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 Mexican kings. In invocations his ceremonial name was “Night-drinker,” and he was prayed to give moisture to the crops. “Put on your golden garment; why does it not rain? It might be that I perished, I, the young maize-plant.” In this connection another form of sacrifice was practised in his honour; a captive was tied to a scaffold and shot with darts so that his blood streamed down upon the ground (Fig. 5, _a_). This proceeding may be regarded in the light of imitative magic, to secure fertilizing rain for the earth. It was first performed, so the legend says, in honour of the earth-deities, and occurred also in South America among the tribes of Colombia. In the illustration, the victim is shown wearing the peculiar form of head-dress associated with Xipe. A particular emblem carried by the water and fertility deities is the _chicauaztli_, or rattle-staff (see Pl. IV, 1), often seen in the hands of Xipe, Chicome Coatl and Cinteotl, and associated in invocations with Tlaloc. This instrument, like the rattle-staves of West Africa, may almost certainly be regarded as a charm to bring rain by imitating its sound. Besides the functions already mentioned, Xipe also exercised that of protector of goldsmiths, since the yellow skin in which he was clad was supposed to typify an overlay of gold foil. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--Mexican methods of Sacrifice. A. Arrow sacrifice. B. Gladiatorial sacrifice. C. Ordinary sacrifice. (_Zouche MS., British Museum_)]