Quetzalcoatl: Man Or Myth? :: essays research papers

The Legend of Quetzalcoatl Man or Myth?From the beginning of the Toltec reign in Central Mexico, the deity Quetzalcoatl has been a central figure in the holiness and culture of Mexico. This is undisputed. What can be disputed, however, is Quetzalcoatls legitimacy as an historic figure. The deity Quetzalcoatl, or the plumed serpent is inseparable from the man Ce Acatl Topitlzin Quetzalcoatl, known to be a famous leader in pre-historical Mexican myth. The dissection becomes more difficult still as the Spanish friars introduced Christianity and in an set out to assimilate the Indians, created a parallel between Indian deity Quetzalcoatl and the Catholic figure St. Thomas. In doing so, the priests hoped to incorporate Indian culture and religion into Christianity. In the process, however, they changed and damaged the pre-Christian notions of the god. What information we have now of Quetzalcoatl must be recognize as flawed over the centuries, and we must take this into account when ex hausting to examine the historical origins of one of the three figures. However, with cautious examination, we can assort these three figures and determine each ones traits independent of the opposites.To agnize the mythical figure Quetzalcoatl, the first of the trinity to emerge, one must wager further in to the religious belief of the pre-Columbian peoples. In the virtuous period, Quetzalcoatl represented a sort of binary opposition between domain and heaven, visible in his name, quetzalli, or precious green feather, and coatl, the serpent. cunning green feather, according to Enrique Florescano, referred to a annulus, which in the Classical period symbolized the heavens. Coatl, the serpent, symbolized earth, and so the mythical creature Quetzalcoatl was a link between the two, present onward the Toltec civilization began, and gave birth to the image of twins, one of action, fertility and order (the bird) and the other representing the fatality of death (the serpent) . Ye t the link between the imsomebody and the mortal was further construed by the Classical Period Indians than even the symbolism of the bird and serpent. The binary oppositions within day and night, also the Morning Star and the change surface Star became entangled within the earliest surviving myths of Quetzalcoatl.There is a fine line between the religious and the mythological in pre-Columbian Mexico. While Quetzalcoatl began as a symbolical interpretation to link life and death, or the gods and humans, his purpose soon extended to an intercessor between the two, symbolic in the ball court game which he is attributed with founding .