Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/65

Rh goddess who seems to be connected with maize was llama tecutli, also called Cozcamiauh (maize-necklace), though she appears to have been a star-goddess as well. She, Teteoinnan and Xilonen were associated in a peculiar form of sacrifice in which the victim was decapitated, and which perhaps represented the reaping of the maize-ear. The sacrifice by decapitation seems to be particularly connected with the earth-goddesses, who are sometimes shown in the MSS. with head almost severed from the body, and with two snakes, perhaps representing streams of blood, issuing from the trunk. Of such a representation the colossal figure in the Mexican Museum (sec PL III) is an example. This deity is either Chicome Coatl or Coatlicue, probably the latter, to judge from the skirt of serpents which she wears. In this case the two snakes which spring from her decapitated body are placed snout to snout, and from the two profiles is compounded a grotesque face, or rather two such faces, one in front and one behind. It is worthy of note that the mask of the goddess Ilamatecutli, apparently another fertility goddess, is said to have been double-faced. The god who above all others was connected with the flaying-sacrifice is Xipe, who is invariably depicted as clad in the victim's skin (PL IV). He was believed to have been borrowed from the Oaxaca tribes, was worshipped in Jalisco, and finds a parallel in the sea-god of the Tarascans. Both Xipe and the latter are characterized by red and white paint (though Xipe's skin dress is yellow), and the victims of both were forced to fight for their lives in a gladiatorial combat. At the great feast of Xipe those warriors who had taken captives in war offered them to the god, and wore their skins during the ensuing month. He was a god of sowing, but being connected with the warrior's death by sacrifice was also a war-god, and his livery, including a drum as back-device, was worn in battle by the