Qʼuqʼumatz
Together with Tepeu, god of lightning and fire,[5] it was considered to be the mythical ancestor of the Kʼicheʼ nobility by direct male line.
The priests of Qʼuqʼumatz at Qʼumarkaj, the Kʼicheʼ capital, were drawn from the dominant Kaweq dynasty and acted as stewards in the city.
[7] The name derives from the Kʼicheʼ word qʼuq, referring to the Resplendent quetzal Pharomachrus mocinno, a brightly coloured bird of the cloud forests of southern Mesoamerica.
[11] The male resplendent quetzal boasts iridescent blue-green tail feathers measuring up to 1 metre (3.3 ft) long that were prized by the Maya elite.
[16] The Kaqchikel Maya were closely linked to the Kʼicheʼ and one of their ancestors, Gagavitz, was said to have thrown himself into Lake Atitlán and transformed himself into the deity, thus raising a storm upon the water known today as Xocomil.
[21] Sculptures of a human face emerging between the jaws of a serpent were common from the end of the Classic Period through to the Late Postclassic and may represent Qʼuqʼumatz in the act of carrying Hunahpu, the youthful avatar of the sun god Tohil, across the sky.
[25] The various feathered serpent deities remained popular in Mesoamerican folk traditions after the Spanish conquest but by the 20th century Qʼuqʼumatz appeared only rarely among the Kʼicheʼ.
[26] A tradition was recorded by Juan de León that Qʼuqʼumatz assisted the sun god Tohil in his daily climb to the zenith.
[27] According to De León, who may have gathered the information from elders in Santa Cruz del Quiché, the feathered serpent gripped Tohil in his jaws to carry him safely up into the sky.
[28] In the beginning of the Popol Vuh, Qʼuqʼumatz is depicted as afloat in the primordial sea with Tepeu, wrapped in quetzal feathers.
[34] Qʼuqʼumatz soon realized that their first attempt at the creation of beings was a failure as they could not give them praise and so they condemned the animals to live in the forests and ravines.
Later, they created men of sculpted wood, which Huracan destroyed as the wooden manikins were imperfect, emotionless and showed no praise to the gods.
The Popol Vuh also mentions a historic ruler of the Kʼicheʼ who bore the name or title of the deity, probably because he drew some of his power from the god.
[27] The whole structure probably once supported a roof and there were small stone platforms on the east and west sides of the temple, each about 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide.
