July 2, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



13 



he then communicates it to the successor whom he 

 had previously selected, and to whom he had already 

 taught all the other rights and ceremonies pertain- 

 ing to the dance. 



The various liquids or ' medicine- waters ' are not 

 procurable by those not in the order, as they are 

 very jealously guarded. Wiki, the high snake- 

 priest, in an interview held after the dances at a 

 ranch in the neighborhood, was quite communicative 

 for a while, but, when this subject was approached, 

 became very much agitated. He said, that, were he 

 to reveal the secret of the preparation of these 

 liquids, his life would be the penalty. Dr. Yarrow 

 succeeded, however, in obtaining a bottle of the 

 liquid used after the dance, and it is now in the army 

 medical museum. 



It should be mentioned that these liquids are not 

 looked upon by the Indians as antidotes. The liquid 

 taken after the dance has no direct bearing on the 

 question of poison. In reply to Dr. Yarrow's ques- 

 tion as to the object of this ceremony (the vomiting 

 after the dance), Wiki told him that " the presence 

 of the snake between the lips of the dancer caused 

 a profuse flow of saliva, which the dancer was neces- 

 sarily obliged to swallow, and that if he did not get 

 rid of this saliva, which was poisonous, his stomach 

 would swell up and burst," — an operation, it is 

 hardly necessary to say, which never occurred from 

 this cause ; and the account must have been derived, 

 therefore, from some source outside the facts of the 

 case. 



Mr. Trumble speaks of gorging on the part of the 

 participants in the dance ; he also says the snakes 

 are fed until they become inert, and finds in these 

 practices a partial preventive of evil effects from 

 snake-bite. 



Neither of these apply to the Moki dances. The 

 performers go into the dance after four days of 

 what is practically fasting (they eat but one meal 

 each day) ; and the snakes themselves, so far as I 

 could learn, are given nothing whatever to eat. It 

 is true that in Wiki's accounts the phrase, " and I 

 bathed him, and gave him to drink of the liquid," 

 occurs ; but the giving of drink is metaphorical, and 

 consists of sprinkling the snake with the liquid by 

 means of a feather. 



I think the study of the rites pertaining to serpent- 

 worship, as they occur among the lower races of 

 mankind, would throw much light on the serpent- 

 symbolism which prevailed among quite highly civi- 

 lized people ; the Egyptians, for example : but our 

 knowledge of the early phases of this form of 

 worship is rather meager. Perhaps the tribes men- 

 tioned by Mr. Trumble may supply some of the 

 needed information. 



A writer in Harper^s weekly (March 25, 1882), 

 quoted by Captain Bourke, gives an account of a per- 

 formance very similar to the Moki dance, but oc- 

 curring among some Central American tribes. In 

 this ceremony each performer has his own particu- 

 lar snake, which he has previously trained, and with 

 which he performs various feats. This, however, is 

 jugglery, an element which is entirely lacking in the 

 Moki performances. On this point I cannot do bet- 

 ter than to quote Dr. Yarrow's closing remarks : "I 

 went to Wolpi expecting to find a good deal of hum- 

 bug about the snake-dance ; I came away convinced 

 of the earnestness and fair dealing of the people, and 

 without a doubt that they fully believed that their 

 ceremonies would bring about the desired result." 



I think Mr. Trumble is mistaken about the effects 

 of curari ; but the word has been applied to so 

 many different varieties of poison, that it has come 

 to have a rather vague meaning. Curarine, the 

 active principle of curari, is said to cause paralysis 

 of the motor nerves, and it has been used in medi- 

 cine as an antidote for strychnine and as a remedy 

 in hydrophobia and in tetanus. But this part of the 

 subject I must leave for those better qualified for 

 the discussion. The subject has excited much in- 

 terest ; and many eminent investigators, from the 

 days of Sir Walter Raleigh (who published his ac- 

 count in 1595) down to the present time, have given 

 it their attention. Probably the most complete ac- 

 count is that published by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and 

 Dr. W. A. Hammond in the latter's ' Physiological 

 memoirs,' 1863. 



There is a point in Mr. Trumble's letter which 

 seems to deserve special attention : this is the use, 

 by Indians, of antidotes against poisons. To the 

 savage there is no unknown : every thing is ex- 

 plained ; and this explanation is always the most 

 simple, the most direct, and, as a rule, the most 

 superficial, that could be applied. The savage can 

 no more realize the physical causes of phenomena 

 than he can the laws which govern the solar system. 

 Instances of this are furnished in abundance by the 

 Moki myths ; but they need not be quoted here, as 

 they occur in all tribes, and can be found in any 

 work treating on mythologic philosophy. The ina- 

 bility to realize the facts of physical causation, the 

 grandest which have yet been discovered by man, is 

 not confined to savages, however, but is present, in 

 a greater or less degree, in what we are accustomed 

 to call the highest civilization. It follows, then, that 

 poison as a physical cause of death is a conception 

 which is beyond the ken of the savage mind, and 

 such is actually the case. Poison, when it is con- 

 ceived of at all by savages, — and this conception is 

 rarer than is generally believed, — is not thought of 

 as a substance containing in itself its fatal properties^ 

 but as being endowed with them by some outside 

 power, — either human, as in witchcraft, or else 

 supernatural. The antidote to poison as thus con- 

 ceived consists of an appeal to the same powers 

 which produced the poison, or, in other words, to 

 charms, or prayers, or incantations. 



Cosmos Mindeleff. 



Prehensile-tailed salamanders. 



It is not well to be hasty in accepting the idea that 

 the tail of the salamanders is of so little value to 

 them that they might get along quite as well without 

 it. Observation proves the organ to be of constant use 

 in pushing, when the animal makes its way among 

 weeds, grass, rocks, or other obstructions. It is the 

 main dependence of such as swim ; and of climbing 

 species its importance as a support and a lever is 

 very manifest. Those suggested are general uses, 

 common to all tailed batrachians. Particular species 

 have the tail still more specialized. It is to some ex- 

 tent an organ for grasping in the long-tailed terres- 

 trial species. A frequent practice of the ' spotted 

 salamander,' Amblystoma punctatum, when taken 

 up, is to curl the tail around the fingers or hand to 

 prevent falling. Suspended thus, hanging head down- 

 ward, it will again and again try to regain footing 

 rather than drop. Peculiar serpentine curves, and 

 the motions of the very flexible tip, often give the 



