Page 553 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

captors attired in jaguar and eagle costumes. The tangular frame is lacking, it is unlikely that this
victims were then flayed and their skins donned was intended to represent a year. Though 2 Reed
by Xipe impersonators (xipime), who for the next was the calendrical name of Tezcatlipoca, there
twenty days went through the streets as mendi- is no clear connection with Xipe Totec. Therefore
cants begging food and presents and blessing the the presence of this inscription on the statue
people and their children (Couch 1985, 41-48). cannot be explained.
At the end of this time the reeking skins were M.D.C.
thrown into a ceremonial pit.
This sculpture is the standard representation of
the god, shown as one of the xipime: the imper-
sonator's own face looks out from the skinned face 37O
of the victim, tied in the back of the head with
cords, while the skin of the body, complete with ClHUATEOTL
dangling hands but missing the feet, is similarly
tied up on the back. A realistic touch is the Aztec
volcanic stone
sutures closing the horizontal cut through which 71 x 48 x 44 (28 x i8 /s x i/ /sj
3
7
the heart had been extracted. The body of the
impersonator was painted red, and it is likely on CNCA—INAH— MEX, Museo National de
the basis of representations of Xipe in the codices Antropologia, Mexico City
that the victim's skin was once painted yellow.
In the upper part of the body opening on the In Aztec religious thought, the cihuateteo (sing.
back can be seen the calendrical sign 2 Reed, the cihuateotl, "goddess") were the deified spirits of
designation of the year in which the new fire women who had died during their first childbirth:
ceremony was held, the last one having taken they had nobly perished fighting the warrior who
place in 1502. However, since the square or rec- struggled within them, and they dwelled, like the

369
XIPE TOTEC

Aztec
volcanic stone
2
77.5 (30 /2)
National Museum of the American Indian,
Smithsonian Institution

Xipe Totec was god of the springtime and of the
renewal of vegetation by the coming of the rains.
He was also patron of the gold workers. It was
Xipe who afflicted people with skin ailments and
diseases of the eyes and subsequently brought
relief from these ills when prayers and vows were
made in his honor.
Xipe's principal festival took place in April, at
the end of the dry season, in the "month" called
Tlacaxipehualiztli ("flaying of men"), and his own
name means "the flayed one, our lord." In this,
one of the most important celebrations in the
annual cycle, gladiatorial sacrifices were staged in
which the bravest of captives died, slain by their

552 CIRCA 1492