QUETZALCOATL. The tra dition:11 beneficent hero King of the Aztecs (q.v.) and the originator of their earliest culture. The meaning of the name is disputed. but the most probable interpretation seems to be 'the admir able twin.' although it may have reference to one adorned with the green plumes of the sacred quetzal (q.v.). In what seems to be the oldest form of the myth, lie i• represented as a god. one of four brothers born at the same time, sons of the supreme creator. Two of these play no further part in legend, while the other, the maleficent but powerful Tezcatlipova, whose name seems to have the mystic significance of 'the smoking mirror.' remained to become the great evil-working rival of his brother, who finally, after a long series of creations and de structions, gave up the contest for a time and disappeared in a mysterious manner. but with a promise to return on some recurrence of his natal year, known in the Aztec calendar as Cc Acall. the year of the 'one reed.' Four cycles of 676 years had passed. each terminating in widespread calamity and destruction by flood. fire. storm, or earthquake. The near approach of the tifth and final doom was to be fore shadowed by the return of Quetzalcoatl in some unknown future year of the Cc Aeatl.
According to the more popular form of the tradition. Quetzalcoatl was an early king of mysterious and miraculous birth. the son of a virgin mother, who reigned at the ancient city of Tollan or Tula, about 40 miles north of the present. City of Mexico. He was entirely unlike his people in appearance. being of fair skin, with a long white beard and flowing gar ments also of white and embroidered with the figure of the cross in red. He was mild and dig nified in manner, took no wife, and founded con vents of nuns devoted to the worship of the temple and vowed to chastity. He preached uni versal peace and brotherhood, and under his rule war became a thing unknown. He taught his subjects. known from their chief city as the Tobees, the arts of agriculture. metal-working. and architecture, and devised for them the cal endar. At last by the evil wiles of Tezeatlipoca he was deprived of all his dignities at one blow.
He made no resistance, telling his people that it was only the neeessary accomplishment of a predestined fate, and that he must leave them to go to the home of his father, Tlapallan. the 'Red Land' in the southeast. but that lie would return to them in some far future year of Ce Ile started on his long journey, halting twenty years at Chohula, where he taught all his mysteries to the people, who thus became the priests of the Aztec reli7ion, and their city with its great temple pyramid the Mecca of the Aztec Empire. Arrived at the seashore, he sailed on a raft of twisting serpents out into the sunrise.
While this second version has been widely ac cepted as clouded history, disguised by poetic additions and lapse of time, and various writers have tried to identify the kingly teacher with Saint Thomas, Saint Brendan, or some other early Christian apostle, others have seen in it only another form of the universal myth of day and night. in which Quetzalcoatl is the god of light and sunshine, his rival the god of night and darkness, Tula or Tollan a syncopation for Ton atlun. the 'Snu Place,' and Tlapallan. the 'Red Land.' the eastern horizon. This theory is proba bly true in the main, hut does not preclude the possibility, which is quite in accord with Indian custom, that some early Aztec king bore the same name and in time became invested in popular tradition with the attributes of the god.
By one of the most extraordinary coincidences in history, the year 1519, in which Cortes landed, was the Mexican year of Cc dent?. As the year drew near upon the calendar wheel, three blazing comets swept across the sky. the waters of the lake rose without apparent cause. and a strange light appeared in the east. Montezuma was troubled with presentiments for his empire, and sent for the priests, who gave him only the boding prophecy that some great calamity was at hand. When the news came to him that the white strangers had landed from the east he said. "This is Quetzalcoatl returned to Tula," and on hi; first interview with Cortes the Indian King addressed him as their lost ruler. See also AZTEC; MEXICO; NAHUATLAN STOCK; ToLTEC.