As one and the same object may suggest several resemblances at the same time or consecutively, and thus give rise to a group of associations around a single figure, I venture to point out that the zigzag form of Cassiopeia may well have been compared to forked lightning and caused the idea of lightning and thunder to become indissolubly connected with the conception of a great celestial bird. Again there is the possibility that the same star-group may have more strikingly suggested, to other people, the idea of the winding body of a serpent describing a perpetual circle around a central star. In Mexico, as elsewhere, we find the serpent closely associated with the idea of time. It is represented as encircling the calendar wheel published by Clavigero (fig. 8). Four loops, formed of its body, mark the four divisions of the year. Twin serpents, whose heads and tails almost meet, are sculptured around the famous calendar-stone of Mexico. Four serpents whose bent bodies form a large swastika and whose heads are directed towards a central figure, are represented in the Codex Borgia in association with calendar-signs (fig. 9, _cf._ Féjérvary, p. 24). I shall have occasion to refer in detail to Mexican serpent-symbolism further on.
Meanwhile I would submit the interesting results obtained on combining the positions apparently assumed by the circumpolar constellations during a single night. The tables exhibit four composite groups representing the positions at the solstitial and equinoctial periods (fig. 10).
The night of the winter solstice, the longest of the year, yielded alone a symmetrical figure. It resembled the well-known triskelion, the companion-symbol of the swastika (figs. 10 and 11). Just as this had proved to be the most natural of year symbols, so the triskelion revealed itself as a natural sign of the winter solstice, the period recognized and celebrated by most inhabitants of the northern hemisphere as the turning-point of the year. In a climate like that of Mexico and Central America, however, where the year divided itself naturally into a dry and a rainy season, it is evident that the winter solstice would be less observed and that the ardently-desired recurrence of the rainy season, after a long and trying period of drought, should be regarded as the annual event of utmost importance. Indeed, if carefully looked into, the entire religious cult of these people seems to express but one great struggling cry to the God of Nature for life-giving rain, and a hymn of thanksgiving for the annual, precious, but uncertain gift of water.