Note 36 — Chapter III · THE GREAT GODS
Reading edition
See Rendel Harris, The Ascent of Olympus, passim. In his Ascent of Olympus Dr. Rendel Harris has shown that the sacred oak of Zeus was regarded as “the animistic repository of the thunder, and in that sense the dwelling-place of Zeus … that the woodpecker who nested in it … was none other than Zeus himself, and it may turn out that Athena, who sprang from the head of the thunder-oak, was the owl that lived in one of its hollows” (p. 57).
In the same way, it may be that the maguey plant may have been regarded by the Mexicans as a repository of thunder and the heavenly fire. Octli, its sap, was connected with fire (see octli gods, “Nature and Status”), and Uitzilopochtli was the humming-bird who dwelt among its leaves. He springs from his mother’s body fully armed, as does Athena from the head of Zeus. A similar train of thought appears to be present in both ideas. ↑