Quetzalcoatl

Individuation Psychology, 2023

The Mercurial transformation, seen both in the myth of Quetzalcoatl and in our own lives, is the essential archetypal energy of individuation that leads us to healing the split in our soul which prevents us from living our lives to their full capacity. In this paper I give an overview of this myth examining both Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent and savior god, and his dark twin brother, Tezcatlipoca. I end by presenting a clinical example of a split in the personality, a dream my patient had, and how it begins to resolve through an understanding of this mythological and internal dynamic.

There are numerous common metaphors between the ancient Chinese and ancient Mesoamerican worldviews. This paper covers one such overlap in mythology—the Lóng 龙 and the Mexican/Central American Plumed Serpent. Taking a comparative approach, it draws upon both Chinese and ancient Mexican/Central American sources, as well as contemporary anthropology and archeology. It also analyzes the central symbols behind both mythemes as well as their cultural manifestations on both sides of the pacific. This is a work in progress, and any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

Aztec Society promotion, study and research of the truths and values represented by Aztec, Mictecacihuatl, goddess of the Underworld, Mixcoatl, God of War and hunting and Aztec Goddess Terzcoatal as channeled by Andrew Rogers the Aztec, Society is established by Andrew Rogers, Terzcoatal also the re-establishment and establishment of the Aztec, religion restoration of temples and building new temples and also Aztec culture. Mictecacihuatl Aztec Goddess of the Underworld, channelling, writing: Andrew Rogers. This book is a book of positive interactions between Andrew Rogers and the Aztec Gods and Goddesses, it is intended to be educational and inspire people to learn about the Aztec Gods and Goddess and the Aztec Civilisation and to assist people to worship the Aztec Gods and Goddesses in the modern era and the modern Aztec people who are significant and greatly loved by the Aztec Gods and Goddesses, love and enjoy reading this book - Mictecacihuatl Goddess of the Underworld for all Aztec people. Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of the Aztec civilization of Central Mexico. The Aztecs were Nahuatl - speaking groups living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures. According to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec. There are different accounts of their origin. In the myth the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlan, the last of seven nahuatlacas (Nahuatl-speaking tribes, from tlaca, "man") to make the journey southward, hence their name "Azteca." Other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, "the place of the seven caves," or at Tamoanchan (the legendary origin of all civilizations). The Aztec religion originated from the indigenous Aztecs of central Mexico. Like other Mesoamerican religions, it also has practices such as human sacrifice in connection with many religious festivals which are in the Aztec calendar. This polytheistic religion has many gods and goddesses; the Aztecs would often incorporate deities that were borrowed from other geographic regions and peoples into their own religious practices. The cosmology of Aztec religion divides the world into thirteen heavens and nine earthly layers or netherworlds. The first heaven overlaps with the first terrestrial layer, so that heaven and the terrestrial layers meet at the surface of the Earth. Each level is associated with a specific set of deities and astronomical objects. The most important celestial entities in Aztec religion are the Sun, the Moon, and the planet Venus (both as "morning star" and "evening star"). The Aztecs were popularly referred to as "people of the sun". Many leading deities of the Aztecs are worshiped in the contemporary or present-day world. These deities are known by names such as Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, who are venerated by different names in multiple cultures and have been throughout the history of Mesoamerica. For the Aztecs, deities of particular importance are the rain god Tlaloc; Huitzilopochtli, patron of the Mexica tribe; Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent and god of wind and learning; and Tezcatlipoca, the shrewd, elusive god of destiny and fortune. Tezcatlipoca was also connected to war and sorcery. Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli were worshipped in shrines at the top of the largest pyramid Templo Mayor) in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. A third monument in the plaza in front of Templo Mayor was devoted to the wind god, Ehcatl, who is an aspect or form of Quetzalcoatl.

The distribution of the plumed serpent symbol across the Americas

Ethnohistory

Most scholars, citing a passage in the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún (1950-82), have interpreted the famous Aztec stone statue known as Coatlicue, "Snakes-Her-Skirt," as a reference to that goddess's role as the mother of the Aztec patron deity Huitzilopochtli. Sahagún's text, however, cannot account for the statue's portrayal of Coatlicue as decapitated and dismembered, the presence of similar statues that appear to have been part of the same set, or the lavish attention the carver paid to her skirt of braided serpents. The statue seems to better match several other sixteenth-century accounts in which, at the creation of the world, Coatlicue and four of her sisters were voluntarily sacrificed in order to put the sun in motion. The women left behind only their mantas, or large rectangular panels of cloth used to make Mexica skirts, from which they eventually were resurrected. The Coatlicue statue may represent this resurrected creatrix, whose sacrifice gave us light and warmth, in the form of her personified skirt. Prior to the 1978 discovery of the now-famous carved-stone relief of Coyolxauhqui, "Bells-Her-Face," the rebellious sister of the Mexica migration leader Huitzilopochtli, the most famous Aztec sculpture of a woman was the one known as Coatlicue. Towering over visitors to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, this statue, at a height of over eight feet, remains the largest three-dimensional Mexica carving in existence. Discovered in the course of reconstruction and drainage work in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City in 1790, the statue was named for the figure's magnificently carved skirt, which is formed by multiple intertwined rattlesnakes (fig. 1). The skirt and the figure's exposed breasts make it clear that the statue is gendered female. The snakes have long been regarded as a ideogram for the name Coatlicue,

2020

Ancient Mesoamerica, 1991

In this article the significance of Teotihuacan's most sumptuous monument is studied: the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. Based on iconographic studies, together with the results of recent archaeological excavations, it is possible to deduce that the building was dedicated to the myth of the origin of time and calendric succession. The sculptures on its facades represent the Feathered Serpent at the moment of the creation. The Feathered Serpent bears the complex headdress of Cipactli, symbol of time, on his body. The archaeological materials discovered coincide with iconographic data and with this interpretation. Other monuments in Mesoamerica are also apparently consecrated in honor of this same myth and portray similar symbolism.

Au delà de ses connotations péjoratives, le serpent est considéré dans la Bible comme le gardien du domaine sacré et de ses extensions : le sanctuaire, les sources d'eau, les richesses souterraines, et la terre d'Israël. De plus, l'identification du bâton de Moise comme caducée révèle l'implication de cet animal dans l'exercice des pouvoirs divins. Plutôt qu'une influence cananéenne sur le yahwisme, l'attachement commun du serpent et de YHWH à la métallurgie traditionnellement pratiquée en sud Canaan dénote leur relation essentielle. Une continuité apparaît ainsi entre une forme primordiale, cana-néenne, du yahwisme et son extension israélite. Dans ce contexte, l'exclusion du serpent de cuivre (nehushtan) hors du temple de Jérusalem (2 Rois 18,4) reflète une réforme du yahwisme primordial, promue par le roi Ézékias, qui conduisit au rejet de l'un de ses symboles les plus essentiels.