If we may suppose that the Great Spirit and the wind are often represented under the form of an enormous bird, we must connect with them, as their most inseparable attributes, the thunder and the lightning; the first, as we have so often seen, is the rustling or stridor of the wings of the bird, the second is the flashing of his eyes. The Raven of the Koniagas is not, however, as among most other tribes of the great Northwest, the author of these things; but their principal deity when he is angry sends down two dwarfs, who thunder and lighten according to his command.[III-23] Of the god Hurakan, whom we have noticed as the etymon of the word hurricane, the Popol Vuh says: "The flash is the first sign of Hurakan; the second is the furrow of the flash; the third is the thunderbolt that strikes;"[III-24] and to the Mexican god, Tlaloc, are also attached the same three attributes.[III-25]
[Sidenote: WATER AS A PURIFYING ELEMENT.]
Turning to water, we find it regarded among many tribes as the first of elemental things. It is from a primeval ocean of water that the earth is generally supposed to come up. Water is obviously a first and chief nourisher of vegetable life, and an indispensable prerequisite of all fertility; from this it is but a short step to saying that it is the mother of those that live by the earth's fertility. "Your mother, Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water," is a phrase constantly found in the midwife's mouth, in her address to the child, in the Mexican washing or baptismal service.[III-26]
The use of water more or less sanctified or set apart or made worthy the distinction 'holy;' the employment of this in a rite of avowed purification from inherent sin, at the time of giving a name--baptism, in one word--runs back to a period far pre-Christian among the Mexican, Maya, and other American nations; as ancient ceremonies to be hereafter described will show. That man sets out in this life-journey of his with a terrible bias toward evil, with a sad and pitiful liability to temptation, is a point upon which all religions are practically unanimous. How else could they exist? Were man born perfect he would remain perfect, otherwise the first element of perfection would be wanting; and perfection admits of no superlative, no greater, no god. Where there is a religion then, there is generally a consciousness of sin voluntary and involuntary. How shall I be cleansed? how shall my child be cleansed from this great wickedness? is the cry of the idolater as well as of the monotheist. Is it strange that the analogy between corporal and spiritual pollution should independently suggest itself to both? Surely not. Wash and be clean, is to all the world a parable needing no interpreter.[III-27]