The poet Homer and the philosopher Thales of Miletus agreed in regarding water as the primal element, the original of all existences, and their theory has supporters among many primitive peoples. At the baptism festivals of their children, the ancient Mexicans recognized the goddess of the waters. At sunrise the midwife addressed the child, saying, among other things: "Be cleansed with thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the goddess of water." Then, placing her dripping finger upon the child's lips, she continued: "Take this, for on it thou must live, grow, become strong, and flourish. Through it we receive all our needs. Take it." And, again, "We are all in the hands of Chalchihuitlicue, our mother"; as she washed the child she uttered the formula: "Bad, whatever thou art, depart, vanish, for the child lives anew and is born again; it is once more cleansed, once more renewed through our mother Chalchihuitlicue." As she lifted the child up into the air, she prayed, "O Goddess, Mother of Water, fill this child with thy power and virtue" (326. I. 263). In their invocation for the restoration of the spirit to the body, the Nagualists,--a native American mystic sect,--of Mexico and Central America, make appeal to "Mother mine, whose robe is of precious gems," _i.e._ water, regarded as "the universal mother." The "robe of precious stones" refers to "the green or vegetable life" resembling the green of precious stones. Another of her names is the "Green Woman,"--a term drawn from "the greenness which follows moisture" (413. 52-54). The idea of water as the source of all things appears also in the cosmology of the Indie Aryans. In one of the Vedic hymns it is stated that water existed before even the gods came into being, and the Rig-veda tells us that "the waters contained a germ from which everything else sprang forth." This is plainly a myth of the motherhood of the waters, for in the Brâhmanas we are told that from the water arose an egg, from which came forth after a year Pragâpati, the creator (510. 248). Variants of this myth of the cosmic egg are found in other quarters of the globe. _Mother-Ocean._