A few snails are natural barometers. They reputedly are extremely sensitive to changes in humidity. One, generally grey, turns yellow just before a rain and blue afterwards.
Snails admittedly are very tenacious of life and can endure extremes of heat, cold and dessication. Many instances have been cited, some nearly incredible. In 1846, for example, a desert snail from Egypt was fixed to a paper tablet in the British Museum in London. Four years later it was observed that he had discolored the paper in his attempt to get away. Finding escape impossible he had again retired. This led to his immersion in tepid water. The creature again came to life. He was “alive and flourishing” a week later.
There are snail harpists and even singing snails. The former were described by Rev. H. G. Barnacle, British missionary-naturalist, in a scholarly paper written in 1848: “When up in the mountains of Oahu, I heard the grandest but wildest music as from hundreds of aeolean harps wafted to me on the breeze and a native told me it came from singing shells. It was sublime. I could not believe it but a tree close at hand proved it. Upon it were thousands of the snails. The animals drew after them their shells which grated against the wood and so caused the sounds. The multitude of sounds produced the fanciful music.”
The singing snails in Ceylon’s blackish Lake Batticaloa were described by the British naturalist Sir Emerson Tennent: “Sounds came up from the water like gentle thrills of a musical chord or like the faint vibrations of a wine glass when the rim is rubbed by a moistened finger. It was not one sustained note but a multitude of tiny sounds, each clear and distinct in itself. On applying the ear to the woodwork of the boat the vibrations greatly increased in volume. The natives said they were made by singing snails.”
Vision-Producing Plants
Among the plants used by California Indians for food, medicine, and magic is wild tobacco. It is smoked in a hollow elder stick, about eight inches long, from which the pith has been removed. A few inhalations of the smoke early in the morning are enough to overcome the smoker so that he is unable to stand on his feet. He inhales until extreme dizziness is achieved and then he touches tobacco no more for the rest of the day. Indians can give no good reason for this concentrated form of smoking. It is simply the way of their ancestors.
A mixture of plants, the honey of bumblebees, and the red scum off an iron spring constitute a popular love charm. The mixture is placed in a buckskin bag and carried under the arm. When the favor of some particular maiden is desired it is necessary only to secure something associated with her and add it to the charm. The easiest to get is a pinch of soil upon which the lady has spat. This is used not only by lovers but also by husbands wishing to secure the return of errant wives.
Almost equally as important as tobacco in the life of these California Indians is a vision-producing plant closely related to the common garden trumpetflower and to the deadly nightshade. The leaves from the east side of the plant are smoked; this brings about a state of exaltation in which various animals are seen to come and offer their help to the dreamer. Leaves from the west side are never smoked. It would mean certain death; the Indians associate the west with death.
Much the same effect is obtained by drinking a blue-frothy decoction of the root. It not only produces visions but acts as a powerful anesthetic. It is highly poisonous, however, and only those Indians who know the proper dosage make use of it. The plant is known as “grandmother,” because of its comfort-bringing qualities.