His manifestations
were fourfold, and one of the four winds was the drum-stick he used to
produce the thunder.[152-1]
Omitting many others, enough that the sameness of this conception is
illustrated by the myth of Tupa, highest god and first man of the Tupis
of Brazil. During his incarnation, he taught them agriculture, gave them
fire, the cane, and the pisang, and now in the form of a huge bird
sweeps over the heavens, watching his children and watering their crops,
admonishing them of his presence by the mighty sound of his voice, the
rustling of his wings, and the flash of his eye. These are the thunder,
the lightning, and the roar of the tempest. He is depicted with horns;
he was one of four brothers, and only after a desperate struggle did he
drive his fraternal rivals from the field. In his worship, the priests
place pebbles in a dry gourd, deck it with feathers and arrows, and
rattling it vigorously, reproduce in miniature the tremendous drama of
the storm.[152-2]
As nations rose in civilization these fancies put on a more complex form
and a more poetic fulness.
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