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Xipe Totec, God of Fertility Much has been said about human sacrifices practiced by the inhabitants of Meso-América in the pre-Hispanic era, but little has been explained about the different religious ceremonies where these practices took place. In the Pre-hispanic era, Xipe Totec was one of the gods of greater importance in the religion of the people of Western Mexico (the States of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit). The name Xipe comes from Xipintli, which means “prepuce” and the suffix “e” meaning “the one that has or possesses”. Xipe was a fertility and an agricultural god and since it was venerated all over Mesoamerica, he was therefore named the “universal god”. His feast was celebrated during the seeding of the crops. Xipe Totec, called also “our lord the flayed”, was asked to send rains, and he was offered the first harvests. In Western Mexico all gods linked to fertility were offered similar rituals, such as the skinning of victims, men in general but in some cases also women. In certain documents of the sixteenth century, the sacrifice of a woman is describes. After she was flayed, the priest covered himself with her skin in order to act a scene during which he pretended to be giving birth to the “corn god”. There are ceramic pieces representing male Xipes as well as female Xipes. In those pieces is possible to see how the skit of the victim was worn by a living person. Some of the victims sacrificed at Xipe’s ceremonies were war prisoners, but sometimes they were members of the social group. This happened in the villages of Tamazula and Ajijic. In Tuxpan there were victims that offered themselves willingly for the ceremony, since it was an honor to be elected for the sacrifice to Xipe Totec. The skin of the victim, when placed upon the elected member of the community, in general apriest, was the symbol of the renovation of vegetation. Xipe was also invoked when people suffered from certain illnesses, such as rashes, abscesses in the body, mange, eye problems and dermatological illnesses. During the feast or ceremony in honor of Xipe, called Tlacaxipehualistli, or flaying of men, people that suffered from one of the mentioned diseases, participated in the following ritual: once the victims were sacrificed, the infirm covered themselves with the human bloody skins and ran all over the village pretending to fight a battle between warriors and whoever was covered by the skin of the human victims. After the sham battle, wearing the skin of the sacrificed, that is, the followers of Xipe Tolec, went about in the hamlet, entered the houses and for the love of the god asked for alms from the owners of the dwellings. They offered them seats covered with leaves of sapota trees. They adorned them with garlands made with corn stalks and flowers and gave them “pulque” to drink (“pulque” is a fermented drink made with maguey nectar). In the majority of the ceremonial centers of Western Mexico, ritualistic cannibalism also existed. For example, in Tuxpan, Zapotlán, Tamazula, Jiquilpan, Tuxcacuesco, Ameca and Chilchota. During the ceremony, first the victim was sacrificed, then flayed, then roasted and finally consumed. In some places, the pieces of the victims’s flesh were distributed among warriors and in others among the dwellers of the different parts of the village. The people cooked the bits of human flesh and then ate it while enjoying the festivities. When the Spanish arrived to Western Mexico, these ceremonies shocked the conquerors, who fought from the beginning to eradicate practices they considered barbaric. They succeeded in making those rituals disappear, although before they achieved their goal, many of them paid with their lives and also ended flayed, roasted and consumed by the Indians of the region. EDITOR’S NOTE: Don’t be shocked and look at modern cannibalism in contemporary cinema: The Silence of the Lambs, Cape Fear, Delicatessen, The Cook, The Thief and oh, yes, even Green Fried Tomatoes, These do not include all the vampire movies! |