Topiltzin and Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs (review)

Quetzalcoatl is at one and the same time the most fascinating figure in preconquest society and religion and one of the most confusing. Identified as a great priest-ruler of Tollan, deified as the wind god and the planet Venus, he was also viewed as the great giver of technology and advocate of a peaceful religion that repudiated human sacrifice. He was seen as a proto-Christian, identified with Saint Thomas by Fray Diego de Durán and Francisco de Burgoa and, in the most extreme form, by Servando Teresa de Mier. In later accounts he was a bearded white man who was to come and reclaim his kingdom. The historical figure behind these stories has been lost in the mist of time and the swirl of legend. As Nicholson says, "The further one works back in time the more the smoke of legend obscures the fire of genuine history" (195). In this work the author seeks to discover what can be known about the man, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, rather than the god Ehecatl Quetzalcoatl. It is a daunting task, and insofar as any human being can do so, Nicholson has succeeded.

This book has had one of the more remarkable gestations of any current work of scholarship. Originally it was a doctoral dissertation submitted to and accepted by the Department of Anthropology of Harvard University in 1957.

Though known and used in scholarly circles, it was never published, for reasons that are still not entirely clear. Eventually, through the intercession of friends and colleagues, the author revised the work for publication, and after forty-six years it is available to the general public.

The book's ambitious, and challenging, purpose is, in the words of Alfredo López Austin's prologue, to consolidate the dispersed and contradictory sources on the life of the figure of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, analyze them carefully, and provide an erudite commentary. These sources are vast, confused, inconsistent, and chaotic. The author's approach is geographical, beginning with central Mexico and then moving to the peripheries. The story becomes more confused the farther it moves from central Mexico. Nicholson begins by surveying native language accounts and non-Nahuatl accounts in central Mexico. From there he moves to Oaxaca, Chiapas, Highland Guatemala, Nicaragua, Tabasco-Campeche, and Yucatán. He then considers the archeological evidence, especially the iconographic, and concludes with his evaluation and interpretation of all the evidence. Within each chapter the approach is rigidly logical: he gives a description of the source (invaluable for those who are not specialists in the literature), the Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl material, a summary of that material, followed by a commentary. It is a clear approach, but the sheer volume and detailed nature of the sources at times is overwhelming.

The author finds a historical nucleus to the incredibly complex tale of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. He cites evidence for the "borrowed throne" concept and the controverted story of the Mexica's initial identification of Cortés with the returning god. However, he also believes that "the white-skinned ‘foreign missionary' version of the tale is largely late and unreliable" (290). In noting his disagreements with other specialists, the author maintains a welcome tone of moderation and professional courtesy, qualities often lacking in contemporary controversies.

In general the book is well edited, with a map and both color and black and white illustrations that are very helpful. This reviewer takes exception to only one editorial decision: to retain citations in their original languages. This is perhaps understandable with regard to Spanish, since it can be presumed that most readers will be conversant with it. It is less easily understood in the case of the archaic French of Histoyre du mechique (12–15), which many will find difficult. The same is true of the slightly less-archaic Italian (63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70), modern...