Peabody Museum: 2015 Tatiana Proskouriakoff Lecture and Reception: Ehecatl: The Mythic and Cultural Origins of a Mesoamerican Wind God

Karl A. Taube, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Riverside  

One of the most striking and curious deities of the Aztec pantheon is Ehecatl, a duck-billed deity embodying ethereal concepts such as rain-bringing wind and the breath of life. In jarring contrast, Quetzalcoatl—a better-known Aztec deity who also embodies the same concepts of wind—is represented as a quetzal-plumed rattlesnake. Through epigraphic and iconographic studies of the Olmec, the Maya, and the cultures of Central Mexico, Karl Taube will trace the origin of Ehecatl in eastern Mesoamerica and its subsequent introduction into Central Mexico, highlighting its relevance and associations with Quetzalcoatl.

2015 Tatiana Proskouriakoff Lecture and Reception. Free and open to the public. Complimentary event parking available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.