings of butterflies; for

they say that he sometimes appears to them, and that they only see feet

resembling those of an eagle. Yzpapalotle was one of those who fell

from heaven with the rest, whose names are the following: Queçalcoatle,

Ochululuchesi, Tezcatlipoca, Caleteotle, and Hatzcanpantecoatl.”

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A also labours under a

misapprehension regarding Itzpapalotl’s sex. He states: “Yxpapalotl

signifies a knife of butterflies. He was one of those gods who, as they

affirm, was expelled from heaven; and on this account they paint him

surrounded with knives and wings of butterflies. They represent him

with the feet of an eagle, because they say that he occasionally

appears to them, and they only see the feet of an eagle. They further

add that, being in a garden of great delight, he pulled some roses, but

that suddenly the tree broke and blood streamed from it; and that in

consequence of this they were deprived of that place of enjoyment and

were cast into this world because Tonacatecutli and his wife became

incensed, and accordingly they came some of them to the earth, and

others went to hell. He presided over these thirteen signs; the first

of which the house (calli) they considered unfortunate, because they

said that demons came through the air on that sign in the figure of

women such as we call witches, who usually went to the highways, where

they met in the form of a cross.”

In the song to Tlazolteotl, the fourth of the Sahagun series, we find

the following strophes relating to Itzpapalotl:

The stone-knife butterfly

Who hovers over the cactus.

Her food is on the Nine Plains,

She was nurtured on the hearts of deer,

Our mother, the Earth-goddess.

The reference to the Nine Plains alludes to the circumstance that

Itzpapalotl is a goddess of the Chichimec, or hunting people. The two

first lines of this song are translated by Seler as follows:

“O, she has become a goddess of the melon cactus,

Our mother Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly.”

The inference in these lines seems to be that whereas Itzpapalotl was

formerly the goddess of a hunting tribe who sacrificed deer to her, she

has now become the deity of the cultivated field and a settled

agricultural community. This hypothesis would appear to gain strength

from the text of the Anales de Quauhtitlan, where Itzpapalotl is spoken

of as the foundress of the oldest Chichimec kingdom in Nequameyocan,

“Place of the Wild Agave.” Camargo states [240] that the tribes issuing

from Chicomoztoc, “The Seven Caves,” first came to Mazatepec, “The Deer

Mountain,” then to the province of Tepeueuec, where a victim was

sacrificed to Itzpapalotl by shooting him with arrows, a circumstance

which in itself proves the goddess to have been associated with the

earth.

NATURE AND STATUS

Like Mixcoatl, with whom she is closely associated, Itzpapalotl appears

to have been originally one of the ancient stellar and lightning

deities of the Chichimec or nomadic tribes of the northern plains.

Later, on the abandonment of the hunting mode of subsistence and the

acceptance of a more settled and agricultural mode of life by the

tribes who worshipped her, Itzpapalotl would appear (as the allusion to

her in the song to Tlazolteotl seems to show) to have become a goddess

of the food-supply, the melon-patch, and the maize-crop. She was one of

the Tzitzimimê, or demons of darkness, and as such symbolically took

insect shape (cf. Xochiquetzal as a spider), but beneath her butterfly

form there lurks the symbol of the old, fierce earth-mother with claws

and merciless, protruding teeth, which were originally evolved from

those of the cipactli, or earth-monster. It seems to me also that she

bears about her the marks of the deer, and at this I am not surprised,

as I am convinced that in many lands the deer is regarded as a

surrogate of the dragon, and is thus frequently associated with fire

and water. Indeed, in places, Itzpapalotl is tacitly identified with

the mythical deer Itzcuêyê, [241] the captive and wife of Mixcoatl.

That Itzpapalotl is associated with fire is probable, and we know from

the song that she was nurtured on the hearts of deer. From her

association with the obsidian cult and the fact that she is closely

connected with Mixcoatl, whose obsidian knife is her symbol, I should

not be surprised to find further evidence that she is in some manner

identified with the lightning, the heavenly fire, or the stars. Again,

we know that the butterfly was in some measure associated with the

Ciuateteô, the women who died in childbed. We know, too, from Sahagun’s

account that at the festival of the Ciuateteô the people offered cakes

stamped with a butterfly and S-shaped cakes to these spirits, to

represent the lightning. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Itzpapalotl

wears the male loin-cloth, like the Ciuateteô, and in Codex Vaticanus B

(sheet 92) there is represented near her a flowering tree broken in the

middle and spouting blood, the glyph or symbol of Tamoanchan, the

paradise of the west, where dwelt the Ciuateteô. In the Mexican mind

the gaudy hues of the butterfly may have become associated with the

brilliance of the western sky at sunset, and this may account for the

connection which undoubtedly exists between Itzpapalotl and the western

home of the Ciuateteô. Again, the insect may typify the frivolous

nature of these dead women. [242] However, the precise significance of

this goddess is by no means easy to arrive at, and in any case is

composed of elements of considerable obscurity and diversity. [243]

Tezcatlipocâ, it may be recalled, is “the obsidian snake.” His obsidian

sandals in some MSS. bear the zigzag lines of the snake and, as has

already been said, the footgear is frequently eloquent of the name or

character of a person or divinity in Mexican painting. In Itzpapalotl

we seem to see another deity of the obsidian cult. Certain of her

pictures as a butterfly are, as has been indicated, of dragon-like

aspect, and we know that the butterfly is in some countries a surrogate

of the dragon. Is obsidian to be regarded as the “bones” of the

cipactli, the earth-beast or dragon?

ZAPOTLANTENAN = “MOTHER OF ZAPOTLAN”

Area of Worship: Mexico; Zapotlan.

Symbol: The eagle-feather.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—Behind the region of the chin and

on the front part of the neck the goddess has a black, almost

beard-like painting. She wears a crown of paper flecked with ulli gum,

and decorated at the top with quetzal-feathers. Her collar is of

chalchihuitl stones and she wears a plain overdress and skirt edged

with horizontal bands, connected by slanting strips. Her feet are

sandalled, and her shield has the insignia of the eagle-feather. In her

hand she carries the rattle-staff of the Rain-god.

PRIESTHOOD

Sahagun states (Appendix to bk. ii) that Zapotlantenan had a special

high-priest, the Zapotlan teohuatzin, who was charged with making all

the necessary arrangements for the festival of that goddess, such as

procuring a supply of paper, copal, ulli, and odoriferous plants for

incense. Clavigero says that she was annually honoured with the

sacrifice of human victims and with particular hymns composed in her

praise. [244]

NATURE AND STATUS

Sahagun states [245] that she was said to have been the inventor or

discoverer of turpentine, which was used in Mexico for medicinal

purposes, and it seems probable that she may have been revered as a

goddess of medicine. Clearly she is also an earth-goddess of the people

of the populous valley of Zapotlan, on the other side of the Otomi

country, adopted into the Mexican pantheon, but having no place in the

calendar.

ILAMATECUTLI = “THE OLD PRINCESS”

Area of Worship: Tehuacan (?); Cozcatlan (?); Chichimec.

Minor Names:

Citlallinicue = “She of the Starry Skirt.”

Cozcamiauh = “Necklace of Maize.”

Calendar Place: Thirteenth of the lords of the day-hours.

Compass Direction: The Middle.

Festival: Tititl (“stretching of limbs”) in the seventeenth month.

Relationship: Spouse of Iztac Mixcoatl; variant of Tonacaciuatl or

Ciuacoatl.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—Sheets 9, 11: In this representation the goddess is shown

with hair composed of heron-feathers and wearing a white garment. In

the pictures of this codex the contracted corners of her mouth, due to

old age, are indicated by a ring-shaped ornament worn below the upper

lip.

Codex Borbonicus.—She has a skeleton’s head, which differs from that of

the Death-god in that it is coloured yellow, with red lines instead of

black, but shows a similarity to it in the ruffled “night-hair” with

which it is covered. In most of the pictures of her in this codex her

blue dress is dotted with circular white spots which are perhaps

intended for stars. This garment is completed with thongs, from which

depend snail-shells, a decoration also seen in the rattling girdle

ornaments (citlalicue) characteristic of the Earth and Underworld

goddesses.

MYTHS

According to the myth related by Motolinia, [246] Ilamatecutli or

Ilancuêyê, as he designates her, was the wife of Iztac Mixcoatl (q.v.),

with whom she dwelt in Chicomoztoc, “the land of the seven canes,” the

mythical officina gentium of the Mexican tribes, whence the aboriginal

ancestors of the several races of Mexico were supposed to have had

their being. By a second wife, Chinamatl, or Chimalmat, Iztac Mixcoatl

became the father of Quetzalcoatl.

FESTIVAL

Tititl (“Stretching of Limbs”).—This festival was held in the Kalends

of the seventeenth month, probably about December 19. [247] A female

slave was bought by the authorities and dressed as follows: She wore an

upper garment or peplum of white stuff and a skirt of the same colour,

beneath which showed the citlalicue, or star-skirt, of the goddess, a

dress sprinkled with stars, cut at the ankles in the shape of many

thongs, from each of which hung a small shell, so that when she walked

these came together and made a rattling sound. Her sandals were white

and she bore a shield whitened with chalk, having a design of eagle’s

feathers in the centre. Fringes of heron’s feathers terminating in

eagle’s plumes hung from the lower edge of the shield. In the other

hand she carried the tzotozopaztli, a wooden knife, used for pressing

cloth. Her face was painted black and yellow. Her hair was dressed in

the form known as tzompilinalli, or “hair tied at the temples,” and

eagle’s plumes fell from it behind.

Before the victim was dispatched they made her dance to the sound of

instruments played by old men, which mingled with the chanting of the

priests. The wretched woman wept and sobbed as she danced, and as

evening approached she was taken to the temple of Uitzilopochtli,

accompanied by all the priests wearing their insignia and the masks of

their gods, one of which was that of Ilamatecutli. On arriving at the

summit of the teocalli, or pyramid-temple, she was immediately slain,

her heart was torn out and she was decapitated. The head was given to

the priest attired in the insignia of the goddess, who held it in his

right hand by the hair, and engaged in a dance, raising and lowering

the horrid trophy, and in this solemn measure he was accompanied by the

priests who represented the other divinities. They then descended the

steps of the teocalli in procession, and sought their quarters.

The priest of Ilamatecutli carried a great cane, the stock of which had

three roots. The mask of the goddess which he bore had two faces with

“great mouths, bulging eyes, and surmounted by a crown of paper cut

into sharp points.” The priests, disguised as gods, having entered the

calpulli, or priests’ quarters, a priest descended from the teocalli

dressed as a young exquisite, wearing a splendid cloak, his head

decorated with white plumes and wearing in place of sandals the hoofs

of a deer. He carried in his hand a leaf of the maguey, surmounted by a

little paper banner. He proceeded to the quauhxicalco, a place of

sacrifice principally associated with human offerings to Tezcatlipocâ,

where there was a small cage made of pine-wood and covered with paper,

and known as “the granary of Ilamatecutli.” The priest laid the

maguey-leaf in this receptacle and then set the whole on fire. Seeing

this, the other priests rushed to the summit of the teocalli. This

ceremony was known as the xochipayna, or “flower-running.” Placing on

high a flower called teoxochitl, or “blossom of the god,” the first who

gained the eminence seized upon it and cast it upon the quauhxicalco

where the “cage” burned. Upon the following day the men and boys made

little sacks, which they filled with flowers or paper, and with these

they skirmished with one another and beat the young girls who chanced

to pass by.

The purpose underlying this celebration is obscure. The costume worn by

the victim is, of course, that of the goddess herself, and we may,

perhaps, infer that the wooden knife she carried, the purpose of which

was to press cloth, was symbolical of one of the domestic duties of the

older women, whom she appears in a measure to have represented. The

exercise of dancing to which the victim was subjected seems to bear

reference to the name of the festival, tititl, the “stretching of

limbs,” and its purpose was probably to ensure vigour and “liveliness”

in the earth or soil, for it was about this period that the winter

solstice occurred and the labours of the field were renewed. The

Earth-mother must, therefore, stretch her limbs ere she once more took

up the great task of growth. [248]

The decapitation of the slave girl was probably a dramatic-mythical

representation of the reaping of the maize. The “great cane” borne by

the priest of Ilamatecutli was, of course, the magic rain-rattle, so

prominent an adjunct to many Mexican religious ceremonies. The “young

exquisite” we must surely explain as a representative of vegetation,

his deer’s-hoofs sandals having, perhaps, a pluvial significance, or

else indicating the swift growth of the maize-plant, which takes but

four months to ripen. The burning of the maguey-leaf in the granary

would seem to indicate the end of the season of vegetative luxuriance

and the commencement of that of domestic fires, and the casting of the

sacred blossom into the flames probably possessed a similar

significance.

NATURE AND STATUS

Ilamatecutli was unquestionably a goddess of the primeval time, as her

aged appearance in the manuscripts, her association with Iztac

Mixcoatl, the old Chichimec god, and her connection with fire would

lead us to suppose. She is primarily a goddess of the earth and of

maize. Her stellar connection and her name Citlallinicue (Star Skirt)

are eloquent of her Chichimec derivation, and she may represent the

starry night sky, or possibly the Milky Way, just as does her mythical

husband, and in this she connects with Tonacaciuatl. As an

earth-goddess she has also a plutonic significance and can be equated

with Mictecaciuatl, mistress of Hades, in this resembling many other

earth-goddesses. Again, she is the “old goddess” par excellence,

patroness of old women, and worker at the metate, or stone on which the

maize cakes were, and still are, made by Mexican women. Her connection

with fire proves her relative antiquity. The circumstance that her mask

is described as being two-faced leads me to believe that her idol or

image had been evolved from the “Kirn-baby,” or doll made at harvests

out of the last sheaf of grain and furnished with a face and hands,

frequently with two faces, in order that it should not prove of bad

omen to those following the image in procession. In this respect

Ilamatecutli is similar to Chicomecoatl (q.v.).