4 o 



BIRDS IN LEGEND 



said in their legends "that he was of majestic presence, 

 chaste in life, averse to war, wise and generous in action, 

 and delighting in the cultivation of the arts of peace." 

 He was the ruler of the realm far below the surface of 

 the earth, where the sun shines at night, the abode of 

 abundance where dwell happy souls; and there Quetzal- 

 coatl abides until the time fixed for his return to men. 

 The first part of the name of this beneficent god, asso- 

 ciated with sunshine and green, growing things, meant 

 in the Nahuatl language a large, handsome, green feather, 

 such as were highly prized by the Aztecs and reserved for 

 the decoration of their chiefs; and one tradition of the 

 god's origin and equipment relates that he was furnished 

 with a beard made of these plumes. These royal and 

 venerated feathers were obtained from the trogon, which 

 his worshippers called Quetzal-totl. The emerald-hued 

 hummingbirds of the tropics also belonged to him. 



Although Mexico and Central America were "con- 

 verted" to Christianity by a gospel of war and slavery, the 

 ancient faith lived on in many simple hearts, especially in 

 the remoter districts of the South, and nowhere more per- 

 sistently than among the Mayas of Guatemala and Yuca- 

 tan, whose pyramidal temples are moldering in their uncut 

 forests. When, in 1825, Guatemala declared its inde- 

 pendence and set up a local government, what more 

 natural than that it should take as a national symbol the 

 glorious bird that represented to its people the best in- 

 fluence in their ancient history and the most hopeful sug- 

 gestion for the future. 



In the religion of the Mayas of Yucatan the great god 

 of light was Itsamna, one of whose titles was The Lord, 

 the Eye of the Day — a truly picturesque description of 

 the sun. A temple at Itzmal was consecrated to him 



