The lord who wears the dead skin until the new one is ready
Warning
His rite is a flaying and the sources do not soften it
Resonance
Those in a season of shedding healers goldsmiths makers
Symbols
Flayed skinRed body stripeGoldMaize earFeathered shield
Mythology Summary
Xipe Totec is the Aztec Our Lord the Flayed One, the god of spring renewal, of goldsmiths and of the shedding of skins. The Florentine Codex (Book 2) describes his veintena Tlacaxipehualiztli, in which captives were sacrificed, flayed, and their skins worn by priests and warriors for twenty days before being discarded - the seed leaving its husk, the year leaving its old coat. His cult is generally traced to the Pacific coast and the Yopi of Guerrero rather than to the basin of Mexico, and was adopted by the Mexica as one of the four Tezcatlipocas, the red one.
Modern Practice
Xipe Totec is called on for renewal that requires something to be shed, for the healing of the skin and the eyes, and for craft with gold. The historical rite was a human sacrifice; modern practice works the figure of the shed skin and the returning green and leaves the killing where it belongs.