Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl: Encyclopedia II - Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl - History

Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl - History

Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl was the Lord of the Toltecs and their major city Tollan.

He was born in the 10th Century, allegedly in what is now the town of Tepoztlán. According to various sources he had four different possible fathers, the most popular of which is Mixcoatl, the name of the God of War, and presumably also an earlier Toltec king. (Mesoamerican leaders and high-priests sometimes took the names of the deity who was their patron.) His mother is at times unnamed, but Chimalma is the most accepted.

He assumed lordship over the Toltecs and migrated his people to Tollan. Reigning in peace and prosperity he contributed much to the lifestyle of the Toltecs with basic ideas such as civilization. He was generally considered a god upon earth by his followers with similar powers to those of his namesake. According to legend, the most accepted fate of the god was that he migrated to Tlapallan where he either died or would rest forever.

Once he left Tollan the name was used by other elite figures to keep a line of succession and was also used by the Mexica to more easily rule over the Toltecs.

The Aztecs had a legend that Quetzalcoatl would one day return, and Emperor Moctezuma II mistook Hernán Cortés for Quetzalcoatl.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki