Xipe Totec (deity)

Culture: Mesoamerican

Mother: Omecihuatl

Father: Ometecuhtli

Siblings: Tezcatlipoca; Huizilopochtli; Quetzalcoatl

Xipe Totec (SHEE pay TOH tehk) was the god of agriculture and springtime in Mesoamerican mythology. Mesoamerica includes the region of central Mexico down to Honduras and Nicaragua.

Agriculture was important to the Aztecs, and Xipe Totec was one of the more important Aztec gods and goddesses of agriculture. He was specifically worshipped as the god of vegetation.

His name means "our lord, the flayed one," and people were sacrificed to him by being flayed, or skinned, alive. This method represented the death and rebirth of the land.

Xipe Totec was also the patron of goldsmiths and the god of the east. He was sometimes called the Red Tezcatlipoca. He is also associated with the Zapotec god Yopi.

Xipe Totec was the offspring of Omecihuatl and Ometecuhtli, who together made up Ometeotl, a dual god. In Aztec mythology, the creator gods Tezcatlipoca, Huizilopochtli, and Quetzalcoatl were the brothers of Xipe Totec. Like them, he was often referred to as a god of creation. However, he was also identified with death and disease.

Xipe Totec may have had his origins in the Olmec culture that preceded the civilizations of the Aztecs and Mayans. The Olmec culture began around 1200 BCE, and Xipe Totec may have come from the god called God VI, who was believed to have been a maize (corn) god. Others trace his origin to the Yope civilization. Xipe Totec was also connected with the Mazapan culture.

Xipe Totec is usually depicted wearing the skin of a sacrifice, with both a slit showing where the heart was removed as well as the victim’s hands hanging down. In these depictions, the god often carried a rattle staff and two ears of corn. Sometimes, he wore a headdress of green feathers and a pendant hanging from his ear.

In Mythology

Xipe Totec and his brothers Tezcatlipoca, Huizilopochtli, and Quetzalcoatl were the children of the first god, Ometeotl, who had a male and a female side. Ometeotl’s two sides were the Aztec gods Ometecuhtli, the male side, and Omecihuatl, the female side. The two were also known by the names Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl. Ometeotl was a creator god and was said to have created itself out of the chaos of nothing.

Xipe Totec and his brothers were also creator gods. They were called the Tezcatlipocas, and each was given a color and put in charge of the East, West, North, or South. Quetzalcoatl was the White Tezcatlipoca of the West, Huizilopochtli was the Blue of the South, and Tezcatlipoca was the Black of the North.

Xipe Totec was the Red Tezcatlipoca and was in charge of the East. He was the god of springtime and agriculture. Together with his brothers, he created other gods and everything on Earth. One myth says that Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl killed Cipactli, a giant crocodile, and Xipe Totec and Huizilopochtli built the earth from the dismembered body.

Xipe Totec shed his skin in the same way the hard shell of a seed must be shed to allow the sprout to grow. His new skin was also like the new, metaphorical skin that spread over the earth in springtime. He was golden after losing his skin. He symbolized both death and rebirth. He was said to be the reason for many of humanity’s diseases, especially inflammations, rashes, and eye infections. However, he was also thought to be able to cure such afflications.

Aztecs believed that they must nourish the sun or else it would go out. The nourishment took the form of blood, so ritual human sacrifice was extremely important to the culture. Xipe Totec was sometimes referred to as the god of sacrifice.

In the Aztec sacred calendar, each day and week was ruled over by a specific god. It was important to divide the time equally so that there was a balance between the gods. Without balance, the gods would fight, and the world would end. Xipe Totec ruled over the Cuauhtli, or eagle, day. His trecena, or thirteen-day week, began with Itzcuintli, or dog, day and ended with the day of the wind, Ehecatl.

Origins and Cults

Xipe Totec was worshipped by the Toltecs and Aztecs as well as by the Mixtecs, Huastecs, Tarascans, Tlaxcaltecas, and Zapotecs. The Mayans also worshipped him.

The temple of Xipe Totec was called Yopico. It was dark and resembled a cave. One of the Aztec heavens, Tlalocan, was said to be a mountain cave filled with green and growing plants. Xipe Totec’s temple represented fertility and growth. Young Aztec warriors brought their first sacrifices to the temple as a rite of passage into manhood.

Every spring, a festival was held to honor Xipe Totec and to make sure there would be a good harvest. During this festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli, human sacrifices had their hearts taken out before they were flayed. Prisoners of war were usually sacrificed and were treated with honor before their deaths. It was believed that being a sacrifice was a good way to die, one that was equal to dying in battle. The souls of those who were sacrificed lived on in paradise.

After the skins of the sacrificed were dyed yellow, priests wore the skins, or golden robes, during ritual dances. Alternatively, young men wore the skins for the next twenty days until the skins decayed. The remains of the skins were buried in the temple of Xipe Totec and symbolized death and rebirth.

In another version of the festival, an impersonator of Xipe Totec dressed in sacrificial skin for the forty days that preceded the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli. The impersonator and other impersonators of the major gods were then sacrificed at the festival. They were flayed, and their skins were worn by priests.

There were also fights to the death during the Tlacaxipehualiztli festival. Captives were tied to a stone and given a stick covered in feathers. They then had to fight with armed gladiators. This was another form of sacrifice called Tlahuahuanaliztli, or gladiator sacrifice.

Another form of sacrifice was the arrow sacrifice. Victims were tied to frames and shot with arrows. The flowing blood symbolized the spring rains that helped the crops grow.

Bibliography

Critical Survey of Mythology and Folklore, World Mythology. Ipswich: Salem, 2013. Print.

Jones, David M., and Brian Molyneaux. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Indian Mythology: Legends, Gods, and Spirits of North, Central, and South America. Wigston: Lorenz, 2011. Print.

Leeming, David Adams. The Handy Mythology Answer Book. Detroit: Visible Ink, 2015. Print.

Murphy, John. Gods & Goddesses of the Inca, Maya, and Aztec Civilizations. New York: Rosen, 2014. Print.

Nardo, Don. Aztec Mythology. Farmington Hills: Lucent, 2014. Print.

Read, Kay Almere, and Jason J. González. Mesoamerican Mythology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.