SERPENT WORSHIP. The subject of serpent worship is one of the most truly fascinat ing that ever engages the attention of anthro pologists. However much has been written in relation to it, we are still only just awakening to the necessity of understanding the origin of this superstition as well as that of tree worship.
(1) Symbol of Deities. The student of mythology knows that certain ideas were asso ciated by the peoples of antiquity with the serpent, and that it was the favorite symbol of particular deities; but why that animal was chosen for this purpose is yet uncertain.
It is believed that serpent worship was not adopted by any nation belonging to the Semitic or Aryan stock ; the serpent worship of India and Greece originating with older peoples. How ever this belief may be accepted the superstition was certainly not unknown to either Aryans or Semites.
The brazen serpent of the Hebrew Exodus was destroyed in the reign of Hezekiah, owing to the idolatry to which it gave rise.
(2) Widely Spread Superstition. In the mythology of the Chaldaans, from whom the As syrians seem to have sprung, the serpent occupied a most important position. Among the allied Phoenicians and Egyptians it was one of the most divine symbols.
In Greece, Hercules was said "to have been the progenitor of the whole race of serpent-worship ing Scythians, through his intercourse with the serpent Echidna.;" and when Minerva planted the sacred olive on the Acropolis of Athens, she placed it under the care of the serpent-deity Erechthonios.
As to the Latins, Mr. Ferguson (to whom we are indebted for a large array of facts) remarks that "Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' are full of passages referring to the important part which the serpent performed in all the traditions of classic my thology." The superstitions of that animal are supposed not to have existed among the ancient Gauls and Germans ; but this is extremely improbable, con sidering that it appears to have been known to the British Celts and to the Gothic inhabitants of Scandinavia. In eastern Europe there is no doubt that the serpent superstition was anciently prevalent, and Mr. Ferguson refers to evidence
proving that "both trees and serpents were wor shiped by the peasantry in Esthonia and Finland within the limits of the century just past, and even with all the characteristics possessed by the old faith when we first became acquainted with it." The serpent entered largely into the mythology of the Ancient Persians, as it does into that of the Hindus. In India it is associated with both Siva ism and Vishnuism, although its actual worship perhaps belonged rather to the aboriginal tribes among whom Buddhism is thought by recent writers to have originated.
The modern home of the superstition, however, is Western Africa, where the serpent is not mere ly considered sacred, but is actually worshiped as divine. On the other side of the Indian Ocean traces of the same superstition are met among the peoples of the Indian Islands and of Polynesia, and also in China.
(3) Symbolic Sculpture and Earthmarks, The evidences of serpent worship on the Ameri can continent have long engaged the attention of archaeologists, who have found it to be almost uni versal, under one form or another among abor iginal tribes. That animal was sculptured on the temples of Mexico and Peru, and its form is said by Mr. Squier to be of frequent occurrence among the mounds of Wisconsin.
The most remarkable of the symbolic earth works of North America is the great serpent mound of Adams county, Ohio, the convolutions of which extend to a length of Loco feet. At the Edinburg meeting of the British Association in 1871, Mr. Phene gave an account of his discovery in Argyleshire of a similar mound several hun dred feet long, and about fifteen feet high by thir ty feet broad, tapering gradually to the tail, the head being surmounted by a circular cairn, which he supposes to answer to the solar disc above the head of the Egyptian Uraeus, the posi tion of which, with the head erect, answers to the form of the Oban serpent-mound. This discov ery is of great interest, and its author is probably justified in assuming that the mound was con nected with serpent worship.