Xochipilli- Aztec GodDeity"Flower Prince"

The Prince of Flowers

Xochipilli, "Flower Prince," was the god of art, beauty, dance, and flowers. He was the patron of poets who shaped words into song and musicians who gave rhythm to festivals. His domain was the flowering world: the blossoming plants, the butterflies, the warm season when nature displayed its finest colors.

He formed one half of a divine pairing with Xochiquetzal, the Flower Quetzal, who governed female beauty and desire. Together they presided over everything that made life worth celebrating. The elaborate botanical gardens of the Aztec nobility and the flower offerings laid at every temple were acts of devotion to the Flower Prince.

The Statue and the Plants

A stone statue of Xochipilli, discovered on the slopes of the volcano Popocatepetl, sits today in Mexico City's National Museum of Anthropology. The seated figure is cross-legged and ecstatic, his body and throne carved with flowers and plants that ethnobotanists have identified as psychoactive species: morning glories (Turbina corymbosa) and psilocybin mushrooms among them. The carvings suggest that Xochipilli presided over the visionary states that sacred plants could open, the ecstatic trance in which artists and priests received divine inspiration.

He was closely associated with Macuilxochitl, "Five Flower," sometimes treated as the same deity in a different aspect. Macuilxochitl governed the physical pleasures of games and sensuality. Xochipilli was the vision behind the art.