Why do the skeletons not frighten the Mexican people ?
Chaac, god of water and rain. His Toltec name was Echécatl. The worship of Quetzalcóatl began at the end of the classic period. The word Nahuatl Quetzalcóatl means "feathered serpent". Quetzal means "precious bird " and "cóatl" means snake.
He was a generous god who had the power of descending into hell to take the bones of the dead and restore them to life with a drop of his own blood. This is the reason why the skeleton is considered by the Mexicans as a symbol of life and renovation.
Quetzalcóatl was also the God of wind, the breath of life, love and wisdom.
As a god he is the incarnation of Venus, the morning star which calls the sun into the sky. Quetzalcóatl invented the Aztec calendar as well as the arts and techniques of agriculture. He knew how to cure people with magic herbs, he was a lawmaker and inventor of writing.
In his human form Quetzalcóatl must have been a king, founder of a great civilisation and a very wise priest. Quetzalcóatl was the first to ask for peaceful sacrifices such as offerings of jade, birds or butterflies. By contrast, Tezcatlipoca ordered bloody rituals such as human sacrifices. This is the reason that, using black magic, Quetzalcóatl was driven out of Tula by Tezcatlipoca in 987 AD.
He took the form of a bird, and was reincarnated in the form of the planet Venus.
The Spanish historian Bernardino de Sahagún wrote that this mask was a gift of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma to the Spanish captain Hernán Cortés who landed in America in 1519. The Aztec Emperor took Cortes for the real god Quetzalcóatl who, according to legend, sailed away transformed into a bird and promised to return to save his people.
According to Sahagún, this mask was worn with a beautiful crown made of magnificent precious quetzal feathers (a beautiful and very rare bird which inhabits the Central American jungle). This crown is the "Penacho de Moctezuma", and is part of the collection at the Ethnical Museum of Vienna, Austria.