Hermione Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Duncan Craig Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Bernard passed away?
>
> I'm sorry, yes -
> [www.hallofmaat.com]
>
> > Thanks for reprinting Dr. Townsends paper. If


> > could point you to one sentence that sums up my
> > contention that Eurocentrism isn't just a relic
> of
> > the nineteenth century>
> >
> > "Many aspects of the usual post-conquest
> > uest description of Quetzalcoatl-that he was a
> > peace-loving god who abhorred human sacrifice-
> for
> > example,are obviously European mythological
> > constructs-
> > thus rendering the whole story somewhat
> suspect."
> >
> > Obviously? Really?
>
> Well: the paper's conclusion, certainly.
>
> According to Wiki:
>
>

Quote

>
> The exact significance and attributes of
> Quetzalcoatl varied somewhat between civilizations
> and through history ...
>
> ... a majority of Mesoamericanist scholars such
> as Matthew Restall (2003, 2018[34]), James
> Lockhart (1994), Susan D. Gillespie (1989),
> Camilla Townsend (2003a, 2003b), Louise Burkhart,
> Michel Graulich and Michael E. Smith (2003) among
> others, consider the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortés myth" as
> one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which
> have risen in the early post-conquest period ...
>
> ... In a 1986 paper for Sunstone, he [Brant
> Gardner] noted that during the Spanish Conquest,
> the Native Americans and the Catholic priests who
> sympathized with them felt pressure to link Native
> American beliefs with Christianity, thus making
> the Native Americans seem more human and less
> savage. Over time, Quetzalcoatl's appearance,
> clothing, malevolent nature, and status among the
> gods were reshaped to fit a more Christian
> framework.[40]
>
>

>
> So perhaps it depends which version of
> Quetzalcoatl is being considered.


It does indeed. The problem lies in the many versions. Quetzalcoatl was a post, an office occupied by different men down through history. We have the creator god feathered serpent who is
portrayed as early as 1800 bc in a cave in Guerrero, then the culture hero who denounced human sacrifice and ushered in the Golden Age of the Maya in the fifth century. In 999 ad, the rise and seating of the warlord Tzoltin Quetzalcoatl and finally, the strange case of Cortes greeted as the returning Quetzalcoatl. What strikes me is how the timeline of these Q appearances, whether mythic or historic, are strikingly identical to the heliacial rising of venus in the Mayan Great cycle: five cycles of 104 solar years each. Q had a historical component and a mythic one. Just as Mohammed is the central hero to Islam, or Jesus to Christianity, so Q was to Mesoamerica. The problem that arises, and one that hinders historical research, is that Townsend, Irwin, Hancock and others are viewing it from a narrow perspective. Its like that fable of the six blind men touching an elephant and coming up with six different descriptions.
Townsends contention that Q was a Spanish fabrication, just does not hold up under scrutiny. The legend spans millennia and is embedded deep in Mesoamerican culture. If a fabrication, how is it that the Spanish clergy were so divided about him? The devil? St. Thomas? Jesus? The Council of the Indies was in an uproar how to react to the legend. The clergy in the New World were divided.
They then banned the clergy from discussing or writing about Q, and sent Fra. Jose Acosta to, as Jaqcue LaFaye wrote in "Quetzalcoatl and Quadalupe", "purify the historiography of Mexico".
If Q was a Spanish invention, they were very confused by their own propaganda.
Duncan