Summoning Quetzal at Chichen Itza
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.
The Quetzal has represented the Spirit of the Maya for thousands of years. Spirits, in many traditions, speak in echoes, lacking a body, just pure frequency and sound. Handclaps evoke chirped echoes from the staircases of the Pyramid of Kukulkan. The physics of the chirped echo can be explained quite simply as periodic reflections from stepfaces. The chirped-echo sounds much like the primary call of the Mayan sacred bird, the resplendent Quetzal. The sounds perhaps trigger something with the subconscious of the person listening as harmonics are linked to creation. Throughout the world, ancient cathedrals and monuments have been acoustically designed to align with the sacred geometry of human consciousness, igniting when accessed. Could the Maya have intentionally coded the sound of their sacred bird into the pyramid architecture?
The dimensions of the steps are the key to the effect. Each step is tall, but the tread, where the foot is placed, doesn't cut deeply into the pyramid. If the stairs were deeper and not so high, the effect on the echoes would not be as great, and they wouldn't sound like a chirp.
In the millennium since this pyramid was built, though the plaster has eroded from the limestone staircases, the sound is still recognizable. Today the Quetzal still plays an important role in modern Mayan culture. The Quetzal is the unit of currency in Guatemala. The Guatemalan government issues a prestigious award named "The Order of the Quetzal."