{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/512",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 512,
    "subject": "Names, animals and meanings (Q)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-30T22:48:16+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-30T22:48:16+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0008-0698@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "mary whalen",
        "address": "marewhalen at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-30T22:48:16+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Names, animals and meanings (Q)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This is Sean Whalen (prion).\n\nQuetzal.  Plural quetzals or quetzales.  Also spelled quezal or\nquesal.  From the Nahuatl word quetzalli (large bright tail feather). \nA species (Pharomachrus mocinno) of family Trogonidae (the trogon\nfamily [trogon means \"one who gnaws\" in Greek]) of order\nTrogoniformes.  The trogons are brightly plumed tree-dwelling birds\n(the males are brighter than the females).  Their feet have two toes\nin front and two in back, like most tree-dwelling birds, but they are\nthe only birds who have the first and second toes in front, rather\nthan the first and fourth.  The quetzal has green feathers on top and \nand at the throat and crimson ones on the bottom.  The top of the head\nhas a puffy crown of feathers.  Males have long green tail feathers\nthat can be over two feet long and are regrown after each breeding\nseason.  The birds themselves are only about a foot long.  They live\nin the lower layers of tropical forest trees in Mexico and Central\nAmerica. They are semi-solitary.  They are very fond of fruit and also\neat insects, small frogs, lizards, and snails. Males and females\nalternate sitting on the eggs.  The long feathers were used in\nceremonies by the Mayans and Aztecs, who believed the quetzal was\nsacred, and associated it with Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god. \nThe quetzal dance is performed by the Totonacs of Mexico to honor the\nquetzal as a sun symbol.  The men perform the dance and where disk\nheaddresses to represent the sun.  They dance longways by two-steps\nand knee-raisings.  The advance, withdraw, and follow the leader down\nthe center and around, split up, cross over, cross back, and and\nfinally the lines wind back and forth through each other in a\nserpentine path.  The quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala. \nQuetzal is also the name of the basic money unit of Guatemala.  The\ngod Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, was worshipped all over\nCentral America.  He was known as Eecatl (Aztec for wind) when\nfunctioning as a wind god. He was called Ce Acatl (One Cane) as lord\nof the planet Venus.  He was also the creator god, the sun during one\nof the previous incarnations of the world.  He went to Mictlan, the\nunderworld, and brought the bones of the people of the previous worlds\nto Earth.  He sprinkled his blood over them, making them into humans. \nHe gave them corn, art, weaving, polishing jade, making feather\nmantles, and taught the calendar and astronomy.  He was described as\nlight-skinned and bearded.  The worship of Pas on the Whorl seems\nsimilar to the Aztec worship of Quetzalcoatl.  Qu. was supposedly\nbested by Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), and sailed east on a raft\nmade of snakes in humiliation.  He said that he would return in the\nyear Ce Acatl, and when Cortes landed in that year (1519) he was at\nfirst thought to be Qu. returning.  Tezcatlipoca, by the way, was an\nearlier sun who Qu. knocked from the sky and turned into a tiger.  He\nwas god of witches, thieves, night, dark, evil, and warriors.  He was\nomnipotent, invisible, and gave and took life as he wanted.  Quetzal\nis an inhumu from Green who came onto the Whorl and became Prolocutor\nof Viron.\n\nprion"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}