Also the largest pterosaur ever discovered (in fossil form), with a wingspan roughly equivalent to that of a small twin-prop airplane, named after that said mexican god. Interestingly enough, that god was the pale-skinned one with the moving island which the Spanish conquistadores and their galleons were initially mistaken for.

Aztec God of civilization, he was represented by the planet Venus. He is often depicted as a feathered serpent

He represents all that is good in the Aztec religion, and he is often referred to as "the Morning Star". He is "The One who rescues humanity from death", namely from Tezcatlipoca, the other "Creation" God that represents death.

He is also known as:

  • The Creator God
  • The Feathered Serpent
  • The Founder of Agriculture
  • Precious Feather Snake
  • The Road Sweeper
  • A guardian force for the Playstation RPG Final Fantasy VIII. Its form is a gigantic greenish yellow bird that attacks with the element of thunder. Quetzalcoatl can be obtained in two ways. The first approach is to open Squall's desk before going to the fire cave. The other way is to finish the fire cave event and Squall's teacher gives Quetzalcoatl to him.

    Quetzalcoatl's strength is average, but can be boosted by holding the select button and repeatedly pressing the square button. Quetzalcoatl's power is like a double-edged sword because it's the element of electricity. It can double the damage inflicted on certain enemies, and it can also heal certain enemies that thrive on electricity.

    Myth

    The Aztec empire thrived circa 1400-1519. It's descendants were migratory hunter-gatherers, who settled in the valley where the Aztecs later prospered. Much of their culture and architecture was strongly influenced by their religion. Mountainous temples and fanatical rituals were part of everyday life for an Aztec. Often, the Aztecs would go to war simply to gain prisoners for ritualistic sacrifice. The Aztec religion based on deities that "ruled" a certain aspect of nature or activity. This religion is now considered "primitive", as it's gods were savage and animalistic.

    In the beginning, there was heaven. Sometime in the past, the heavens crumbled and formed the cosmos. The omnipresent gods, Ometecuhlti and Omecihuatl, created all life and birthed four divine children. Xipe Totec, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, and Tezcatlipoca. Together, they formed the chief governing gods of the physical universe

    Quetzalcoatl is often refered to as the "feathered serpent". He governed civilization, learning, culture, philosophy, fetility, holiness, and gentility. His exact opposite was Tezcatlipoca. Together, these two gods formed evil and good, and continued the inevitable circle of life. In addition, he also was responsible for arts and crafts, and cultivation. The myth goes Quetzalcoatl created humans from his own blood mixed with bones from the land of the dead.

    Most often, Quetzalcoatl is often depicted as a colorful serpent with equally colorful feathers spouting from head and tail. Also, he is depicted as humanlike, but adorned in extravagant jewelry and decorations. Even though he was a key god, he was not the most powerful. His brother Tezcatlipoca was equally as powerful. Ometecuhlti and his wife were more powerful by far, and they no longer even played a role in the cosmos.

    Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones from the land of the dead to create the current cosmos. According to myth, this was the fifth "great age". That is, the universe had been created 4 times before. Quetzalcoatl traveled to the land of the dead with his companion, a nagual, to collect the bones. The Lord of the Land of the Dead, Mictlantecuhtli, tried to prevent this, but only succeeded in breaking the bones into pieces. With aid of a godess, Quetzalcoatl puts the bones back together, and performs a blood sacrifice on them. Thus begins a fifth, imperfect existence.

    In fact, Quetzalcoatl was the cause of the fall of the Aztec empire. When the spaniard Cortez and his army invaded Mexico, the emperor believed him to be Quetzalcoatl returning to bring prosperity. The Aztecs showered Cortez with riches and servants. Cortez caused the eventual decline and assimilation of the culture, by posing as the god returned from a mysterious land.

    Quetzalcóatl, known ultimately as the god of civilization and learning by the ancient Aztecs of Central Mexico, had dozens of associations which serve to perplex modern students of Mesoamerican culture.

    At its most fundamental and symbolic, Quetzalcóatl is regarded as the image of a coiled and feathered serpent rising from a base carved with representations of the earth and Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain. In the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs therefore, Quetzalcóatl is the manifestation of a powerful thunderstorm with a huge wind raising dust before delivering rain and thus, sustenance.

    The honorary title Quetzalcóatl was assumed by several historical rulers between Mexico and Guatemala in the two centuries before the Spanish conquest, and this fact further entwines events historical and mythological. One story of the exile of Quetzalcóatl probably refers in part to an actual event: King Topilitzin Quetzalcóatl was driven from the city of Tula in the 12th century, apparently because of sexual indiscretions. Over time this Quetzalcóatl became a minor deity and was identified with Venus as the Morning Star. Aztec legend relates how the great king Quetzalcóatl came from heaven to earth, created a dominion among the people of Mexico, and lived as a celibate priest until a dispute among the gods led to his destruction.

    This Quetzalcóatl is always depicted as a sexually potent creature whose energies were contained by a supreme act of will and godhood. It is consistently noted that he had an enormous penis, and he wore a special loin-cloth with a rounded end in which he apparently stored his magnificent organ.

    While at a great ceremony, Quetzalcóatl was plied with strong drink laced with the magic mushroom. He was tempted by the demonic goddess Tlazoteotl, who inhabited the mushroom, and he copulated with her. Upon awakening, he realized he had destroyed himself. In shame and contrition, he gave up all his earthly possessions and traveled eastward across Mexico until he came naked to the shores of the Caribbean. He sailed away towards the sunrise on a raft made from serpent skins until the heat of the sun ignited his raft and his heart rose, flying up to join the sun.

    Quetzalcóatl—either the god or the man or perhaps both—promised to return one day to reclaim his kingdom, and it is the arrival of Hernan Cortes, conqueror of the Aztecs, on the day One Reed, the calendar day of the god-king's birth, which fulfills in the Aztec mind that promise.

    Another Quetzalcóatl—from whom perhaps the first Toltec ruler took his name—was worshipped as early as 300 AD in highland Mexico and perhaps much earlier on the Gulf Coast. Legend has it that this serpent king journeyed to the Underworld to collect the bones from which he fashioned the human race after he sprinkled them with his own blood. In this aspect Quetzalcóatl was the god of self-sacrifice, wisdom and science. It is easy to see how the Aztec concepts of blood sacrifice, sun worship, and resurrection might have grown from the convolutions of shadowy history and explicit myth. Quetzalcóatl was also known, in yet another incarnation, as Ehecatl, the god of the wind. As god of the planet Venus, plumed serpent in its morning aspect, Xolotl, a dog-headed monster in its evening incarnation, Quetzalcóatl's dualistic nature made him the patron deity of twins. He was the god to whom barren women prayed for children.

    In a painting in the Codex Laud in the Bodleian library, Oxford, Quetzalcóatl is depicted as a wind blowing in the waters. Sitting within the water, displaying her open vulva to him, is the younger moon goddess. It is implied that the breath of Quetzalcóatl is the fertilizing suspiration of life and that the goddess will be impregnated by it, thus giving birth to all mankind.

    It is interesting to note how matters of faith, legend, and fact have intermingled over the centuries to produce, in their final majestic palimpsest, a concept that is both universal and absolutely intrinsic to an understanding of the ancient peoples of Mexico.

    In all matters of life and beauty, Quetzalcóatl was thought to have breathed and brought life and inspiration. As the progenitor of creative achievements, he reigned supreme in the Aztec firmament.



    Feathered Serpent and Smoking Mirror—the Gods and Cultures of Ancient Mexico,C.A. Burland and Werner Forman, G.E. Putnam's Sons, New York, Orbis Publishing Limited, London 1975 Aztec Thought and Culture, A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind, Miguel León-Portilla, translated from the Spanish by Jack Emory Davis, University of Oklahoma Press : Norman, 1963
    Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, Miguel León-Portilla, Translated from the Spanish by Grace Lobanov and the author, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman and London, 1969.
    The Flayed God—The Mythology of Mesoamerica Rebecca H. Markman & Peter T. Markman, Harper, SanFrancisco, 1992
    The Toltecs Until the Fall of Tula, Nigel Davis, 1977
    Quetzalcóatl and Guadalupe, trans by B. Keen (1976)




    On Mexico and the Aztecs:

    An Aztec father advises his son
    Bernardino de Sahagun
    Human Sacrifice and the Aztecs
    Malinche
    Mictlan
    Nahuatl
    Ometeotl, beyond time and space
    Popocatépetl
    Quetzalcoatl
    Talk like an Aztec
    Teotihuacan
    Tlazolteotl, the Filth Eater
    What points its finger at the sky?
    Xipe Totec

    Below the Line

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