It asks no elaborate effort of the imagination to liken the lightning to
a serpent. It does not require any remarkable acuteness to guess the
conundrum of Schiller:--
"Unter allen Schlangen ist eine
Auf Erden nicht gezeugt,
Mit der an Schnelle keine,
An Wuth sich keine vergleicht."
When Father Buteux was a missionary among the Algonkins, in 1637, he
asked them their opinion of the nature of lightning. "It is an immense
serpent," they replied, "which the Manito is vomiting forth; you can see
the twists and folds that he leaves on the trees which he strikes; and
underneath such trees we have often found huge snakes." "Here is a novel
philosophy for you!" exclaims the Father.[113-2] So the Shawnees called
the thunder "the hissing of the great snake;"[113-3] and Tlaloc, the
Toltec thunder god, held in his hand a serpent of gold to represent the
lightning.[114-1] For this reason the Caribs spoke of the god of the
thunder storm as a great serpent dwelling in the fruit forests,[114-2]
and in the Quiche legends other names for Hurakan, the hurricane or
thunder-storm, are the Strong Serpent, He who hurls below, referring to
the lightning.
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