SERPENT WORSHIP,^ ' CHARMING,' ETC. 509 



appear. The same may be said of the Hindoo monuments," 

 their temples, buildings, and sculptured caves ; also of 

 Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and other ancient mythologies. 

 Singularly, too, no other object in nature — no birds or 

 flowers or beautiful things — have been so universally adopted 

 in personal ornaments as the serpent idea. And in times of 

 remote antiquity — as relics prove — personal adornments, 

 bracelets, coronets, and rings in the form of serpents were 

 as much in favour as at the present day. We may, indeed, 

 affirm that the modern bracelet is but a reproduction or a 

 restoration of those ot antiquity, dating as far back as 

 artificers in metals can be traced. Rough and rude repre- 

 sentations of still earlier times are extant. And where the 

 human race in its savage state had no knowledge of art, 

 the reptile itself, or such relics of it as could be preserved, 

 were adopted as personal decorations. Thus were the 

 American Indians found by the early colonists, with their 

 belts of snake skins, with the rattles of the Crotalus strung 

 in their ears, and with necklaces and chains of snake 

 bones and ' rattels.' Mackeney, Catlin, Schoolcraft, and 

 other historians of the American Indians relate numerous 

 instances in proof of the universal veneration and superstition 

 with which the serpent is regarded by those savages. If 

 they kill a rattlesnake, it is immediately skinned and 

 distributed in small pieces among the tribe for their 

 medicine bags, while the captor is pompously decorated with 

 the skin. If on a journey they meet a rattlesnake in their 

 direct path, this is taken to be a sign that they must go 

 no farther. Some of the Indian traditions bear a remarkable 

 resemblance to the prophetic symbols of the Hebrew faith. 



