Aztec mythology; Indian mythology -- Mexico; Mexico -- Religion
Codex Magliabecchiano.—Sheet 89: Quetzalcoatl is here represented in a
dancing attitude. He wears the Huaxtec 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.
Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—In the illustration which
accompanies his description in this MS. he wears a pointed cap of
jaguar-skin, surmounted by quetzal-plumes. The face and body are
painted black with soot, and a curved band falls from beneath the hat
to the neck. He wears the golden “water-snake” collar, and on his back
the wing of the red guacamayo. Over the hips is slung a cloth with a
red border. He wears white sandals, and pieces of jaguar-skin are
fastened over the foot. On his shield he has the shell which is typical
of him, and in his hand a staff with a motif like that of the nose of
the Maya God B. Sahagun says of him: “His image was always in a
recumbent position and covered with blankets. The face of it was very
ugly, the head large and furnished with a long beard.” [144]
Torquemada states that Quetzalcoatl was a white man, large-bodied,
broad-browed, great-eyed, with long black hair and a beard heavy and
rounded. [145]
Acosta says of Quetzalcoatl’s image at Cholula: “They called it
Quetzallcoalt. This idoll was in a great place in a temple very high.
It had about it gold, silver, jewels, very rich feathers, and habits of
divers colours. It had the forme of a man, but the visage of a little
bird with a red bill, and above a combe full of warts, having ranks of
teeth and the tongue hanging out. It carried upon the head a pointed
myter of painted paper, a sithe in the hand, and many toyes of gold on
the legs, with a thousand other foolish inventions, whereof all had
their significations.” [146]
Elsewhere Acosta says: “The greatest idoll of all their gods was called
Quezcalcovately.... He never ware but one garment of cotton, which was
white, narrow and long, and upon that a mantle beset with certain red
crosses. They have certain green stones which were his, and those they
keep for relickes. One of them is like an ape’s head.”
Anales de Quauhtitlan.—In this work Quetzalcoatl is described as
wearing the turquoise snake-mask and the quetzal-feather ornament—that
is, the decorations of the Fire-god: “Lastly in the year one reed they
say, when he had arrived on the shore of the sea, then he began to weep
and put off the garb with which he was arrayed, his quetzal-feather
ornament, his turquoise mask.”
STATUARY
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