The Myths and Legends of the Aztec World: The Holy Serpent

by Mr Ghaz:

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Tracing the distant origins of the great Plumed Serpent Quetzalcoatl as a primeval Mesoamerican fertility and storm deity provides evidence of the serpent’s associations with the sky and the sun. Scholars identify the twin-headed serpent represented in Aztec art and jewelry as an image of the wide sky. The snake also represented the burning power and generative force of the sun: the Aztec sun god Tonatiuh followed a fire snake, or xiuhcoatl, as he made his way across the sky by day. By night, when he had to endure a series of trials in the underworld, the sun fought off his adversaries using the xiuhcoatl as a trick. The solar fire snake became generally associated with physical strength: the Aztecs’ tribal god Huitzilopochtli, who was also a sun god, used a xiuhcoatl to dispatch his brothers and his elder sister the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui when he attacked them with typically martial vigor in the first minutes of his life.

The Myths and Legends of the Aztec World: The Holy Serpent