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.
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