A Divinized Hero

A divinized Hero

The symbolic figure of Quetzalcoatl in the myth resembles two different aspects
of supreme importance to the Toltecs mythological explanation of their religious and
cultural believes. On one hand Quetzalcoatl is the god who creates men; he brings men
to live again as a force capable of modifying the world’s destiny and to give answers to
the gods. On the other hand, he isa man who transmits social values, since he is a
hero and priest who teaches men how they have to live; he shares knowledge by
means of his own acts of sacrifice, exemplary behavior and direct instruction of
astronomy, sciences and agriculture, assuring fecundity and abundance for all his
people. This paper is going to explore the fact that these two aspects mentioned before
as forcesconceiving Quetzalcoatl, are in reality just one: He’s a cultural hero
representing a God, a priest and a warrior-king in the same community. A community’s
social imaginary tends to create myths as a way to establish believes and through these
believes they establish order. A Culture Hero is a mythical figure that takes care of the
aspirations or ideals of humanity. Normally the Culture Hero acts incooperation with the
gods or in opposition to them. In addition, the Culture hero is often represented by
animal figures or as a trickster. Quetzalcoatl is the ideal Culture Hero of the Toltec
people. He is a hero that went to the Dead Land to restore the life of human being. He
is also a hero who discovered how to feed his people. As a hero, Quetzalcoatl

2
Vargas
protected his people evenwhen demons asked for human sacrifices. Moreover he is a
civilized hero who passed all his knowledge on to his subjects.
Quetzalcoatl, is described in the myth to be the creator of men. However, I
considerer that this assumption has a metaphoric meaning, since he brought man to a
spiritual and civilized life, not only to his material form. He was a man, who they
adored, essentially because hehad human attributes. I will approach this subject by
developing some passages of the myth considered to be the most illustrative in terms of
explaining this rebirth symbolism that attributes Quetzalcoatl exceptional characteristics
as the benefactor of the human kind.
The analogy of his trip to the underworld to bring the bones and provide life
again, shows an intricate symbolism in theAztecs world, to present the humanity birth
explanation of the typical mythological tail. Consequently, he is the creator of the
spiritual man, by enriching the world with civilization and ethics. Usually, mythological
constructions are part of the social imaginary, and provide a very strong medium of
cultural identification for the people who believe in them. Typically, the idea of a God as
anomniscient entity and supreme forces driving the world’s course, is characteristic of
almost every culture who has religious believes. The same was for the Toltecs; the myth
mentions Quetzalcoatl was part of the assembly in which Gods were to decide who was
going to occupy the earth. This gives him the proper attributes of a god, however, he
serves as the warrior that concretize the godsrequest because he is the one who
descends to the Dead Land and and brings the precious bones to the surface again.
Descending to the underworld has a symbolic meaning because a number of Gods
were struggling with the same question and is Quetzalcoatl who transforms God’s

3
Vargas
desires into actions: “Who shall live?” (pg. 17, line 1-2). It is Quetzalcoatl who takes the
action for it, andhe made this trip to the Land of the Dead to give humans their life back
(pg. 17, line 9-16).
The underworld adventure fragment will allow us concretize some inherent
features in the personality of Quetzalcoatl as for the warrior who brought humans into
life again. Enrique Florescano states in his book The Myth of Quetzalcoatl that “the
symbolism of the myth must be explained according to...