the traditional religion was described in the early 1960s by the french ethnographer, alain ichon. no other major essay on totonac religion has been found. mother goddesses played a very important role in totonac belief, since each person's soul is made by them. if a newly born child dies, its soul "does not go to the west, the place of the dead, but to the east with the mothers". ichon has also preserved for posterity an important myth regarding a maize deity, a culture hero with counterparts among most other cultures of the gulf coast and possibly also represented by the classic maya maize god. as to traditional curers, it is believed that they "are born during a storm, under the protection of thunder. they think that a lightning bolt strikes the house of a new-born baby ..., and makes it ... under its possession".