QUETZALCOATL was one of the most powerful and multifaceted gods in Mesoamerican religions. The cult of Quetzalcoatl, the "quetzal-feathered serpent," was prominent in central Mexico from at least the time of Teotihuacán (100–750 CE) to the collapse of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521. He was called Kukulcan in the postclassic Maya culture that developed from 1000 to 1521, and he played a prominent role in the organizing of the capitals of Chichén Itzá and Mayapan. In the more than seventy painted, written, and archaeological sources that carry the elements of the Quetzalcoatl tradition, he appears both as a major celestial creator god and as intimately identified with the paradigmatic priest-king Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, whose great kingdom of Tula, or Tollan, flourished between 900 and 1100, and who is remembered as a primary source of culture, political order, and religious authority in Mesoamerica. The archaeological and ethnographic records show that Quetzalcoatl was the symbol of effective organization and sacred authority in a series of capital cities that dominated the history of Mesoamerican religions for almost fifteen hundred years.
In the cosmogonic episodes of the early sources known as Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, the Anales de Cuauhtitlán, and the Leyenda de los soles, Quetzalcoatl, one of the four sons of the androgynous creator god Ometeotl, plays a number of creative roles: He generates the universe (together with his brother, Tezcatlipoca), rules over various cosmogonic eras, assists in the discovery of maize and pulque, creates fire, participates in the great sacrifice of the gods that leads to the creation of the fifth cosmic age, or Fifth Sun, and becomes transformed into the morning-and-evening star, Venus.
In a number of instances, this creative activity reflects the symbolic design of the Mesoamerican universe as a world divided into five major parts (four cardinal sections around a central space). For instance, in the elaborate cosmology of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Smoking Mirror, revive the broken universe and set the stage for the fifth age by dispersing the water of chaos and restoring dry land by carving four roads to the center of the earth, from which they raise the sky to create a living space for human beings. Coincidentally, in a number of primary sources that depict the capital city of Tollan, the ceremonial centers are shown divided into five sections with four temples and mountains surrounding the central mountain or temple where the priest-king Quetzalcoatl ruled.
In another series of sources Quetzalcoatl is depicted as the inventor of agriculture, the arts, and the calendar and the restorer of human life through a cosmic dive into the underworld, Mictlan, where he outwits the lord of the dead, Mictlantecuhtli, to recover the bones of the ancestors. In this story, Mictlantecuhtli prepares a death trap for Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl falls to his death, but then he revives himself to escape Mictlan, meanwhile revitalizing the bones of the dead.
Quetzalcoatl also took the form of Ehécatl, the wind god. As depicted in Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (compiled 1569–1582; also known as the Florentine Codex), Ehécatl announces the coming of the fertilizing rains and, in one episode, blows the sun into its cosmic orbit, thereby starting the fifth age. Furthermore, a number of sources reveal Quetzalcoatl's close association with the cycles and hierophany of Venus (Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli), one of the major astronomical bodies influencing ritual, architecture, and the calendar in Mesoamerica. The cycles of Venus were a central part of Quetzalcoatl's cult in the city of Chollolan (100–1521 CE), and the Leyenda de los soles depicts the self-sacrifice of Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl following the fall of the kingdom of Tollan, which ends with his heart rising into the sky to become the Morning Star.
Historically, the god Quetzalcoatl was the patron deity of the Toltec empire centered in Tula-Xicocotitlán, also called Tollan. Some scholars, such as H. B. Nicholson, have identified in the primary sources a sacred history of Tollan that relates the seven stages of the priest-king Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl's exemplary human career, including his miraculous birth after his mother swallowed a precious green stone, his teenage revenge of his father's murder, his training for the priesthood, his years as a warrior, his ascension to the throne, the fall of his capital, his flight from Tollan, and his promise to return one day in the future to restore the kingdom. The Tollan of the primary sources is a kingdom secure in agricultural resources, rich in artwork, ritual innovation, and technological excellence, and the birthplace of astronomy and of cardinally oriented ceremonial structures. This world of stability and creativity collapsed through the magical attacks of the magician, Tezcatlipoca, whose cult in some sources was said to depend on human sacrifice. The long-range significance of Quetzalcoatl's Tollan in Mesoamerican history is attested to by the identification of five other capitals—Teotihuacán, Xochicalco, Chichén Itzá, Chollolan, and Tenochtitlán—as places replicating Tollan and the cult of Quetzalcoatl.
In Aztec Mexico, Quetzalcoatl was the patron god of the schools of higher learning, the calmecacs, and the model for the office of the high priesthood at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlán, in front of which his round temple was apparently located.
When Cortés arrived and began his assault on Tenochtitlán, a number of sources state unequivocally that Moctezuma Xocoytzin (Moctezuma II) identified him as Quetzalcoatl returning to reestablish his kingdom in Mexico.
Bibliography
Carrasco, Davíd. Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition. Chicago, 1982. This study places the evidence of Quetzalcoatl's multivalence within the context of urban structure and history in central Mesoamerica. It utilizes the history-of-religions approach to interpret the paradigmatic sacred authority of Quetzalcoatl and Tollan as the sources for empire and destruction in the Aztec capital.
López Austin, Alfredo. Hombre Dios: Religion y política en el mundo nahuatl. Mexico City, 1973. The best Spanish-language interpretation of the historical development in pre-Hispanic times of the mythic structure of Quetzalcoatl and its impact on paradigmatic leadership and political ideology in pre-Aztec and Aztec Mexico.
New Sources
Anaya, Rudolf A. Lords of the Dawn: The Legend of Quetzacoatl. Albuquerque, 1987.
Elzey, Wayne. "A Hill on a Land Surrounded by Water: An Aztec Story of Origin and Destiny." History of Religions 31 (1991): 105–149.
Ritchlin, Sheri. "The Myth of Quetzacoatl." Parabola 26, no. 4 (2001): 65–69.
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