As such, human sacrifices took place in the spring, during the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli, to ensure a fruitful harvest.
The deity was intimately connected to the Earth’s cycle of regeneration. Neumann of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University details in a paper about Xipe published in the History of Religions journal. “Recent treatments of this deity by Americanists have tended to discuss him either primarily as a god of the renewal of vegetation in the spring (i.e., as a fertility figure), as a god of liberation (i.e., particularly, as a penitential figure), as the central figure in a cult of 'trophy skins,' … even as a phallic god," Franke J. They also discovered a stone trunk that had an extra hand dangling down from one arm-believed to be a representation of the god wearing a sacrificial victim’s skin. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History revealed that experts found two skull-like stone carvings depicting Xipe, each weighing more than 400 pounds, reports Jack Guy of CNN.
Built by the Popolocas between 10 A.D., the temple sits within a larger complex known as Ndachjian-Tehuacan. The discovery was made amidst the ruins of the Popoloca people, a pre-Hispanic group that was conquered by the Aztecs. Now, Richard Gonzales of NPRreports, archaeologists have uncovered what is believed to be the first known temple to Xipe in central Mexico’s Puebla state.
#The flayed man banner skin#
He also wore an elaborate, splendid breechcloth, which seemed to be part of the human skin in which he was attire.” On his back hung another headdress with three small banners protruding, from which were suspended three red bands in honor of the three names of this deity. This was tied in an elaborate bow on his forehead, and in the middle of this bow was a golden jewel. Upon his head was a red head-dress with a ribbon, also red. In his left hand he carried a shield decorated with yellow and red feathers, and from the hand emerged a small red banner with feathers at the end. In his right hand he carried a staff, at the end of which were attached rattles. “He was dressed in the skin of a sacrificed man, and on his wrists hung the hands of the skin. Needless to say, it’s not hard to pick him out according to the 16th-century ethnographer Diego Durán: Known as the “Flayed Lord,” Xipe appears in art from the period. Xipe Tótec, an important god to many pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cults, was worshipped with a gruesome annual ritual: sacrificial victims, typically prisoners of war or slaves, were killed and then flayed, their skins donned by priests until they tightened and wore down. In this 2018 photo provided by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, INAH, a skull-like stone carving and a stone trunk depicting the Flayed Lord, a pre-Hispanic fertility god depicted as a skinned human corpse, are stored after being excavated from the Ndachjian–Tehuacan archaeological site in Tehuacan, Puebla state, where archaeologists have discovered the first temple dedicated to the deity.