Mesoamerica, the land located between North and South America, is where Native American culture once reached a level of material civilization that rivaled ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The achievements of Mesoamerican culture (which includes that of the Maya, Toltec, Mixtec, Aztec and other regional centers) survive to this day in the form of large ceremonial centers, road networks, awe-inspiring sculpture and murals. The largest pyramid in the world, in terms of volume, is not in Egypt, but at Cholula, Mexico. The peoples of Mesoamerica also developed elaborate forms of picture and hieroglyphic writing which were inscribed on stone and painted in books (a few of which survived the Post-conquest book burnings).
Modern researchers are fascinated by the unique aaccomplishments of Mesoamerican culture in astronomy, mathemetics and calendar making. It appears that these peoples, especially the ancient Maya, were obsessed with astronomy and number which were not detached from spirituality as they have been in the West during the past 2,000 years. These subjects served to support the Mesoamerican perspective on reality, one that realized deep linkages between the sky, time, and human life. This is an astrologically-oriented spiritual perspective and it was the driving force behind their myths, religion and rituals. Because native religion and philosophy was the target of the successful Spanish/Catholic war on Mesoamerican culture, there remain only fragments of what was probably once a fully articulated world view. As a result, our understanding of Mesoamerican spirituality is one that requires both deep investigation and speculation. The following is an attempt to reconstruct the elements of one near-universal spiritual theme from ancient Mesoamerica and offer a modern interpretation.
A good place to begin an inquiry into any culture's most basic orientation toward a spiritual understanding of life is with the creation myths. In the Mesoamerican mythic traditions, everything starts with the self-created life-force Ometeotl (by the Aztecs) or Hunab Ku (by the Maya). Cosmological myths suggest that this unified life force was actually a male/female duality which then became the source of four other gods. These second generation gods are the ones who create the world we inhabit. It is with the appearance of the four gods that a critical transformative stage is reached and concrete creation occurs. Only on the level of the four are the divine powers able to make the world exist. In the Aztec and Toltec traditions these four are manifestations of the great gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. Thus the tension between these two gods, the first a creator and the second a destroyer, is what keeps the world in a state of constant creation. Quetzalcoatl was not only one of the first gods of the creation myths, he was also an old god historically. His "existence" spanned over 2,000 years during which time many cities rose and fell. Quetzalcoatl, literally translated, means feathered or plumed serpent. The corresponding word in Yucatec Mayan is Kukulcan.
According to the Popol Vuh, a creation tale from the Maya, in the beginning was only motionless water and sky. Enclosed in these primeval waters was the Sovereign Plumed Serpent, and in the sky, Heart of Sky. These two talked with each other, planned and executed the creation of earth, all life and humanity. It is apparent that Quetzalcoatl, god of spirit and culture, figures into Mesoamerican myth in both Toltec/Aztec and Maya traditions right from the beginning.
Quetzalcoatl was also known by other names, including some taken from the Mesoamerican 260-day astrological calendar.(1) One of these was Nine Wind, another One Reed. Yet another name was Precious Twin, also a name for the planet Venus. During Classic times (300 - 900 AD) Quetzalcoatl was always depicted as a plumed serpent. In Post Classic times (900 - 1519 AD) he was human. In late Post Classic times (1200 - 1519 AD) he was often referred to as Ehecatl, the wind god. This god, or aspect of Quetzalcoatl, was usually depicted as a bearded man wearing a snouted mask through which he blew the wind, which was thought to be the invisible life-force that animates things. Quetzalcoatl, under these several names, was clearly a major Mesoamerican mythic figure. He was the first shaman-priest, a legendary founder of dynasties and his name was synonymous with knowledge, culture, art, ritual, and the planet Venus, third brightest object in the sky.
At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the Aztecs associated Quetzalcoatl with kingship in the ancient Toltec city known as Tollan, today called Tula. The Aztecs idealized Tollan, looking back toward it as a kind of golden age. Whether Tollan was a historical place with a human ruler named Quetzalcoatl, or a partly idealized place with a mythical Quetzalcoatl has been debated for years by archaeologists and historians of Mesoamerica. Aztec accounts of Toltec history speak of a ruler, or possibly several rulers, with the name Quetzalcoatl and several accounts of his life were written down shortly after the Spanish Conquest.(2) While there are some differences between the versions, in general the story goes as follows:
Quetzalcoatl was born miraculously, his mother having swallowed a precious stone which caused her to become pregnant with him. This occurred in the year called 1-Reed. Quetzalcoatl received intensive religious training as a youth and he eventually became the ruler of Tollan. His rule was exemplary during what was clearly regarded as a Golden Age in ancient Mexico. He was known as the wise ruler of a utopian kingdom in which there were no human sacrifices, only those of snakes and butterflies. On one level everything was perfect, both he and the people that he ruled. Quetzalcoatl had literally built walls between himself and the outside world, spending his days in temples doing penances, making offerings, praying, and performing rituals. He became an unseen ruler, separate from his people.
One cornerstone of Mesoamerican philosophical thought is the notion that perfection contains its opposite, chaos and destruction. The story of Quetzalcoatl makes this point by introducing the dark god Tezcatlipoca. In several guises and in various perverted ways, he revealed Quetzalcoatl's dark side, the long shadow that hung behind his perfection. The accounts vary somewhat here, one version stressing the gradual decline of the morale of the people of Tollan as a result of Tezcatlipoca's meddling. The turning point in Quetzalcoatl's story is a confrontation and forced acceptance of imperfection. Tezcatlipoca, in the guise of several sorcerers, managed to penetrate Quetzalcoatl's inner compound and make him look at himself in a mirror. Quetzalcoatl's shock at seeing his face for the first time was so great that he allowed Tezcatlipoca to convince him to have a makeover - a facial coverup done with fine feathers as was the style then, a deliberate masking of his reality. Next, the sorcerers persuaded him to drink pulque, a powerful alcoholic beverage. Five cups later Quetzalcoatl was reduced to a drunken state. Completely intoxicated, he summons his sister to join him in his reverie. Although the accounts omit the details, these two sibling sapparently had sex and awoke the next morning in extreme shame.
Having now confronted his deepest and darkest self, his total human weakness, Quetzalcoatl announces that he is finished as ruler and must go into exile. One account has him lying in a sarcophagus for four days and then leaving the city on an eastward journey to his death and transformation. Another describes a long march to the ocean in the east. On the way to the Gulf Coast of Mexico, Quetzalcoatl wandered through many towns and villages, giving names to places and fending off demons. Finally, he arrived at the coast where he either (1) built a raft of serpents and set out to sea, or (2) built a funeral pyre, immolated himself and became the morning star itself, the planet Venus. It was widely believed that Quetzalcoatl would return one day, coming from the east, as does the planet Venus when it is at its brightest as a morning star. This return was expected in the year named 1-Reed, the year of his birth and also the year of his exile or death. In the Mesoamerican calendar system, a year with this name came up every 52 years.
The connection between Quetzalcoatl and the planet Venus is of great interest and importance. Mesoamerican astronomers began the cycle of Venus at its inferior conjunction with the Sun. This event happens every 584 days when Venus makes its closest pass to earth and pases between the Sun and the earth. In an astronomical ephemeris, this occurs during the period when Venus is moving retrograde (in reverse motion from the perspective of the earth). The inferior conjunction occurs during the brief transition when Venus ends its 263-day period as an evening star and begins its 263-day period as a morning star. The interval between these two appearances is about 8 days. This is a time when Venus is invisible and, according to the Mesoamerican astrologers, a time of transformation and one that served as a potent symbol in Mesoamerican spirituality.
The entire 584-day cycle of Venus was charted in great detail by the Maya in the Dresden Codex, the most sophisticated of the four surviving Maya books. What they noticed and cataloged was that Venus moves through four very distinct stages in its cycle: (1) inferior conjunction, (2) morning star, (3) superior conjunction, and (4) evening star. The Dresden Codex drawings show Venus as a male god spearing victims as it begins it morning star phase. In fact, throughout Mesoamerica, Venus' first appearance as a morning star (its "rebirth") was considered a dangerous omen, a time when things and people would be struck down. One account of Aztec customs even mentions people stopping up their chimneys during this period to prevent "Venus light" from entering their homes while priests flicked blood from their fingers at the planet as it rose in the east. Clearly this was a potent astrological interpretation of a regular astronomical event. How all this relates to the Quetzalcoatl myth requires an intermediate explanation.
One component of Mesoamerican religious ritual was a ball game, played with a rubber ball in a special court. The Maya creation story, the Popol Vuh, tells how the hero twins defeat the Lords of Death in a ball game. Ball courts are found in nearly every set of Mesoamerican ruins and there is good evidence that the games were linked to the cycle of Venus. The inscriptions on the ball court at the archaeological site El Tajin appear to depict the entire 584-day Venus cycle as a drama in which a "candidate," presumably a Venus impersonator, undergoes a series of events.(3) In the first panel, which corresponds to the evening star phase, Venus takes vows of purity before two deities, one probably being the sun god. In the second panel, marking the morning star phase, Venus lusts and spends the night with music and love. In the third panel, marking superior conjunction, Venus faces the consequences of his sexual sin and loses a ball game with the gods. In the fourth panel, which appears to correspond to both the evening star phase and with inferior conjunction, Venus meets death by sacrifice.
What we have here is a possible linkage between the myth of Quetzalcoatl and the cycle of the planet Venus. The theme of both is sexual transgression and consequent judgment and punishment. The panels at El Tajin correlate sexual sin with Venus in its morning star phase and the later judgment at the superior conjunction. Both the Venus cycle and the Quetzalcoatl myth are models for a culture hero who starts with perfection but then fails because of temptation or an impulse management problem. The cycle of Venus was not only the model of this mythic drama enacted in the sky, but it was also a natural cycle that very likely worked in an astrological sense, i.e. it made dangerous times predictable.(4)
The are many other connections between the Quetzalcoatl myth and the cycle of the planet Venus. One of Quetzalcoatl's names was Precious Twin, a reference to Venus and its close relationship with the Sun. Viewed from the earth, these two astronomical bodies are never more than 48 degrees apart in the sky. Maya astronomers recognized the astronomical coincidence that five 584-day Venus cycles are exactly equal to eight 365-day solar years. The number 5, in stylized form, was actually used as a symbol for the planet Venus and sometimes for Quetzalcoatl. In the myth, Quetzalcoatl got drunk after having five drinks. Also, the duration of the inferior conjunction is about 8 days. It was said that Quetzalcoatl, after immolating himself, went to the underworld for 8 days. While there he made himself some arrows and then made his appearance as the great morning star, shooting these arrows at victims determined by the day in the astrological calendar on which this first appearance took place.
At the foundation of Mesoamerican spirituality was the struggle to understand death and rebirth, finality and return, and this was symbolized by the invisibility of Venus during inferior conjunction during its 8-day transfromation from evening to morning star. Considering the similarities between this Mesoamerican model and Western mythic concepts such as the descent of Ishtar/Inanna, one wonders if the Venus/Sun cycle did not also serve as a model for those as well. Ishtar was the goddess of love, sexuality and fertility and also the planet we call Venus. In her myth she, like Quetzalcoatl, descends into the underworld. As a morning star, she is a war goddess. What at first seems to be a difficult reconciliation for the modern Western mind, that the planet Venus could be male and have a warlike phase, is really not far from that ascribed to this planet in early Western myths. Even Greco/Roman astrological texts make clear distinctions between the two phases of Venus, assigning masculine properties to it as a morning star. Western astrologers today interpret Venus as a symbol of the biological urge toward relationship and also the material refinements of culture (the arts and their appreciation.)
The Quetzalcoatl myth appears to have been a way of explaining how ideal cities like Tollan, or culture in general, are dependent on the behavior of the ruler. The loss of connection between ruler and ruled, and the loss of control over one's sexual urges, results in the fall from perfection. What is demonstrated is that the management of sexuality is crucial for the creation of large social entities. The Quetzalcoatl myth also speaks to the damming up of these sexual urges and the results of this denial. In short, Quetzalcoatl and Venus were symbols for both the creation of society and the dangerous power of sex. These two symbols suggest that the social world is a fragile thing that is held together by conscious restraint, and also that it can be destroyed by the failure to manage physical urges.
The Quetzalcoatl myth was both ideal and real. The answer to the academic question as to whether Quetzalcoatl was a god or a man is simple -- he was both. Major figures in Mesoamerican history, such as the great rulers of the ceremonial centers whose names we now know from inscriptions, were more likely perceived as actual carriers of the on-going creation of the universe. They were doing their job just as the gods did, making myth become history. It is important to understand that in ancient Mesoamerica, myth and history were unified, and both functioned within a web of astronomical and calendrical cycles. "Reality," i.e. history, was not only a metaphor for cosmic principles, but it was also cyclic. Myth, therefore, was both a way of spiritual knowledge and also a way of interpreting history. Quetzalcoatl was a culture hero with an archetypal life drama. Some real personages probably lived out this drama and in doing so became a living myth. From a perspective in which the currents of human life fall into classic patterns (a perspective that is not unlike an astrological perspective) there's little difference between myth and reality.
In his book "Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire," David Carrasco argues that Quetzalcoatl was the Mesoamerican symbol for the various social and cultural processes that are necessary to create cities and ultimately civilization itself. In his view Quetzalcoatl was the first shaman-priest, a symbol of sacred authority, and a justification for leaders to pull and hold populations together. But Quetzalcoatl, as a symbol, also implied the inevitability of destruction, not from without, but from within, and this was probably one of the reasons that Mesoamerica was unable to sustain Western style progress in material and spiritual matters. Cultural beliefs shape cultural reality. Cities rose, flowered, and then they fell and the golden age was always in the past. Heroes in Mesoamerica, like Quetzalcoatl, did their work and then died to become part of the sky. But the cycles of the sky repeat and the return of the hero back to the beginning was always expected.
One of Quetzalcoatl's names was One Reed, a name that draws attention to the all important 52-year cycle of ancient Mesoamerica.(5) In the myth he was said to have been born in the year 1-Reed and died 52 years later in the year with the same name. It was widely believed that he would return in the year 1-Reed. In 1517 Hernando Cortes landed near Veracruz - it was the year 1-Reed.
As Cortes disembarked from his ship on Holy Thursday Aztec artists were on hand, making sketches of the event which were rushed back to the Aztec king Moctezuma 300 miles away. With his beard, pointed helmet and other accessories Cortes held an uncanny resemblance to Quetzalcoatl. The impression he made was not lost on the Aztec king. Believing him to be the returning Quetzalcoatl, Moctezuma actually offered him his kingdom and allowed himself to become a prisoner. Cortes knew about the myth and he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut - he apparently never came out and declared himself to be Quetzalcoatl. The presence of Cortes, who entered Mexico from the east in the year 1-Reed, along with a host of other bizarre coincidences, was psychologically overwhelming to the Aztecs and contributed to their military loss and final defeat. The conquest of Mexico by Cortes brought an end that was expected, even logical to the Aztecs. Their prophecies had been fulfilled. But this time a different version of spirituality was brought into their world by outsiders.
*This article originally appeared in Gnosis Magazine, #35, Spring 1995.
(1) The 260-day astrological calendar was the core of Mesoamerican divination and historical analysis. Twenty named days, much like zodiac signs or the 20 major arcana of the Tarot, cycled 13 times producing a count of 260 days. This count had nothing to do with the seasons. It was a device that correlated with specific astronomical cycles yet functioned more like the I-Ching. Information on this count can be found in the authors book's "Day-Signs: Native American Astrology From Ancient Mexico," and "Signs of Time: An Introduction to Mesoamerican Astrology," both from One Reed Publications, PO Box 561, Amherst MA 01004.
(2) Two well-known versions of the Quetzalcoatl myth are those found in Sahagun's "Florentine Codex," the writings of a post-conquest friar, and the "Annales de Cuauhtitlan." Major portions of these are found in "The Flayed God: The Mythology of Mesoamerica" by Markman and Markman (HarperCollins, 1992). David Carrasco's "Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire" (University of Chicago Press, 1982) contains a thorough account of the various Quetzalcoatl sources and offers an interesting interpretation of the role of this god in the establishment of the ceremonial center itself.
(3) Cook de Leonard, Carmen. A New Astronomical Interpretation of the Four Ballcourt Panels at Tajin, Mexico. In "Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America," edited by A. Aveni. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975).
(4) It's debatable whether or not Venus has an astrological effect like that described by ancient Mesoamerican astrologers during and immediately after inferior conjunction. This author has noted that near the time of this astronomical event, which occurs about every 584 days, major news stories unfold that stress discrediting or removal, impulsive decision making, and crashes. These events are often triggered when the Moon passes over the part of the sky in which the Sun/Venus conjunction occurred. Recent conjunctions correlated with the Russian shooting of Korean airliner 007, the house arrest of Gorbachev, and the explosion of the Waco, TX compound containing religious fanatics. Venus makes its inferior conjunction on November 2, 1994 and again on June 10, 1996 (with the Moon joining on June 20).
(5) The two primary calendars of Mesoamerica, one of 260 days and the other of 365, ran against each other like two gears. After 52 cycles of the 365-day year and 73 cycles of the 260-day period did the two coincide. Further, only four of the twenty day-signs (see footnote 1) could be a part of this joining. The numbers from 1 to 13 associated with each day-sign further specified this junction. Only every 52 years, 4 x 13, did the same combinations occur and one of these was the day-sign Reed (Acatl = Aztec, Men = Maya) and the number 1. Reed, one of the 20 day-signs (a zodiac-like set of signs based on time, not space) was a considered strong and powerful, the symbol of a great leader. The sign was portrayed in texts and inscriptions as a bundle of reeds, stiff plants used for making war darts.