Xipe–Totec, “Our lord the flayed one,” is manifested first in Teotihuacan culture and continues in importance up to Aztec times. He represents a fertility cult and was said to assist the earth in making a new skin each spring.  The cult required the sacrifice of human victims by removing the heart and, afterward, flaying the skin.  The priests of Xipe–Totec impersonated the god by wearing a gold–dyed human skin for twenty days, or until the skin rotted away. The priest would then emerge reborn.