Gukumatz
Encyclopedia
Mesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...
K'iche Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
. Q'uq'umatz was the feathered serpent god
Feathered Serpent (deity)
The Feathered Serpent was a prominent supernatural entity or deity, found in many Mesoamerican religions. It was called Quetzalcoatl among the Aztecs, Kukulkan among the Yucatec Maya, and Q'uq'umatz and Tohil among the K'iche' Maya...
of the Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
who created humanity together with the god Tepeu
Tepeu
Tepeu is a word of the K'iche' Maya language meaning "sovereign" . The title is associated with the god Gukumatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of the Popol Vuh; his whole name translating as "Sovereign Plumed Serpent"...
. Q'uq'umatz is considered to be the rough equivalent of the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
god Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
, and also of Kukulkan
Kukulkan
Kukulkan is the name of a Maya snake deity that also serves to designate historical persons. The depiction of the feathered serpent deity is present in other cultures of Mesoamerica. Kukulkan is closely related to the god Q'uq'umatz of the K'iche' Maya and to Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs...
of the Yucatec Maya tradition. It is likely that the feathered serpent deity was borrowed from one of these two peoples and blended with other deities to provide the god Q'uq'umatz that the K'iche' worshipped. Q'uq'umatz may have had his origin in the Valley of Mexico
Valley of Mexico
The Valley of Mexico is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including...
; some scholars have equated the deity with the Aztec deity Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl
Ehecatl
Ehecatl is a pre-Columbian deity associated with the wind, who features in Aztec mythology and the mythologies of other cultures from the central Mexico region of Mesoamerica. He is most usually interpreted as the aspect of the Feathered Serpent deity as a god of wind, and is therefore also known...
, who was also a creator god
Creator deity
A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...
. Q'uq'umatz may originally have been the same god as Tohil
Tohil
Tohil was a deity of the K'iche' Maya in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Tohil was the patron god of the K'iche'. Tohil's principal function was that of a fire deity and he was also both a sun god and the god of rain. Tohil was also associated with...
, the K'iche' sun god
Solar deity
A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms...
who also had attributes of the feathered serpent, but they later diverged and each deity came to have a separate priesthood.
Q'uq'umatz was one of the gods who created the world in the Popul Vuh, the K'iche' creation epic. Q'uq'umatz, god of wind and rain, was closely associated with Tepeu
Tepeu
Tepeu is a word of the K'iche' Maya language meaning "sovereign" . The title is associated with the god Gukumatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of the Popol Vuh; his whole name translating as "Sovereign Plumed Serpent"...
, the god of lightning and fire. Both of these deities were considered to be the mythical ancestors of the K'iche' nobility by direct male line. Q'uq'umatz carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos. The deity was particularly associated with water, clouds , the wind and the sky.
Kotuja', the K'iche' king who founded the city of Q'umarkaj, bore the name of the deity as a title and was likely to have been a former priest of the god. The priests of Q'uq'umatz at Q'umarkaj, the K'iche' capital, were drawn from the dominant Kaweq dynasty and acted as stewards in the city.
Etymology and symbolism
The name translates literally as "Quetzal Serpent" although it is often rendered less accurately as "Feathered Serpent". The name derives from the K'iche' wordK'iche' language
The K’iche’ language is a part of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by many K'iche' people in the central highlands of Guatemala. With close to a million speakers , it is the second-most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish...
q'uq, referring to the Resplendent Quetzal
Resplendent Quetzal
The Resplendent Quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, is a bird in the trogon family. It is found from southern Mexico to western Panama . It is well known for its colorful plumage. There are two subspecies, P. m. mocinno and P. m...
Pharomachrus mocinno, a brightly coloured bird of the cloud forest
Cloud forest
A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and...
s of southern Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
. This is combined with the word kumatz, meaning "snake". The male Resplendent Quetzal boasts iridescent blue-green tail feathers measuring up to 1 metres (3.3 ft) long that were prized by the Maya elite. The blue-green feathers symbolised vegetation and the sky, both symbols of life for the ancient Maya, while the bright red feathers of the bird's chest symbolised fire. Together, this combination gave a profound religious symbolism to the bird. The snake was a Maya symbol of rebirth due to its habit of shedding its skin to reveal a fresher one underneath. Q'uq'umatz thus combined the celestial characteristics of the Quetzal with the serpentine underworld powers of the snake, giving him power over all levels of the Maya universe. These characteristics also indicated a sexual duality between his masculine feathered serpent aspect and his feminine association with water and wind. This duality enabled the god to serve as a mediator between the masculine sun god Tohil
Tohil
Tohil was a deity of the K'iche' Maya in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Tohil was the patron god of the K'iche'. Tohil's principal function was that of a fire deity and he was also both a sun god and the god of rain. Tohil was also associated with...
and the feminine moon goddess Awilix
Awilix
Awilix was a goddess of the Postclassic K'iche' Maya, who had a large kingdom in the highlands of Guatemala. She was the patron deity of the Nija'ib' noble lineage at the K'iche' capital Q'umarkaj, with a large temple in the city...
, a role that was symobolised with the Mesoamerican ballgame
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Mesoamerican ballgame or Tlatchtli in Náhuatl was a sport with ritual associations played since 1,000 B.C. by the pre-Columbian peoples of Ancient Mexico and Central America...
.
In ancient Maya highland texts Q'uq'umatz is strongly associated with water, which in turn is associated with the underworld. The K'iche' are reported to have believed that Q'uq'umatz was a feathered serpent that moved in the water. In the Annals of the Cakchiquels, it is related that a group of highland Maya referred to themselves as the Gucumatz because their only salvation was said to be in the water. The Kaqchikel Maya were closely linked to the K'iche' and one of their ancestors, Gagavitz, was said to have thrown himself into Lake Atitlán
Lago de Atitlán
Lake Atitlán is a large endorheic lake in the Guatemalan Highlands. Atitlan is recognized to be the deepest lake in Central America with maximum depth about 340 meters. The lake is shaped by deep escarpments which surround it and by three volcanos on its southern flank...
and transformed himself into the deity, thus raising a storm upon the water and forming a whirlpool.
Among the K'iche' Q'uq'umatz not only appeared as a feathered serpent, he was also embodied as an eagle and a jaguar, he was also known to transform himself into a pool of blood. The deity was sometimes represented by a snail or conch shell and was associated with a flute made from bones. As well as being associated with water, Q'uq'umatz was also associated with clouds and the wind.
Q'uq'umatz, the sun and the ballgame
Q'uq'umatz was not directly equivalent to the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, he combined his attributes with those of the Classic PeriodMesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...
Chontal Maya creator god Itzamna
Itzamna
In Yucatec Maya mythology, Itzamna was the name of an upper god and creator deity thought to be residing in the sky. Little is known about him, but scattered references are present in early-colonial Spanish reports and dictionaries. Twentieth-century Lacandon lore includes tales about a creator...
and was a two headed serpentine sky monster that carried the sun across the sky. Sculptures of a human face emerging between the jaws of a serpent were common from the end of the Classic Period through to the Late Postclassic and may represent Q'uq'umatz in the act of carrying Hunahpu, the youthful avatar of the sun god Tohil, across the sky. After midday, Q'uq'umatz continued into the west and descended towards the underworld bearing an older sun. Such sculptures were used as markers for the Mesoamerican ballgame. Since Q'uq'umatz acted as a mediator between Tohil and Awilix and their incarnations as the Maya Hero Twins
Maya Hero Twins
The Maya Hero Twins are the central figures of a narrative included within the colonial Quiché document called Popol Vuh, and constituting the oldest Maya myth to have been preserved in its entirety. Called Hunahpu and Xbalanque in Quiché, the Twins have also been identified in the art of the...
Hunahpu and Ixbalanque, the positioning of such ballcourt
Mesoamerican ballcourt
A Mesoamerican ballcourt is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. Over 1,300 ballcourts have been identified, 60% in the last 20 years alone...
markers on the east and west sides of north-south oriented ballcourts would represent Q'uq'umatz carrying the sun to the zenith with the east marker carrying Hunahpu/Tohil in its jaws, while the west marker would represent the descent of the sun into the underworld and would be carrying Ixbalanque/Awilix in its jaws.
No ballgame markers are known from the heart of the K'iche' kingdom and investigators such as Fox consider it significant that these images of Q'uq'umatz carrying the sun are found in the eastern periphery facing the underworld due to the use of the ballgame in mediating political conflict.
Modern belief
The various Feathered Serpent deities remained popular in Mesoamerican folk traditions after the Spanish Conquest but by the 20th century Q'uq'umatz appeared only rarely among the K'iche'. A tradition was recorded by Juan de León that Q'uq'umatz assisted the sun-god Tohil in his daily climb to the zenith. According to De León, who may have gathered the information from elders in Santa Cruz del QuichéSanta Cruz del Quiché
Santa Cruz del Quiché is a city in Guatemala. It serves as the capital of El Quiché department and the municipal seat of Santa Cruz del Quiché municipality.The city is located at , at an elevation of 2,021 m above sea level...
, the feathered serpent gripped Tohil in his jaws to carry him safely up into the sky.
The Popol Vuh
In the beginning of the Popol VuhPopol Vuh
Popol Vuh is a corpus of mytho-historical narratives of the Post Classic Quiché kingdom in Guatemala's western highlands. The title translates as "Book of the Community," "Book of Counsel," or more literally as "Book of the People."...
, Q'uq'umatz is depicted as afloat in the primordial sea with Tepeu
Tepeu
Tepeu is a word of the K'iche' Maya language meaning "sovereign" . The title is associated with the god Gukumatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of the Popol Vuh; his whole name translating as "Sovereign Plumed Serpent"...
, wrapped in quetzal feathers. Nothing yet existed, only the sea at rest under the sky. Soon Q'uq'umatz and Tepeu discussed the creation of man and it was decided between them to raise the earth and create mankind. The gods spoke the word "Earth" and the earth was formed as if from a mist. They then called forth the mountains from the water and the mountains rose at their command. Forests of pine and cypress then sprung up among the newly formed mountains and valleys. Q'uq'umatz was pleased with their collaborative creation of the earth and thanked the other gods that were present. The gods created animals such as the deer, the birds, pumas, jaguars and different types of snakes. They instructed each animal where it should live. The gods then commanded that the animals should give them praise and worship them. However, the animals could not speak and simply squawked, chattered and roared in their own manner. Q'uq'umatz soon realized that their first attempt at the creation of beings was a failure as they could not give them praise and so they condemned the animals to live in the forests and ravines. Their animals were ordered to live in the wild and to let their flesh be eaten by the ones who will keep the days of the gods and show them praise.
They first formed men of mud, but in this form man could neither move nor speak and quickly dissolved into nothingness. Later, they created men of sculpted wood, which Huracan destroyed as the wooden manikins were imperfect, emotionless and showed no praise to the gods. The survivors were then transformed into monkeys, and sentenced to live in the wild. Q'uq'umatz and Tepeu were finally successful in their creation by constructing men out of maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
. Here the first men were formed: B'alam Agab, B'alam Quitzé, Iqi B'alam, Mahucatah. Their sight was far and they understood all.
The Popol Vuh also mentions a historic ruler of the K'iche' who bore the name or title of the deity, probably because he drew some of his power from the god. This title of "Feathered Serpent", was an important title used for historical figures in other parts of Mesoamerica, the personal name of this king was likely to have been Kotuja'. This individual was likely to have been an Aj Q'uq'umatz, or priest of Q'uq'umatz, before he became the Aj pop (king). This king was said to have refounded the K'iche' capital at Q'umarkaj.
Temple and priesthood at Q'umarkaj
The priests of Q'uq'umatz were drawn from an important lineage among the ruling Kaweq dynasty and this was likely to have been a source of power and prestige for the Kaweq. The priests were known as Aj Q'uq'umatz, meaning "he of Q'uq'umatz". The priests of Q'uq'umatz and of Tepeu, his partner in the K'iche' creation myth (the Aj Q'uq'umatz and the Tepew Yaki), also served as stewards in Q'umarkaj and were responsible for receiving and guarding any tribute payments and plunder that were returned to the city. Although K'iche' priests were generally of lower rank than secular officials, the priests of the Kaweq lineages were an exception, and this included the priests of Q'uq'umatz, Tepeu and Tohil.