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Xipe Totec
Also known as: Our Lord the Flayed One, Red Tezcatlipoca
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.
Interactive 3D representation
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.
Cross-Pantheon Parallels
Similar deities across different mythologies
- Persephone(greek-pantheon)
Both are associated with agricultural cycles and death-rebirth patterns
- Osiris(egyptian-pantheon)
Both represent death and resurrection in the agricultural cycle
Primary Sources
Historical texts and references
“And the priests who wore the skins of the captives went about the city, going from house to house, visiting and demanding gifts.”
Domains
springrenewalagriculturegoldsmiths
Symbols
flayed skinpointed caprattle staff