It is interesting to observe that the American Indians, as well as Eastern peoples, made use of the serpent as a symbol of life. The belief that the animal had power over the fertilizing summer showers was probably at the bottom of it, as well as its title to god of fruitfulness. Says Dr. Brinton: “Because the rattlesnake, the lightning symbol, is thus connected with the food of man, and itself seems never to die, but annually to renew its youth, the Algonkins called it ‘grandfather,’ and king of snakes. They feared to injure it. They believed it could grant prosperous breezes or raise disastrous tempests. Crowned with the lunar crescent, it was the constant symbol of life in their picture-writing.”[251] In the language of the Algonkins and of the Dakotas, the words manito and waken, which express divinity in its widest sense, also signify serpent.
Mr. Wake entertains the opinion that the mainspring of serpent-worship was a belief that the animal was really the embodiment of a deceased human being; or, in other words, that the worship was ancestral in character. He says: “The serpent has been viewed with awe or veneration from primeval times and almost universally as a re-embodiment of a deceased human being; and as such there were ascribed to it the attributes of life and wisdom and the power of healing.”[252]
But little, however, in what has been said throws much light on the main point at issue, namely, why the serpent should be yielded worship. The cause must be sought for, to some extent, in peculiarities of the animal itself. And it has peculiarities enough. Remarkable in form and in mode of locomotion, and in some species possessed of deadly venom, one might well regard it with admiration and awe. Then, its longevity and apparent power of renewing its age serve to make it a very extraordinary creature. The opinion has been expressed[253] that its power to glide along without limbs, like the heavenly bodies, was the reason why it was held to be sacred. No doubt its remarkable power of motion in the absence of limbs forcibly impressed the ancients.[254] Solomon himself said that one of the four things he could not understand was “the way of a serpent upon a rock.”[255]
Herbert Spencer maintains that the first step toward the worship of serpents and other animals was the naming or, rather, nicknaming of men after creatures to which they bore some points of resemblance. Thus, from having apparently, like Holmes’s Elsie Venner, some of the qualities of a snake, one might be compared with the animal, and so named after it. Then the descendants, out of regard for their ancestor,[256] might take the name, or, in other words, accept the snake as their totem.
Although the Æsculapian serpent was innocent, it was mostly a harmful species which received worship. The asp of the Egyptians and the cobra of the East Indians are decidedly venomous. Under the name of uræus the asp was a symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt. Ebers makes Rameses say: “My predecessors chose the poisonous uræus as the emblem of their authority, for we can cause death as quickly and as certainly as the venomous snake.”[257] The American Indians were devoted to the rattlesnake, which is extremely venomous. Thus, says Dr. Brinton: “The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses the power of the basilisk to attract within its spring small birds and squirrels.”[258] Evidently the worship of such reptiles must have been inspired, in a measure at least, by fear. Still, it appears certain, as the author just quoted believes, that, as employed to express the divine element in atmospheric and other natural phenomena, it far more frequently typified what was favorable and agreeable than the reverse. Ebers gives it as his opinion that “mythological figures of snakes have quite as often a benevolent as a malevolent signification.”[259]
A word must be said about the phallic explanation of the origin of serpent-worship. Mr. Cox, an excellent writer on mythology, is friendly to this theory. After speaking of the phallus as a symbol, he says: “When we add that from its physical characteristics the Ashêrah, which the Greeks called the phallus, suggested the emblem of the serpent, we have the key to the tree- and serpent-worship.”[260] Beyond question, a phallus-serpent comes frequently into view in studying mythology, but it would be very hard to prove that every serpent met with had its prototype in the phallus. It is to be regarded as beneficent, a life-giving power. The Agathodæmon is frequently so represented.
Probably the possibility of charming serpents has had something to do with the remarkable uses to which these animals have been put. A person who could handle without danger a venomous reptile, and control its actions at pleasure, might easily lead many to believe him to be possessed of some miraculous power. Aaron resorted to this artifice when he appeared before Pharaoh with his cataleptic serpent, in the form of a rod.[261]
The reason just given seems better than the one Plutarch gives for the association of the serpent with certain great men, when he says, in his “Life of Cleomanes,” that it was from a belief that after death evaporation of “the marrow”[262] produces serpents;[263] that the ancients appropriated the serpent, rather than any other animal, to heroes.
I believe it is vain to attempt to trace the origin of serpent-worship to one and the same source. This appears plain when it is remembered that some serpents represented good, while others stood for the opposite, evil. The Bible furnishes a marked instance of contrasts: in one place a serpent was used, as has been pointed out, as a symbol of God, or Christ, while elsewhere one represents cunning, envy, lying, and even “the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”[264] In the nature of things, one would expect the same species of reptile to produce a very similar impression on primitive peoples everywhere. This, probably, accounts largely for the resemblance to one another of most serpent-legends. The different impressions produced by different species would, to some extent, explain the unlike significance of serpent-symbols among different peoples. The signification, however, was often of very fanciful origin, as, for example, where a serpent in the form of a circle symbolized eternity, or, rather, endless life.