The Feathered Serpent. The Precious Twin who lifts the sun out of darkness, god of the winds and the breath of life, First Lord of the Toltecs. Lawgiver, civilizer, creator of the calender. Demons tempted Quetzalcoatl constantly to commit murder and human sacrifice, but his love was too great for him to succumb. To atone for great sins, Quetzcoatl threw himself on a funeral pyre, where his ashes rose to the heavens as a flock of birds carrying his heart to the star Venus. A frieze in the palace at Teotihuacan shows his first entry into the world in the shape of a chrysalis, from which he struggles to emerge as a butterfly, the symbol of perfection. Quetzalcoatl is by far the most compassionate of the Aztec gods -- he only demands one human sacrifice a year. Often considered synonymous with HUITZILOPOTCHLI