Dear Cynthia
Thanks for getting me thinking about the relationship between the Quetzal bird, and the plumed serpent God of the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl.
Quetzalcoatl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
It has been suggested, not very authoritatively I think, that Quetzalcoatl was another incarnation of Jesus the Nazarene, the two have in common that they were admired for being as "gentle as doves and wise as serpents." https://www.
The Aztecs were a nomadic people who originated in (what is now) the American southwest. https://en.
Very few people know that the Aztecs were latecomers to Mexico, not settling on 3 islands in Lago Texcoco until 1325, and within 200 years of their rapidly-ascendant empire that took primacy over virtually all central Mexico's tributary tribes, most notably the Tlaxcala... one of whose women was apparently a linguistic genius.
This woman - La Malinche - became Hernan Cortez' lover/consort, and through her remarkable interpretation skills, greatly facilitated Cortez' march-of-conquest from present day Vera Cruz (where his ships landed) to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, built on the largest of three islands in Lake Texcoco. (Don't miss the hyperlinked story embedded in Malinche's Wikipedia page describing her mythic-legendary transformation into La Llorona. https://en.wikipedia.
Notably Cortez said of Tenochtitlan (where four causeways lead out to the city from the mainland) that the Aztec capital was the most beautiful city he had ever seen --- and by a wide measure. And he made this comment c. 1525 after ALL the great European cathedrals - and other grand stone buildings had already been built.
To this day, the cathedral-dominated centers of many European cities are the most beautiful environments I know, yet in Cortez' view not one of them could hold a candle to Tenochtitlan. https://en.
Furthermore, the population of Tenochtitlan was 200,000 at the time of Cortez' arrival, when at the same time the population of London -- and Paris -- was 50,000, give or take ten thousand.
I understand that it took (and is still taking) many thousands of years to reach a state of civilized development wherein about half the people are relatively unprejudiced about other ethnicities, whereas up to - and including - the Vietnam War, a decisive majority of people were still prone to think "their own sweat smelled the best"... my point being: "Why, pray God, did Cortez not work to create an alliance with this tribe which produced such suffusive beauty. And the answer I give is that Christianity, for all the brilliant work it did, had been part-and-parcel of a mindset that had preemptively determined that Native Americans were savages - indeed, subhumans - who could and should be treated as beasts of burden.
The Robert DeNiro - Jeremy Irons movie, The Mission (in which Daniel Berrigan plays himself!) does a remarkable job exploring -- in a highly dramatic fashion -- the actual debate taking place in the Church and in the minds of Latin American colonizers, as to whether - or not - Native Americans were human. https://www.imdb.com/
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