Xochipilli, «Prince of flowers», is one of the forty-five energies that rule the days, trecenas and veintenas of the Mexica calendar. Flowers, poetry, song and ritual ecstasy.

Why do you call Xochipilli an energy and not a god?

Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for as the European word does. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, declared as one — and it applies to Xochipilli as to the other forty-four.

Why is the full entry on Xochipilli only in Spanish?

Because the entry on Xochipilli quotes Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own sixteenth-century words. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation. The Spanish entry is linked from this page.

The energies

One of the forty-five energies

Xochipilli

Prince of flowers

What it rules

Flowers, poetry, song and ritual ecstasy.

Why «energy» and not «god»

Because «god» translates badly. The Mexica did not separate the deity from the force it stands for in the way the European word does, and calling them gods imports an idea that is not theirs. «Energy» is not perfect either, but it does not carry that freight. It is a decision of this site, and it is declared as one.

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of Xochipilli. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

El nombre
La escultura de Tlalmanalco
Placer y su otra cara
De dónde viene su imagen

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.

How to cite this page

Alma Mexica, «Xochipilli», The energies. Revised 2026-09-17. https://almamexica.org/en/energy/xochipilli/

The name

Twin of Xochiquetzal, Xochipilli was patron of the composers of songs, of performers, of workers in fine feathers, and of the rites that used plants with visionary properties.