Word: xiping
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...those two were not unsettling enough, later there is the figure of the fertility god Xipe Totec, circa 1500. Known to the Aztecs as "our flayed lord," he wears a pebbly garment that represents flayed human skin with pustules of fat clinging to it. The idea behind this image was actually positive. Priests who personified Xipe Totec in fertility rituals wore the skins of sacrificial victims for several days. Then, as the skins dried and came apart, the priests' healthy bodies emerged, symbolizing the fundamental Aztec notion of life growing out of death. But still...
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