Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Tales of the Feathered Serpent: Refining Our Understanding of an Enigmatic Mesoamerican Being," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Papers in this session attempt to refine our conception of the omnipresent Feathered Serpent, which frequently appears as image, symbol, person, and deity in Mesoamerican and North American visual culture and literature. Uniting the celestial and terrestrial realms by combining the body of a pit viper with the feathers of a bird and known as Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl, K’uk’ulcan in Yucatec Maya, and Q’uq’umatz in K’iche’ Maya, this being embodies multiple themes from rain and wind to rulership and war. Despite the work of H.B. Nicholson and others, the Feathered Serpent remains elusive. In order to clarify the Feathered Serpent, papers will address whether the Feathered Serpent remains constant through time and space; the possibility of identifying which aspect(s) of the Feathered Serpent are referenced in specific visual, linguistic, and written contexts: and the Feathered Serpent’s association with fertility, rulership, religion, and trade.