Xipe Totec

Uncommon card · No. 122130

In Aztec mythology, Xipe Totec ( SHEE-pay TOH-tek; Classical Nahuatl: Xīpe Totēc [ˈʃiːpe ˈtoteːk(ʷ)]) or Xipetotec ("Our Lord the Flayed One") was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, vegetation, the east, spring, goldsmiths, silversmiths, liberation, deadly warfare, the seasons, and the earth. The female equivalent of Xipe Totec was the goddess Xilonen-Chicomecoatl. Xipe Totec connected agricultural renewal with warfare. He flayed himself to give food to humanity, symbolic of the way maize seeds lose their outer layer before germination and of snakes shedding their skin. He is often depicted as being red beneath the flayed skin he wears, likely referencing his own flayed nature. Xipe Totec was believed by the Aztecs to be the god that invented war. His insignia included the pointed cap and rattle staff, which was the war attire for the Mexica emperor. He had a temple called Yopico within the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. Xipe Totec is associated with pimples, inflammation...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Katepanomegas, CC BY 3.0