The legend of Quetzalcoatl-Cortes.
Quetzalcoatl, which means “plumed or feathered snake” is the name given by the Aztecs to the Feathered-Serpent deity of ancient Mesoamerica. However he originated as a water god according to Adela Fernandez , as quoted on the web page Quetzalcoatl the myth, by Katherine Guardado and David Shindle, so it is not surprising that he was believed to travel by sea. According to Britannica Online images of him can date back as early as the3rd century C.E, though their idea is that he was a god of vegetation. Quetzalcoatl was worshipped as one of the main gods of several Central American civilizations and in Mexico before the coming of the Spaniards. Despite his name he is rarely depicted as a feathered serpent , but in many other forms, but especially as Tolpiltzin the high priest according to B.C.Brundage in his 1979 book ‘The Fifth Sun’ which is cited on the Meta Religion page ‘Quetzalcoatl’. This being was perhaps Quetzalcoatl in his most relevant and human form and so the most acceptable and popular. The Aztecs saw Topiltzin as man-god, in the way the Ancient Greeks saw their heroes such as Ulysses, not exactly a god but neither was he viewed as being an ordinary man. He is also depicted as having fair skinned and wearing a beard, this being supposed to enhance the idea of his of wisdom and age
Similar stories of beings with super human powers and authority are found in every people group because mankind always seems to need answers to how this happened or why this is this way and so on. He was said to have discovered all the landmarks of the earth i.e. the mountains, seas, rivers and lakes, created fire, established the brewing of alcohol, established a priesthood as well as royal lineages and was the creator or humans, was able to solve fertility problems and domesticated animals. He was important in cultural activities such as dance and music, so although not the most important of the gods, for that place was given to the sun god, he was a necessary part of the pantheon. The Aztecs believed that the forces of nature acted either in good ways or bad, much as humans do. It was logical therefore that these natural occurrences were personalized as gods or goddesses. Worship consisted of offering gifts and prayers and carrying out of symbolic acts, following the archetypes they believed were set out by the gods, in order that they might induce divine powers to work for the benefit of the Aztec people. The Interfaith web page Quetzalcoatl tells how he invented the calendar. It was from him that men learnt science. The web writer describes him as “a perfect representation of saintliness.” His cult was gradually changed into a nobility cult and only nobles were allowed to make special, secret sacrifices to him special sacrifices. There is some confusion as the same name may have applied to not just a deity or demi-god, but a whole line of priests and rulers. According to the Vienna codex cited on the Interfaith web page 9 different Toltec kings bore the name .The same name was also used as a title for priests. It was often he, rather than the emperor, who was credited with allowing the conquest to occur. Before that time there would have been human sacrifices to the deity and for about 100 years after the Spanish invasion for feasts to be held in his honor.
The same god was known to the Maya as Kukulkán and to the Quiché people as Gukumatz. Priests and kings of the time would take upon themselves the names of gods, implying that they also had godly attributes so there were humans with these names. There was a dualistic belief system and Quetzalcoatl’s opposite was Tezcatlipoca, who according to one version supposedly sent Quetzalcoatl into exile. Another account says he left voluntarily, traveling on a raft of snakes, promising to return. He was also known as the Morning Star, under the name Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, and is said to have given man maize, books and the calendar and so was considered to be the god of civilization and of learning. Sometime associated with death and resurrection he was often depicted as a fair man with a dark beard. According to Charles Branden in his 1982 book the Aztecs of Central America Quetzalcoatl had promised to return with other fair haired men.
The Aztecs believed Cortés to be a reincarnation of the god, coming as he did from the west. They would be totally unfamiliar with light skinned Europeans and their ships Another idea the Aztecs had is that it was Quetzacoatl who allowed the Spaniards to come and conquer the land. Cortés, when he arrived in 1519 was happy to pose as the undead god. It suited his purposes to be accepted as a man god – someone who could lead and make demands.
Some Spanish missionaries, who of course knew that Cortés was a mere mortal, thought that the man god from whom the Quetzalcoatl legends originated may have been Thomas the apostle who had traveled in order to convert the Mexicans to Christianity. ( Lafaye 1974) Another idea is that he was a Viking traveler who had lost his way. The Meta religion page on this subject also mentions St Brendan who supposedly sailed along the shores of North America in a boat made of leather, before eventually returning to his homeland. The Spanish chroniclers were able to make many links between Aztec ideas and Christian ones, and it is clear that the cross as a symbol was known before the conquest. In one depiction Quetzalcoatl is wearing a cloak with black and red crosses and seems to be wearing a mitre. According to Branden (page 37 ) he also carried a staff in his hand. They made links between Aztec stories and the stories in Genesis including that of the flood. If he wasn’t a Christian missionary from much earlier times why should these Americans have included a god in their worship who was fair haired and skinned, when none of them were and who possessed a beard, something else they did not do?
Charles Truxillo in his 2001 book ‘By the Sword and the Cross’ ( page 91) mentions other ideas such as that the Aztecs were descendents of the ten lost tribes of Israel and even a suggestion of a far eastern origin with Quetzalcoatl being a Taoist or Buddhist.
In a way Quetzacoatl is a Gilgamesh character – a real historical person to whom godlike attributes have been given over time. H.B Nicholson in his 2001 book ‘Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the ToltecsToplitzin Quetzalcoatl: the Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs’ quotes from an earlier work by Sahagún of 1956. In this, in chapter VII there is a description of the Spanish conquest and its immediate consequences which states quite definitely that Cortes was believed to be the returned Quetzalcoatl. The text in Spanish says ‘hasta hoy le esperan’ .which can be translated as ‘Until today we hoped for him’. Motecuhzoma called to his men:-
Come, intrepid warriors, come! It is said that our lord has at last arrived.
Receive him. Listen, sharply; lend your ears well to what he will say. You
will bring back what is well heard. Behold wherewith you will arrive before
our lord. ( page 32,Salagún, 1956).
The Aztecs believed that their predecessors, whether gods or humans, created and acted out models, or archetypes, which man must imitate in their lives and the rituals that their society took part in. Their agriculture for instance was centered around what they felt were patterns of natural forces which controlled the plant growth as described by George Vaillant in his 1962 book ( page 9) Aztecs of Mexico: Origin , Rise and Fall of the Aztec Nation’.
They put these ideas into solid form in their temples, imitating the archetype model of the cosmos which they believed had been handed down from the gods in the form their city took, according to David Carrasco and Scot Sessions in their book ‘The Daily Lives of the Aztecs, People of the Sun and Earth’, page 68.The temple was the ceremonial center of life where major ideas about the creation were acted out. The authors describe the controlling aspects of Aztec life as being the repetition of the archetypes which they perceived as exemplary models of patterns for life, whether they came to them in the form of an idea, an image or an event. They viewed the imitation by human society of the archetypes given by the gods as being of immense importance. The coming of Cortes would have been seen as such an event.
They saw Cortés as ‘the Supreme Lord of the things of Earth and of Heaven.’ They had horses, weapons, armor plate. The envoys sent by the emperor reported back that the strangers rode on creatures like deer and ‘were as high as the roof tops They cover their bodies completely except for their faces and they are very white.’ Anderson, page 17
Nicholson quotes from some 70 different sources and versions of these stories, but all seem to be in agreement that the explorers were welcomed.
Hernan Cortés came from a background of “little wealth but much honor” having been born in Castile, Spain in 1485. He studied at Salamanca University for a while and in 1504 sailed for Hispaniola where he worked as a farmer for 6 years as well as working for the town council. In 1511 he went with the expedition of Diego Velazquez to Cuba where Velazquez was appointed Governor. Cortés became a clerk, but later was twice elected mayor of Santiago. By 1518 Velazquez appointed Cortés as Captain General of a new expedition to Mexico. He had charge of eleven ships, more than 600 men, and some horses. He landed at Tabasco in March 1519, where he stayed while gathering intelligence and founding the city of La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. He also met a local woman called Marina or Malinche) who became both his interpreter and the mother of his son, Martin. He burned his ships, and by doing committed himself and his men to the success of their task of conquering Mexico. Soon after his arrival the emperors envoys dressed him in:-
Turquoise mosaic snake mask with the head fan of quetzal feathers and with
the jadeite snake-head earplugs suspended from it; the painted jadeite
neckband with the golden disk resting in its midst . . .” according to Anderson
( page 14)
This of course being the costume Quetzalcoatl might be expected to wear.
He soon learned about the many riches of the Aztecs and their empire and so he marches inland in order to discover more. He was able to make an alliance with the natives of Tlaxcala and from them learns of the local customs, culture and religion including tales of Quetzalcoatl the ‘Winged God – Feather Serpent’ predicted to one day return. In November 1519 Cortes finally reached the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, where no attempts were made to slow his advance into the city and where he was received by the Emperor Moctezuma II with great honor, for the emperor believed him to be the reincarnation of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. At first the emperor had been so terrified by the stories his envoys brought back that he had actually fainted, and then tried to hide but then he came to the realization that if this really was Quetzalcoatl returned then a meeting was inevitable. Gruzinski on page 30 quotes him as saying ’One cannot escape what must happen.’
Not long after their meeting Cortés imprisoned Moctezuma and forced him to swear his allegiance to the Spanish king. At about the same time a Spanish army of 1,400 men arrived with orders from Velasquez to arrest Cortés .Leaving Pedro de Alvarado in charge in the capital city Cortés engaged the Spaniards in battle, beating them soundly and winning many of the men over to his side. The Spaniards retreated but there were problems on another front as in the Aztec capital the Aztecs had revolted after the execution of hundreds of their nobles. Again Cortés went into battle at Otumba and this time defeated the Aztecs according to the Mexonline.com web page, Hernan Cortés, Explorer and Conquerer of Mexico. He released the emperor who is then stoned to death by his own people. At first Cortés and his men are forced to leave the Aztec city, but plague arrives among the Aztecs and eventually, with only about 1000 men Cortés conquers the whole nation. He razed the Aztec city to the ground and began to build the present Mexico City. Eventually Cortés returned to Spain, dying in Seville in 1547, but he was eventually buried in Mexico City in 1629.
Conclusion
The legend that Quetzalcoatl was it seems just that – just a story. But it was a story invented for a purpose. It met a need of the Aztec people at the time to explain something that they had no other explanation for – their priest/king had disappeared. Just as Christians hold to the idea that Christ will one day return in glory they held to a similar story.
References and works cited
Anderson, Arthur J.O. and Charles E. Dibble. (1978)The War of Conquest: How it was Waged Here in Mexico. University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City:
Brundage B.C. (1979) The Fifth Sun, University of Texas Press, Austin
Gruzinski, S. (1989)Man-Gods in the Mexican-highlands, Stanford University Pres, Stanford,
Lafaye, J. ( 1914) Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: the Formation of Mexican National Consciousness 1531 – 1813, Chicago,
Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de,( 1956) “Historia general de las cosas de Nuva España,”, Franciscano, y fundada en la documentación en lengua mexicana recogida por los mismos naturales. La dispuso por la prensa en esta nueva edición, con numeración, anotaciones y apéndices, Angel María Garibay K. 4 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, S.A., Biblioteca Porrúa, 8—11,
Electronic Sources
Carrasco,D, and Sessions, S. Daily Lives of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth, Greenwood Publishing, Westport, accessed 24th November 2008 from http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ybEHUMVr1dgC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=Aztec+archetypes&source=web&ots=gtnwgwJtNV&sig=3e_qTb9a8ALe_LRnvRZWF3-qXE4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPT1,M1
Guardado, K and Shindle, D.( 1999) Quetzalcoatl the myth, available from http://weber.ucsd.edu/~anthclub/quetzalcoatl/quetzal.htm accessed 5th November 2008
Nicholson, H.B., (2001) Topitzin Quetzalcoatl: the Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs, University Press of Colorado, Questia Online Library, available from http://www.questia.com/read/109824495?title=Topiltzin%20Quetzalcoatl%3a%20%20The%20Once%20and%20Future%20Lord%20of%20the%20Toltecs accessed 5th November 2008
Truxillo, C.,(2001) By the Sword and the Cross: the Historical Evolution of the Catholic World Monarchy in Spain and the New World 1492 – 1825, Questia Online Library, retrieved 6th November 2008 from http://www.questia.com/read/113107524?title=By%20the%20Sword%20and%20the%20Cross%3a%20%20The%20Historical%20Evolution%20of%20the%20Catholic%20World%20Monarchy%20in%20Spain%20and%20the%20New%20World%2c%201492-1825
Quetzalcoatl, Quetzalcoatl, Britannica Online, retrieved 6th November 2008 from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487168/Quetzalcoat
Quetzalcoatl, Interfaith retrieved 6th November 2008 from http://www.interfaith.org/ancient/mesoamerica/quetzalcoatl.php
Quetzalcoatl, Meta Religion, retrieved 6th November 2008 from http://www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/Central_america/quetzalcoatl.htm
Vaillant, G. Aztecs of Mexico: Origins , Rise and Fall of the Aztec Nation, 1962, Doubleday, Garden City, retrieved 24th November 2008 from http://www.questia.com/read/10586664?title=Aztecs%20of%20Mexico%3a%20Origin%2c%20Rise%2c%20and%20Fall%20of%20the%20Aztec%20Nation
