The bat is regarded as a mysterious creature, and this form was frequently assumed by Chamalcan, god of the Cakchiquels. Large bats abound in an island on the Ivory Coast in West Africa and are regarded as embodying the souls of the dead. In Tonga the same superstition holds good. Bats and birds appear so similar when flying at dusk that it is natural to find that birds also are often the form in which human spirits take wing.
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