I was looking at this aztec tattoo that I was thinking of getting and it I am wondering what it means or if it is some aztec god. Here is the link to it what it looks like
It’s a feathered serpent, a mythology common in pre-conquest Mexican cultures. Its most famous form is the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, although yours looks more like the Maya Kukulkan who was depicted with a human warrior emerging from the mouth, as more of a war god.
He looks like a decoration from the Temple of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan. Probably the same guy the Aztecs later called Quetzalcoatl, related to the Mayan Kukulkan.
The skull was added by the artist, but the image isn’t far out of line for any of those cultures. Hey,lots of folks like skulls!
Most Aztec and Mayan art work that one sees on the net is an imagined (by someone of neither ancestry) Of the fierce god heads and heros.
Quetzalcoatl was assimilated into the Mayan culture and became Kukulkan. Same dude. Neither had skulls coming out of their mouths. They were the gods of bounty and harvest.
Here is a page of pictures of Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan, if you look closely, the only fierce depictions are modern.
So, in answer to your question, It means a tattoo artist will get a lot of money for a meaningless picture.
From the aforementioned Temple of the Feathered Serpant; Quetzalcoatl with skull and skeletal arm in mouth. Skulls were everywhere in mesoamerican art, so it’s not surprising the artist chose to include in in an Aztec theme.
We don’t know what the Teotihuacanos called him. In fact, Teotihuacan is the name the Aztecs gave the ruins centuries after they became ruins. Kukulkan was not derived from Quetzalcoatl–the Maya were civilized before the Aztecs.
Of course the current design is a modern creation, combining ancient images. The guys who designed that pyramid probably got paid, too…
(Now I’m hungry. This restaurant is in my neighborhood.)
D’you think maybe they were the baddies ?
Maybe they’re the skulls of their enemies? Not been reading Spanish propaganda? Of course they’re gonna say Aztecs are the bad guys!
Yeah, but the Spanish didn’t get to design Aztec symbols did they?
Wow, that’s the first distinctly Irish-specific skull I’ve ever seen! Great cite.
Are you sure it was a warrior emerging from his mouth and not him swallowing the warrior?
Fortunately Cortés had a rat’s anus as his heraldry, so it’s alright.
What kind of serpent swallows feet first?