Unfortunately, we have not the space here to lay bare the bones of Shamanism.  Before closing our subject, however, one more example is called for. The connection of the Snake-Bird motif with the Hero Twins demands that we at least mention what is perhaps the token par excellence of the Snake-Bird, one whose most familiar form is undoubtedly that of the late, Aztecan god Quetzalcoatl.  The earlier, Mayan counterpart of this Feathered-Serpent (as the name translates), Gucumatz, is well-known from the Yucatec text Popol Vuh.²⁹  And his name itself indicates that even the far-northern Kokomat, a Yuman Culture Hero whose evil Twin creates the lower animals, just as Kokomat creates the higher,³⁰ is the same character.  Ironically, the ‘gucu-’ and ‘koko-’ part of these names connect this character with the Bird symbol, for around the world this phonetic complex denotes birds.  Note, for example, the Tamil ‘kokku’, the Salishan ‘khakha’, and even the Indo-European 'cuckoo'.  And commensurate with this ironic inversion, the bird-like Gucumatz rises from the Primordial Ocean, while his only counterpart (and thus “twin”), Hunrakan (One-Leg, an appropriately serpentine epithet), descends from the Sky.  As we learn from the Popol Vuh itself, these two personifications of primeval forces conspire to create the World.