HOLMES. 1 



THE SERPENT IN ART. 289 



Island aud Saint Louis, but the races inhabiting this entire region, are 

 known to have had many arts in common, and besides this it is not 

 impossible that the same tribe or chxu may, at different times, have 

 occupied both of these localities. The marked differences in the de- 

 sign aud execution of these specimens, however, indicate a pretty wide 

 distinction in the time or art of the makers. 



THK SEUPENT. 



The serpent has had a fascination for primitive man hardly suri)assed 

 by its reputed power over the animals on which it preys. In the minds 

 of nearly all savages i^t has been associated with the deepest mysteries 

 and the mo^. potent powers of nature. No other creature has figured 

 so prominently in the religious systems of the world, few of which 

 are free from it ; and as art, in a great measure, owes its exist- 

 ence to an attempt to represent or embellish objects whicli are sup- 

 posed to be the incarnations of spirits, the serpent is an important ele- 

 ment in all art. Wherever the children of nature have wandered its 

 image may be found engraved upon the rocks, or painted or sculptured 

 upon monuments of their own construction. It is found in a thousand 

 forms; beginning with those so realistic that the species can be de- 

 termined, we may pass down through iunumeraole stages of variation 

 until all semblance of nature is lost. Beyond this it becomes embodied 

 in the conventional forms of art or looks back from its obscure place in 

 an alphabet through a persi)ective of metamorphism as marvelous as 

 that visible to the creature itself could it view the course of its evolu- 

 tion from the elements of nature. 



So well is the serpent known as a religious symbol among the Amer- 

 ican peoples that it saems hardly necessary to present examples of the 

 curiously interesting myths relating to it. We are not surprised to 

 find the bird, the wolf, or the bear placed among representatives of the 

 " Great Spirit," and hence to find them embodied iu art ; but it would 

 be a matter of surprise if the serpent were ever absent. 



With the mouud-builders it seems to have been of as much importance 

 as to other divisions of the red race, ancient or modern. It is of very 

 frequent occurreuce among the designs engraved upon gorgets of shell, 

 a multitude of which have been thus dedicated to the serpent-god. 



It is a well-known fact that the rattlesnake is the variety almost uni- 

 versally represented, aud we find that these engravings on shell pre- 

 sent no exception to this lulc. From a very early date iu mound ex- 

 ploration these gorgets have been brought to light, but the coiled ser- 

 pent engraved upon their concave surfaces is so highly conventionalized 

 that it was Hot at once recognized. Professor Wyman appears to have 

 been the first to point out the fact that the rattlesnake was represented ; 

 others have since made brief allusiou to this fact. Two exam])les only 

 have been illustrated ; one by Professor Joues,' who regards it as being 

 without intelligent design, and the other by Dr. Ran,- who does notsug- 



' .Joucs : Antiquities of the Sontheru Indian, plate XXX. 

 •i Archaeological Collection of the National Museum, p. 69. 

 19 E 



