Xipe is in some measure associated with that sacred bird the quail, which has been connected with sacrifice in many lands. This bird frequently takes refuge in the last sheaves of grain in a harvest-field, and thus, perhaps, came to symbolize the corn-spirit driven from its last stronghold. In Normandy in the harvest-field the reapers pretend to catch a quail and dispatch it. [235] The quail was sacrificed to the Tyrian Baal, [236] and is associated by Robertson Smith with the god Eshmun-Iolaos. [237] The bird-like character of Xipe’s dress may assist us in the belief that he was partially evolved from some bird of the quail species commonly found in the maize-field. He bears a strong resemblance to the Maya god F. Xipe was probably a maize-god of the Yopi who came to partake of the character of an Aztec grain-and-sacrifice deity, his own type of immolation, the shooting by arrows, being partially superseded by the warrior’s death upon the temalacatl. It would seem that, as the god of a people of Nahua race, but older in their occupation of the land than the Aztecâ and Chichimecs, he probably took much the same line of development after his worshippers settled in the Yopi country as Tezcatlipocâ and Uitzilopochtli took in a more northern environment, that the resemblance was recognized by the Aztecâ (as is shown by his affinity with Tezcatlipocâ, with whom, indeed, he is identified as Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipocâ, or “the Red Tezcatlipocâ”), and that under their guidance his festival took a similar form to that of the gods in question. His festival is certainly a mytho-dramatic performance explanatory of the preparation of the earth for the sowing of grain, the soil being rehabilitated by the death of the captive warrior. XILONEN = “YOUNG MAIZE MOTHER” Area of Worship: Originally Huichol tribes; later, Valley of Anahuac. Festival: Uei tecuilhuitl, in the eighth month. ASPECT AND INSIGNIA Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The face is painted half red, half yellow, and the goddess wears a crown of paper decorated with quetzal-feathers. Her collar is of green precious stones and her overdress is “the colour of spring flowers” (red). Her skirt is of the same hue. She wears sandals, and carries a shield with horizontal lines. In her hand she holds a red rattle-board. FESTIVAL