>>53622232>>53622245>>53622224>>53622250>>53622263>>53622266>>53622265>>53622278The soul or spirit being depicted as a sort of spiraling gust or gas I think is pretty common across cultures.
In Mesoamerican (Aztec, Maya, etc) art for example, speech, singing, and other sound is depicted as gusts of wind coming from one's mouth, but more abstract winding "speech scroll" shapes like that, especially in the context of Maya art (also ties into things like Smoking Mirror motifs) can also indicate lifeforce or souls or spirits in the context of things like divine breath from the gods or going to the afterlife
