ortant Gods. As one source has put it:
. . . the Plumed Serpent (Quetzalcoatl) . . . performed a variety of important functions, having bestowed on man the sciences of agriculture and writing; he was also the god of morning and the evening star and of the wind. Having left Tula at its moment of disaster, he was reportedly expected to return one day from the east . . . (Davies, 24).
Since Cortes was eventually taken for the God, it could be said that the Plumed Serpent did return. Of course, the original model for this deity may not have been a viking, but the concept of European traveller does not make sense. It is known that the Toltec-Aztec knowledge of agriculture and other sciences vastly exceeded that of most neighbors. This could easily have resulted from a visit from a European scientist-explorer.
In any case, the image of Quetzalcoatl was worshipped by the Aztecs as a significant deity. Interestingly enough, this european-based deity was among the mildest and the friendliest of the Aztec Gods. This, of course, is not much of a standard of mildness, since the Aztecs created their deities in the most terrible form, as befitted a conquering race. The rain God, for example, was either appeased or credited with starting earthquakes. Quetzalcoatl, in this pantheon, has been described as a comparative outsider. As one study has commented:
The only exception to this parade-of divine terrors is Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, who is part God, part man, with a long history of battling the jealous divinities in the service of mankind, but subject himself to the weaknesses and temptations that inevitably vanquish man and bring about his fall from power . . . (Karen, 8).
The Aztec legend of Creation involves five different ages, with the Aztecs themselves being the dominant force in the Fifth of these ages. The first, the age of the jaguar, was presided over deistically by Tezcatlipoca, also known as "The ...