Xochipilli and hallucinogen use amongst the Aztecs (and a little on some other plants)

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr.Xochipilli, he is the twin of the goddess of erotic love Xochiquetzal. He is a god of love and games. He has a dual personality where if someone commits sexual wrong doings he is prone to curse them with sexually transmitted diseases. But then he has this fun side as the god of games.

We have Xochipilli with a couple of known hallucinogens that were used by the Aztecs. Here he is depicted with a obvious blissful look on his face. Its a good bet that this is depicting him in ecstasy on the various plants he's being depicted with.


Frontal view:

I've also notice some similarities to this statue of Xipe Totec:





Anyway, I pulled out "The gods and symbols of ancient Mexico and the Maya" by Miller and Taube. it says that hallucinogens were used for communion with the gods and ancestors, divination, visions, self-knowledge, and as a source of pleasure and entertainment. Psilocybin mushrooms may have been used during the late post classic period. it goes on for some about mushroom iconography in Mixtec codexes and how in night banquets successful Aztec merchants would eat them mixed with honey. then says that another important hallucinogen was morning glory seed. In Nahuatl it was ololiuhqui and that Alarcon has detailed accounts of its use in divination in the treatise. It was considered a actual god that communicated to special practitioners through visions. It was treated with great veneration and respect. Peyote and potent jimsen weed are described by Aztecs as "fever medicine". (Patecatl btw is the discoverer of peyote and god of medicine.)


Interestingly, we have Peyote described as an medicine, while morning glory seed (which is featured with Xochipilli here) seems to be more used for recreation and religious use. (I don't have Florentine codex book 11 i believe it is, yet so bear with me here.)

I came across this which also details various plant use amongst the Aztecs. Often times, the Aztec sorcerer (Nahualli) was a curer as well as an practitioner of malevolent magic. It seems, that similarly to Egyptian medicine, healing magic and actual medical treatment/usage of plants are synonymous in Aztec medicine. According to "Historia de los Mexicanos", we have Quetzalcoatl creating the first people. With the woman it says "certain grains of corn for making cures, for soothsaying and witchcraft, and thus the women use them to this very day [Leon-Portilla, 1990:34]." I think its a good note the connection of witchcraft and women in this instance, which is not even seen as nessecerly bad.

Oh dear, after reading the article it seems, I should make a new post about plant use in witchcraft amongst the Aztecs. Excuse me here.