La 'Serpente Emplumada'. Psicoanálisis De La Religion Maya-Azteca Y Del Sacrificio Humano. (The Plumed Serpent. Psychoanalysis of the Mayan-Aztec Religion of Human Sacrifice.): Celes Ernesto Carcamo. Revista de Psicoanálisis (Buenos Aires), I, 1943, pp. 5–38.

The serpent is generally interpreted as a masculine symbol. A comparative study of old American religions, however, shows that serpents under certain circumstances may have a special feminine significance. The old Mexican goddess Coatlicue is represented as a woman, dressed in a skirt fashioned of snakes, with two snakes on her head and with feet in the shape of claws. Coatlicue represents a phallic mother who arouses affection and disgust simultaneously. The feathers with which she is adorned represent the fertilizing wind or lightning.

The feathered serpent has a hermaphroditic character: by continually fertilizing and giving birth to herself, she represents the realization of a wish of the human unconscious.

Among the Aztec gods, Quetzalcoatl symbolizes all the instincts of life, as opposed to Tezcatlipoca, who represents death. The whole sadism of the primitive people was expressed in the ritual sacrifices which were brought to these gods. The victim was tortured in a very complicated manner until the heart was eventually torn out of his chest. The sacrifice gratified different instinctual tendencies in a magical way: 1. hostility against the father, 2. guilt feelings because of this hostility, 3. atonement for incentuous wishes for the mother, 4. a longing to return to the mother's womb.