Flower Power

• ‘Flowers of god’ or ‘flowers of the heart’ - human hearts
• ‘Flowers’ - poems or songs
• ‘Lofty flowers’ - the beauty of singing/song
• ‘Flowers of life’ or ‘flowers of red nectar’ - blood
• ‘War flowers’, ‘eagle flowers’ or ‘battle flowers’ - prisoners
• ‘Intoxicated with war flowers’ - a warrior’s strength in the heat of battle
• And of course xochiyaoyotl - ‘war of flowers’ - refers to the unique type of war embarked on by the Mexica as their imperial power grew, in which battles were fought at pre-arranged times and places with neighbouring tribes with the specific purposes of capturing sacrificial victims, and of training novice warriors in the art of combat.
Note too that at least three Mexica deities had associations with flowers - Xochipilli, Macuilxochitl and Xochiquetzal - patrons of beauty, pleasure and the arts.

Aztec women with flowers - detail of mural by Antonio González Orozco, Hospital de Jesús Nazareno, Mexico City

Developing the war theme further, like flowers and butterflies, warriors were expected to live short but glorious lives. The flower and the butterfly were symbolic of the souls of brave dead warriors, who were believed to have the honour in the next life of carrying the sun god through the morning sky to its zenith. The souls of brave women who died in childbirth, equally considered warriors, carried the sun down from midday to dusk. The two giant fire-serpents (xiuhcóatl in Nahuatl) - male on the left, female on the right, bear a line of flower symbols on their backs (pic 3).

Linguistic source: Mitos y Literatura Azteca by José Alcina Franch, Alianza Editorial, 1989, p.19.

Main image designed for Mexicolore by Felipe Dávalos
Photos by Eva Sánchez Fernández and Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore
Graphic by Phillip Mursell/Mexicolore, based on an original illustration by Tomás Filsinger.

Pic 3: The two fire-serpents on the Aztec Sunstone bear flower symbols representing the souls of brave warriors in the afterlife