25 Feb 2012

Paranormal Studies 313: Quetzalcoatl

Posted by joncooper

“Good morning, class,” Professor Grimes announced cheerfully.

“What’s so good about it?” a voice grumbled from the back of the room. The professor looked up from his notes and saw that the complaint had come from Dan. He was sitting in the back of the room with his head down on his desk. The professor then noticed that of the nine students who had attended class that day, six of them were seated on the back row.

“You know, that’s really quite remarkable,” he commented. “The very same people who will pay top dollar for front-row tickets to a football game will go out of their way to seat in the back row of a classroom. I fail to see what that choice is gaining you, young man. Given the trivial number of people who attend class you can hardly expect me to overlook you. The back row is simply not an effective hiding spot.”

“Whatever,” Dan grumbled. “It’s still a terrible day. I hate the rain. Especially in January. It should never rain in January. It’s just not right.”

“Would you prefer ice, perhaps? Rain is not all bad. In fact, life on this planet would become rather challenging if it stopped raining altogether. The ecosystem rather depends on a steady supply of precipitation.”

“I guess. But it’s still a pain. I think the guy who said ‘rain, rain, go away’ had it right. Cold and wet is just a miserable combination.”

“Then I suppose it is very fortunate for you that you are neither cold nor wet! As it so happens you are seated in a heated room, and no water is leaking from the classroom ceiling. Barring a catastrophe the elements will not be entering this place and troubling you. Speaking of catastrophes, today we are going to talk–”

“About crop circles,” Ashley replied.

“Goodness no!” the professor exclaimed. “As I was about to say, today we are going to talk about a man who really did go away – and whose promise to return led to the demise of an entire civilization. We are going to discuss–”

“King Arthur!” Lora exclaimed.

“Quetzalcoatl,” the professor finished.

“Who?” Lora asked.

Max spoke up. “Oh, he’s some old Aztec dude. He was a legendary white guy who founded Mexico or something and then vanished, promising to return. When the Spanish arrived the natives thought they were Quetzalcoatl, and so the Spanish basically impersonated him so they could wipe out the Aztecs.”

The professor shook his head. “I am afraid your knowledge if history is quite flawed, young man. While it is true that the Aztecs were the ones in power when Cortez landed in 1519, Quetzalcoatl actually interacted with an earlier civilization – the Toltecs, who disappeared about five hundred years before the Spaniards arrived. Nor did he found the Toltecs; he merely influenced them in some very interesting ways. The legend itself is quite fascinating. According to the Aztecs, many centuries earlier a white man with a beard had come to Mexico from across the sea in a boat like the one the Spanish had used. This man spent many years with the Toltecs and instructed them in religion, governance, and the arts. He was such a virtuous, pious, and wise man that he won the Toltecs’ esteem, and his wisdom ushered in a golden age.”

“I still say he has a weird name,” Lora commented.

“It only seems weird because we are not familiar with their language. Quetzalcoatl actually means ‘green serpent’. In that culture the color green denoted something that was rare and precious.”

“Hold on,” Max interrupted. “I thought his name meant ‘feathered serpent’.”

The professor nodded. “That is actually an interesting point. Technically, Quetzalcoatl was the feathered green serpent. Over time we’ve dropped the word ‘green’, even though Quetzalcoatl was consistently depicted as being green – for the reason I mentioned earlier. Historians have come to emphasize the unimportant part – the feathers – and missed what actually mattered. What the Toltecs were trying to convey was that this man was someone who was rare and precious to them.”

“So they drew him as a feathered snake?” Lora asked. “Why would they do that?”

The professor shrugged. “I’m really not sure. To us a snake symbolizes deception and cunning, but the Toltecs may have interpreted them differently. After all, different cultures throughout the ages have assigned completely different meanings to animals, colors, and even gestures. We tend to think that the way we see things is the way that things have always been seen, but that is not the case.

“As I was saying, Quetzalcoatl led the Toltecs into a golden age. For a long time all was well, but then a malign influence forced him to leave. His followers were heartbroken at his departure but he assured them that one day he would return from his home across the ocean. He then made a ship out of serpents’ skins and sailed to the northeast, to the holy island of Hapallan.”

Lora spoke up. “Hapallan? Is that, like, a country or something?”

“Who knows,” Max replied. “It could be anything! It’s just an old legend, like our stories about the Headless Horseman. Nobody in the 10th century actually built snakeskin boats and crossed the Atlantic with them. Even Christopher Columbus didn’t cross the Atlantic until 1492! This is all just a myth.”

“Really?” the professor asked. “I am afraid your information is out of date. There is actually extensive evidence that many other cultures discovered America long before Columbus. There were the Vikings, the Chinese, and perhaps even the Romans, as Roman coins have been found buried on this continent. In fact, it’s possible that even the Egyptians were aware of this hemisphere. One day we will discuss these pre-Colombus expeditions in greater detail, but the point is that people were crossing the Atlantic long before the 15th century. The idea that someone else had done it hundreds of years earlier is not out of the question.”

“Then why didn’t they become famous? Why did Columbus have to discover it all over again centuries later?”

“There could be any number of reasons. For example, perhaps the earlier discoverers failed to find a way to monetize their discovery. The Spanish were quite interested in overseas exploration because they were looking for a route to the Indies. What they actually discovered was not a new route but a civilization that had an unbelievable amount of gold. For the Spanish crossing the ocean was a way to obtain great wealth, power, and prestige. However, it’s entirely possible that those who discovered America centuries earlier found only danger, expenses, and loss of life. A modern analogy would be Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon. It was certainly an impressive feat, but it was incredibly costly and highly dangerous. We no longer make trips to the moon because they simply aren’t worth the expense. Being able to go somewhere means very little if there are no economic incentives to make the trip.”

Max shrugged. “Ok, whatever. So maybe other people made it their first. How do you know this Quetzal guy was ever real? All you’ve got are a bunch of old stories from a dead civilization. That’s hardly conclusive.”

The professor smiled. “Most of history can be described as ‘old stories from a dead civilization’. That, after all, is the very nature of history! In this case, however, we do have less information than we would like. Usually historians have some sort of written document that they can analyze, but in this case much of what we have here are oral traditions that the Spanish invaders recorded. That is unfortunate, but that does not mean it is all over. We do have those traditions, after all. Most importantly, the Aztecs passionately believed them.”

“So what? Millions of children passionately believe in Santa Claus. That doesn’t mean he’s real.”

“The reason that matters is because the story of Quetzalcoatl came from the Toltecs, not the Aztecs. He was not an Aztec legend and no Aztec ever saw him. Yet when Cortez arrived they instantly believed he was Quetzalcoatl in the flesh – despite the fact that the prophecy of his return was more than five hundred years old and came from a long-gone civilization!”

“Well, sure. But keep in mind that the Spanish were white people who had beards and boats. The Aztecs didn’t have any of those things. When Cortez arrived they just looked back into their history and said, hey, these guys match the legend of that serpent god. They just put it together and came to the wrong conclusion.”

“But where did that legend come from?” the professor asked. “How did the Aztecs know about white men when they had never seen a white man? None of them had beards, so how did they know about bearded white men? And how did they know that the land on the other side of the ocean was filled with bearded white men who were completely different from them? Isn’t it rather remarkable than when Cortez landed the Aztecs already knew what Europeans looked like?

“And there is a great deal more. The Toltecs recorded more about Quetzalcoatl’s appearance than just ‘bearded white man’. He was said to be old and tall, with a broad forehead and black hair. He wore a long garment that had a mantle marked with crosses. He was chaste and temperate, fasted often, and inflicted penances upon himself. As if that was not peculiar enough, what is really remarkable are the religious teachings that he left behind.

“You see, Quetzalcoatl taught the Toltecs that there was a supreme God, who was the ruler of the universe and the creator of all good things. Opposed to this God was a wicked being who was the father of all evil. Mankind had a common mother named Cicacoatl, which means the ‘serpant woman’, and it was said that by her sin entered into the world. Cicacoatl was said to have had twin children, who were depicted as quarreling; the Vatican actually has an Aztec picture that depicts this. Quetzalcoatl taught them that there was a great flood that destroyed everyone in the world except for one family. After the flood a race of giants arose who built a pyramid to Heaven in order to reach the sky, but the gods stepped in and destroyed it.”

“The Tower of Babel was built by giants?” Lora asked.

“It’s quite possible that some of these teachings were corrupted over the centuries,” the professor replied. “After all, Cain and Abel did fight each other and they were brothers, but they were not twins. What is remarkable is how much theology the Toltecs actually knew. For example, there is a picture that shows a king presenting an infant to a Latin-style cross. Crosses were objects of veneration to the Aztecs, and they actually dotted the landscape – despite the fact that the Aztecs did not practice crucifixion. The Aztecs told the Spanish invaders that the reason they venerated the cross was because a man more glorious than the sun had died upon one – and this came from people who worshiped the sun god! They even believed in original sin and baptized infants, praying that the water would wash away the child’s sin. Nor is that all. They also believed in confession to priests, in priestly absolution, and in penance. They even had a form of communion.”

“So they were, like, Catholics?”

“Good heavens, no! The Aztecs were unspeakably violent and bloody. In that civilization priests regularly sacrificed live human beings – and not just one or two, but thousands a time. These people would actually rip the still-beating heart out of a man’s chest so they could present it to their evil god. They were unbelievably violent, bloody, and savage – but they remembered the teachings the Toltecs had passed down, and they remembered that Quetzalcoatl was the one who had given them wisdom. They may have mixed his piety with their bloody savagery, but his piety was not forgotten.”

“That is so weird,” Ashley said. “It’s like Quetzalcoatl was a missionary or something.”

“He does indeed sound like a Catholic missionary,” Professor Grimes agreed. “The religion he left sounds a great deal like Catholicism – confessions, penances, veneration of crosses, infant baptism. Somehow the Toltecs heard some form of Catholic doctrine, which was corrupted through the centuries and handed down to the Aztecs. The likelihood that they came up with something so similar to Catholicism entirely on their own – up to an including the fact that it was taught to them by a bearded white man from across the ocean – is quite remote. It’s worth noting that the Spanish themselves thought that Quetzalcoatl must have been some missionary from ancient times.”

Max spoke up. “I get what you’re saying but I’m still not buying it. You just can’t build a boat out of snakeskins and cross the Atlantic with it! That’s not how it works.”

“That’s actually an interesting point,” the professor replied. “When Cortez landed he had his men burn their boats. He did this as a rather extreme form of motivation. By burning the boats behind them he made it clear that the only way his men would ever get home is if they conquered the Aztecs and forced them to rebuild their ships. The natives knew nothing about shipbuilding, but the Spanish did and that was enough. In other words, it was possible for someone who knew how to build a ship to guide the natives into building one. Cortez did it and managed to get home successfully, so it’s not out of the question that Quetzalcoatl may have done it as well.

“But as far as the snakeskin part goes, it’s worth noting that when the Toltecs and the Aztecs were around there were no large beasts of burden in that part of the world. Neither of those civilizations had cows, horses, or oxen, and they were also unfamiliar with tar or pitch. Instead of leather they used snakeskin, simply because that was all they had. Since Quetzalcoatl did not have access to tar to make his ship watertight, perhaps he used the skins of snakes and alligators instead. Boats of that type were not unheard-of at that time in history. At the very least, it’s possible.”

Max spoke up. “So let’s say that maybe all of that happened. Maybe a white Catholic missionary guy did cross the ocean a long time ago and brought Catholicism to Mexico, and maybe he got the natives to build him a ship so he could go back home. That still doesn’t explain this whole ‘I’ll be back one day’ prophecy. That sounds more like a legend to me.”

“But what if he did plan on coming back?” the professor asked. “What if he did not mean ‘I will be back centuries from now’, but instead ‘I will return in a couple years?’ What if he was simply prevented from returning, and the Toltecs had such a high opinion of him that they assumed he would come back no matter how many centuries had passed?”

“That just seems like a lot of what-ifs,” Max replied. “How could you possibly know that’s what happened?”

Professor Grimes smiled. “Because we have a good idea of exactly who Quetzalcoatl actually was. Now, keep in mind that the information I am about to give you is recorded in eleven different manuscripts that date from the 11th to 14th centuries. This is not based on a single crazy account that was recorded by an inept lunatic. As historical events go, this is actually well-documented.

“Around 550 AD there was an Irish bishop named St. Brendan the Navigator, who founded a monastery in Cloufert and was the head of an order of 3,000 monks. One day he looked across the ocean and realized that there might be people on the other side who had never head of God. With this in mind he decided to embark on a missionary journey. After building his boat, making ready for a long voyage, and assembling his crew he left from Tralee Bay and headed southwest. After many weeks of travel he eventually found land, and he spent seven years in the country he discovered, teaching them Catholic doctrine and customs. At the end of that time he left and promised to return. St. Brendan arrived home safely, and after a period of years he tried to go back. However, the winds and currents were contrary and he was forced to return to Ireland, where he died in 575 at the age of 94.

“Now, keep in mind that the earliest surviving manuscripts that discuss his voyage date to the 11th century – a full five hundred years before Cortez landed and heard the legend of Quetzalcoatl. The story of St. Brendan was not made up after-the-fact. The man himself bears a striking resemblance to Quetzalcoatl – both were tall bearded white men, well advanced in years, and whose home was across the ocean. Moreover, the Toltec civilization did exist in the 6th century and survived for centuries after.”

Lora spoke up. “So are you saying that, like, Quetzalcoatl was actually an Irish bishop named St. Brendan?”

“I am saying that that is a distinct possibility,” the professor replied. “The timing is right, it fits the facts, and the historical records of his voyage predate Cortez by a wide margin. It is impossible to say for certain, but it is quite plausible.”

“So let’ say that all this is true,” Max said. “What’s the point? How does it change anything?”

The professor paused before replying. “In our own time it is quite common for historians to dismiss much of the past as mere myths and legends. Ancient peoples recorded a great many amazing things; the story of Quetzalcoatl is but one example. There are also records of giants, and dragons, and countless other extraordinary phenomena. Yet today, despite ample records and documentation, we dismiss these accounts as pure fantasy. We do not believe in such things, so, therefore, they must be false. We believe that ancient people were petty liars at worst, or unbelievably stupid half-wits at best. We simply do not take them seriously.

“What we must do is open our minds to the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, they were actually telling the truth. What if Quetzalcoatl really was a real person? What if there really were dragons? What other things have our ancestors told us about the past that we’ve missed because we’ve refused to listen? We assume that we know it all, even though they were eyewitnesses and we were not. I think our own arrogance has blinded us to all sorts of things.”

The professor glanced up at the clock. “And it looks like that’s all the time we have today. Be sure to read chapter 9 for next week, and don’t forget about your writing assignment that’s due. Class dismissed!”

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