112 ABORIGINAL MYTHS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 



misinterpretation. It had such an ominous significance in Christian art, 

 and one which chimed so well with the favorite proverb of the early mis- 

 sionaries — 'the gods of the heathen are devils' — that wherever they saw 

 a carving or picture of a serpent, they at once recognized the sign-manual 

 of the Prince of Darkness, and inscribed the fact in their note-books as 

 proof positive of their cherished theory. After going over the whole 

 ground, I am convinced that none of the tribes of the red race attached 

 to this symbol any ethical significance whatever, and that as employed to 

 express atmospheric phenomena and the recognition of divinity in natu- 

 ral occurrences, it far more frequently typified what was favorable and 

 agreeable than the reverse." 



I think investigation would show, in respect, to the American rattle- 

 snake, that the veneration of it was strongest and most grossly mani- 

 fested in those regions where this serpent was less often seen, and hence 

 more invested with mystery than in an open country like the Texas 

 plains or the Utah basin, where it was far more plentiful and seen nearly 

 every day. It is noteworthy, for example, in the legends of the Kai-vav- 

 vits, living at the head of the canons of the Rio Colorado, where snakes 

 are almost as plentiful as sage-brush, that the rattler figures as one of 

 the first and most powerful of the demigods from whom that race count 

 their descent ; and he is not regarded with the superstitious terror seen 

 on Lake Superior and elsewhere, but as a master of cunning and the art 

 of success. 



He does many wonderful things in these myths by virtue of his 

 power of rendering himself invisible. Thus, when the migrating host 

 of one of the stories was famishing, and an antelope was seen, Shin- 

 au-av, the Coyote— a greater man in popular estimation than To-go-av, 

 the Rattlesnake — proposed at once to go and kill it ; " but To-go-av de- 

 murred, and said, ' It were better that I should go, for he will see yon 

 and run away . . . but I can kill him, for I can go where he is, and he 

 cannot see me.' " It is perfectly natural that the secretive habits and 

 tiie almost invisible, imitative hue of this rock-hiding reptile should find 

 such expression in a myth of which his doings form a part. 



