THE AZTEC DAHLIA PAINTOGRAPHY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL (MIGUEL) FORBUS According to a legend reported by Wells, the Aztec goddess, Serpent Woman, used to visit an eagle to gain knowledge of the sky gods. On one of her visits, she met a rabbit, holding a dahlia with eight red rays in its mouth. The gods told her to pierce the flower with a sharp spike of agave and hold this to her breast all night long. The next morning, she delivered a full-grown son, the War God, Utzilopochtli, who had gained strength for war and thirst for blood from the dahlia. However, I have not been able to find this legend in any online references for Aztec mythology. The usual story told of the birth of Huitzilopochtli makes him the son of the Aztec earth-goddess, Coatlicue, the goddess of life and death, who was always depicted wearing a necklace of skulls and a skirt of serpents. She found a ball of feathers and tucked it into her skirt, thus becoming pregnant. This angered her other children and they plotted to kill her. But when they dragged her up on top of a mountain to sacrifice her, she gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, the war-god, often depicted as a beserker humming-bird, who slew his treacherous siblings in an orgy of blood.