FORMS OF QUETZALCOATL.
Quetzalcoatl (right) and Tlauizcalpantecutli. (Codex Borgia, sheet 19.)
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 75: Quetzalcoatl’s body-paint is a dark colour, and in his hair he wears unspun cotton, as does Tlazoltcotl. Sheet 76: Here his face is painted black and he wears the fillet with the step-pattern and the two-coloured cap, and in his hair are stuck the instruments of mortification. He holds in his hand a snake, which is to be regarded as the agricultural implement with which he tills the ground.
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 73: In this place he is set back to back with the Death-god and is surrounded by the twenty day-signs. The body-paint is light blue, and the anterior part of the face has the stellar painting of white circles on a black ground. His conical cap has the parti-coloured painting and the cross, the symbol of the four winds, in the middle. On his breast he wears the snail-shell and in his hand a blue staff. His wind-mask is entirely covered with stellar and lunar emblems. His rattle-staff is light blue, in contradistinction to that of the Death-god, which is sprinkled with blood. Sheet 56: Here he is equipped with the hoe and wears the body-paint of a priest, a necklace of jaguar-skin and teeth, the conical bi-coloured cap, the [[119]]stepped fillet with conventional bird’s head in front, and the bearded face-mask. Stellar symbols and feather-balls dot his dress and headdress. He stands back to back with the Death-god, and it is clear that here he is intended to represent the heavenly Quetzalcoatl, the giver of breath and life. On sheet 72 we see him as a priest surrounded by day-signs and implements of mortification. Sheet 19: As represented in this sheet he stands opposite the Death-god. He wears a dark-coloured garment, and what can be seen of his face is painted black, with a spiral pattern. His mantle bears the cross-hatchings indicative of rain or water and is ornamented with feather balls. The red wind-mask protrudes beneath a parti-coloured cap with stellar eyes, and a fillet with step-pattern and conventional bird’s head, and he wears the snail-shell breast ornament and carries the implements of mortification. Sheet 16: On the lower right-hand corner of this sheet he is depicted in a precisely similar manner.
FORMS OF QUETZALCOATL.
Quetzalcoatl (right) and the Death-god. (Codex Vaticanus, 3773, sheet 76.)
Quetzalcoatl’s Dress sent to Cortéz.—When Cortéz landed at Vera Cruz, Motecuhzoma, believing him to be the god Quetzalcoatl returned, sent him “the dress that was appropriate to him.”[69] This consisted of four costumes, that of Quetzalcoatl proper, and those of Tezcatlipocâ, Tlaloc, and Xiuhtecutli, the Fire-god, who were regarded as the four deities dominant in the four quarters of the heavens, and had in the higher theology become fused in the conception of Quetzalcoatl, or were regarded as variants of him. The Quetzalcoatl dress proper is said by Sahagun to have consisted of the turquoise snake-mask, now to be seen in the British Museum, and which can be easily identified by the folds of the snake’s body forming the eyebrows, the quetzal-feather adornment, and the turquoise throwing-stick, shaped in the form of a snake. It seems probable, however, that this dress, although it is described as that of Quetzalcoatl, was that associated with the Fire-god.
Codex Magliabecchiano.—Sheet 89: Quetzalcoatl is here represented in a dancing attitude. He wears the Huaxtec [[120]]hat made of jaguar-skin, the shield with the snail-shell ornament, which is also reproduced on his breast, and the yellow and red face-painting. The bone “reed” for piercing the tongue is stuck in his headgear, and from it depend balls of cotton. He carries an atlatl, or spear-thrower, symbolic of rain or wind, and similar in motif to the nose-ornament of the Maya God B. His mantle is cross-hatched to symbolize rain or water and is decorated with red bows. He wears anklets of jaguar-skin, and a panache of green and yellow feathers.
