This morning, I’ve been reading about Xipe Totec, the flayed god of the Aztecs. Presiding over disease, the seasons, agriculture, goldsmiths and a few other things, Xipe Totec flayed his skin to bring food to the people, symbolic of a maize seed, shedding it’s outer layer prior to germination. Naturally, he is often depicted as not having any skin, or as wearing skin like a mask and clothing (check here and here. Note the flayed skin from the hands, hanging off his arms). Sweet. Some interesting points concerning sacrifice to “Our Lord, the Flayed One”:

“Annually, slaves were selected as sacrifices to Xipe Totec. These slaves were carefully flayed to produce a nearly whole skin which was then worn by the priests during the fertility rituals that followed the sacrifice. Some accounts indicate that a thigh bone from the sacrifice was defleshed and used by the priest to touch spectators in a fertility blessing. Paintings and several clay figures have been found which illustrate the flaying method and the appearance of priests wearing flayed skins.” [Link]

“Xipe Totec is drawn as a large figure wearing human skin from another person, symbolizing the “new skin” the earth wears every spring. The skin usually has an incision where the heart was removed, ties in the back to hold it on, and no penis. Statues of Xipe Totec may have at one time had outfits made from human skin, but as they are they are immediately recognizable by the puffy skin, double lips, and exceptionally sunken eyes, all designed to mimic a figure wearing someone else’s skin.” [Link]

“During Tlacaxipehualiztli (“Flaying of Men”), the second ritual month of the Aztec year, the priests killed human victims by removing their hearts. They flayed the bodies and put on the skins, which were dyed yellow and called teocuitlaquemitl (“golden clothes”). Other victims were fastened to a frame and put to death with arrows; their blood dripping down was believed to symbolize the fertile spring rains.” [Link]

“A prisoner was taken in battle. Traditionally he was paraded around town by his captors and greeted and congratulated by the citizens, who gave him gifts of food and drink and fine clothing. After a period of celebration, the prisoner—this essential cog, after all, in the ordering of the universe that thus the crop might thrive—was taken to the temple, dosed with drugs, and skinned alive.”

“Semi-conscious from the drugs, bathed in incense, the victim was first scorched, presumably to separate the skin from the bone. Cuts were made around the neck, the arms, and the legs, and down the back so the skin could be ripped away from the body. The carcass, bloody Xipe Totec-red, was thrown over a ceremonial stone and the heart was cut out by the Youallauan, the high priest, who offered it to the gods. The skin, dyed yellow and called teocuitlaquemitl or “golden clothes”, was thereupon donned by the warrior who had originally taken the victim prisoner who then proceeded to dance feverishly, crying to heaven for new life and new strength. He wore a mask made from the victim’s face.”

“After a few days, the dead skin would dry up, crack and fall to pieces. It had of course begun to decompose, and the smell was considered disgusting but absolutely necessary, as the breaking of old skins must come to every seed of maize that had planted by the reverent tribe.” [Link]

Xipe Totec was worshipped for over 2,000 years. You gotta figure…that’s a lot of skin. Awesome.