. L M N O P Fig. I.—the .\I,PH.\BET OF GODS. (Taken from Maya MSS.) in his hands. Like the old British god Kai^the " Sir Kay the Seneschal " of Malory—he bears flaming torches. Kai was a god of the waters ; so, in some measure, is God B. The " elephantine " aspect of this god is accounted for by his wearing the mask of the medicine-man or priest, worn during the religious ceremony. Indeed in one statue of his analogous Mexican form we see him in the very act of removing this mask. In Mexico the mask resembles the beak of a bird ; in Central America it is more like a snout—w
. L M N O P Fig. I.—the .\I,PH.\BET OF GODS. (Taken from Maya MSS.) in his hands. Like the old British god Kai^the " Sir Kay the Seneschal " of Malory—he bears flaming torches. Kai was a god of the waters ; so, in some measure, is God B. The " elephantine " aspect of this god is accounted for by his wearing the mask of the medicine-man or priest, worn during the religious ceremony. Indeed in one statue of his analogous Mexican form we see him in the very act of removing this mask. In Mexico the mask resembles the beak of a bird ; in Central America it is more like a snout—whether that of an elephant or other animal I do not possess sufficient data to give an opinion. God B is, indeed, none other than Kukulkan, " The Feathered Serpent," the Maya name for the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, the god of the rain-bearing trade-wind. But in Central America proper, whence he originally hailed, he is more intimately connected with water than with wind, and the learned priests of his cult explained him to the Spanish conquerors as " the
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