Quetzalcoatl
The Feathered Serpent, key Mexican-American deity. Aztec god of wind (Ehecatl) and the morning star (Venus), he made humanity in Mictlan from his blood and ancestral bones. His name: 'quetzal' (green bird) + 'coatl' (serpent). Tricked by Tezcatlipoca into drunken incest, exiled, he vowed return from the east — a return conflated with Cortés's 1519 arrival. A Chicano symbol of indigenous identity.