Author Denver Michaels

The Ahuizotl is the legendary water monster of Aztec folklore once thought to live in lakes and rivers around Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Its name means “thorny one of the water” or “spiny aquatic thing.” The Aztecs had many legends of the Ahuizotl. The Florentine Codex, a manuscript compiled in the 16 th century describing aspects of life before the arrival of the Spanish mentions the creature. Descriptions This strange beast is similar in appearance to a small dog with monkey-like hands. The most unique feature of the animal is a long, slender tail with a human-like hand of the end. Using its unusual tail, the beast would snag its prey—humans—and drag them to a watery demise. The Ahuizotl feasted upon its victims; it was particularly fond of eating the eyeballs, teeth, and fingernails of its human prey. Several days after becoming a fatality of the water beast, the victim’s corpse would wash ashore with missing nails, teeth, and eyeballs. Some have described the Ahuizotl as some sort of...

Who was Quetzalcoatl? In Mesoamerican myth , Quetzalcoatl is the "feathered serpent" or "plumed serpent" deity. He is also described as a culture hero who taught the ancient Mesoamerican people the arts, sciences, farming, and more. I think that not just in the case of Quetzalcoatl, but as far as all of the ancient “gods” are concerned, it is fair to wonder if many of these deities were not gods at all, but rather, men —men who possessed extraordinary knowledge and, in some cases, advanced technology. Some years ago, I read the book Lost Cities of North & Central America by David Hatcher Childress. In the book, Childress presents several ideas for the identity of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl. One of those theories is that the Quetzalcoatl “myth” is a hazy memory of a charismatic Christian missionary who sailed from Ireland to the New World between 500 CE and 800 CE. The Irish were accomplished sailors and it is an intriguing thought that perhaps their le...

Aztec mythology makes it clear that  giants  inhabited the earth in a bygone era.  During the time of the First Sun, the Jaguar Sun, giants inhabited the land but were destroyed by the god Tezcatlipoca when he sent jaguars down to devour them.    Long before Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of the New World, before Spanish chroniclers recorded the feats of the giant Otomi warrior  Tzilacatzin, those mighty men of old— men of renown —were active in Central America in the ancient past. The giants were evil and were hated by both the gods and mankind. Terrible wars were waged against them but the people were never quite able to completely free themselves from the ruthless monsters . The gods became tired of the conflict and unleashed a mighty flood on both the giants and  the people of the earth.     Of course,  it  should be  easy to see the parallels with the account of the Great Flood in the book of Genesis. Here, too, a flood was sent to wipe out both humanity an...