'Xochipilli' was the god of
love, games, beauty,
dance,
flowers,
maize, and song in
Aztec mythology. His name contains the
Nahuatl words ''xochitl'' ("flower") and ''pilli'' (either "prince" or "child"), and hence means "flower prince". He is also referred to as 'Macuilxochitl', which means "five flowers".
His wife was the human girl
Mayahuel and his twin sister was
Xochiquetzal. As one of the gods responsible for fertility and agricultural produce, he was associated with
Tlaloc, god of
rains, and
Cinteotl, god of maize.
Xochipilli Statue
In the mid-1800s, a 16th-century Aztec statue of Xochipilli was unearthed on the side of the volcano
Popocatépetl near
Tlamanalco. The statue is of a single figure seated upon a temple-like base. Both the statue and the base upon which it sits are covered in carvings of sacred and psychoactive plants including
mushrooms (''Psilocybe aztecorum''),
tobacco (''Nicotiana tabacum''),
morning glory (''Turbina corymbosa''),
sinicuichi (''Heimia salicifolia''), possibly
cacahuaxochitl (''Quararibea funebris''), and one unidentified flower. The figure himself kneels on the base, head tilted up, eyes open, jaw tensed, with his mouth half open and his arms raised to the heavens. The statue is currently housed in the
Museo Nacional de Antropología in
Mexico City.
Entheogen Connection
It has been suggested by
Wasson,
Schultes, and
Hofmann that
the statue of Xochipilli represents a figure in the throes of
entheogenic ecstasy. The position and expression of the body, in combination with the very clear representations of hallucinogenic plants which are known to have been used in sacred contexts by the Aztec support this interpretation.
Wasson says "He is absorbed in ''temicxoch'', 'the flowery dream', as the Nahua say in describing the awesome experience that follows the ingestion of an entheogen. I can think of nothing like it in the long and rich history of European art: Xochipilli absorbed in ''temicxoch''" of the statue of Xochipilli.
[1]
References
1. Wasson, R. Gordon (1980) The Wondrous Mushroom
External Links
★
Erowid's Xochipilli Vault