The Pale Faced God of the Redskins
The image of the deity of Quetzalcoatl (according to another reading of Quetzalcoatl) came to us from Aztec mythology. Translated, his name means "Feathered Serpent", more precisely "Serpent covered with green feathers."
One of the four sons of Omeotl - the supreme god of the Indian pantheon, the opponent of any violence, the Feathered Serpent created a world in which justice reigned. And he ruled this world, too, with justice, which earned universal respect and immense love. This is what the legend about Quetzalco-atl looks like, recorded in the 16th century by the Spanish missionary Bernardino de Sahagun from the words of an old Indian.
In the 10th century, on the banks of the Panuco River (Central Mexico), white bearded people in long-length robes appeared on a winged ship (it should be noted that the Aztecs themselves did not know sails and did not have facial hair). They arrived from the country where the sun rises, were kindly greeted by the local population, went to Tollan, where they settled, led by their leader, whom the Indians called Quetzalcoatl.
The White God established wise laws, taught men and women to live as husband and wife, taught crafts, the ability to work stone and metal, cultivate the land, grow cotton and corn, and showed edible and medicinal plants. He gave them mathematics, astronomy and a calendar. But, most importantly, Quetzalcoatl brought peace to the Indians and forbade bloodshed.
And the Feathered Serpent left two prophecies to the Indians. One is that white conquerors will appear from across the sea, who will overthrow the Indian gods, replacing them with their foreign god (he did not name the exact date of the fulfillment of this prophecy), and the other is about the time of the coming 'end of the Fifth Sun.
In 999 AD, the pale-faced god, having fulfilled his mission, left the Indians, promising to return in the year of Se Akatl ("First Year of the Reed"). In accordance with the cyclic calendar of the Toltecs, the year of Se Akatl was repeated every 52 years, and whenever he came, the faithful children of the Feathered Serpent looked at the ocean with hope. Centuries passed … 1363, 1415, 1467 are already behind us … The year 1519 has come. The Indians were waiting for Quetzalcoatl, but fate played a cruel joke with them - instead of their beloved god, conquistadors landed on the shore in Veracruz.
Written sources have survived, from which it irrefutably follows that the belief of the Indians in the return of Quetzalcoatl was the reason for the easy conquest of the Aztecs and Peruvian Incas by the conquistadors: their white leader, 34-year-old Spaniard Hernan Cortez, successfully played a "divine" role. His Majesty's chance played along with the adventurer - Cortez set up his camp exactly at the place where the pale-faced god once descended from his ship to the shore..
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The conquest began. Quetzalcoatl's first prophecy came true.
Who was he, this ancient god-diviner: a real historical figure or just a character of a centuries-old myth? To answer this question, let's take a short excursion into the history of the ancient peoples of America.
Canine people
With the advent of Spanish adventurers off the coast of the New World, the great cities of the Indians were plundered and destroyed. Less than two dozen original manuscripts and scrolls remain from the written heritage of the ancient inhabitants of America through the fault of the Spaniards. And therefore, scientists drew all the generally known information about pre-Cortesian America from the old chronicles compiled by the conquistadors on the basis of the Aztec chronicles and oral evidence.
But not everything that the Spaniards learned from the Aztecs should be treated with confidence. The true history of ancient America was distorted even before the advent of Cortez.
Those who believe that great states disappeared only in connection with natural disasters or from the sword and fire of conquerors are mistaken. No, sometimes they quietly faded away, leaving the achievements of their culture to aliens, tribes of barbarians, who in Central America were called Chichimeks - "people of canine origin." Nobody knows what kind of tribes they were and where they lived before. As the legends testify, “they came from the depths of the plains between the rocks”, settled in the cities or near them, mixing with the local population.
Little enlightened, but surprisingly capable of assimilation, some of these tribes, faced with an incomprehensible and therefore especially attractive culture, diligently joined it, and then appropriated it for themselves.
The ambitions of the "people of canine origin" were great, and therefore, creating their states on the foundation of the previous ones, they tried to erase the memory of their predecessors, often passing off their achievements as their own.
Secrets of ancient civilizations.
Confidence in the customary interpretation of ancient history based on the Aztec chronicles was shaken when archaeologists found traces of the existence of the civilizations that preceded the Aztecs: Teotihuacan, Tahina, Monte Alban. And after them, an even more ancient culture of a mysterious people was discovered, around which disputes still continue today, sometimes leading researchers to areas far from reality, up to the Atlanteans or aliens.
During excavations in the town of San Lorenzo, the famous archaeologists Franz Blom and Oliver la Farge discovered monuments of ancient art that are unlike anything else. Then, in 1924, they were attributed to the Mayan civilization. But already in 1932, George Clapp Vaillant, for the first time using the term "Olmex-cue", singled them out into a separate group. There were many controversies. But on January 16, 1939, the archaeologist Stirling found a fragment of a stone slab, on one side of which was depicted the jaguar god, and on the other … the date of the Mayan calendar. Of course, it would be easiest to attribute this find to the Maya if the year indicated on it was not three centuries "older" than any other dated evidence of the culture of this people. In the same year 1939, the concept of "mother culture" was formulated, suggesting that the Olmec civilization is the progenitor of the entire Mesoamerican civilization.
The chronological framework of the Olmec culture is very vague: its beginning varies by different researchers in the 15th-8th centuries BC. e., and the end - I century BC. e. - III century AD e. The mention of the ol-meks is also found in the Aztec legends. It follows from them that "the inhabitants of the country of rubber" (as "Olmec" is translated from the Aztec language) came from the north at a time that no one remembers and cannot tell.
Many centuries before the end of the Fourth Sun
In Olmec glyph drawings, images of a jaguar and a snake were found opposed to each other. It is believed that it was the Olmecs, in contrast to the human jaguar (werewolf), who embodied the power and ruthlessness of the forces of earth and night, and created in their imagination the Feathered Serpent - a symbol of the unattainable combination of the eternal wisdom of a snake with the beauty and radiance of a bird.
But it is possible that Quetzalcoatl is much older than the Olmec culture. Recall that the information we know about the serpent god is associated with the period of the Fourth Sun. And if there is a Fourth, then it is logical to assume that there should have been the First, Second and Third Suns before it, under which people lived who did not leave any information about themselves or about the gods they worshiped. So it is quite possible that the Olmecs borrowed the Feathered Serpent from a previous civilization, and the jaguar god was their own tribal god (the Olmecs believed that a woman and a jaguar laid the foundation for their family), and the Olmecs themselves, whose culture only recently touched humanity, were "Sons of the dogs" for more ancient peoples.
Whether the Olmecs were Chichimecs, who appropriated and developed a culture that already existed before them, or pioneers who created their civilization from scratch, is not known. One thing can only be asserted with certainty: the most ancient peoples knew Quetzalcoatl.
How then to be with the hypothesis about the reality of this divine character, the existence of which does not fit into the framework of the period of life of even a very outstanding historical personality? So the legend of his appearance in Teotihuacan is a fairy tale? Or did the Indians see in the pale-faced enlightener who came to them from across the sea, the earthly embodiment of their beloved god?
Let's go back to the City of the Gods again and watch what happened there.
Fall of the City of the Gods
In the middle of the first millennium, the population of Teotihuacan numbered about 200,000 people and consisted of representatives of different Indian peoples - each with its own customs, with its own deities. And therefore, the main buildings of the great city were dedicated to the common gods for all: the sun god, the moon goddess and Ke-tsalcoatl. Moreover, it should be noted that the temple to the Feathered Serpent was erected even before the Fifth Sun lit up and he himself appeared to people …
The Fourth Sun was still burning over Teotihuacan when it was almost destroyed. It was plundered by barbarian tribes, and around 700 it was burned by unknown invaders. And although life still continued around the burnt center, the great city lost its former grandeur.
Many researchers blame the defeat of the City of the Toltec Gods. But this people only took advantage of the dark times for Teotihuacan, and only then took control of the once powerful state. Already under the Toltecs, the Fourth Sun of America went out and the Fifth Sun of America flared up. And along with the last Sun came Quetzalcoatl, who settled in the Toltec capital of Tula - Tollan …
Chuck-Mool came next …
From the minimum of evidence that has survived from the time when the people lived who built colossal pyramids, when various local cultures and great civilizations arose and died, more or less intelligible information can only be gleaned about the civilization that preceded the Aztecs - the Toltecs.
The Aztec chronicles give reason to assert with confidence that the Toltecs are civilized Chichimecs. But this people, the cultural successor of Teotihuacan, who mastered many of the knowledge, crafts and arts of their cultural predecessors, must be given their due.
Curious Toltecs not only used, but also developed the knowledge gained. They had no equal in science and art. By the way, it was the Toltecs, great experts in astrology, who gave names to the stars, knew about their influence on people's lives, and invented the art of interpreting dreams.
In the cultural development of this people, the educational activity of the pale-faced god played a huge role. In addition to knowledge, he brought them humane laws. Legends say that he even covered his ears with his hands when it came to war or human sacrifice.
And although the Toltecs revered Quetzalcoatl above all gods, they did not always follow his peace-loving principles, introducing the cruelty characteristic of the barbarian mentality into beliefs borrowed from a more humane civilization. And if human sacrifices were never made in Teotihuacan, then after Quetzalcoatl left the Toltecs, the sinister Chak-Mool, a stone idol on which human hearts were burned, became active in their sanctuaries. The Toltecs believed that in this way they fed the last of the Suns with the life force of people.
Being a warlike and bloodthirsty people in their roots, the Toltecs, nevertheless, were the last people of Meso-America who sincerely tried to recreate the life-affirming meaning of ancient civilizations. But the ideas of humanism that Quetzalcoatl taught the Indians gradually drowned in the blood of ineradicable barbarian rituals. The Fifth Sun began to envelop itself in a bloody haze …
In the light of the bloody Fifth Sun
At the beginning of the second millennium, Toltec cities began to decline. In the XIII century, in the rearguard of another barbarian wave, when almost nothing remained of the Toltec empire, and the Toltecs themselves practically disappeared, the Aztecs came to the valley of Mexico City. Being ordinary Chichimecs, they were hired to serve the Kolhua - the descendants of the Toltecs, and … everything went according to the classic Chichimec scheme.
Having joined the cultural achievements of their predecessors, the Aztecs mastered their religion and embellished the divine characters that had already existed before them with their myths. According to them, the world was ruled by four Tezcatlipoca - in accordance with the four cardinal points. Each Tezcatlipoca had its own color. Black Tezcatlipoca, whose earthly incarnation was the jaguar, controlled the birth and death of people and inspired the Aztecs with sacred terror. He was opposed by White Tezcatlipoca - Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, god of goodness and light, protector and benefactor of people. Red Tezcatlipoca was the god of spring, and Blue Tezcatlipoca was the sinister Uitzilopochtli, the warlike sun god to whom the Aztecs obeyed unquestioningly. His orders, announced by the high priest, were inhuman, and the methods of their execution were so monstrous that it seemsas if the Aztecs were ruled by pathological maniacs who brought their essentially primitive people to mass psychosis.
Human sacrifice, although it was a very common phenomenon in ancient history, was nevertheless always considered by the priests as an extreme means of influencing higher powers. Among the Aztecs, human sacrifices accompanied any appeal to the deities, up to the "stimulation" of natural phenomena, such as the sunrise …
Annually at least 50 thousand people became victims of Aztec ritual murders. To satisfy the bloodthirstiness of Witzilopochtli, even a special military unit was created, supplying the priests with new victims. Moreover, the Aztecs deliberately provoked riots in various parts of their empire in order to have an excuse to send troops there and deliver prisoners.
Under the rule of the Aztecs were peoples with a much deeper history and culture. And the Aztecs themselves, expanding and consolidating their influence in the valley of Mexico City, began to feel weary about their "ancestry". With the help of archaeological manipulations (they diligently unearthed the cities of the Toltecs and collected the objects of art found there) they managed to convince everyone around them, and above all themselves, that they were direct descendants of the builders of the ancient pyramids.
In this version, information about ancient America was received by the conquistadors, and from them - by scientists who still have to separate the grains of truth from the Aztec chaff
fantasy.
But all this does not mean at all that the Aztecs did not represent anything and only used other people's achievements - in no case! It was a great civilization. And the desire to embellish their history is characteristic not only of this people.
The era of the Fifth Sun was going on, which was supposed to end with the death of the world. Quetzalcoatl did not return, giving the Indians the undivided power of the insane Witzilopochtli, who demanded more and more blood.
The Aztecs and other tribes who pinned their hopes on him were also waiting for the Feathered Serpent - the beloved god was supposed to end the bloodshed and start a new era of peace and justice. Therefore, the army of the long-awaited "divine" liberator of 550 adventurers quickly grew in the number of "people's avengers". The Conquista was impetuous …
The new masters of the New World overthrew the Indian gods and flooded the last Sun of America with the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. They didn't need sacrificial altars or priests with obsidian knives …
What Quetzalcoatl predicted happened. Will his second prophecy come true at the appointed time or will the cruel sun god have enough blood to feed him for a long time?..
Where did the Feathered Serpent come from?
So was Quetzalcoatl a real historical person, an enlightener and a soothsayer, in whom the Indians saw the earthly embodiment of their ancient deity, or was only a kind of pagan myth associated with his name? What prompted the researchers to put forward a hypothesis about the reality of this character many centuries later?
In order for the memory of a mortal to be preserved by several successive civilizations, he had to perform great deeds that only God can do! But all the legends of the peoples of not only Central, but also South and North America echo among themselves and unequivocally claim that Quetzalcoatl (aka Kukulkan, Gukumats, Viracocha, Kon-Tiki, Pacal Votan, Itzamana) really existed.
In the collection of ancient Maya religious texts "The Book of Chilam-Balam" it is written that the first inhabitants of Yucatan were "the people of the Serpent" (we should not forget that the Indians associate the snake with wisdom). They sailed from the east, led by their leader Itzamana ("Serpent of the East") - the great healer who revives the dead.
In the chronicles, which have been carefully recorded since the time of the conquistadors, we find an even more interesting entry. “Kukulcan (Quetzalcoatl) sailed with nineteen companions, two of whom were the gods of fish, two others were the gods of agriculture and one more was the god of thunder. They stayed in Yucatan (Mayan land) for ten years. Kukulkan created wise laws, after which he raised the sail and disappeared in the direction of the rising sun …"
Judging by the legends, the pale-faced man managed to visit more than one Toltec and everywhere performed great enlightenment deeds. All scientific, cultural and religious achievements of the ancient peoples of America are associated with his name. In a short period of human life, which Quetzalcoatl had to be limited, if he really was a real person, one can hardly manage to do so much. But it should not be forgotten that he was not alone. And it is quite realistic to do this kind of work in ten years by the efforts of twenty highly cultured personalities.
In addition, navigation not only in the first millennium of our era, but in the 5th century BC (which fits into the period of the Ol-Mec civilization) was at an altitude sufficient for such a journey. So it is possible that the advent of the earthly incarnation of the ancient deity was not limited to one single expedition of the pale-faced.
Where did they come from to South America? There are many hypotheses on this score. Quetzalcoatl is credited with ancient Egyptian, Aryan and even … Slavic origin. But they all outline only the contours of the mystery of the Feathered Serpent, which was for the Indians both a deity and a person who slept and ate with them, taught them, healed.
But Quetzalcoatl is more than a good god or an outstanding historical figure. His sign was the cross - the intersection of the earthly and the heavenly, where the horizontal is the wisdom of the snake, and the vertical is the luminosity of the bird. And in this we see both a teaching and a mystery, having solved which humanity, perhaps, will have time to make the world wiser and brighter before the term of the Fifth Sun expires.
S. Shvets “Interesting newspaper.