Quetzalcoatl- Aztec GodDeity"The Feathered Serpent"

The Plumed Serpent

The quetzal bird, whose green feathers were more precious than jade, joined with the coatl, the serpent that moves between earth and underworld. Sky and earth in a single body.

In the highest heaven of Omeyocan, the dual deity Ometeotl brought forth four sons to shape existence. Quetzalcoatl was the White Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca, the Black, was his rival. Between them they would build the world, break it, and build it again.

Tearing the World Open

In the primordial waters swam Cipactli, an immense crocodilian earth monster, all mouths and hunger. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca transformed themselves into great serpents and seized Cipactli from both ends, tearing the creature in two. From its body they shaped mountains and valleys, trees and grass. The earth was alive, made from a living thing, and it stayed hungry. The Leyenda de los Soles records that its anger could only be appeased with offerings of human hearts.

The Five Suns

Five ages of the world, each governed by a different sun, each destroyed. Tezcatlipoca ruled the First Sun until Quetzalcoatl knocked him from the sky with a stone club. Tezcatlipoca fell into the sea and rose as a jaguar that devoured the world's giants. Quetzalcoatl ruled the Second Sun, an age of wind, until Tezcatlipoca struck him down and hurricanes swept the people away, turning them into monkeys.

Two more suns followed under other gods, each ending in fire and flood. After the Fourth Sun's destruction, the gods gathered at Teotihuacan. A fire burned in the center. Two gods were chosen to jump. Nanahuatzin, covered in sores, threw himself into the flames and rose as Tonatiuh, the Fifth Sun. But the new sun hung motionless in the sky until Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl drew a great breath and set it on its course.

Into the Land of the Dead

No humans remained in the Fifth World. Quetzalcoatl descended to Mictlan to retrieve the bones of the previous humanity from Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the dead. His twin Xolotl accompanied him through obsidian winds and clashing mountains.

Mictlantecuhtli agreed to release the bones if Quetzalcoatl could blow a conch shell that had no holes. Quetzalcoatl called worms to bore through the shell and bees to make it sound. But Mictlantecuhtli, regretting his bargain, sent his quail to attack. Quetzalcoatl stumbled into a pit. The bones shattered. That is why humans come in different sizes.

At Tamoanchan, the goddess Cihuacoatl ground the broken bones to powder in a jade bowl. Quetzalcoatl pierced his own body and bled over the bone meal. From this mixture of death and divine blood, the new humanity took form: the macehualtin, "those deserved through penance."

The Black Ant

The new people had no food. Quetzalcoatl noticed ants carrying maize kernels from inside Tonacatepetl, the Mountain of Sustenance. He turned himself into a black ant and followed them in, retrieving the grain. In the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, the rain gods split the mountain open afterward, scattering maize of four colors across the land.

Wind and Morning Star

As Ehecatl, the wind god, Quetzalcoatl swept the roads clean before the rains. Tlaloc followed with water. Ehecatl wore a red beak-like mask through which he blew, and his temples were built round so the wind could pass without catching on corners. No other temples in Mesoamerica were round.

His celestial form was Venus. After his descent to Mictlan and return, he rose as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the Morning Star, whose first rays after emergence could strike down kings and wither crops. Xolotl, his twin, carried the Evening Star. One rose before dawn. The other lingered after sunset.

The Fall at Tula

The Anales de Cuauhtitlan tell of Quetzalcoatl's incarnation as Ce Acatl Topiltzin, priest-king of the Toltecs at Tula. He offered incense and jade to the gods rather than human hearts, and the city flourished. But Tezcatlipoca came disguised as an old man, carrying pulque, calling it medicine.

Quetzalcoatl drank for the first time. The Florentine Codex adds that he sent for his sister Quetzalpetlatl, and they spent the night together. When he woke and understood what he had done, he could not stay.

He walked east to the sea. In one account he built a funeral pyre on the shore and burned himself; his heart rose as Venus, the Morning Star. In another he sailed east on a raft of serpents, swearing to return in the year One Reed. The two highest priests of the Templo Mayor bore his name. Their students in the calmecac learned the arts he gave them. And when strangers arrived from the eastern sea in 1519, in the year One Reed, the old promise stirred.