Customer Reviews

Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a fascinating book which tells you in the most pleasurable way the history of Mexico and how one enduring symbol, the plumed serpent, connects ancient Mexico with modern Mexico. Great illustrations matched by a restrained text makes this a delight to read.

didn't read it yet though i skimmed it and it seems to be a very good portal to the information concerning the Quetzalcoatl myth and of the structures and geography relating to it. all in all i feel as though it is through with the touch of a man with a personal affinity with this astounding story.

very found of this book and the Quetzalcoatl topic look forward to reading it.

this is a response to the garulous 'not good' review above.
actually quetzalcoatl breaks down into two nahuat'l words;quetzal for the beautiful iridescent emerald feathered bird of the exact same name,and coatl which means snake or serpent.
a literal translation would be no other then the obvious bird-snake.I don't think any one would seriously be insulted by the aproximation given in the title,inasmuch as it is the de facto english language denomination of said mexica entitiy.
btw:mexicas never thought of themselves as 'aztecs',which it's an posterior and sort of foreign,also intentionaly misleading name,but that doesn't seem to bother anyone.

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.