Chicanonautica: Springtime with Xipe Totec, Xochiquetzal, and Xochipilli

by Ernest Hogan

It looks like we're into another early Summer here in Arizona, but Spring hangs on, keeps clawing back. Clouds blow in. Temperatures fall (but not too much). Palo Verde trees and sage bushes explode with yellow and purple blooms, painting the urban sprawl like a psychedelic poster. Not to mention those cactus flowers.

All while the other parts of the country brace for a major snowstorm . . .

In Arizona, it seems we can’t keep a good season of rebirth and resurrection down. You’d think someone made a sacrifice to Xipe Totec, the Corn God, who demands the sacrifice of human skin the way the leaves need to be husked off ears of corn. The Mexica believed that all flesh was the same, as are we all, plant, animal, human just variations on DNA. Life is all there is to eat. Vegetarians and cannibals are siblings under the detachable skin.

Xipe does tend to stand in for Jesus in this culture.

I had a dream in which I stepped on a flower and it rose up like a snake to attack me. Forgive me, Xochiquetzal, Goddess of the Flowering Earth and Creativity. We need you in these times. Thank you for all the flowers. I’ll watch my step in the future.

We should pay our respects to her brother Xochipilli, God of all kinds of Sex, Drugs, Rocking, and Rolling. Yup, it looks like the Mexica invented hippies. Jipis. “By the time we got to Tenochtitlán . . .”

It does seem to be him the Norteamericanos are evoking when they celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The Battle of Puebla is ignored, or not mentioned, swept under the carpet of modern life. What a lot of governments would like to do as they rekindle their taste for human sacrifice at taxpayer expense. 

Reminds me of a ritual I once witnessed in Mexico City–there was a man in full Aztec priest regalia and a drugged rattlesnake . . .

If it only I could find a bottle of Escorpion Negro . . .

Ernest Hogan, Father of Chicano Science Fiction, uses the word Mexica out of respect, but delights in the fear Aztec strikes in the hearts of certain kinds of people. He is also teaching his “Gonzo Science Fiction, Chicano Style” course as part of the Palabras del Pueblo writing workshop again online, the weekends of June 6-7 and 13-14. Only $100. Sponsorships available. Deadline is May 20. Sign up now!