Quetzalcoatl

Nationality/Culture

Aztec, Toltec, and Mayan

Pronunciation

keht-sahl-koh-AHT-l

Alternate Names

Kukulcan (Mayan)

Appears In

Mesoamerican oral myths, the Florentine Codex

Lineage

Son of Coatlicue

Character Overview

For thousands of years, Quetzalcoatl was one of the most important figures in the traditional mythologies of Mesoamerica, an area roughly corresponding to modern Central America. As a god, culture hero, or legendary ruler, Quetzalcoatl appeared in some of the region's most powerful and enduring stories. He represented life, health, and the arts and crafts of civilization, such as farming, cooking, and music.

The name Quetzalcoatl means “Feathered Serpent.” It brings together the magnificent green-plumed quetzal bird, symbolizing the heavens and the wind, and the snake, symbolizing the earth and fertility. QuetzalcoatPs name can also be translated as “precious twin.” In some myths, he had a twin brother named Xolotl (pronounced shoh-LOHT-1), who had a human body and the head of a dog or an ocelot, a spotted wildcat.

Major Myths

According to some accounts, Quetzalcoatl was the son of the earth goddess Coatlicue (pronounced koh-aht-LEE-kway). He and three brother gods created the sun , the heavens, and the earth. In the Aztec creation myth, QuetzalcoatPs conflicts with the god Tezcatlipoca (pronounced tehs-cah-tlee-POH-cah) brought about the creation and destruction of a series of four suns and earths, leading to the fifth sun and today's earth.

At first there were no people under the fifth sun. The inhabitants of the earlier worlds had died, and their bones littered Mictlan (pronounced MEEKT-lahn), the underworld or land of the dead. Quetzalcoatl and his twin, Xolotl, journeyed to Mictlan to find the bones, arousing the fury of the Death Lord. As he fled from the underworld, Quetzalcoatl dropped the bones, and they broke into pieces. He gathered up the pieces and took them to the earth goddess Cihuacoatl (pronounced shee-wah-koh-AHT-1), who ground them into flour. Quetzalcoatl moistened the flour with his own blood, which gave it life. Then he and Xolotl shaped the mixture into human forms and taught the new creatures how to reproduce themselves.

Besides creating humans, Quetzalcoatl also protected and helped them. Some myths say that he introduced the cultivation of maize, or corn , the staple food of Mexico. He did this by disguising himself as a black ant and stealing the precious grain from the red ants. He also taught people astronomy, calendar making, and various crafts, and was the favored god of merchants.

Quetzalcoatl's departure from his people was the work of his old enemy, Tezcatlipoca, who wanted people to make bloodier sacrifices than the flowers, jade, and butterflies they offered to Quetzalcoatl. Tezcatlipoca tricked Quetzalcoatl by getting him drunk and then holding up a mirror that showed Tezcatlipoca's cruel face. Believing that he was looking at his own imperfect image, Quetzalcoatl decided to leave the world and threw himself onto a funeral pyre, a large pile of burning wood used in some cultures to cremate a dead body. As his body burned, birds flew forth from the flames, and his heart went up into the heavens to become the morning and evening star known in modern times as the planet Venus. Another version of the myth states that Quetzalcoatl sailed east into the sea on a raft of serpents. Many Aztecs believed that he would come back to his people at the end of a fifty-two-year cycle. In the early 1500s, the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes took advantage of this belief by encouraging the people of Mexico to view him as the return of the hero-god Quetzalcoatl. According to some reports, this may have allowed Cortes to more easily subdue and conquer the local people.

Quetzalcoatl in Context

Quetzalcoatl occupied a central place in the pantheon (collection of recognized gods) of the Aztec people of central Mexico, but he dates back to a time long before the Aztecs. Images of the Feathered Serpent appear on a temple building in Teotihuacan, a Mexican archaeological site from the third century CE. These images are found together with images of rain and water, suggesting close ties between Quetzalcoatl and the god of rain and vegetation.

To the Toltecs, who flourished in the region from the 800s to the 1100s, Quetzalcoad was the deity of the morning and evening stars and the wind. When the Aztecs rose to power in the 1400s, they brought Quetzalcoatl into their pantheon and made him a culture hero, a bringer not just of life but also of civilization. These old myths merged with legends about a priest-king named Quetzalcoatl, possibly a real historical figure. Stories about a Toltec king named Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, famed as an enlightened and good ruler, may have contributed to the image of Quetzalcoatl as a culture hero. Later, as groups from central Mexico migrated into southern Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula and blended with the local Maya population, the Feathered Serpent took his place in the Mayan pantheon under the name Kukulcan (pronounced koo-kool-KAHN).

Key Themes and Symbols

One of the most important themes in the myth of Quetzalcoatl is the idea of a god as a friend and helper to humans. Aside from giving humans life, Quetzalcoatl taught humans all the basic skills they needed to function as a civilization, such as growing crops and learning the cycles of nature and the stars. He even stole corn from the ants so that humans could grow and eat it. Another theme common to Central American mythology is the idea of blood as life. Quetzalcoatl creates humans by mixing bone flour with his own blood, thereby giving them life. This theme is also seen in the idea of human sacrifice, which, according to myth, Quetzalcoatl does not condone.

Quetzalcoatl in Art, Literature, and Everyday Life

Quetzalcoatl was portrayed in two ways. As the Feathered Serpent, he was a snake with wings or covered with feathers. He could also appear in human form as a warrior wearing a tall, cone-shaped crown or cap made of ocelot skin and a pendant fashioned of jade or a conch shell. The pendant, known as the “wind jewel,” symbolized one of QuetzalcoatPs other roles, that of Ehecatl, god of wind and movement. Buildings dedicated to this god were circular or cylindrical in shape to minimize their resistance to the wind.

In modern culture, Quetzalcoatl has appeared as a character in some form on television shows, such as Star Trek and The X-Files. The god has also appeared—with varying degrees of faithfulness to the myth—in several video games, including Final Fantasy VIII and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. The god also lent his name to a type of flying dinosaur called a pterosaur, which was officially named Quetzalcoatlus.

Read, Write, Think, Discuss

Carlos Fuentes, one of modern Mexico's leading writers, compares Quetzalcoatl with the mythic figures Prometheus, Odysseus , and Moses. All three had to leave their cultures, but obtained gifts or wisdom that renewed those cultures. Using your library, the Internet, or other available resources, research these important figures. What similarities do you see between them and Quetzalcoatl? What are the main differences?

SEE ALSO Aztec Mythology; Coatlicue; Huitzilopochtli; Mayan Mythology; Tezcatlipoca