Xochiquetzal- Aztec GodDeity"Goddess of Beauty"

Paradise of Tamoanchan

Xochiquetzal dwelt in Tamoanchan, a paradise above the highest heavens where the gods lived in eternal spring. Flowers bloomed without wilting. Birds sang without ceasing. A cosmic tree grew at its center, its roots reaching into the earth and its branches supporting the sky. From this place the gods had descended to create humanity.

Xochiquetzal tended the garden and wove garments for the gods. Her hair was braided with blossoms, butterflies and hummingbirds circled her as though drawn by fragrance made visible. The paradise held because no one disturbed the tree at its center.

The Forbidden Flower

In the heart of Tamoanchan stood the tree the gods were forbidden to touch. Xochiquetzal reached out and plucked a blossom from its branches. The tree broke open and bled sap like a wound. The paradise cracked apart, and the gods were cast into the mortal world, where beauty would bloom only to wither.

The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas and the Histoyre du Mechique both record this event as the origin of mortality: the moment death entered a world that had known only the perfect and the eternal.

The Abduction

Xochiquetzal was wife to Tlaloc, the rain god. Tezcatlipoca took her. The Histoyre du Mechique describes how the loss shattered Tlaloc so completely that the rains ceased and drought consumed the world. He retreated into grief, withholding his waters until he took a new consort: Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of rivers and lakes.

The Temptation of Yappan

The ahuianime, courtesans who accompanied warriors and served at festivals, worshipped Xochiquetzal as their patroness. They painted their faces with yellow ocher and wore their hair loose.

The Florentine Codex records the story of Yappan, a devout man who took a vow of extreme penance atop a rock in the desert. The gods sent Xochiquetzal to test him. She appeared, flowers in her hair, and Yappan, who had resisted every other temptation, yielded. The gods transformed him into a scorpion, condemned to live beneath the very rock where he had once prayed.