(d) Quetzalcoatl as the god of wind was also regarded as the breath of life, a phenomenon encountered in many mythologies, and therefore came to be conceived as the agency by which souls were originally placed in human bodies. From this, too, we may argue his appearance as a creator, or cosmic deity, although it may have been in his character as fertilizer that he came to be regarded in this light.
(e) Quetzalcoatl is the great penitent, the supreme protagonist of the penitential system, because without the blood spent in penitential exercise no rain might fall. The secondary character of this conception is probable.
(f) Quetzalcoatl seems at a later date to have been regarded as the god of the four quarters of the compass, a conception of him indubitably evolved from his status as a wind-god. I think I also perceive signs that from this latter [[144]]idea was further evolved a conception of him as god of the four elements—fire, air, earth, and water. He is the fire and the flint, because of the lightning which in Mexico accompanies the fall of the trade-wind rain. He is the air in his rôle of Wind-god, and as such is symbolized by the bird, the natural inhabitant of the air, the beak of which he uses as a funnel from which to expel the wind. He is earth, and, his myth says, a builder of subterranean houses, and sometimes bears the earth-staff of agriculture.[94] He is water, or rain, in which guise he is typified by the feathered snake.
This conception of him, evidently strongly sophisticated by priestly theological science, is illustrated in the Codex Magliabecchiano, where he is represented on one sheet along with Tezcatlipocâ, Tlaloc, and Uitzilopochtli. This group, in my opinion, represents the four elements: Fire (Uitzilopochtli), as possessor of the tlachinalli symbol, a hieroglyph for water and fire, and as sun-god; Air (Quetzalcoatl); Earth (Tezcatlipocâ), who as Tepeyollotl was an earth-deity; and Water (Tlaloc). The picture may also be descriptive of the four points of the compass over which he rules. But above and beyond this, as Seler has shown, it implies that these deities were later embodied in the idea of Quetzalcoatl. When Cortéz, coming from the East, landed at Vera Cruz, the Mexicans naturally believed that Quetzalcoatl had returned, and Motecuhzoma sent him as an offering “the dress appropriate to him,” four kinds of attire, the ceremonial costumes of Uitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipocâ, Tlaloc, and Quetzalcoatl.
ETYMOLOGY
There but remains the etymology of Quetzalcoatl’s name. It is compounded of the element quetzalli and coatl. The first denotes the bright green tail-feathers of the quetzal bird, and coatl = “snake,” so that the whole implies “feathered snake.” The generally accepted belief is that [[145]]this name applies to the rain-bearing clouds which accompany the trade-wind, although others have seen in it a description of the rain itself, and still others the ripples made by wind on water. But quetzal in a secondary sense means “precious,” and coatl is capable of being translated “twin.” The Mexicans themselves, however, frequently drew and sculptured the god as a feathered serpent, although this may easily have possessed a merely pictographic significance. In any case, after prolonged consideration on the etymology of the name, I do not, so far, see any reason to quarrel with the currently accepted rendering of it. [[146]]
[1] As it has been found impossible to include every illustration from the codices which is mentioned in the text, those pictures not supplied may be consulted in the reproductions of the codices themselves. A full bibliography of the codices will be found at the end. When the letter K appears with reference to a codex, its reproduction in Kingsborough’s “Mexican” antiquities is implied. [↑]
[2] This stellar mask is so called from being worn by the stellar deities. It is usually connected with the red-and-white striped painting of the body. The Sahagun Aztec MS. calls it “face-cage marking” and “face-star marking which is called darkness,” the former referring to stripes over the face, the latter to the mask design, which seems to me to symbolize night surrounded by the “eyes” of the stars. [↑]
[3] Hist. Nat. Ind., pp. 352 ff., English translation in Purchas his Pilgrimes, bk. v, c. 9. Maclehoses’ edition. [↑]