Quetzalcoatl is sometimes depicted as a white man (light, the shining ones) looking nothing like the Mesoamerican people who worshipped him. Most often he is depicted as a feather serpent. Feathers represent the ascension of human consciousness back to its origins - while serpent represent human DNA or physical reality. Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feather-serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the Late Preclassic through the Early Classic period (400 BCE - 600CE) of Mesoamerican chronology - "Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center in the Mexican Highland, around the time of Christ..." -- whereafter it appears to have spread throughout Mesoamerica by the Late Classic (600 - 900 CE) (Ringle et al.). In the Postclassic period (900 - 1519 CE) the worship of the feathered serpent deity was centered in the central Mexican religious center of Cholula. It is in this period that the deity is known to have been named "Quetzalcoatl" by his Nahua followers. In the Maya area he was known as Kukulcan or Ququmatz, names that also translate as "feathered serpent" in different Mayan languages. In the era following the 16th-century Spanish Conquest a number of sources were written that describe the god "Quetzalcoatl" and relates him to a ruler of the mythico-historic city of Tollan called by the names "Ce Acatl", "Topiltzin", "Nacxitl" or "Quetzalcoatl". It is a matter of much debate among historians to which degree, or whether at all, these narratives about this legendary Toltec ruler Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl describe actual historical events. Furthermore early Spanish sources written by clerics tend to identify the god-ruler "Quetzalcoatl" of these narratives with either Hernan Cortes or St. Thomas - an identification which is also a source of diversity of opinions about the nature of "Quetzalcoatl". Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge. Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli
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