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| A Matter of Evidences |
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 The working hypothesis
for this examination is that there might be a distorted recollection of Christ's visit to the Americas recorded
in the legendary material surrounding Quetzalcoatl. To discover evidence either for or against that hypothesis
requires that we understand what might constitute evidence. To find in the affirmative, we must find material in
the legends which has some correlation to Christ. Most dramatic would be remembrances similar to Christ's appearance
as described in 3 Nephi, other possibilities would be items which appear to describe events from Christ's life.
In order to appear that a specific character (Quetzalcoatl) embodies a remembrance of Christ, there should be a
significant number of those elements which are attached to a single figure, rather than be spread across several
figures. All authors who have related Quetzalcoatl to Christ use some version of this hypothesis. How well do the
texts support a series of Christian-appearing elements in the Quetzalcoatl tales? It is clearly a matter of evidences,
evidences which must be examined and analyzed.The best analogy for the search for the roots of the Quetzalcoatl tradition is an archaeological dig. Our evidence for the tradition lies in various time strata, and the best course of analysis is to dig down, layer by layer, trying to understand the relationship of each stratum to the next earlier layer. The most accessible layer in the Quetzalcoatl tradition is that of the texts which discuss Quetzalcoatl in detail, and so analysis begins with those texts. Unfortunately, all of these were written after the Conquest. The first critical time analysis, therefore, is to examine the post-contact documents for evidence with which the immediate pre-conquest version of the tale can be reconstructed. For purposes of the working hypothesis, Christian elements attached to Quetzalcoatl must be reconstructible to the immediate pre-conquest horizon. If they do exist, then there is strong reason to continue the search. If they do not exist, then it is a clear indication that the Christianization of Quetzalcoatl is due to Western imposition of ideas upon native mythology, and there is little reason to look further.(1) 1. Many of the specific examples and elements discussed in this paper were previously presented in Brant A. Gardner "The Christianization of Quetzalcoatl," in Sunstone, 1986, 11:6-10. This paper expands upon the themes discussed in that article. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
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