Quetzal, sacred to the Aztecs and Mayas
During mating season, the male grows blue and green twin tail feathers three feet (1 meter) long; these tail feathers were worn ceremonially by Mesoamerican rulers and priests
Quetzalcóatl, the ‘plumed serpent’, thus combines earth and the sky, water and sun (fire). We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Quetzalcóatl was a very complex God. Some see in him a culture hero. When the Spanish arrived, the Aztecs thought Cortés was Quetzalcóatl returning as he had promised.
As the God of Venus, Quetzalcóatl was one of the four sons of the creator gods, and he played an active part in creating the universe. After the first four worlds were destroyed by water, fire, wind and earthquakes, he created a new humankind by mixing his blood with a powder made of the bones of the ancestors.
Quetzalcóatl helped in discovering the maize (corn) seeds—a discovery which was to Mesoamerica what wheat was to Mesopotamia and rice to China. Throughout Mesoamerica, rituals propitiated both the God of Sun and the Gods of Water, precisely as if the sacred plant, maize, were a synthesis of both sun (tona) and water (ecahuil). Certainly, maize requires sun, water and earth to grow in order to yield its life-sustaining kernals.
Quetzalcóatl was the patron of knowledge and of the highest priests. During his life-time as ruler of mythic Tula, he led a life of prayer and ascetism. Quetzalcóatl was also the God of Wind.
