Thus it was a worthy epithet which the Creeks applied to their supreme invisible ruler, when they addressed him as ESAUGETUH EMISSEE, Master of Breath, and doubtless it was at first but a title of equivalent purport which the Cherokees, their neighbors, were wont to employ, OONAWLEH UNGGI, Eldest of Winds, but rapidly leading to a complete identification of the divine with the natural phenomena of meteorology.

This seems to have taken place in the same group of nations, for the original Choctaw word for Deity was HUSHTOLI, the Storm Wind.[51-1] The idea, indeed, was constantly being lost in the symbol.

In the legends of the Quiches, the mysterious creative power is HURAKAN, a name of no signification in their language, one which their remote ancestors brought with them from the Antilles, which finds its meaning in the ancient tongue of Haiti, and which, under the forms of _hurricane_, _ouragan_, _orkan_, was adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea.[51-2] Mixcohuatl, the Cloud Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the name Tuyra.[52-1] To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign of adoration to the collective divinities.[52-2] Many writers on mythology have commented on the prominence so frequently given to the winds.

None have traced it to its true source.

The facts of meteorology have been thought all sufficient for a solution.