Quote

p. 559 ... in purely chronological terms, the rise of Chichen Itza began during the Late Classic period. But its ascendancy as the dominant capital in Yucatan corresponds to the Terminal Classic—in fact, Chichen Itza’s dominance appears to have lasted later than that of any other Classic city, until ca. AD 1050-1100. . . .

The expansion of commerce by the Gulf Coast Chontal groups [BOM these were the people who brought Central Mexican ideology] was a major catalyst for the socioeconomic and political changes of the Terminal Classic.. . .”

p. 560 According to the Yucatan chronicles written during the Spanish colonial era, a new group of peoples arrived in Yucatan beginning ca. AD 800. The chroniclers called these new people the Itza, or people “who speak our language brokenly” (probably referring to a Mayan language only partially intelligible to Yukatek Mayan speakers).

p. 563 The Carnegie excavations found that the upper platform of the caracole as associated with a stela dated to 906. [BOM Terminal Classic and after the incursion of the Chontal]Round structures were often temples associated with Ehecatl, the wind-deity aspect of Quetzalcoatl [K’uk’ulcan] in Central Mexico, so it is likely that the Caracol had a similar function at Chichen Itza.

p. 568-9 “Within a century or so of its founding Chichen Itza grew to dominate central Yucatan.. . Its success in maintaining control over is vast domain lay in its economic prosperity, an effective political system, and a new religions ideology [BOM the renewed cult of Quetzalcoatl/K’uk’ulcan].. . . Finally, a new ideology centered on the cult of K’uk’ulcan also played a major role in inspiring confidence and in facilitating financial success and communication through out Mesoamerica. Chichen Itza, with its temples, Great Ball Court, and its sacred cenote, was the setting for major religions celebrations and also benefited from being a major pilgrimage destination.

Quote

p. 269 For several centuries after the end of the Classic, many waves of people migrated from the Gulf Coast to the areas of Chiapas and the Petén. Some of the clearest indications of these migrations are the early sculptures, made by a culture that has been called hybrid (mestiza), at sites on the Pasión River. J. Eric S. Thompson identified their place of origin as the border area between Tabasco and Campeche, and identified the invaders as Putun-Chontal, permeated with Central Mexican ideology. The invading waves followed several routes: toward the jungle, north to the Yucatán Peninsula, or across the course of the Chixoy River toward the high valleys of Guatemala.

Either gradually or radically, these men imposed a militaristic political order in which a few capitals tried to absorb all the surrounding native cities. It was said, that some of these invaders spoke a strange Maya language, that they practiced and preached exotic religious ideas, and had scandalous practices. In the north as well as in the south, the rulers of these new entities claimed to represent an individual called Feathered Serpent, and some of them actually called themselves that.”
. . .
p. 271 On the basis of the contradictory colonial documents, it is believed that, at the end of the 10th Century, the first Zuyuá wave came to the Puuc Region and occupied the formerly powerful city of Uucil Abnal (later called Chichén Itzá). The paintings and sculptures of the city show the invaders with cylindrical helmets, protected by stylized butterfly pectorals, armed with spear throwers, and adorned with dorsal disks. Some helmets have a butterfly insignia or a descending bird as a mosaic design. The spear throwers are decorated with feather tufts. In short, they are dressed like warriors from Tula. In battle scenes they are led by the Feathered Serpent, and, if this were not enough, the tradition associated them to a ruler called Kukulkan, which like Quetzalcoatl, means “Feathered Serpent.”

After the Zuyuá conquered the native population, the Uucil Abnal became the political power in the Puuc Region. On the basis of some images of the court found in the substructure of the Temple of Warriors, we think it is possible that, from then on, there was a dual Zuyuá/Maya government. Apparently, a long time after the first wave, a second wave of Zuyuá came made up of people called Itzá by the sources. It is difficult to determine if they belonged to the same ethnic group. What is known for certain is, that the second wave were the ones who changed the old name of the city to Chichén Itzá. Their ruler was also called Kukulkan like his remote ancestor. Some time after that, other Zuyuá would establish Mayapán to the west.
. . .
p. 274 Zuyuá’s ideology can be seen archaeologically in Yucatán. It can be discerned in the arrangement of their buildings and their iconography, which responded to very specific ideas about the cosmos, ritual rules, and political organization. Above all, however, the architecture and iconography imitated elements found in the Tula of Central Mexico, which itself was the most prestigious terrestrial copy of the mythical Zuyuá.

The Zuyuá used architectural space in a very characteristic way. The small, dark rooms, where the rulers of the Classic contacted the gods, in an almost familiar way, and the relatively small throne rooms, were replaced by larger halls with flat roofs supported by columns, where a larger number of people participated in political decisions and in the religious ceremonies of the warrior orders. Simultaneously, the images of the feathered serpent, a mythical being part human, bird, and reptile, chac mools, and atlantes, who supported the heavens or the surface of the earth above their heads, proliferated. Military power, converted into a sacred symbol, duplicated adornments, weapons and insignias originating in the West, rows of skulls, standard bearers and images of eagles and jaguars devourers of human hearts.

Even more than Tula, Chichén Itzá is the purest earthly expression of Zuyuá architecture, and it is an expression that harmoniously combines foreign and native styles. Its heart is the grand temple, which Landa identified as Kukulkan’s, where Puuc stylistic elements combine with Zuyuá effigies. Called El Castillo today, it is a pyramid with serpentine balustrade stairways on all four sides. The Ball court is the biggest and most impressive in Mesoamerica. The Temple of the Warriors sits on an exceptional platform with hypostyle corridors. In short, the city is a fitting earthly residence for the God, Kukulkan.

Quote

This review is from: Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God (Hardcover)

This book simply re-hashes what other eurocentric writers have written over the past 400 years. It is full of inaccuracies and re-enforces stereotypes that hinder a deeper knowledge of the Quetzalcoatl phenomenon.

For Example, there is no mention that the often quoted claim that Quezalcoatl was a white man, dates only to the 1770's in Creole Mexico.

The "criollos" White Europeans that had the bad luck of being born on the American continent were considered less intelligent by the "peninsulares" or those actually born on the Spanish mainland. So the creoles began to create a "Mexican" national identity that boasted of the cultural heritage of the precolumbians (ironically, the ones that they had sought to exterminate 200 years earlier!) Instead of having Saint James (Sanitago or San Diego) come from Israel to Spain, they created the myth that Saint Thomas came to Mexico where he was considered a god... a white god.

The creation of a white Quetzalcoatl, and the parallel creation of the Guadalupe cult (that mirrored the original Guadalupe story in Estremadurra Spain), were meant to give the creoles equal status in the eyes of God (and thus make them equal to the Peninsulares). Never mid that this ideology did not include the indigenous, mestizo, and African slave communities that made up the vast majority of Mexicans, then as they do today.

This is why I consider this book a waste of paper. [www.amazon.com]