Mesoamerican Pantheon
Xipe Totec
Also known as Our Lord the Flayed One, Red Tezcatlipoca
- spring
- renewal
- agriculture
- goldsmiths
The Aztec god of spring, renewal, and new vegetation. Xipe Totec represents the cycle of death and rebirth in nature. Priests wore the flayed skins of sacrificial victims, symbolizing the earth's new covering of vegetation.
About Xipe Totec
Our Lord the Flayed One
Xipe Totec presents one of the most visceral images in Aztec religion. His name means "Our Lord the Flayed One," and his worship involved priests wearing flayed skins of sacrificial victims for twenty days.
The Red Tezcatlipoca
Xipe Totec is identified as the Red Tezcatlipoca, one of the four sons of the primordial creator couple. Associated with the east and the dawn.
The Flayed Skin Symbolism
The flayed skin symbolizes the earth renewing itself with new vegetation each spring, the maize seed shedding its outer covering to sprout, and death as the necessary precursor to rebirth.
Tlacaxipehualiztli
The festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli (The Flaying of Men) was celebrated in March during the spring equinox.
Patron of Goldsmiths
Xipe Totec was also patron of goldsmiths, connecting the casting process (molten gold "dressed" in clay) to agricultural cycles.
Origin story
Xipe Totec was one of the four creator gods. As the Red Tezcatlipoca, he governs the eastern direction. In one myth, he flayed himself to provide food for humanity.
Across traditions
Parallel figures
Figures who play a role like Xipe Totec's in other traditions.
GreekPersephoneIllustrationBoth are associated with agricultural cycles and death-rebirth patterns
Compare Xipe Totec and Persephone side by side
EgyptianOsirisIllustrationBoth represent death and resurrection in the agricultural cycle
Compare Xipe Totec and Osiris side by side
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Xipe Totec
Our Lord the Flayed One. Priests wore the skin. Spring, goldsmiths, and a rite that is easy to sensationalize and hard to pretty up. State the flaying; do not linger for shock.
Sacred sites
- Calbecac and related precincts in Tenochtitlan
Festivals
- Tlacaxipehualiztli
Family
In the atlas
Where Xipe Totec appears
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Florentine Codex
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Family relationships come from the atlas's kinship records. Ancient sources often disagree on divine genealogy.
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Genealogy
Family tree
Xipe Totec's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.