Aspects ludiques de la fête aztèque du Tlacaxipehualiztli

Abstract

Though it may seem paradoxical to evoke the notion of game in this cruel sacrifice, we explain how we have been driven to identify elements of game in it. In this festival, performed at the beginning of spring in honour of the god Xipe Totec (“Our Lord, the Flayed”), numerous brave war captives were deliberately injured in a “duel” and then sacrificed through tearing their hearts out and lastly, flayed. After explaining why the festival is assimilated to a sacred game celebrating the renewal of life, we demonstrate how some of the most important rituals show a close relation with the notion of game in two of its major components : agôn (contest in Greek) and mimicry. Agôn is found in the so-called “gladiatorial combat” and the numerous fights which take place among the soldiers-spectators, and mimicry in the human personifications of the god and the fictive kinship between the captive and his captor