Lord Ketzal’s Gift of Gold

Long, long ago, the grandmothers told this story, and all the grandmothers knew it too. In the time of the ancients, when the animals talked like people, when the trees could sing and when the earth was still soft black mud, the people had no corn. They had no crops at all. People and animals lived on fruits and on nuts and on roots they could find in Cloud Forest. No one knew about the golden secret hidden under the gray lumpy rock cliff called Sustenance Mountain. No one, that is, except the black leaf-cutter ants. These razor-jawed ones had found a secret way through a tiny crack in the very bottom boulder. With their strong ant jaws, they would bring golden corn, kernel by kernel, out from under the mountain to feed the ant children.

Well, the people saw this new food the ants were carrying. They talked and talked and talked together. “Please,” they begged the black leaf-cutter ants, “let us taste this golden fruit.” But the pale nuggets were like no other fruit or nut in Cloud Forest. The people couldn’t chew such hard kernels. And to swallow them whole gave one the bent-over bellyache. Hungry, they asked Woodpecker what he would do. He, afterall, was an expert at breaking open the hardest wood to find food. Woodpecker, no fool, decided it best to seek the wisest one in Cloud Forest – Ketzal, the plumed dragon -- to ask for his help.

Woodpecker found Ketzal high in a tree. The lord’s long plumes of royal green wafted around him in the breezes. Woodpecker told of the ants’ new food that no one but the ants could eat. After dreaming a while, Ketzal opened his eyes and told Woodpecker that the people first should take water from the limestone pools on Sustenance Mountain, and they should soak the kernels in this magic water for a day. But that was not all. The people then should grind the softened kernels between two rocks into a mush they could cook.

“But with so few kernels the ants have given us,” asked Woodpecker, “how are we to get enough corn for even all the children to taste?” Ketzal thought some more. “Wait here, Woodpecker,” he said. He dreamed himself into a black ant, and crawling quickly down the tree and to the edge of Cloud Forest, he found the secret way under the tiny crack in the very bottom boulder of Sustenance Mountain.

Inside, Ketzal saw huge piles upon piles of corn -- enough corn to plant in the soft earth to feed all the people in the world and the animals, too. Meanwhile, Woodpecker waited, not at all patient. Absentmindedly, he began tapping his beak again and again against the tree, wishing the feathered dragon would hurry.

Just then, the great lord woke with a shiver, gave a joyous leap into the sunlight and came flying, down through the treetops with all those long, green feathers and white feathers swirling behind. Lord Ketzal called out to Woodpecker, “I will throw my great thunderbolt at the mountain and break the great gray rock. All the people and animals of the world will have the corn. But first, Woodpecker, you must tap the rock for me to see where it sounds the thinnest.” Woodpecker flew to Sustenance Mountain.

Soon, Ketzal gathered his rain clouds in the sky and stirred up a great wind. He danced high over the trees. He dived way down, hissing and spitting, and his rain shook every leaf. Ketzal soared again, up and up in the sky, till he drew a mighty breath and spewed out a dazzling thunderbolt. Woodpecker hid behind the last tree at the edge of Cloud Forest.

“WWWAAAACKA!” The mountain cracked open. Woodpecker, in stunned admiration at such a tremendous tap, stuck up his head to see. A shard of flying rock grazed his forehead, and blood came running out. That’s why the woodpecker’s head has a crest of red.

When they heard Woodpecker’s screeching in pain, they came running. They saw a sea of corn spilling from the mountain like sunlight. They were so excited that only much later was it discovered that Ketzal’s thunderbolt had burnt some of the corn. Some of the yellow kernels were purple, brown and red – and have been so ever since.

Although Lord Ketzal has long since dreamed himself away and into the skies, where he reigns as Fiery Morning Star, some day he will return. Every year, just before the rainy season, the quetzal bird dances in Cloud Forest so the people will not forget to treasure his gift.

Just as the sun’s first rays kiss the tops of the giant trees in Cloud Forest, a flash of color streaks upward into the sunlight – fiery green, bright red and gleaming white. One after another, the sacred birds spiral into the sky, crying “Wacka-wacka-wacka,” up and up until each is just a tiny speck. Then they dive straight down again into the treetops. The dancing quetzal bird is how the grandmothers remember the way Ketzal brought corn to feed the people of the world and the animals, too.

All the grandmothers remember this and have said so ever since. Now you, too, must not forget.