Qʼuqʼumatz (Mayan: [qʼuːqʼuːˈmats]; alternatively Gukumatz) was a god of wind and rain of the Postclassic Kʼicheʼ Maya. It was the Feathered Serpent that according to the Popol Vuh created the world and humanity, together with the god Tepeu. It carried the sun across the sky and down into the underworld and acted as a mediator between the various powers in the Maya cosmos. It is considered to be the equivalent of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and of Kukulkan, of the Yucatec Maya. Qʼuqʼumatz was also associated with water, clouds, and the sky. Together with Tepeu, god of lightning and fire, it was considered to be the mythical ancestor of the Kʼicheʼ nobility by direct male line. Kotujaʼ, the Kʼicheʼ king who founded the city of Qʼumarkaj, bore the name of the deity as a title and was likely to have been a former priest of the god. The priests of Qʼuqʼumatz at Qʼumarkaj, the Kʼicheʼ capital, were drawn from the dominant Kaweq dynasty and acted as stewards in the city.
Etymology Qʼuqʼumatz (alternatively Qucumatz, Gukumatz, Gucumatz, Gugumatz, Kucumatz) translates literally as "quetzal serpent" although it is often rendered less accurately as "feathered serpent". The name derives from the Kʼicheʼ word qʼuq, referring to the Resplendent quetzal Pharomachrus mocinno, a brightly coloured bird of the cloud forests of southern Mesoamerica. This is combined with the word kumatz "snake". It is likely that the feathered serpent deity was borrowed from the Aztecs or the Maya and blended with other deities to provide the god Qʼuqʼumatz that the Kʼicheʼ worshipped. Qʼuqʼumatz may have had his origin in the Valley of Mexico; some scholars have equated the deity with the Aztec deity Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, who was also a creator god. Qʼuqʼumatz may originally have been the same god as Tohil, the Kʼicheʼ sun god who also had attributes of the feathered serpent, but they later diverged and each deity came to have a separate priesthood.
Symbolism
The male resplendent quetzal boasts iridescent blue-green tail feathers measuring up to 1 metre (3.3 ft) long that were prized by the Maya elite. The blue-green feathers symbolized vegetation and the sky, both symbols of life for the ancient Maya, while the bright red feathers of the bird's chest symbolized 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. Qʼuqʼumatz 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 and the feminine moon goddess Awilix, a role that was symbolized with the Mesoamerican ballgame. In ancient Maya highland texts Qʼuqʼumatz is strongly associated with water, which in turn is associated with the underworld. The Kʼicheʼ are reported to have believed that Qʼuqʼumatz 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 Kʼicheʼ and one of their ancestors, Gagavitz, was said to have thrown himself into Lake Atitlán and transformed himself into the deity, thus raising a storm upon the water known today as Xocomil. Among the Kʼicheʼ Qʼuqʼumatz 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, Qʼuqʼumatz was also associated with clouds and the wind.
Sun and the ballgame
Qʼuqʼumatz was not directly equivalent to the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, he combined his attributes with those of the Classic Period Chontal Maya creator god Itzamna 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 Qʼuqʼumatz in the act of carrying Hunahpu, the youthful avatar of the sun god Tohil, across the sky. After midday, Qʼuqʼumatz continued into the west and descended towards the underworld bearing an older sun. Such sculptures were used as markers for the Mesoamerican ballgame. Since Qʼuqʼumatz acted as a mediator between Tohil and Awilix and their incarnations as the Maya Hero Twins Hunahpu and Ixbalanque, the positioning of such ballcourt markers on the east and west sides of north-south oriented ballcourts would represent Qʼuqʼumatz 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 Kʼicheʼ 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 Qʼuqʼumatz appeared only rarely among the Kʼicheʼ. A tradition was recorded by Juan de León that Qʼuqʼumatz 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 Quiché, the feathered serpent gripped Tohil in his jaws to carry him safely up into the sky.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
