It is possible that the mound gave name to the adjacent village: that is, Karn-ak, or Carnac, from “cairn” a hill, and “hac,” a snake. The “serpent’s hill” would be no unsuitable title for Mont S. Michel. In the same manner the group of pillars called Lemaenac, may have been named from maen, stones, and hac.
It is curious to find proofs of the existence of Serpent-worship in the New World as in the Old; to meet with its traces in Mexico as well as in Egypt or Chaldea. But certain it is that the religion of Mexico had many features which were common to the Egyptian and Chaldean creeds; the same Solar Worship, the same pyramidal monuments, and the same Ophiolatrous symbols.
For instance, we learn that the temple of Huitziliputli, in Mexico, was built of great stones, in the fashion of snakes tied one to another, and that the circuit was called “the circuit of snakes,” because the walls of the enclosure were covered with the figures of snakes. This truculent-looking deity held in his right hand a staff cut in the fashion of a serpent; and the four corners of the ark or tabernacle, in which he was seated, terminated each with a carved effigy of a serpent’s head.
The Mexican astronomers represented a century by a circle, with a sun in the centre, surrounded by the symbols of the years. The circumference was a serpent twisted into four knots at the cardinal points.
The Mexican month was divided into twenty days, two of which were symbolised by the serpent and dragon. Further, the doorway of the temple, dedicated to “the god of the air,” was so wrought as to resemble a serpent’s mouth.
The Mexicans, however, went beyond the symbolical worship of the sacred serpent, and like many other branches of the Ophite family, they fostered living serpents in their dwellings as household gods. Mr. Bullock asserts that they make the rattlesnake an object of their worship and veneration; and that representations of this reptile, and of others of its species, are very commonly met with among the remains of their ancient idolatry. He says that the finest known to be in existence may be seen in a deserted part of the cloister of the Dominican convent, opposite to the Palace of the Inquisition. It is curled up in an irritated, erect position, with the jaws extended, and is represented in the act of gorging a woman, richly dressed, who lies between its fangs, crushed and lacerated.
The Conquistadors, or Spanish followers of Cortez, all assert that the Aztecs, or inhabitants of Mexico, worshipped an idol wrought into the shape of a serpent. Bonal Dias del Castello, one of the Spanish invader’s veteran captains, and the chronicler of the expedition, describes the interior of the principal temple, to which he and his leader were conducted by the Emperor Montezuma: “When we had ascended to the summit of the temple, we observed on the platform as we passed, the large stones on which were placed the victims intended for sacrifice. Here was a great figure representing a Dragon, and much blood lay spilled. Cortez, addressing Montezuma, requested him to do him the favour to show his gods. After consulting the priests, Montezuma led them into a tower where was a kind of hall. Here were two altars, highly adorned with richly-wrought timbers on the roof; above the roof, spread gigantic figures like unto men. The one on the right hand was Huitzilopochtli, their war god, with a great face and terrible eyes. This figure was entirely covered with gold and jewels, and his body wreathed about with golden serpents. Before the idol smoked a pan of incense, in which the hearts of three human victims were burning, mixed with copal. The other great figure, on the left, with a face like a bear’s, was the god of the infernal regions. His body was everywhere covered with figures of devils, having serpents’ tails. In this place was kept a drum of most enormous dimensions, the head of which was made of the skins of large serpents. At a short distance from the temple stood a tower, and at the door grinned frightful idols, like serpents and devils: in front of these were tables and knives for sacrifice.”
Mr. Bullock, who made a valuable collection of Mexican antiquities, describes an idol, “the goddess of war,” on which Cortez and his followers may possibly have looked:
“This monstrous idol,” he says, “is, with its pedestal, twelve feet high, and four feet wide. Its form is partly human and partly composed of rattlesnakes and the tiger. The head, enormously wide, seems that of two rattlesnakes united; the fangs hanging out of the mouth, on which the still-palpitating hearts of the unfortunate victims were rubbed as an act of the most acceptable oblation. The body is that of a deformed man, the place of arms being supplied by the heads of rattlesnakes, placed on square plinths, and united by fringed ornaments. Round the waist is a girdle, which was originally encrusted with gold; and beneath this, reaching nearly to the ground, and partly covering its deformed cloven feet, a drapery entirely composed of wreathed rattlesnakes, which the natives call “a garment of serpents.... Between the feet, descending from the body, another wreathed serpent rests his head upon the ground.”
“The only worship,” says Mr. Deane,[48] “which can vie with that of the Serpent in antiquity or universality, is the adoration of the Sun. But uniformly with the progress of the Solar superstitions has advanced the sacred serpent from Babylon to Peru. If the worship of the Sun, therefore, was the first deviation from the truth, the worship of the Serpent was one of the first innovations of idolatry. Whatever doubt may exist as to which was the first error, little doubt can arise as to the primitive and antediluvian character of both. For in the earliest heathen records we find them inexplicably interwoven as the first of superstitions. Thus Egyptian mythology informs us, that Helios (the Sun) was the first of the Egyptian gods; for in early history, kings and gods are generally confounded. But Helios married Ops, the serpent deity, and became father of Osiris, Isis, Typhœus, Apollo, and Venus: a tradition which would make the superstitions coeval. This fable being reduced to more simple laws, informs us, that the Sun, having married the Serpent, became, by this union, the father of Adam and Eve, the Evil Spirit, the Serpent-solar deity, and Lust; which appears to be a confusion of Scriptural truths, in which chronological order is sacrificed from the simplification of a fable. But—ex pede Herculem—from the small fragments of the truth which are here combined, we may judge of the original dimensions of the knowledge whose ruins are thus heaped together. We may conclude that, since idolatry, lust, the serpent, and the evil spirit, are here said to have been synchronous with the First Man and Woman, the whole fable is little more than a mythological version of the events in Paradise.”