In one version of the Aztec creation myth, Quetzalcoatl, as God of Wind, blows a conch shell horn over a pile of bones to create mankind. A conch is a vortex you hold in your hand. In Nahuatl, the same word means “to whirl” and “to give life to.” They believed there were certain poems that were born on a tree of flowers in paradise, that came whirling to earth.
