The Myth of Quetzalcoatl

Religion, Rulership, and History in the Nahua World

Alfredo López Austin, Guilhem Olivier, Russ Davidson

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781607323907
• eBook ISBN: 9781607323990
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Myth of Quetzalcoatl is a translation of Alfredo López Austin's 1973 book Hombre-Dios: Religión y politica en el mundo náhuatl. Despite its pervasive and lasting influence on the study of Mesoamerican history, religion in general, and the Quetzalcoatl myth in particular, this work has not been available in English until now.

The importance of Hombre-Dios and its status as a classic arise from its interdisciplinary approach, creative use of a wide range of source material, and unsurpassed treatment of its subject—the nature and content of religious beliefs and rituals among the native populations of Mesoamerica and the manner in which they fused with and helped sanctify political authority and rulership in both the pre- and post-conquest periods. Working from a wide variety of previously neglected documentary sources, incorporating myth, archaeology, and the ethnography of contemporary Native Americans including non-Nahua peoples, López Austin traces the figure of Quetzalcoatl as a "Man-God" from pre-conquest times, while Russ Davidson's translator's note, Davíd Carrasco's foreword, and López Austin's introduction place the work within the context of modern scholarship.

López Austin's original work on Quetzalcoatl is a pivotal work in the field of anthropology, and this long-overdue English translation will be of significance to historians, anthropologists, linguists, and serious readers interested in Mesoamerica.

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1 Reed

The protagonist of this investigation, Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, the son of Iztacmixcoatl and Chimalma, was born—for the well-being and great good of men—in the high plateau of central Mexico in the year 843 or 895 or 935 or 1156 . . . but then again, was he ever really born? The truth of the matter eludes us, for on the basis of a scrupulous examination of the sources, it is possible on the one hand to deny that he actually existed while affirming on the other that he died in Uxmal, on the Pirámide del Adivino (Pyramid of the Magician, or Soothsayer), on the fourth day of April, 1208, at six o’clock in the afternoon, Yucatán time.¹

Moreover, the problem does not date, as might be conjectured, to when the Spanish conquerors—commanding not just the battlefield of war but of historical narrative as well—added fragments of the indigenous tradition to the histories they wrote of the people they had defeated and subdued. Add such fragments, to a greater or lesser degree, they certainly did; yet the elusive nature of Mesoamerica’s most compelling historical personage had proclaimed itself centuries before the fateful encounter between America and Europe. Those writing later, during the post-conquest period, were also influenced—in some cases, powerfully so—by the tales and legends surrounding this bearded priest-king. As he oscillated in the telling between the credible and the imaginary, Ce Acatl edged dangerously close to the brink where distortions and inaccuracies tend to cause historians to lose interest.

The indigenous sources—and here, if one insists on using the term precisely, is where the first taxonomic problem will be encountered—seemingly were contrived out of a perverse pleasure in the prospect of confusing future historians: many of these sources not only make reference to Ce Acatl but do so in a way that is richly detailed; and again, not only are they numerous and filled with details, they are also shot through with contradictions. The name by which he is known changes, variously, from Ce Acatl to Nacxitl, Tepeuhqui,² Meconetzin, Ahpop,³ Guatezuma,⁴ Kukulcan,⁵ Ru Ralcan . . .⁶ His life is split into two, so that we come upon him twice, under two names, the protagonist of two histories, in two separate epochs and in different pueblos, within the pages of a single author’s work.⁷ Elsewhere he is mistaken for another, being given the name Topiltzin, while his mortal enemy is assigned another of his names, Quetzalcoatl.⁸ By turns, he is identified as being tolteca, chichimeca, or tenochca. In Spanish sources, he is mentioned as early as 1526,⁹ and different versions of his miraculous life have been pieced together—for example, in the indigenous communities of Coatepec de los Costales, in the present-day state of Guerrero, by Pedro Carrasco Pizana (1943) and in Jáltipan, in the state of Veracruz, by Antonio García de León (1966).¹⁰ Surprisingly, in the historical source where his appearance as a king or priest would be most expected, no such reference to him is made.¹¹ On the other hand, the beautiful verses that tell of the destruction of Tollan contain commentaries on his life,¹² as do glosses on the proverbial sayings of the ancient Nahua.¹³

In light of this situation, we can readily grasp that a simple statement of the content of the indigenous sources would equal the length of this book, or more. The need for any such review of the literature has been obviated, however, by the stellar doctoral thesis of H. B. Nicholson.¹⁴ What is needed now is an investigation of the possible causes of this apparent confusion, a state of affairs that cannot, obviously, be ascribed to any deliberate, perverse intent to confuse and misdirect. If historian after historian, for more than four and a half centuries, has confronted the same problem, then providing a brief overview of the history of this biography would seem to be a useful starting point.

It was Alfonso Caso who logically divided the problem of Tollan and the Toltecs into three phases, the first of which he labeled “naïve” because it tried to explain miracles on the basis of miracles themselves.¹⁵ The second phase was termed “the skeptical” because it denied the existence of Quetzalcoatl. And the third he called “the critical” because—across the full complex of material—it sought to isolate and distinguish the mythical from the historical. Alfred Tozzer identified and added a fourth phase to this scheme, which he denoted as “the perplexing,” or “the elusive,” in that it maintained an unsatisfactory separation between the figures of the priest-king and the culture hero.¹⁶ For my part, I have found it helpful to use the classification adopted by Caso but to alter it slightly in two ways. First, by replacing the term phase with focus since, although a distinct temporal sequence is discernible, the lines separating these phases blend into each other; and second, by subst...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword: Return to Quetzalcoatl
• Introduction
• Translator’s Note
• 1: 1 Reed
• 2: The Initial Focus of Foreign Origin
• 3: The Skeptical Focus
• 4: The Critical Focus
• 5: The End of a Truncated History and Its Consequences
• 6: Men and Gods
• 7: Space and Time
• 8: The Nature of the Man-God
• 9: The Life of the Man-God
• 10: The History of the Man-God
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index