Download Why did Moctezuma think that Cortés looked like Quetzalcóatl

Why did Moctezuma think that Cortés looked like Quetzalcóatl? Asked by Longshaw Primary School. Chosen and
answered by Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto: Pilot
He didn’t. At least, there’s no evidence that he did and lots of reasons to
think he didn’t. No contemporary document or account mentions
Quetzalcoatl or suggests that Moctezuma or any other indigenous person
thought Cortés was in any sense divine.
Cortés’s account of his meeting with the Aztec paramount includes a speech
the conquistador made up and put into Moctezuma’s mouth. We can be
sure Moctezuma never said what Cortés claimed, since Cortés’s version of
the speech contains allusions to the bible and to Spanish legal traditions sources inaccessible at the time to the Aztecs. Cortés did make Moctezuma
say that he and his people awaited the return of the descendants or
Cortés with the image of Quetzalcóatl
hovering behind him (Click on image to representatives of an unnamed past ruler. This sort of legend is common,
enlarge)
especially among coastal peoples, but it is unlikely that it existed among the
highlanders of central Mexico. Cortés may have picked it up on the coast or
made it up. In any case, his purpose was not to give a true account of what Moctezuma said, but to bolster his claim that
the Aztec ruler had voluntarily surrendered sovereignty to the Spaniards. This would obviate or answer awkward
questions (which people back in Spain really did ask) about what right the Spaniards had to dispossess the indigenous
rulers.
The claim that Aztecs mistook Cortés for a supernatural being arose in the 1530s, and became associated with
Quetzalcoatl in particular in the 1540s, when people in New Spain were looking back and trying to explain what had
happened to them. The idea that native morale or will to resist was undermined by awe at Spaniards’ divine powers was
one of many competing and probably false ‘solutions’ to the problem of how a newly arrived elite from Spain had come
to exercise so much power in the region.
The idea that the natives mistook the intruders for gods may have
arisen simply because stories about people being mistaken for gods
are commonplace in literature (which is also a good reason not to
believe them - literature warps the way people interpret experiences
and colours the way they remember or misremember the past).
Moreover, one of the words the natives used to designate the
Spaniards resembled European words for ‘god’ (Spanish Dios, Latin
deus) and could be used to mean ‘god’. But it was also a general,
polite term of honour - rather as people in English used to say ‘Your
Scenes from the Florentine Codex, Book XII,
worship’ when addressing those to whom they wished to show or
showing Moctezuma’s envoys meeting the
Spanish between the mountains of Iztactépetl and
pretend to show deference.
Popocatépetl and reporting back to the Aztec
Why Quetzalcoatl in particular? According to a conquistador’s
Emperor (Click on image to enlarge)
memory, recorded when he was an old man, one of his comrades in
arms had a helmet emblazoned with an image that reminded some natives, including Motecozuma, of the deity
Huitzilopochtli - but that fact, for what it is worth, hardly helps explain the confusion with Quetzalcoatl. According to an
equally untrustworthy account, which Franciscan friars recorded in the 1540s, on the basis of information they gathered
in Tlatelolco (the community next to Tenochtitlan), Mexican ambassadors gave Cortés a costume representing
Quetzalcoatl when he first arrived on the coast. This may help to explain how the confusion with Quetzalcoatl arose in
historians’ minds in the early colonial period, but even if true, the story would not mean that natives mistook Cortés for
the god: Aztec priests and nobles exchanged divine disguises for many ceremonial purposes and in war, as well as to
mark certain festivals in the calendar: indeed many cultures use such costumes in similar circumstances, without
thinking that the wearer is really divine.
It is wise, in general, to be sceptical about stories that represent
non-European peoples, in conflicts with Westerners, as superstitious
or cowed by the white man’s apparent superiority. Such stories are
often attempts to justify conquests and empires by making subjectpeoples look feeble-minded or self-condemned to subordination by
their own convictions of inferiority.
Cortés and Quetzalcóatl - any resemblance? (Click
on image to enlarge)
DID MONTEZUMA THINK CORTEZ WAS THE GOD QUETZALCOATL? Flight Attendant
Dec, 2011 byRosarie Salerno
It is a well know fact that after the conquest, the victor writes the history. The accounts of the initial meeting between Hernan
Cortez and Montezuma II, in 1519 CE, are based upon the writings of the Spanish; most of the written history on their first
meeting by the Aztecs, if any, was more than likely destroyed during the conquest. The contention that Montezuma thought
that Cortez was the god Quetzalcoatl is based upon the writings of Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagun, who was present with
Cortez in 1519, and a document, the Florentine Codex, that was written more than 50 years after the fact.
Father Sahagun quoted a speech addressing Cortez at their meeting:
“You have graciously come on earth, you have graciously approached your water, your high place of Mexico, you have
come down to your mat, your throne, which I have briefly kept for you, I who used to keep it for you. You have graciously
arrived, you have known pain, you have known weariness, now come on earth, take your rest, enter into your palace, rest
your limbs; may our lords come on earth.”
So, the conjecture written 50 years later was based upon that quote and some remarks by Cortez to the Spanish Crown
as to the naiveté of the Aztecs.
Some arguments in favor of Montezuma’s belief that Cortez was the god Quetzalcoatl begin with the god’s promise to
return after he died in a pyre or sailed off in a boat traveling east. Physically, Quetzalcoatl was described in two forms;
one a flying feathered serpent and the other a white -skinned man with a beard. Cortez fit into two of the four
descriptions; he sailed from the east and was white-skinned with a beard.
Quetzalcoatl had a Jesus Christ persona; a loving and beneficent god. He was considered the creator of the 5th world, the
present one, and the organizer of the cosmos. He is associated with the planet Venus, the wind and the rain, knowledge
and learning. He was also believed to have created civilization. He taught the Mesoamericans how to farm corn. He was
believed to have invented writing, books, astronomy and calendars. He forbade human sacrifice, promoting the sacrifice
of birds, butterflies, snakes and grasshoppers instead. He warned the Amerindians that he would return to punish them
if they continued to sacrifice humans.
Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, beginning in 1509, Montezuma believed that there were eight omens predicting the
end of the Aztec civilization, the end of the world. The last of the eight omens in 1517 reported to Montezuma, was the
sighting of “men with two heads”. They were the horse-back riding men of Juan de Grijalva’s expedition. Coinciding with
the arrival of Cortez, which was on the traditional birthday of Quetzalcoatl and during the year of the end of the 52 year
cycle of the Aztec calendar, could have added to the legend. Montezuma may have been confused by all these events.
Then again, there may have been confusion on the part of the Spanish; the possibility of the misinterpretation of the
Nahuatl language for the greeting and/or the fact that the meaning of politeness to the Aztecs represented superiority
to whoever was being polite.
The question remains: was Montezuma II weak and fearful of Cortez, knowing that he may have returned to punish
them or was he the strong leader of the Aztec Empire, extending a welcome to these strange men? I suppose we will
never know for sure what was going on in the mind of Montezuma.
The Legend of Quetzalcóatl: Passenger
Quetzalcoatl: "Feathered Snake." Quetzalcoatl is one of the major deities of the Aztecs, Toltecs, and other Middle
American peoples. The story goes that he descended to Mictlan, the underworld, and gathered the bones of the human
beings of the previous epochs. Upon his return, he sprinkled his own blood upon these bones and thus fashioned the
humans of the new era. After he banned himself from earth, and was burned while traveling on the ocean, the heart of
Quetzalcoatl became the morning-star. According to legend, Quetzalcoatl, described as light-skinned and bearded,
would return one day to rule over his people and destroy his enemies (Tezcatlipoca). Thus, when the Spanish conqueror
Hernán Cortés appeared in 1519, the Aztec king, Montezuma II, was easily convinced that Cortés was the returning god.
According to Aztec legend, Ometecutli, "Lord of Duality," and Omecihuatl, "Lady of Duality," initially created all life and
produced four sons, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli and Tonatiuh, who represented different cardinal
directions and who were associated with different colors. These sons became very powerful, ruling gods.
Quetzalcoatl was a benevolent god, and the founder of agriculture, industry, and the arts. Tezcatlipoca was the patron
of evil and sorcerers, god of the night, omnipotent and multiform. Tezcatlipoca had transformed himself into the first
sun, wanting to light the world. Because he was evil, the other gods were not pleased, and Quetzalcoatl struck
Tezcatlipoca down into the sea, causing Tezcatlipoca to assume the form of a tiger. In the darkness that followed, the
tiger Tezcatlipoca devoured all the giants and humans.
Quetzalcoatl then became the second sun. He ruled until one day Tezcatlipoca reached up with his tiger paw from the
ocean and pulled Quetzacoatl down to earth. The fall of Quetzalcoatl caused a hurricane, which uprooted all growing
things and destroyed man (again). The few humans that survived were turned into monkeys.
The other gods then banished the two quarrelers, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, from the sky and made Tlaloc, god of
rain and heavenly fire, the third sun. But angry Quetzalcoatl caused a rain of fire to devastate the earth, drying up all the
rivers and destroying man (yet again). Those few men who did not perish were transformed into birds.
Quetzalcoatl then made the goddess Chalchiutlicue, "She of the Jade-Green Skirts," the fourth sun. But jealous
Tezcatlipoca sent a flood to destroy both the sun and the earth, and most of humanity perished(for the fourth time).
Those who survived became fish.
In response to the darkness, all of the gods assembled in Teotihuacan to offer sacrifice so that there might be light again.
Two gods sacrificed themselves, such a large offering that, because of the sacrifice, a brilliant moon appeared. The gods,
angered at the moon's nerve, threw a rabbit at it, causing the dark holes in the moon that form the shape of a rabbit.
The sacrifice was, after all, successful, and light returned to the earth.
Quetzalcoatl then descended to the underworld and collected all of the bones of the humans who had been destroyed.
He fashioned new humans by sprinkling the bones with his own blood. Thus the Aztec people are the direct descendants
of Quetzalcoatl himself.
Tezcatlipoca, still angry, laced Quetzalcoatl's drink with a poisonous mushroom, causing him to commit incest with his
sister. Being a good god, Quetzalcoatl was so overcome with shame that he left Teotihuacan, never to return.
Legend has it that Quetzalcoatl's raft caught on fire on the ocean when the sun was especially hot one day, and his ashes
turned into birds and carried his heart back into the sky. This is how Quetzalcoatl became the god of the morning star.
The Aztec people believed that one day, Quetzalcoatl would return to destroy his enemies and reign once again. In
anticipation, every Aztec king was named Quetzalcoatl. Unfortunately, this messianic belief was exploited by the
Spaniards who, upon arrival in Mexico, spoke of peace and prosperity, causing the Aztecs to believe that Quetzalcoatl
himself had returned in the shape of the Spanish priests. Instead, the Spaniards took advantage of the vulnerability of
the Aztecs and the Aztecs, despite their military might, were ruthlessly slaughtered.
The legend of Quetzalcóatl is well known to Mexican children. It is the origin of how the plumed serpent god, originally
from the Toltec region of central Mexico, came to be known to the Maya.
Quetzalcoatl ("feathered snake") is the Aztec name
for the Feathered-Serpent deity of ancient Mesoamerica,
one of the main gods of many Mexican and northern
Central American civilizations.
It tells of a man who was revered as a great mystical leader much in the same ilk as Britain's King Arthur. Though there is
some evidence to suggest that Quetzalcóatl was actually a living man that ruled the Toltecs. He first appeared to the
people of Teotehuican near current day Mexico City, and taught the Toltecs all of their arts and science and became
their ruler and led thir city to great prosperity and importance. He eventually fell in disgrace for violating his own laws
and set himself on fire. He rose in flames to become the planet Venus and vowed to return one day to his people.
After this event, all priests in the Toltec cult were given the title of Quetzalcóatl. One such priest by the name of Ce Acatl
Topiltzin rose to power and proclaimed himself as the second coming of Quetzalcóatl returning as promised, and in 968
AD became king of the Toltec people once again. He reigned for decades and built the Toltec capital of Tula. Eventually
he was disposed of by his enemies and this time sailed east on a raft of snakes, vowing, like the first Quetzalcóatl, to
return one day to rule his people. It is this snake reference that has caused the artwork depicting Quetzalcóatl as
emerging, or being "reborn" as he emerges from the mouth of a serpent.
This raft of snakes carried Quetzalcóatl east and south across the gulf of Mexico to a Yucatan beach. By coincidence, the
Mayan people were, at this time, expecting the return of their plumed serpent god Kukulkan. Kukulkan, in the same
fashion as Quetzalcóatl, promised to return to rule his people after being forced to leave, and he was greeted as the
returning Kukulkan by those that discovered him. Topiltzin-Quetzalcóatl-Kukulkan became the king of the Itzá Maya and
rebuilt the ancient capital of Chichén Itzá. Massive stone sculptures reflecting his image as the plumed serpent god were
built in his honor and can be seen in a large portion of their artwork.
His enemies eventually caught up with him again and he fled to Uxmal where he committed suicide and, according to
legend, was buried under the Temple of the Dwarf where he remains to this day, though no burial plot has yet been
discovered.