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387 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Bermat
sqq.). Elagabalus is said as priest at Emesa to have imported and worshiped serpents from Egypt of the Agathodemon variety (Strabo, GeographikE, xvi. 756). While no country is richer than Egypt in snake symbolism, explicit evidence of worship is somewhat scarce. Apophis was the serpent of the underworld, and Set or Typhon is identified with him; Kneph is also represented as a hawk-headed serpent; Isis and Nephthys were both identified with the urseus goddess Uatchet, and a center of the uraeus worship in predynastic times was the town in the Delta known as Per-Uatchet. In the cases of Apophis and Set, if there was actual worship it was probably of the type known as avertive, which derives its stimulus from fear. Serpents were kept, apparently as objects of devotion, at Thebes (Herodotus, ii. 74), and the cerastes has often been found embalmed there. The asp was sacred to a goddess Ranno, was a companion of Kneph, and the representative of Agathadmmon (which name may have had a euphemistic origin). &lian (De animalibus, xvi. 39) tells of a large snake kept at the Asculapium at Alexandria, and of one kept and fed at the temple at Metele in the Delta (Vans his toria, xi. 17). Montfaucon (Diarium Italicum, vol. ii., plate 46) figures a marble, possibly from Egypt, found at Rome on which there is the portrayal of a worshiper before an idol the head of which consists of a triple serpent head. The deceased human might by the use of magic formulas become the serpent Bata, which proclaimed " I died daily and am born again each day " (E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, ii. 377, 2 vols., London, 1904).
In India the worship of the serpent is a present and indubitable fact, especially in the rural districts. That this is an inheritance from the past is as little open to question. The evidence for
6. India. past adoration is to be found not alone in the ever present representation of the animal in religious symbolism, which may often be accounted for on other grounds, but also diffu sively in the references in the literature, as in the Mahabharata, in which nag (serpent) stories abound and involve the existence of the cult. In the Punjab the animal is a tutelary household divinity to which sacrifice is offered, and protection is assured by be lief in penalties which will be incurred by killing the animal, such as subsequent barrenness of the wife (with which may be compared the Teutonic belief that the consequence is the death of a child). On the upper Ganges the Agarwalas are (mown to others by the name of snake-worshipers, and their chief deity is Astika Muni, a nephew of the mythological serpent Vasula. In Malabar most house enclosures have the animal's effigy on stone, the live snakes are fed, while " snake groves " are maintained for the performance of rites. In most villages of the Deccan the nag is one of the village deities, and elsewhere in the peninsula sacrifices of hair are offered in behalf of children. Similarly, in Kashmir effigies of the creature abound before which offerings are placed. The worship exists largely in Sivaite connections, and the so-called naga tribes are continuing testi mony to the existence of the cult.In other parts of the world the evidence of this worship can be substantiated, though only illustra-
tive examples will here be cited. In Africa the advance of civilization is destroying the cult, but it- is known that in Dahomey, for instance,
7. Other the earth serpent was once a great deity Countries. served by virgin priestesses, and on the slave coast the cult of the snake was all but dominant (J. B. Schlegel, Schliissel zur Eme Sprache, p. xiv., Stuttgart, 1857). In Japan, out side of the regard for the mythical dragon, the sti:: current animism includes the serpent as an object of prayer, and the gods of the water are often served under that form (W. G. Aston, Shinto, pp. 63-64, London, 1905). The Polynesian Ramahavaly is a deity of healing, and his messengers are snakes (W. Ellis, Polynesian. Researches, 3 d ed., London, 1854), possibly a case parallel to that of Esculapius in Greece. In Sweden in the sixteenth century, snakes were household deities held immune from harm (Olaus Magnus, xxi. 47-48, Copenhagen, 1650), and in Prussia the same regard long survived (C. Hart knoeh, Alt and Neues Preussen, i. 143, 162, Frank fort, 1684). In America, Mexico and Peru are rich est in evidences of this cult, the Aztec Tezcatlipoca being the male and his consort Cohuacohuatl the female serpent. Quetzelcoatl was the feathered serpent, lawgiver and civilizer (J. G. Muller, Ge schichte der americanischen U rreligionen, pp: 62, 585, Basel 1855; and the works of Prescott), while temples, the portals of which were built to resemble serpents' heads, were known and impress the fact of serpent-worship. In North America Hopi altars are decorated with figures of snakes, and the Kicka poo Indians reverence. the mythical rain serpent above other deities. The so-called dracontia (tem ples of earth or mounds built in serpentine form) are known in this region. The cases claimed in England and France (Carnac in Brittany, Abury in Wiltshire and Stanton Drew in Somersetshire, England; cf. J. B. Deane, Worship of the Serpent, chap. viii., London, 1833) are by Fergusson (see bibliography) declared to be imaginary. But in Scotland the sa cred character of the snakes pictured on stones is established (John Stuart, Sculptured Stones in Scot land, ii., p. lxxiv., Aberdeen, 1856), and there seems to be a dracontium in Argyllshire several hundred feet long.111. In Mythology: Greece presents perhaps the richest, at any rate the best known, aggregation of myths in which the serpent figures. The Titans in their battles with Zeus are represented
i. Greece. as either wholly or partly serpentine, while Boreas has tails of snakes instead of feet (Pausanias, V., xix. 1). Typhon, a monster partly snake-like in figure, was struck by the light ning of Zeus and buried beneath Mt. Etna (Pindar, Python). According to another story (Strabo, xvi. 756) the channel of the Orontes in Syria was caused by the writhings of the monster in his agony. The serpentine horrors of the Gorgons, Furies, and Cer berus come naturally to mind; and in early times the Xgis of Athena was a cloak with scales and a fringe of serpents. This deity, when she won Athens from Poseidon, made the serpent Erechthonius guardian of the olive-tree which she planted (Pau sanias, I., xxiv. 7). So serpents or dragons guarded the golden fleece and the golden apple in the garden