Rites of Flowers, the Pole, and the Dead

The month of Tlaxochimaco opened with the gathering of great quantities of flowers, which were offered to the gods and used to garland images and celebrants, and with feasting and dancing. The following month, Xocotl Huetzi, centred on a tall stripped tree or pole (the xocotl) set up in the temple precinct, at the top of which was fixed a dough image; young men competed to climb the greased pole and seize it.

Within this period the Mexica honoured their dead, including dead warriors and ancestors, with offerings of food and the memory of those who had gone to the various afterworlds of Aztec belief, among them Mictlan, the deep land of the dead ruled by Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl. The month also carried associations with the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli. As with much of the ritual calendar, the surviving descriptions are filtered through Christian observers, and modern scholars reconstruct the ceremonies with due caution.