Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl is one of the gods of Mesoamerican culture, coming to consider himself as the main.

from the pre-Hispanic pantheon; Among others, Alfredo López Austin considers Quetzalcóatl as the main deity from which the others are generated from the split, but some like Miguel León-Portilla, consider Tezcatlipoca as the main god (essay  Tezcatlipoca, Principal God) and others consider the gods that gave birth to them as the main ones, emerging as the god of life, light, wisdom, fertility and knowledge, patron of the day and the winds, the Alderman of the West.

Worship
Quetzalcóatl represents the duality inherent in the human condition: the "snake" is a physical body with its limitations, and the "feathers" are the spiritual principles. Another name applied to this deity was Nahualpiltzintli, "prince of the nahuales". Quetzalcóatl is also the Nahuatl name of the Mesoamerican messiahs and the title of the supreme priests of the Toltec religion. It was manifested in various historical prophets, the last of which was Ce Ácatl Topiltzin, king of Tula who lived between the years 895 and 947 of the Christian era. Quetzalcóatl's teachings were included in certain documents called Huehuetlahtolli, "ancient words", transmitted by oral tradition and put in writing by the first Spanish chroniclers. Partial translations of them have been published, the last one due to the anthropologist Miguel León-Portilla. This concept is also related to the sixth sun and the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. Because they considered that the entire Universe has a dual or polar nature, the Toltecs believed that the Supreme Being has a double condition. On the one hand, it creates the world, and on the other it destroys it. The destructive function of Quetzalcóatl received the name of Tezcatlipoca, "its smoke from the mirror", whose etymology is as follows: Tezcatl, "mirror", I, "yours", Poca, "smoke". The informants of Father Motolinía described this deity as follows: «Tezcatlipoca was the one who knew all thoughts and was everywhere and knew hearts; that is why they called him Moyocoya (ni), which means that he is Almighty or that he does all things; and they knew how to paint only as air. (Garibay, Á.M .:  Theogony and History of Mexicans ) With a didactic purpose, the myth accentuated the contradiction between Quetzalcóatl and Tezcatlipoca. However, its essential identity is established in the codices and other graphic testimonies, where both deities share the same attributes.

Quetzalcóatl and Tezcatlipoca Blanco
According to the Nahuatl Cosmogony, the god Iztauhqui-tezcatlipoca (Quetzalcóatl) is one of the four sons of the primordial gods called Ometecuhtli and Omecíhuatl, under the account of the creation of the universe, of which they represent the male and female essence of creation, reason why Quetzalcóatl symbolizes life, light, wisdom, fertility, knowledge and as patron of the winds and the day, he is the ruler of the West with the name of Tezcatlipoca Blanco. Over time, other myths were integrated to go from being a creator god of humanity to a mortal king of the city of Tula, or as another sun god next to his brother Huitzilopochtli, thus interpreting the transfer that the Sun performs through the skies, from dawn to dusk by its rulers and brothers Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli and Xólotl, who along with them, is the son of Mixcóatl and Chimalma. Quetzalcóatl is made up of "quetzal" which comes from the word "quetzalli" (beautiful) and "coatl" which means "snake". For Aztec culture and other Nahuatl peoples, the god was Tezcatlipoca's brother. For the Toltecs, on the other hand, they were rivals. Be that as it may, they were both considered to be the Supreme Being. The Quetzal-coatl combination contains the following meanings, all related to the functions of Quetzalcóatl in Toltec theology: "feathered serpent", "precious double", "bird of ages", "gem of the cycles", "navel or precious center "," fertilizing aquatic serpent "," that of the serpent beards "," the precious counselor "," divine duality "," feminine and masculine "," sin and perfection "," movement and stillness ". It was also important for the Teotihuacan civilization.

Attributes and symbolism
Quetzalcóatl in the Borgia Codex.

The god has several stages, first as an Olmec, Toltec, Mayan deity as Kukulkán and later in the group of Aztec gods. It is clear how the Toltec culture took the figure of this god from the religious tradition of Teotihuacan where there is a pyramid dedicated to the feathered serpent dating from the 2nd century AD. However it has an older historical root. Recent studies show that this