You will find him, huge and sinuous, undulating down stairways, as columns, either in upright striking position or slithering down head first, carved or painted across facades, or smaller versions in sculptures, paintings and personal ornaments and as repetitive motifs in weavings. In fact, he seems to be universal in Meso-America. From the Olmeca to the Aztec, the eagle, the jaguar and many other fierce animals play a large part in pre-Colombian art, architecture and mythology, but the serpent is by far the most important.
     Perhaps that is not so surprising. From the beginning of time man has hated and feared the slithering creatures which move so silently, hide so well and, quite often, carry death in their fangs, and Meso-America was home to many varieties, including some of the most lethal. There are boa constrictors, pit vipers like the rattlesnakes, which give warning, and fer-de-lances, which do not, and the deadly bushmaster, second in size and toxicity; only to the king cobra of India. Fear, however, seems to play only a minor role in their mythologies.
     There were three basic beliefs: serpents were water or bringers of water, serpents were the sky and all its constellations and serpents’ open mouths formed the entrance to all caves. The Maya conjured a vision serpent by burning paper soaked with sacrificial blood. The deity or ancestor thus convoked was the bearer of advice or prophecy. The Huichol credit the world’s creation to an enormous sea serpent called Kuwe Erne, who is, in fact, the sea, and who is still worshipped as a female cloud deity bringing life-giving rain as well as disastrous floods and who, if denied the blood sacrifices she craves, cannot breathe forth her clouds. Many of the myths connect the serpent with water, wind, rain and lightning. The god, Tlaloc controls rain and, if angered, brings floods and lightning and in many areas rain dancers wear his mask.