Mexico: A History in Art by Bradley Smith

“The god of spring appeared in many forms, but always as being flayed or skinned. He was called Xipe-Totec and, although he was later known to the Aztects and other clans, it is probably that he originated with the Zapotecs. Some urns show him wearing a mask of human skin with two long black stripes running down either side of his nose, yet he was not a god of terror, but rather of rebirth. That the god of springtime should be represented as wearing a new skin seems entirely reasonable. Spring is the time when snakes come out of the earth and shed their old skin, when there is a renewal on all the earth. When the priest who represented Xipe-Totec wore the skin of a sacrificial victim, it was not a ritual of hroror but a symbol that the person had been reborn.”

-Bradley Smith, 1968