295 
they are now ? Facts like these, I contend, are extremely 
valuable, and supply us with a species of evidence on this 
subject which strongly augments the force of all that has 
preceded. 
Thesamemaybe saidof anothervery remarkable social custom 
wdiich obtains in the western extremity of Ceylon, and which 
has acquired the recognition of law, whereby nephews on the 
sister's side succeed to the inheritance of the possessor, even 
to the exclusion of his own sons. “ This anomalous arrangement 
is observed in various parts of India, in Sylhet, and Kachar, 
in Canara, and among the Naios in the south of the Dekkan. 
The guardianship of the sacred island of Ramiseram is vested 
in a chief of the tribe of Byragees, who is always devoted to 
celibacy, the succession being perpetual in the line of his 
sister."* Exceptional as this practice is, however, Humboldt 
assures usf that the same thing can be traced among the North 
American Indians, — the Hurons and the Natchez preferring 
the female to the male line, and setting aside the claims of 
the direct heir in favour of the son of a sister. How any 
custom, so far removed from all the ordinary usages of mankind, 
could ever have originated in these separate countries, from 
independent and unconnected causes, I am at a loss to imagine. 
But on the theory that some of the South Indian tribes found 
their way to America, as we have seen already to be probable 
from our philological argument, all is made plain. 
IY. This connection between India and North America 
reminds me of certain mythological affinities which may be 
traced between them, especially in relation to serpent worship, 
which we will now proceed to consider. 
Every student of these subjects is familiar with the fact 
that some form, of serpent worship runs throughout the Old 
World. In the mythology of ancient Babylon, the temple of 
Belus contained an image of Juno holding in her right hand 
the head of a serpent. J In the mythology of ancient Persia, 
the god Mittras was always represented encircled by a 
serpent. In Java, when Sir Stamford Raffles visited it, 
he found ancient temples in ruins adorned with serpent 
images. In Abyssinia, the first king was said to have been a 
serpent ; and the worship of this reptile prevailed until the 
Abyssinians were converted to Christianity. In ancient 
Britain our ancestors held the serpent in peculiar reverence. 
Several obelisks, indeed, still remain in the neighbourhood of 
Aberdeen, Dundee, and Perth, on which the serpent is a 
* Tennent’s Ceylon, vol. ii., p. 459. 
t See his Personal Narration, c. 26. 
+ Diodorus Siculus, Lib. ii., s. 70. 
