MACUILXOCHITL = “FIVE FLOWER,” OR XOCHIPILLI = “FLOWER PRINCE”

STONE FIGURE OF MACUILXOCHITL.

(In the Uhde Collection, Berlin.)

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Macuilxochitl)

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 15: In this place the god wears as breast-ornament a human lower jaw, which, combined with the green band to which it is tied up, may possibly express the day-count malinalli. He has a large feather nape-ornament. The upper part of his face is white, with a dark band over the nose and cheek, and white painting over the mouth, in the semblance of an outspread hand. He wears a cap with vertically projecting bands painted in the colours of the green jewel chalchihuitl.

Sahagun MS.—Here he is represented with a white hand painted on his mouth and a feather crown surmounted by a crest.

General.—Like the other gods of dance and sport, Macuilxochitl wears the four balls of the toualli emblem on his shield and sometimes carries the staff with the heart. Like Ixtlilton, he had probably once a bird’s-head mask, which in the course of his evolution degenerated into a feather crest and a wing [[197]]on his back. The deterioration of this feature can be observed in the stone effigies of his counterpart Xochipilli.

STONE FIGURE OF MACUILXOCHITL.

(In the Uhde Collection, Berlin.)

STATUES

A stone figure of Macuilxochitl found in Cuernavaca represents the god seated in a squatting attitude, and it is evidently intended to show him as an onlooker at the ball-game. He wears a pointed headdress or mitre, on the top of what would seem to be a cotton head-covering. A head of the god in stone is included in the collection of the Natural History Museum at Vienna. In this the nose-plug is prominent and he wears round earrings. The wing-ornament stands well out behind the head and the face seems to look out of a bird helmet-mask, on both sides of which are large, circular holes, through which feathers or cotton ear-plugs fall. The difficulty of working in stone has evidently restrained the sculptor from representing the upper and lower portions of the bird’s beak, and the helmet-mask bears a strong resemblance to that of Xochipilli in the Codex Magliabecchiano, if the beak in that representation were removed. A statue of the god found in the Calle de las Escalerillas in Mexico City on December 13, 1900, is almost identical with the first of those two statues, and agrees with the second in that here we have the circular holes at the side of the headdress with the dependent feathers or cotton plug. The best known of the representations of this god, however, is the clay model found by Seler at Teotitlan del Camino. It represents Macuilxochitl in a sitting position and is brilliantly coloured. The face of the god looks out of a bird helmet-mask, highly conventionalized, and which has practically lost all its birdlike characteristics. The two circular holes below the ear are, however, still represented. The upper part of the face is painted yellow, but under each eye is an oblong patch painted in variegated colours, such as appears on the faces of the gods of grain. Around the mouth is a large white patch, in which we may see the white hand motif conventionalized. The body-paint is red and the garment white, except that portion at the neck, which is blue. Small golden [[198]]bells adorn the necklace and wristlets. In this statuette we have evidently a very late and highly developed figure of the deity, showing a considerable departure from the earlier drawings and statues of him. In the Anthropological Museum at Berlin is a stone statue of Macuilxochitl, also in a squatting attitude, in which the circular motif above the ear, with its accompanying plug, is strongly in evidence. A number of stone statuettes of the god were found at Tepeaca in the state of Puebla and are now housed in the Natural History Museum at Vienna. These do not differ from the examples already described, save that in one of them the Greek fret-pattern takes the place of the circular ear-plug motif. A stone figure of the god was found amid the ruins of the Castillo de Teayo, a teocalli, or pyramid, in Vera Cruz. In this, which is also a squatting figure, the god is covered by a mantle which is surmounted by the bird’s comb, as seen in Magliabecchiano and elsewhere. Around the head are three of the circular holes above mentioned, one above each ear and one at the back of the head, from which depend a double strip of cotton or other textile.

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 15.)

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 16.)

FORMS OF MACUILXOCHITL.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Xochipilli)

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 26: In this MS. the god is painted a light yellow colour. His light hair is bound with a jewelled strap ornamented on the frontal side with a conventional bird’s head. Round his head he also wears the fillet of the Sun-god, ornamented with a feather tuft. As a breast ornament he has a large gold disk suspended from a broad gold chain, hung with bells. His right hand clasps a bundle of grass, and in his left he bears a staff embellished with turquoise mosaic and flowers, probably intended for a rattle-stick. Above the twilight symbol of the west in the water are instruments of mortification. On sheet 32 he is represented as of a blue colour with a jewelled chain in front of his mouth.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—The description of the god in this MS. is similar to that just given. In his hand he supports [[199]]a dish with ornaments, a bangle for the upper arm, a feather tuft and a neck-chain.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 13: In this codex he is seen seated on a royal throne. His body and the lower part of his face are coloured red, the upper facial region is painted yellow, but contains a small, rectangular field, half-red and half-white, while round the mouth is executed a butterfly design, after the manner of Tonacatecutli and the maize-gods. His blue ear-plug has a jewelled thong dependent from it, and his nose-plug is reproduced in the colours of the chalchihuitl jewel. On his head he wears the strap decorated by two large jewelled disks. On the frontal side is the stereotyped bird-ornament, while from the whole, four ends branch off. Surmounting this representation is the symbol of the night-sky, the dusk-enveloped eye. His nape-ornament consists of red and white feathers blended together. On his breast is a large disk of gold, secured by strings of greenstone beads. His loin-cloth is adorned with jewelled disks, and to the back-bow is fastened a coxcoxtli bird’s head, which serves as a “mirror-tail,” or back-mirror. A portion of the ends of his loin-cloth is coloured like the chalchihuitl jewel. In front of his mouth is a flower from which two jewelled thongs project.

Codex Magliabecchiano.—The mantles worn by Xochipilli are alluded to in the MS. which accompanies the paintings in this codex as “mantas de un selo señor o de Cinco Rosas y manta de Cinco Rosas” (see sheets 5 and 6). There is also a picture of him on sheet 47. The figure on the red quemitl which he wears is similar to that worn on sheet 20 of Codex Borbonicus by the god Cinteotl, and is, perhaps, a butterfly motif.

(From the Sahagun MS.)

(From Codex Magliabecchiano, folio 35.)

FORMS OF XOCHIPILLI.

STATUES

Stone effigies of Xochipilli were set up in the tlachtli courts. In the Museo Naçional at Mexico there is a stone statue of the god which represents him as sitting cross-legged, as if watching the ball-game. He wears the mask of a player or dancer. By the aid of such statues of Xochipilli, which are [[200]]found in considerable numbers all over the eastern Mexican slope, the transition from the bird-helmet to the rudimentary crest may be studied.[40]

POTTERY FIGURE OF XOCHIPILLI.

(Found at Teotlan del Camino.)

MYTH

The only mythical matter of importance concerning Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli is the nineteenth song in the Sahagun collection, which is as follows[41]:

Song of the God of Music and Games

Out of the place of flowers I come,

Priest of the Sunset, Lord of the Twilight.

I come even now, my granddam,

Thou of the thigh-skin face-painting,

Lady of the Sunset,

I, priest of the Sunset, Lord of the Twilight.

The god of evil omens,

The lord Tezcatlipocâ,

Shall answer to me, the Maize-god.

In the temple of the octli-god

The rabbit has come to life again.

It runs about.

By my god was it created.

I will bring down the fire-drill, fire will I twirl

On the mountain of Mixcoatl in Culhuacan.

Raising my voice, I strike the little mirror;

The little mirror has grown weak

In the temple of the octli-god.

The white hair grows moist,

Ripe has the octli become.

I will endeavour to elucidate the above strophes, the obscurity of which is apparent. The god declares that he comes from Tamoanchan, the mythical paradise of flowers and vegetation in the west, and that he is the priest of the sunset and lord of the twilight, both of which are characteristic of that region. He invokes his mother, or grandmother, Tlazolteotl, by names with which her worshippers were familiar. [[201]]He warns Tezcatlipocâ that he has the power to avert his evil omens, probably by means of merriment and carousing. The rabbit was the Mexican symbol of intoxication by octli. This strophe regarding it comes, as it were, from the worshipper, who states that his god Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli has created or re-created the rabbit, or spirit of the octli beverage. Sahagun calls Xochipilli a god of fire, and we know that he was associated with the sacrificial fire-drill, which was also the symbol of sexual union and licence. Seler thinks that this song shows “the relation which exists between the pulque (octli) gatherings, the deity of feasts and the fire-drill.”[42]

Statues of Xochipilli in Museo Naçional, Mexico. (From Codex Laud.)

FORMS OF XOCHIPILLI.

FESTIVALS

Xochilhuitl.—Of the feast of flowers over which this god presided Sahagun says: “The great folk made a feast, dancing and singing in honour of this sign, decorating themselves with their feathers and all their grandeur for the areyto. At this feast the king bestowed honours upon warriors, musicians, and courtiers.” He states (Lib. II, Appendix c, xix): “They made each year in his honour a feast called xochilhuitl.… During the four days which preceded this feast all those who were to take part in it, men as well as women, observed a rigorous fast; and if during that period a man had commerce with a woman or a woman with a man, they held that the fast was soiled; that the god held it for a high offence, and that he would visit the offenders with maladies in their privy parts.… Before the feast everyone deprived himself of the use of chilli pepper. They fed upon a kind of broth called tlalcuilo­latolli, which is to say, ‘broth decorated with a flower in the middle.’… Those who fasted without the use of chilli or other savoury things, ate only once a day at midday.” Those who did not fast ate fermented bread. The people ornamented themselves with the symbols of the gods “as if they aspired to represent their images,” and danced and sang to the sound of the drum. [[202]]

At midday they beheaded a great number of quails and made offerings of their blood before the image of the god. They also pierced their ears in his presence. Others pierced the tongue with the spines of the maguey, and passed through it a great number of osier reeds. Another ceremony consisted of making five tamalli (cakes) of maize, which they called “fasting bread.” These were placed beneath an arrow called xochimitl (“flower-dart”) and were offered to the idol as from the whole community. Those who wished to make a separate offering gave the god five tamalli upon a wooden platter, and chilmolli soup in a vase. Maize in all shapes and forms was also offered up. On the same day all the great folk in Mexico who lived near the frontiers of an enemy brought the slaves whom they had captured to the capital for sacrifice.

NATURE AND STATUS

This god appears to have had a highly developed cult among the peoples of Tehuacan, Cozcatlan, and Teotitlan del Camino. He is primarily a god of flowers and food, that is of abundance, and as such he equates with the god Cinteotl, with whom some of the sacred hymns even seem to confound him. But there are strong reasons why he should not be wholly identified with Cinteotl, as Seler attempts to do, and as the Mexicans certainly did not do, unless in later times. (See Cinteotl.) It may be, however, that he was originally a god of vegetation, who later became more especially a god of flowers, the cult of which was one particularly favoured by the people of Mexico. However this may be, there is no doubt that the joyous and sportive side of the god developed at the expense of all others, and we find Sahagun speaking of him under his two names as “the god of those who served for the amusement or pastime of the great.”[43] He is, indeed, the god of merriment, of dance and sport, of the ball-game, the jester or buffoon, and moreover presides over the gambling game of patolli, which he is seen patronizing in the Magliabecchiano MS. According to Jacinto de la Serna, he is the [[203]]god of the great gamblers who frittered away their substance. As the god of sport he is frequently represented by the ape, the beast of mimicry and diversion.

But he had also a more worthy side, for to artists of all kinds, painters, weavers, and musicians in especial, he stood as the patron of all artistic effort, and those engaged in it celebrated their worship of him at the xochilhuitl festival. Several of the mantle designs in the Codex Magliabecchiano indicate that as a flower-god he was not forgotten by the weavers’ caste.

He has associations with several other gods besides Cinteotl, especially with Ixtlilton (q.v.), who is spoken of as his brother, and with the Ciuateteô, or deceased warrior women, probably because as a food-god he was supposed to come from the west, the place of plenty, where they resided, or, more likely, because of the hunger for earthly excitement displayed by these pleasure-starved dead women, debarred from the sensuous delights of earth. His connection with the octli-gods as the god of merriment and abundance of victuals and festive good things is plain; and he is very naturally the male counterpart of the goddess Xochiquetzal (q.v.). As hailing from a locality where planetary mythology was in an advanced condition, and where the worship of the morning star was practised, he may have had an astronomic significance, but what this was precisely is by no means clear. We probably assess his nature correctly if we allude to him as a god of pleasure, feast, and frivolity.

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