Z^S Oit the fafcinating Faculty afcribed i« 



however, informs us, that Dobriflioffer aflerts, in his Hiflory. 

 of the Abipons, " that all the Spaniards and Indians in that 

 part of Paraguay unanimoufly afcribe a like propertv to the 

 fnake called ampalabas" I alfo find that Dr. Bancroft has 

 jneniioned the fafcinating power of a large but innocuous 

 fpecies of ferpent which inhabits Guiana *. 



I was ignorant of thefe fafts when I printed my nietnoir; 

 and now that they are known to me, thev do not appear to 

 be of much confequencc. They certainly do not prove that 

 ferpenis are endowed with the power of fafcinating. It is 

 not by any means afcertained that the Abipons have not de- 

 rived the notion from the Europeans, with whom they have 

 been long acquainted. 



Since the publication of mv memoir I have been able to 

 make a. more complete colleAion of the fentinients of the 

 North American Indians on the fabjeA. I am led to be- 

 lieve, that it is far from being the general opinion among 

 thefe people that the rattlefnake is endowed with the faculty 

 of charming. I cannot in any other wav fo firikinglv (bow 

 the notions of the Indians on the fubjeft, as by extracting 

 part of a very curious manufcript which I received from my 

 friend Mr. John Heckewelder: — "Having queftioned In- 

 dians a number of times with refpecft to makes having the 

 power of charming, and always being anfwered in the nega- 

 tive, I was at length dtfired," fays Mr. Heckewelder, *' to 

 give the reafon the white people had for believing fuch a 

 thing; which not being fatisfaftory, Pemaholendf declared : 

 * The. rattlefnake obtains its food merely by flynefs, and a 

 perfevering patience. It knoweth as well where to watch 

 for its prey as a cat does, and fucceeds as well. It has, and 

 retains, its hunting grounds. In fpring, when the warm 

 weather fets in, and the woods feem alive with the fmaller 

 animals, it leaves its den. It will crofs a river and go a mile 

 and further from its den to the place it intends to fpcnd the 

 fummer; and in fail, when all the young animals bred this 

 feafon are become ftrong and active, fo that they are no more 

 fo eafily overtaken or caught, it dircfts its courie back again, 

 to its den, the fame as a hunter does to his camp. 



" ' The white people,' continued Pemaholend, 'probably 

 have taken the idea of this fnake having the power of charm- 

 ing from a tradition of ours (the Indians), which our fore- 

 fathers have handed down to us, from many hundred years 



* An Ffi"ay on the Naturiil Hiftory of Guiana, &c. p. 205: [.ondon 

 1769 Mr. Stedman, a l^re writer, pofinvtiy denies the txilttnce of this 

 f<ii<ii.afng power in the ahoma, the ferpent itientioned by Dr. Rnncroft. 



t Aaagcd and mach refptfted Delaware Indian. 



5 back, 



