Quetzalcoatl

   A culture hero of the Toltecs, who was absorbed into the Aztec pantheon. He appears to have been a representative of a race on a higher cultural plane than the Toltecs, who brought many arts and crafts, and who was eventually driven away by a local dignitary, who may have been Tezcatlipoca. He left, promising to return, and when the Spaniards landed it was thought that this was the second coming. He may originally have been a priest of the sun, but later became the feathered serpent, the Aztec god of learning and of priestly functions, and the god Ehecatl of Cholula. He was the lord of the ninth hour of the day. He is similar to Gucumatz of the Popul Vuh, the Kamu of the Arawaks, and many other missionaries of culture, a fact which might indicate an early wave of foreign culture in what are now the Latin American states. He was sometimes called Tlapallan.