The pioneer Quetzalcoatl, who probably, came from Atlantean Brazil on a civilizing mission to barbarian and savage Central America, was, it may be necessary to repeat, as the myths of Ancient Mexico made clear, a man, not a god. One may call him a divine man, later deified as was Osiris, and the other gods and goddesses of the Egyptian Nile were merely men and women who had achieved great pioneering and cultural works. The ancient Mexicans said Quetzalcoatl came to them from a land to the south east, and that his symbol was the feathered serpent.

It will be remember that the serpent was found carved in stone in some parts of sacred Mexico. Slightly varying accounts are given of Quetzalcoatl. Father Bernardino Sahagun, the famous missioner and historian among the Mexicans, after the day of the conquistadores, was told:
"Quetzalcoatl had a dark countenance, all his body was clothed in a shirt wrought like a surplice, that did not reach to the girdle of his waist. From the knee to the leg was covered with buskins of tiger-skin, ornamented with sea shells. He wore sandals."

Fray Juan Torquemada, the Franciscan missioner, who collected traditions about Quetzalcoatl from the natives of Old Mexico, among he worked in the years after the Spanish conquest, says:
"Quetzalcoatl, it is held for certain, was a man of upright character, elegant carriage and was white and blonde (blanco), with a ruddy face (rubio) and bearded. His beard was long. He was of benevolent disposition and learned, and a great personage. His hair was long and black. . ."
Torquemada, however, in the same rare book, Monarquia Indiana, says:
"Quetzalcoatl had blonde hair, and wore a black robe sewn with little crosses of red color."

The Mexican Codex Chimalpopoca, written in the native Nahua tongue seems to suggest that there had been several attempts from some land across the eastern sea to civilize the savages and barbarians of Central America; but all that had failed before Quetzalcoatl came in the scene. According to Torquemada, twenty chiefs dressed in black, led by a great man, Quetzalcoatl, arrived "out of the blue", one day, from the north west (?). They landed at Panuco, now a village about twenty-five miles south west of Tampico, in Veracruz.
"They were men of good appearance, well-clothed, in long garments of black cloth like the cassocks of priests, open in front, but without the cowls, the neck cut in crescent shape, short sleeves, but wide, with nothing at the elbows. This dress the natives use, today in dances and ceremonies, in imitation of these ancient folks."

Clavigero, another colonial Spanish historian of Mexico describes Quetzalcoatl as high priest of Tula, capital of Toltecas...
"He was white in complexion, tall and corpulent, broad in forehead, with large eyes, long, black hair, thick beard: a man of austere and exemplary life, clothed in long garments, gentle and prudent. He was expert in the art of melting metals and polishing precious stones which he taugh to the Toltecans."

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