Our word “spiritual” is derived from the Latin spirare, to blow; the Latin animus, “spirit,” is the same word as the Greek anemos, “wind,” and psukhe has a similar origin. All are directly evolved from verbal roots expressing the motion of the wind or the breath. The Hebrew word ruah is equivalent to both “wind” and “spirit,” as is the Egyptian kneph. If we turn to the American mythologies, nija in the language of the Dakota means “breath,” or “life”; in Netela piuts is “life,” “breath,” and “soul”; the Yakuna language of Oregon has wkrisha, “wind,” wkrishmit, “life.” The Creeks applied to their supreme deity the name Esaugetuh Emissee, Master of Breath, [141] and the original name for God in Choctaw was Hustoli, the Storm Wind. “In the identity of wind with breath, of breath with life, of life with soul, of soul with God, lies the far deeper and truer reason,” says Brinton, “of the prominence given to wind-gods in many mythologies.” [142] But although Tezcatlipocâ was the Giver of Life, he was also regarded as a deity with power to take it away. In fact at times he appeared as an inexorable death-dealer, and in this guise he was named Nezahualpilli (“The Hungry Chief”) and Yaotzin (“The Enemy”). But he was also known as Telpochtli (“The Youthful Warrior”), from the fact that his reserve of strength, his vital force, never grew less and was boisterously apparent, as in the tempest. As the wind at night rushes through the roads with more seeming violence than it does by day, so was Tezcatlipocâ pictured in the Aztec consciousness as rioting along the highways in search of slaughter. Indeed, seats or benches of stone, shaped like those used by the chiefs of the Mexican towns, were placed at intervals on the roads for his use, and here he was supposed to lurk, concealed by the green boughs which surrounded them, in wait for his victims. Should anyone grapple with and overcome him, he might crave whatsoever boon he desired, with the surety of its being granted. The worship of Tezcatlipocâ previous to the Conquest had so advanced, and so powerful had his cult become, that it would appear as if the movement would ultimately have led to a monotheism or worship of one god equivalent to that of the cult of Jahveh, the God of the Old Testament among the ancient Hebrews. To his priestly caste is credited the invention of many of the usages of civilized life, and it succeeded in making his worship universal. The Nahua people regarded the other gods as objects of special devotion, but the worship of Tezcatlipocâ was general. QUETZALCOATL = “FEATHERED SERPENT” Area of Worship: The Plateau of Anahuac. Minor Names: Chicunaui eecatl—“Nine Wind.” Ce acatl—“One Reed.” Relationship: Son of Iztacmixcoatl and Chimalman or Xochiquetzal; one of the Tzitzimimê. Calendar Place: Ruler of the second day-count, eecatl. Ruler of the second week, ce ocelotl. Ninth of the thirteen day-lords.