We come now to the elemental gods, who seem for the most part to have been rather vague personalities, crystallized here and there (and rather robbed of dignity in the process) into more sharply defined tribal protectors. These are the deities whom, I believe, the builders of the monuments chiefly worshipped, and whose portraits or symbols may be identified among the carvings which decorate the ruins. Among these, the most difficult to treat satisfactorily is Kukulkan, the Quiché Gukumatz. The name, as stated before in connection with Quetzalcoatl, means “Feathered serpent,” and the conception of such a divinity is not peculiar to the Maya region, since a feathered snake, the “Mother of waters,” is worshipped by the Pueblo Indians far to the north. But Gukumatz-Kukulkan is not a mere water-god, and I think that his real nature is apparent from the Tzental description of Kukulkan, “the feathered snake that goes in the waters.” It is difficult to see what else this can typify than the ripple, born both of wind and water, the aspect of which suggests feathers, and the motion a serpent. Both as representing motion, i.e. primordial motion, and as typifying wind, i.e. breath, the god represents life, and so in his highest aspect becomes a creator-god. In his snake and water aspect he is closely connected with the rain-gods, while in his bird and wind manifestation he is lord of the sky and world-directions, for the winds blow from all points of the compass. As this great and vague deity he appears in the early part of the Popol Vuh, and also, I believe, on the monuments, where his symbol, the serpent-bird, is not uncommon (e.g. Figs. 48 and 49). But he is not directly represented, for the very reason that primitive peoples (and civilized too for that matter) shrink from expressing their high gods in definite form. It is only when he becomes a tribal protector, as among the Toltec and the rulers of Mayapan, that his attributes become fixed and a definite conception of him is transferred to wood or stone. But once the definite conception is formed, the majesty of mystery is to a large extent lost, and we see in Mexico the god of life and breath becoming Eecatl, the god of the material wind, who sweeps the path of the gods of rain. It is this relation, I believe, that Kukulkan-Gukumatz bears to the Maya god of the material wind, God K. No one who has studied the beliefs of the American tribes will think that such a conception is beyond their psychology. Francisco Hernandez states that the Yucatec chiefs, that is the more highly educated class, worshipped gods which were unknown to the populace, and we know that the religious ideas of the Peruvian rulers were on a very high plane. These higher beliefs, where they occurred, were usually veiled in symbolism to guard them from the vulgar; symbolism thrived in America, and the tendency to esoteric doctrines, evolved by professional priesthoods, adds to the