Yet it were but a narrow theory of natural religion that allowed no other meaning to these myths. Many another elemental warfare is being waged around us, and applications as various as nature herself lie in these primitive creations of the human fancy. Let it only be remembered that there was never any moral, never any historical purport in them in the infancy of religious life.
In snake charming as a proof of proficiency in magic, and in the symbol of the lightning, which brings both fire and water, which in its might controls victory in war, and in its frequency, plenteous crops at home, lies the secret of the serpent symbol. As the "war physic" among the tribes of the United States was a fragment of a serpent, and as thus signifying his incomparable skill in war, the Iroquois represent their mythical king Atatarho clothed in nothing but black snakes; so that when he wished to don a new suit he simply drove away one set and ordered another to take their places,[118-1] so, by a precisely similar mental process, the myth of the Nahuas assigns as a mother to their war god Huitzilapochtli, Coatlicue, the robe of serpents; her dwelling place Coatepec, the hill of serpents; and at her lying-in say that she brought forth a serpent. Her son's image was surrounded by serpents, his sceptre was in the shape of one, his great drum was of serpents' skins, and his statue rested on four vermiform caryatides.
As the symbol of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent was the god of fruitfulness. Born in the atmospheric waters, it was an appropriate attribute of the ruler of the winds. But we have already seen that the winds were often spoken of as great birds. Hence the union of these two emblems in such names as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, Kukulkan, all titles of the god of the air in the languages of Central America, all signifying the "Bird-serpent." Here also we see the solution of that monument which has so puzzled American antiquaries, the cross at Palenque. It is a tablet on the wall of an altar representing a cross surmounted by a bird and supported by the head of a serpent. The latter is not well defined in the plate in Mr. Stephens' Travels, but is very distinct in the photographs taken by M. Charnay, which that gentleman was kind enough to show me. The cross I have previously shown was the symbol of the four winds, and the bird and serpent are simply the rebus of the air god, their ruler.[119-1] Quetzalcoatl, called also Yolcuat, the rattlesnake, was no less intimately associated with serpents than with birds. The entrance to his temple at Mexico represented the jaws of one of these reptiles, and he finally disappeared in the province of Coatzacoalco, the hiding place of the serpent, sailing towards the east in a bark of serpents' skins. All this refers to his power over the lightning serpent.