Source: WTL© tourist photograph taken at MNA in 2007.
Comments: This is a roughly lifesize Aztec statue of Xochipilli. Xochitl (flower) + pilli (either child or prince); hence, the prince of flowers or flower child, representing the Aztec patron god art, beauty, dance, flowers, games, and song. He is sitting on a throne of (stylized) flowers and butterflies. (Recall another image of butterflies seen earlier in this course?) Xochipilli is wearing the mask of dancing and he is seen covered in flowers. Among the Maya, Xochipilli was the god of maize/corn, and hence, fertility. Another curious attribute of Xochipilli is that he was the patron god of homosexuals and male prostitutes; this characteristic, it is said by some scholars, may have been inherited from the Toltecs. Additional note, the Aztec pictograph for Xochitl (one of the root words in this god's name shows that a flower is the Aztec symbol for Day 20, the base of the Mayan mathematical system: