<P> Some scholarship maintains the view that the Aztec Empire's fall may be attributed in part to the belief in Cortés as the returning Quetzalcoatl, notably in works by David Carrasco (1982), H.B. Nicholson (2001 (1957)) and John Pohl (2016). However, a majority of Mesoamericanist scholars such as Matthew Restall (2003), James Lockhart (1994), Susan D. Gillespie (1989), Camilla Townsend (2003a, 2003b), Louise Burkhart, Michel Graulich and Michael E. Smith (2001) among others, consider the "Quetzalcoatl / Cortés myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period . It should be furthered noted that the idea that Cortes or Spaniards as a group or specific other individuals were a specific god (e.g., Quetzalcoatl) or gods in general is not present among any other Mesoamerican peoples (Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Maya, Quiche, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, etc .). </P> <P> There is no question that the legend of Quetzalcoatl played a significant role in the colonial period . However, this legend likely has a foundation in events that took place immediately prior to the arrival of the Spaniards . A 2012 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art, "The Children of the Plumed Serpent: the Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico," demonstrated the existence of a powerful confederacy of Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs and Zapotecs, along with the peoples they dominated throughout southern Mexico between 1200 - 1600 (Pohl, Fields, and Lyall 2012, Harvey 2012, Pohl 2003). They maintained a major pilgrimage and commercial center at Cholula, Puebla which the Spaniards compared to both Rome and Mecca because the cult of the god united its constituents through a field of common social, political, and religious values without dominating them militarily . This confederacy engaged in almost seventy - five years of nearly continuous conflict with the Aztec Empire of the Triple Alliance until the arrival of Cortés . Members of this confederacy from Tlaxcala, Puebla, and Oaxaca provided the Spaniards with the army that first reclaimed the city of Cholula from its pro-Aztec ruling faction, and ultimately defeated the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The Tlaxcalteca, along with other city - states across the Plain of Puebla, then supplied the auxiliary and logistical support for the conquests of Guatemala and West Mexico while Mixtec and Zapotec caciques (Colonial indigenous rulers) gained monopolies in the overland transport of Manila galleon trade through Mexico, and formed highly lucrative relationships with the Dominican order in the new Spanish imperial world economic system that explains so much of the enduring legacy of indigenous life - ways that characterize southern Mexico and explain the popularity of the Quetzalcoatl legends that continued through the colonial period to the present day . </P> <P> Some Mormons believe that Quetzalcoatl was historically Jesus Christ, but believe His name and the details of the event were gradually lost over time . According to the Book of Mormon, the resurrected Christ came down from the clouds and visited the people of the American continent, shortly after his resurrection . Quetzalcoatl is not a religious symbol in the Mormon faith, and is not taught as such, nor is it in their doctrine . LDS Church President John Taylor wrote: </P> <P> The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being . But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior's life and ministry ." (Mediation and Atonement, p. 194 .) </P>

One god in the aztec pantheon was quetzalcoatl