Xipe Totec- Aztec GodDeity"The Flayed One"

The Twenty Days

Xipe Totec was the Red Tezcatlipoca, the eastern god among the four sons of Ometeotl. His great festival was Tlacaxipehualiztli, "the Flaying of Men," held in the second month of the Aztec calendar near the spring equinox. Captive warriors were sacrificed atop the temple and their skins removed whole with careful cuts. Priests and young warriors put the skins on.

For twenty days they went door to door through the city. Households gave them offerings to ensure the season's fertility. The Florentine Codex records that the tlatoani himself opened the festival by showering gold and mantles upon the crowd. As the days passed, the skins stiffened and began to rot. The wearers endured the stench. When the twenty days ended, the skins were removed and placed in special caves beneath the temple.

Those suffering from skin diseases or eye ailments made vows to Xipe Totec during the festival. The Florentine Codex records penitents pledging years of service at his temple if he healed them. Some who recovered wore the skins the following year.

The Feathered Sword

The festival's centerpiece was the gladiatorial contest called tlauauanaliztli. A captive warrior, chosen for his valor in battle, was tied by one ankle to a large circular stone called the temalacatl. He was given a macuahuitl, the standard obsidian-edged war club, but its blades had been replaced with feathers. A weapon that could not wound.

He fought a succession of fully armed jaguar and eagle warriors. If he defeated them all, he was released with honor. That almost never happened. His blood ran over the temalacatl and into the earth.

In Stone

Aztec sculptors carved Xipe Totec wearing a flayed skin slightly loose on his body. The victim's hands dangled at his wrists like empty gloves. His own living hands emerged through slits cut in the dead palms. The seams where the skin was sewn ran along the back and chest. The facial skin sagged over the wearer's features, and his eyes peered out through the eyeholes of another face.

He carried a rattle staff and wore a pointed red cap called the yopitzontli. The recently excavated temple at Ndachjian-Tehuacán in Puebla, dating to roughly 900–1150 CE, contains stone sculptures with the same precision: every stitch rendered, every fold of dead skin mapped.

The Lost Wax

Goldsmiths worshipped Xipe Totec because their craft looked like his work. In lost-wax casting, an artisan shaped a wax model, encased it in clay, and heated the mold until the wax melted away. Molten gold was poured into the hollow left behind. When the clay was broken open, a gleaming object emerged from the destroyed form. The wax was gone. The clay was shattered. What remained was gold.

Goldsmiths displayed their finest work during Tlacaxipehualiztli and offered prayers to the Flayed One. The Florentine Codex describes their techniques in detail, noting the reverence these artisans held for the god whose process they repeated at their benches every day.