5IO SNAKES. 



' If thou bruise its head, it shall bruise thy heel.' This in 

 their eyes is regarded as ' destiny,' and they will on no 

 account kill one that lies in their path, lest it should cause 

 the death of the destroyer's relatives. The Indians are also 

 supposed to possess the art of snake-taming to an extra- 

 ordinary degree. We are assured by more than one writer 

 that they also pet rattlesnakes, investing them with divine 

 attributes, and sheltering them during the winter ; though in 

 this case the 'tameness' may be partially due to the inert- 

 ness resulting from the season of the year. On returning 

 spring they permit their Penates to issue forth again. 



The ancient temples of Mexico were richly embellished 

 with carvings of serpents. One of them represents a serpent 

 idol of not less than seventy feet long, in the act of 

 swallowing a human being. Also, there is the ' God of the 

 Air/ a feathered rattlesnake ; and an edifice know^n as the 

 * Wall of Serpents,' from the numerous reptilian forms 

 crowded upon it. But it is not necessary to enumerate 

 antiquities, with most of which the reader must be already 

 acquainted, the object here being rather to endeavour to 

 account for those other attributes which have grown out of 

 serpent worship, such as 'fascinating/ taming, 'charming/ 

 ' dancing to music,' etc. 



Not that serpent worship is extinct by any means. In 

 India it is still so strong as to amount to a fatality ; for the 

 hieh annual death-rate from snake bites there is not half so 

 much because the natives can't be cured, as because they 

 ivon't be cured of what they regard as a just punishment 

 from their deity. This we shall have occasion to show 

 further on. That serpent superstitions are still rampant 



