Five centuries ago, Europeans became familiar with the legendary figure of Quetzalcoatl, an Aztec deity who is credited with bringing civilization to Mesoamerica. Many interpretations of his legend have been offered. Some see Him as just a mythical god. Some believe He was an early ruler who was deified upon His death. An early Mexican priest, Diego Durán, believed him to be a disciple of Christ who came to preach the gospel in Mesoamerica. A different approach was made possible with the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, as it is conceivable that Quetzalcoatl was a Manifestation of God occupying a station similar to that of Buddha, Christ, or Muhammad.
The problems studying Quetzalcoatl are immense, for Spanish conquistadors and missionaries destroyed most of the sources documenting His life and teachings. This paper will explore what is known about Him to demonstrate that He could have been one of the most important Manifestations of God in the Americas. My sources for this analysis derive from H.B. Nicolson’s paper “Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan: A Problem in Mesoamerican Ethnohistory.” His paper summarizes all the earliest sources available on Quetzalcoatl. Treating each source separately, he concludes with his interpretation of this confusing material. Although he was not aware of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings about the Manifestations of God, the evidence he gathered demonstrates that Quetzalcoatl brought a high level of civilization to Mesoamerica and that He taught His followers to lead virtuous lives. He was persecuted for His teachings, wandered through Mesoamerica, and promised to return in the future. His influence was possibly felt as far away as the Rio Grande Valley and the Mississippi Delta. Although we can never say with certainty that He was a Manifestation of God, the possibility excites the imagination and demonstrates the universality of the Creator’s love for all mankind.
Dr. Joseph Weixelman is a historian of the American West researching topics relating to national parks and Indigenous peoples and, most importantly, where the two intersect. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in anthropology, and his work included an honors paper entitled, “The Traditional Navajo Religion and the Bahá’í Faith,” which was published in World Order in 1985. He earned his Master’s degree at Montana State University in 1992 with a thesis that led to an important revision of Yellowstone National Park’s history. Titled “Fear or Reverence?: Native Americans and the Geysers of Yellowstone,” it was published in Yellowstone Science in 2001. His doctorate came from the University of New Mexico in 2004. His dissertation, titled “Interpreting the ‘Anasazi Myth’: How the Pueblo Indians Disappeared from the Story,” was published as a chapter in Preserving Western History: Public History and Historic Preservation in the American West, edited by Andrew Gulliford. In his retirement, he continues to research these topics and volunteers regularly at Petroglyph National Monument. He was a high school history teacher for eleven years in Colorado and Wyoming and a seasonal ranger at Yellowstone and Mesa Verde National Parks and Petroglyph National Monument for fourteen years. He also taught American history, history of the American West, American Indian history, the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and other topics at Wayne State College in Nebraska for sixteen years. While at Wayne State College, he supervised the training of social science teachers and evaluated their teaching in classrooms around Nebraska. He maintains his memberships in the Western History Association, Phi Alpha Theta, Phi Gamma Mu, Yellowstone Forever, and the Archaeological Conservancy. He retired from higher education in 2023 and now lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where he serves as chair of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Rio Rancho. He is also a member of the Assembly’s Indigenous Task Force and was recently elected to chair Walking in Beauty, Inc., a non-profit created to carry out its mission to build a memorial for the forgotten Indigenous children lost in the boarding schools. It also strives to empower Indigenous communities through educational programs and cultural initiatives that foster healing and dignity, resilience and capacity building, cross-cultural understanding, and the promotion of the nobility of all humanity.
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