Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-04-10
SERPENT WORSHIP.

article on "The Serpent Mound Of Ohio
we quote the following:
That such work, so carefully design
ed, and constructed under such difficult.
les along this narrow ridge terminating
in the high rough cliff, was planned anC
built under some powerful influence, we
can but believe. And what other than a
religious motive can be conceived
Have we not here the evidence of the
former existence of that ancient faith
which, rising probably in the East, age;
before historic time, held millions Ot
people under its terrible sway; and
spreading over Asia, Africa, and Eu-
rope has not yet been wholly supplanted
in India and Africa, by later faiths?
That the serpent was prominent in
the religious faiths of the Americans is
beyond question, and that, to a certain
extent, in combination with phallic and
solar worship, it extended from Central
America to Peru and Mexico, cannot
be doubted, whatever its origin. Its
existence in Yucatan is shown, as in
Cambodia, by sculpture on the ruined
buildings which can only be properly
designated as temples. We know from
history and art that this form of wor-
ship existed in Mexico down to the time
of the Spanish invasion and conquest,
and that it still survives in the rites OF
Zunis and Moquis, and probably other
of the Pueblo tribes.
TO this southwestern region, with its
ASia iQ # l~f nd fnf
we are constantly forced by our inyesti-
cations as we look for the source of the
builders of the older works of the Ohio
Valley. With these considerations in
mind, with the knowledge that struct-
ures similar to this in Ohio existed in
the Old World, where the serpent and
other early faiths had their greatest de-
velopment, will it be forcing the facts
to argue unless all religious symbolism
is merely coineident, vague, and mean
ingleSS, which seems an absurd position
to hold-that in the oval embankment,
and its central pile of burnt stones, in
combination with the serpent, we have
the three symbols everywhere regarded
in the Old World as emblems of those
primitive faiths? Here we find the
linga-in-yoni of India, or the reciprocal
principles of nature guarded by the ser
pent; or life, power, knowledge, and
eternity. Moreover, its position, east
and west, indicates the nourishing source
of fertility-the great sun god whose
first rays fall upon the altar of stones in
the center of the oval SO that here we
have associated the symbols which in
Asia would be accepted without queS-
tion as showing the place to be phal
lo-sOlar shrine combined with the ser
pent faith. Its very position on the
high cliff terminating in the rough over
hanging rocks, washed by the spring tor
rents, and near the three forks OF the
river, is to be considered when cOmpari-
sons are made. This combination of
natural features probably could not be
found again in any part of the great
route along which the people must have
journeyed from the Mexican Gulf. Is
this all to be taken as mere coincidence
in the development of faith in Ameri-
ca and in the Old World? There seems
to be too much here to admit of such a
theory; and when other facts, in other
lines, point in the same direction, it is
playing false with our reason to be too
skeptical. Agreements, nay, identities,
would then mean nothing in science,
and comparative studies would be use
less. FERGUSON, in his Tree and Ser
pent Worship" mentions the existence
of serpent worship on some of the Pacific
islands, and refers to its possible trans
mission across the Pacific to America,
and says if it is proved "that this wor-
ship is indigenous in the New World
we are thrown back on the doctrine that
human nature is alike everywhere, and
that man in like circumstances and
with like degree Of civilization does
always the same things, and elaborates
the same beliefs. 1t may be so, but l
confess it appears to me that at present
the evidence preponderates the other
way" (p. 39). When this careful author
thus expressed his views, he was not ac-
quainted with the details now pointed
out in the combinations of the Ohio ser
pent shrine.