The Cult of The Serpent in The Americas

Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
The Cult of the Serpent in the Americas: Its Asian Background [and Comments and Reply]
Author(s): Balaji Mundkur, Ralph Bolton, Charles E. Borden, Åke Hultkrantz, Erika Kaneko,
David H. Kelley, William J. Kornfield, George A. Kubler, Harold Franklin McGee, Jr., Yoshio
Onuki, Mary Schubert, John Tu Er-Wei
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 429-455
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for
Anthropological Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2741354
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CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 17, No. 3, September 1976
? 1976 by The Wenner-GrenFoundation for AnthropologicalResearch
The Cult of the Serpent
in the Americas:
Its Asian Background'
byBalajiMundkur
OF THE NUMEROUS ANIMAL SPECIES around which the myths and records in diverse parts of the Old World that serpents were
cults of aboriginal Americans were woven, the serpent pre- deified, or at least excited man's imagination, long before the
dominated, not only because the awe it generated was wide- lion acquired the symbolic importance more amply bestowed
spread, but also because man's reverential fear of this animal upon its Mesoamerican analogue, the jaguar, and before the
is extraordinarily primordial. The existence of the former senti- bull was domesticated and became a cult animal. In the myths
ment in the Western Hemisphere is easily substantiated by of the Australian Aborigines, marsupials, birds, and other
ethnology and archaeology. That ophiolatry is one of the most animals are completely overshadowed by serpents. Hastings
primeval of animal cults is more difficult to establish in brief (1956) has compiled extensive worldwide surveys of primitive
review, since many complex factors related to anthropology, religious customs or popular beliefs involving reptiles, and
archaeology, and the evolution of primitive religious thought Klauber (1972) gives numerous North American Indian
are involved. The strength of the evidence depends principally examples. Serpents were likewise accorded a supreme place as
on comparisons of large numbers of cultures, both extinct and both beneficent and malignant deities in cosmological and
surviving, and ultimately can be derived mainly with reference fertility myths and in the religious beliefs of high civilizations
to fundamental arguments pointing to the very great antiquity in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India. Among these Old World
of serpent worship in the social evolution of man. civilizations, overtones of serpent cults existed side by side with
I will elaborate upon this latter aspect elsewhere, but a few anthropomorphic deities by at least the 3d millennium B.C.
general remarks should be made to illustrate this antiquity: The mythology and art of the Sumerians and of their Semitic
Venomous serpents occur almost everywhere between ap- successors exemplify this (Frankfort 1939, Parrot 1960), while
proximately latitudes 650 north and 450 south-that is, every- the deities of the Hindus provide additional, living proof
where except in the perpetually cold regions. Their ability to (Vogel 1926).
survive seasonal extremes makes them a constant factor among It is important to recall this background in view of the claims
widely variable faunas of which some other species may also be of some diffusionists that certain Mesoamerican archaeological
potentially dangerous to man. It is clear from archaeological relics, primarily religious and from a quite late stage of human
history, bear stylistic resemblances to the religious art and
1 This article represents part of the research carried out during architecture of India and Southeast Asia. Indeed, they are
the tenure of a generous travel award from the University of Con- adduced as indicators of overseas cultural contacts. Even if
necticut Research Foundation.
this were true, Mesoamerican ophiolatrous beliefs cannot have
been part of such diffusion, for the characteristics of the serpent
cult in pre-Columbian civilized Mesoamerica are in all essen-
BALAJI MUNDKUR holds joint appointments on the faculties of tial respects precisely akin to those typical of the most remote
Biology and Art History at the University of Connecticut (Box and backward aboriginals everywhere else in the Americas and
U-42, Storrs, Conn. 06268, U.S.A.). He was born in India in
1924, receiving a B.Sc. (1945) from the University of Bombay, differ fundamentally from the serpent lore and art of India and
an Associateship in Mycology (1947) from the Indian Agricul- Southeast Asia.
tural Research Institute, New Delhi, and the Ph.D. (1950) from It can be shown, furthermore, that, in the Americas, man's
Washington University. He has taught at the University of veneration or mythicizing of other animal species has had the
Puerto Rico (1954-58) and was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Anat-
omy at the University of Chicago (1958-60). He was the re- effect of sometimes obscuring, but rarely totally erasing, the
cipient of a Research Career Development Award from the significance primevally attached to the serpent. The severity
U.S. Public Health Service (1960-65), has published in the of this process doubtless was aggravated by the passage of time
fields of microbial genetics, cytology and cytochemistry, and as primitive religions became increasingly diversified, and it
holds a patent on a scanning device for microspectrophotome-
try. His interests and writings are now primarily related to obviously varied from culture to culture. More importantly, it
primitive religions. He is currently preparing a book analyzing was shaped by climatic and biological environmental factors.
ophiolatry on a worldwide scale. Those regional animals which were indispensable in man's sub-
The present paper, submitted in final form 8 I 76, was sent
for comment to 50 scholars. The responses are printed below sistence economy or familiar to him as either benign or rapa-
and are followed by a reply by the author. cious members of the local fauna tended to creep into myths
Vol. 17 N 3 * September1976
No. 429
and eventually to be deified. The whale, the salmon, the coyote, artistic conceptualizations of human beings emerging from the
the crocodile, the bat, the marine tortoise, the condor, the mouths of serpentine chimaerical monsters (makara)of Indian
jaguar, and the llama, among others, define the vast range of and Southeast Asian sculpture with Mesoamerican equivalents
environments where the serpent has encountered, as it were, fall, I believe, in this same dubious category. Heine-Geldern
cultic "competition." (1966:288 and fig. 14) compares a statuette of the elephant-
That the serpent has survived this competition in widely headed Hindu god, Ganesa, from Viet Nam (Champa) with a
separated regions of the Americas over a very long span of time figurine from El Salvador and a Oaxacan relief. He sees paral-
is a commentary on the deeply rooted psychological factors im- lels between these specimens in such features as the shape of
pelling veneration of an animal of little or no economic value. the head and trunk, though, in the Oaxacan example in par-
The explanation, of course, is that fear of the deadly surrepti- ticular, the resemblance is far-fetched. He even stresses the
tiousness of a few species of serpents has earned for the entire significance of such a detail, perhaps fortuitous, as a depression
family an awesome reputation and ascriptions of all manner of over the eye, while ignoring the elephant's characteristic fea-
supernatural powers. ture, unfailingly emphasized in Hindu-Buddhist art, but never
Thus there is much common ground relating to ophiolatry portrayed in Mesoamerican-the animal's fanlike ears. Admit-
in the two hemispheres. The question of the origins of serpent tedly, art is rarely borrowed wholesale. Nor is the usefulness
cults in the Western Hemisphere, both in time and in place, of artistic criteria now under question. Nevertheless, the danger
therefore assumes importance for the prehistoric religious beliefs of subjectivity in such comparisons is obvious: Which of the
of all aboriginal Americans. details is one to select, and which may one ignore, when seeking
cultural affinities?
Even if occasional instances like these are not seen as merely
MESOAMERICA AND THE ALLEGED ASIAN coincidental, and even if the Hindu-Buddhist examples given
CONTACTS by Ekholm and Heine-Geldern are not recognized as divorced
from their wider cultural context, weaknesses still remain in
From time to time, archaeologists and art historians have been their arguments and similar others. Some of these are pointed
impressed by similarities in the motifs represented, on the one out by Rands (1953a).
hand, in the relics of Asian cultures and, on the other, those The view that Mesoamerican civilizations show the influence
of Meso- and South America. For example, certain motifs from of Indian Asia overlooks the facts that many of the key artistic
the Shang period in China (1450-1054 B.C.) and especially the elements of religious nature, such as the serpent and jaguar
late Chou period (ca. 5th century B.C.) resemble those of the motifs, were anticipated more than a millennium and a half
Chavin culture of Peru. Heine-Geldern (1966a:280) stated that earlier than A.D. 700 in Mesoamerica itself and that the socio-
most of the artistic correspondences suggest Peruvian relations anthropological impulses which inspired their production sure-
with China between approximately 600 and 200 B.C.; relations ly must have prevailed still further back in time. I shall sub-
of Mesoamerica with India and Indianized Southeast Asia stantiate this below.
were believed to have occurred from the early post-Christian If one singles out for comparison the cult of the serpent, so
centuries up to about the 8th century. Willey (1974:329), never- deeply integral an element in both Indian and Mesoamerican
theless, is properly cautious in reminding us of the absence of religions, the discordances are glaring. The serpent is associated
any concrete evidence of actual links between these regions, with rain and moisture in both these cultures. This feature, like
since "not a single object of undisputed Asiatic manufacture many other popular superstitions and cults, such as the phallic,
has ever been found in pre-Columbian contexts in the middle is of worldwide prevalence. The similarity in this respect, how-
latitudes of the Americas." Nor, one might add, have pre- ever, is less revealing than the differences. In India, the asso-
Columbian artifacts been found in Asia so far. These factors ciation with rain is far less emphatic than in the Western
reduce the force of the conjecture that the contacts were moti- Hemisphere; almost everywhere in the Americas, the ritual
vated by trade, and they are inconsistent with the degree of connections of the serpent with the weather, rain, lightning,
intimacy of human dealings implicit in arguments that rely on fertility of the soil, and the deities controlling these are of pro-
stylistic correspondences between pre-Columbian relics and nounced importance. On the other hand, the serpent's connec-
their supposed Asian archetypes. tion with human fecundity is almost invariably undetectable.
Almost every argument invoking trans-Pacific contacts on There are in the Americas no special deities, whether fully ser-
the basis of artistic analogies is related to a relatively recent pent in form or partly anthropomorphic, who preside primarily
pre-Columbian period and focusses mainly upon Mesoamerica. over human reproduction as mightily as do the chthonic fer-
The literature which espouses affinities between the Hindu and tility goddesses Mudamma and Manasa of India.
Buddhist cultures of India and Southeast Asia and Meso- We may illustrate the Mesoamerican attitudes with two ex-
america has recently been summarized by Gardini (1974). amples concerning Quetzalcoatl, who is ordinarily a deity of
Ekholm (1953) hypothesizes that such Asian influences were varied functions (Armillas 1947:164; Anders 1963:99ff). Quet-
exerted "somewhere in the border of the present Maya area ... zalcoatl is doubtless euhemeristic in origin, cast sometimes in
in Chiapas, Tabasco, or Campeche." It is a cultural area he human and sometimes in serpent form. There is in the Codex
calls "Complex A," whence, he states, these artistic features Laud a picture of Xochiquetzal, goddess of flowers and vegeta-
spread to other ceremonial centers, to Chichen Itz'a and to tion, naked, tempting Quetzalcoatl into intercourse; in the
Tollan, influencing much of the latter's style. Ekholm assigns Codex Vindobonensis the goddess Tlazolteotl appears with a
a period of ca. A.D. 700 to "Complex A," basing his compari- similar purpose. In both these situations Quetzalcoatl is por-
sons with the Hindu-Buddhist cultures of South Asia on such trayed as a symbol of masculine sexual power, but is not cast
features as serpent columns, sun discs, the phallic cult, trefoil in the sacred capacity of begetter of offspring. He fertilizes
arches, "lotus" thrones, and several others, including even Tlazolteotl (a deity of "unclean" sexual behaviour rather than
comparisons of the manner in which important personages are of childbirth), but only after he has lost all powers of reflection
depicted seated on thrones. following a drunken stupor induced by pulque (Burland 1967:
Some of the resemblances are noteworthy, but, to me, seem 162). The second example concerns Eh6catl, the so-called ava-
superficial. Other comparisons, as indicators of cultural in- tar2 of Quetzalcoatl. There is an anthropomorphic image of
fluences, strain credulity severely, besides shunning the possi-
bility that ethnically unrelated people may be capable of in-
2 The term "avatar" as used in this Mexican context is not really
dependent imagination and embellishment of the simplest deco- warranted unless one insists on perpetuating the highly dubious
rative designs, such as meanders and spirals. Comparisons of notion of Hindu cultural influences. In Hindu Puranic myths, ava-
430 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
Ehecatl at Chichen Itza. It shows him seated on his buttocks, Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
knees folded, penis erect. He obviously personifies a phallic
cult; yet, there are no associated serpent motifs, no suggestions during dances invoking rain. They represent Kitsis luwa ("five
that the serpent has a symbolic role in human fecundity. serpent"), a possible analogue of Chicomec6atl (Ichon 1969:
The phallic cult, as Folan (1970:79-81) states, did not exist 121-23).
in any form in pre-Toltec Yucatan, i.e., the cult was not in- By contrast, in Hindu mythology, an elephant, or horses, are
digenous among the Maya, though it may have existed among the animals associated with Indra, the principal Vedic god who
the Itza. It was imported into Yucatan by Toltec invaders. In controls rain and the weather. Indeed, his chief opponent,
what once was the principal temple complex in their capital Vrtra or Ahi (literally "serpent"), is the demon who causes
of Tollan, an important serpent goddess, Coatlicue, worshipped drought (Verma 1973). The Rg Veda (I, 32 [1,2,6-14] and
also by the Chichimecs, Huastecs, and Aztecs, was enshrined I,32[3,4]) refers to Vrtra as the "first-born of the serpents"
as an earth goddess, a deity of agricultural bounty and not of and to Indra as the victorious serpent-slayer.
human fertility. Tlaloc and Chac fertilized the soil rather than Serpents and serpent divinities and semi-divinities in India
barren women. That these rain deities were manifestly ophidian almost invariably symbolize sexual attractiveness and human
early in their evolution is amply evident from archaeology procreation. Temptingly beauteous serpent-maidens and hand-
(Garcia Payon 1975:142-66). Similarly, Chicomec6atl (Xilo- some serpent-princes weave their way through Hindu mythol-
nen), patroness of the maize crop among the Aztecs, is some- ogy, changing their form at will to seduce ordinary mortals.
times depicted with seven interlaced serpents issuing from her Their true serpent nature is manifest only during sexual inter-
neck in place of a human head. To this day, the Christianized course and during sleep. Figure 1 illustrates the typical artistic
Totonacs of the Gulf Coast of Mexico carry effigies of serpents expression of a composite, human-serpent couple (Ndga and
Nagini) locked in sexual embrace. The concupiscence they
symbolize expresses little more than the desire to bear children.
tars are morphologically radically varied forms temporarily assumed That women petition serpent effigies and deities, and even
by the god Visnu to outwit the forces of evil during different live cobras, for children attests to this belief in rural South
epochs. Visnu's function (as preserver of the balance of nature,
favoring gods over demons) does not change. Even the god Shiva's India even today. In the votive stone slab in figure 2, a serpent
aspects or those of Maha Devi, the universal goddess, are not usu- couple and their offspring express this eloquently. Vogel (1926)
ally termed avatars. Thus there is far less reason to apply the term has recounted the popular legends and myths, and I (Mundkur
to Ehecatl. He is, like Quetzalc6atl, anthropomorphic, and as- 1976a, 1976b) have discussed the religious and archaeological
sumes the epithet Ehecatl and a mask or muzzle only to identify
his change of function-as god of the wind, altered from Quetzal- background of beliefs concerning human fertility in western
c6atl's normal association with the planet Venus. Asia and in India.
N.~~~~~~
p~~~~~
1.*4
* . A.~ ~
->,? %. F
FIG. 2. Naga and Ndgini with offspring, Goa, India (photograph

FIG. 1. Ndga and Ndgiti, Konarak, India (author's photograph). courtesy of the Archaeological Survey of India).
Vol. 17 * No. 3 - September1976 431
Indian and Mesoamerican societies also differ in another im- from Northeast Asia acrossthe land bridge constituted by Berin-
portant way. Both have rich traditions of astronomy and strong gia. The evidence is based on the distribution of blood groups
concerns about time and its cyclical nature, astrology, numerol- among the world's population, and we should examine it
ogy, and divination. Yet, in India, except that the concept of briefly before resuming discussion of the cult of the serpent.
time cycles is symbolized by a circle formed by a serpent biting The genes which determine the inheritance of blood-groups
its own tail, calendrical involvement of the serpent is very A, B, AB, and 0 occur in characteristically different frequencies
limited. It does not at all compare with the frequency of reptil- in different parts of the world. They are unaffected by climate.
ian motifs in the twenty-day and thirteen-day periods of the Blood-groups B and 0 are of particular relevance. The fre-
Aztec system of Tonalpauhalli, in which serpents of different quencies of B in extensive parts of India and Southeast Asia, as
identity are associated with the gods who dominate these pe- elsewhere in Asia, are as high as 30%. There is a drop, but to
riods (Burland 1967). The "serpent number dates" of the Maya no less than 10%, only in northeastern Siberia. Only among
(Smiley 1970:162) and the characteristic association of fire- the descendants of pre-Columbian populations of America and
serpents (xiuhcoatl)with the cyclic, calendric number fifty-two, among the obviously unrelated Australian Aborigines does the
as in Chichimec architecture at Tenayuca, are also distinctly frequency of group B drop to between 5% and 0. The least
Mesoamerican conceptions (Palacios 1935 :249-53). acculturated American Indians, with few exceptions, possess
In addition to the special potencies residing in the mystic group 0 in frequencies of 80% to 100%, the remaining being
numerals thirteen, twenty, and fifty-two, the number four had mostly A, traceable to European admixture. "So often," states
special significance. We shall see below that it was employed Stewart (p. 52), "does the percentage of group 0 approach
consistently and in varied ways by uncivilized tribes through- 100% in the remote populations of Central and South America
out the Americas, again with serpent associations, notably in [as also in North America] that the total absence of A, B, and
relation to the sun, sun deities, and cardinal directions. In AB here, at least in late prehistoric times, can be accepted as
civilized Mesoamerica the amalgamation of solar and serpent highly probable." The explanation of this is not that it casts
cults is exemplified by the great pyramid at Tenayuca (Caso doubt on the Asiatic origin of indigenous Americans, but that
1935), and in sun-disc motifs which personify the Aztec sun god, the unique deficiency of blood-group B in the Western Hemi-
Tonatiuh, the cardinal points are consistently indicated by four sphere in pre-Columbian times signifies that this blood group
rays in the form of bifid serpent tongues (Beyer 1921:134ff). arose in Asia by mutation only after the migrations into North
By contrast, in Indian Asia, one, and not four, is the number America across Beringia had ceased. Blood-group 0, of course,
of divinity, of the linga (phallic) cult, and of the sun. The re- was imported during these unidirectional migrations. This is
current mystic number is three. The animal associated with evident from the fact that present-day populations of north-
Sfirya, the sun god, is the horse, not the serpent; the god, or the eastern Asia still carry group-O genes in frequencies increasing
sun itself, is imagined as moving in a chariot drawn by seven from 50% to 65% in North China and Manchuria to 75%
horses (Gopinatha Rao 1914, vol. 1: 414); Surya (literally among the aborigines of northeastern Siberia (Mourant,
"sun") is synonymous with "twelve," an allusion to its twelve Kopec, and Domaniewska-Sobczak 1958:270).
forms (Apte 1890:1135). The number thirteen is inauspicious Such important data reveal the tight genetic isolation under
and hence ignored, while twenty and fifty-two merit no special which the descendants of the earliest migrants developed in
recognition (Das 1913). Thus the serpent lore of the Hindus and the Americas. This isolation surely fostered a conservative dif-
Buddhists, like their other cultural traditions, differs wholly in ferentiation of their primitive beliefs, the adoption of totemic
tone and substance from that of Mesoamerica. It is little won- animals and the evolution of religious systems around them.
der, then, that the religious stimuli for the artistic depiction of Its time scale, based on radiocarbon-dated human fossil re-
reptiles in Indian Asia were at all historical periods distinctly mains (Berger et al. 1971), takes us at least some 24,000 years
unrelated to those which inspired the Mesoamerican artist. back. The few centuries after the Christian era during which
ready-made Indian and Southeast Asian traits of religious
architecture are believed to have been transplanted into Meso-
BLOOD GROUPS AND THE MIGRATION OF CULTS america are trivial in comparison. Proponents of such trans-
It is difficult to envision overseas cultural influences without Pacific influences seem to overlook or minimize the gravity of
actual population shifts, even small-scale, or sufficient domi- a long period of independent religious evolution in Meso-
nance of the religious beliefs of one ethnic group over another america and throughout the hemisphere in general. Moreover,
if these are to lead to significant parallels in styles of art and their views are rebutted by the blood-group data.
architecture. The cultural colonies established in the early Those few centuries after the presumed Asian contacts ca.
Christian centuries in Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia by A.D. 700 are remote enough from the Spanish conquest (by
Hindus and Buddhists from India illustrate such parallels clear- about 825 years) that they are not trivial in terms of human
ly, not only through their art, but also by the names of places, genetics: blood-groups A and B are dominant over group 0,
deities, and persons (Coomaraswamy 1927, Rawson 1967). but not inter se. This explains the rapid inroads made especially
Such is conspicuously not the case in Mesoamerica. Still, can by the A group which predominates among Spaniards-to the
one dismiss entirely the possibility that a primitive animal cult extent of between about 40% and 50% in the southern and
might have been imported so long ago that sheer lapse of time central Spaniards who initially colonized Mexico-in the prin-
could explain the divergences we have noted? cipal urban centers of Mexico in effectively much less than 430
Perhaps the single most important evidence opposing the years. These statements assume that no significant miscegena-
surmised trans-Pacific imports of culture from Indian Asia, tion involving Spaniards could have occurred prior to the con-
not only at so late a period as the mid-lst millennium A.D., quest of Tenochtitlan in 1521. The mainly mestizo population
but even far earlier, comes from human genetics. The subject of Mexico City comprised, in 1951, 28.64% group-A individu-
is generally ignored by those diffusionistswhose theories depend als (Mourant, Kopec, and Domaniewska-Sobczak 1958:197).
primarily on artistic criteria. It has the utmost relevance for If group-B genes had been introduced from Asia into Meso-
our theme inasmuch as it indicates the extremely long stretch america ca. A.D. 700, they would have hybridized and diffused
of time elapsed since aboriginal Americans ceased to have in the populations around the major ceremonial centers of the
genetically or culturally meaningful contacts with the Old Toltecs and Mayas as easily as the group-A genes, appreciably
World. This situation was abruptly altered only after 1492 by suppressing the phenotypic expression of group-O genes before
the Spanish conquests. This argument, summarized recently the Spanish conquest. As we have seen, in terms of even the
by Stewart (1973:51-55), complements the currently accepted present-day blood-group frequencies this is far from being the
view that the peopling of the Western Hemisphere took place situation.
The value of arguments based on blood-group distributions Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
is occasionally questioned (Coon 1965:283; Garn 1957). Scep-
tics surmise that the 100% prevalence of group 0 among pure- probably related to a particular animal totem or totems pos-
blooded American aborigines may have resulted from the sur- sessed by the earliest human groups crossing Beringia as immi-
vival value it afforded in protecting its possessors against dis- grants to the Western Hemisphere and moulded by the climate
eases, primarily syphilis and yaws, once believed to be American and the fauna of the terrain where these groups eventually
in origin.3 Such views necessitate the highly improbable as- settled. This, initially, was the northwestern Pacific region of
sumption that these diseases once attained near-saturation North America. As man continued his migrations far and wide
levels of incidence practically everywhere in the Americas, to from this focal area, the influence of changing climate, vegeta-
the extent that they selectively eliminated those persons who tion, and animal life inevitably encouraged diversification,
carried the dominant A or B genes. These views are also op- modification, or abandonment of the initially held tribal myths
posed by modern medical research involving several related and religious beliefs.
human treponematoses whose worldwide distribution in mild, The representative examples given below indicate that in
endemic form is traceable to at least about 7000 B.C. Contrary this historical drama, in contrast to the situation almost every-
to a long-held belief, there is considerable circumstantial evi- where in southwestern, southern, and southeastern Asia, the
dence, from epidemiological reconstructions based on historical serpent played hardly any role as a symbol of human fecundity.
events and studies of lesions in human skeletal remains, that It was, on the other hand, almost invariably associated with
virulent, mutant strains of treponemes like those causing vene- moisture, the sun, and the number four or the four cardinal
real syphilis originated in the Old World itself. The first of directions. Because these beliefs are all rooted in fear of the
these mutants may have appeared in about 3000 B.C. in South- animal, and because they are so remarkably alike in essential
west Asian urban centers, followed, in Europe, by an even features and so persistent, the serpent must have been among
more virulent mutant treponeme perhaps in the late 15th the earliest and most important of cult animals of this hemi-
century. Coinciding in appearance with the period of European sphere. The examples show that the place of other animals in
colonial expansion and geographical exploration, this severe myths and religious beliefs was for the most part as transient
European syphilis was viewed as an import from the Americas, as the regional settlements man established on his southward
whereas, in fact, it was being spread throughout the "trepone- and eastward routes from the Pacific coastal regions of North
mally uncommitted world," including the New World, during America. No other animal cult was powerful enough to com-
the 16th and subsequent centuries (Hackett 1963:23ff; Hudson pletely negate the importance primevally given to the serpent.
1958).
There remains the question of possible intentional diffusion
by man of plant species or domesticated animals as evidence UNITY IN DIVERSITY
that contacts with Asia existed in pre-Columbian times. The
dates in this regard, most of which fall in the 2d millennium Two prefatory remarks are necessary before I exemplify the
A.D., are highly controversial, as are the basic precepts; the viewpoint just outlined and show how northeastern Asia fits
significance of linguistic "links" or "parallels" in art motifs, into the picture:
some of them allegedly traceable to the Mesopotamia of over First, we must recognize that no existing society or any of its
4,000 years ago, are equally controversial, even dismissible in precursors within the past, say, 4,000 years was exactly like
the sense that they can have had no determinative roles in any society emerging in the New World at the dawn of its hu-
either the formative or the efflorescent periods of the civiliza- man history. The usefulness of ethnographic parallels and
tion of the American Indian. The present confused state of archaeology as mirrors of the remote past is valued differently
knowledge is apparent in views expressed in a recent symposium by different scholars. The relevance of starting with a facet of
and in the literature it summarizes (Riley et al. 1971). human cultural behavior and then studying it from both ethno-
The origins of ophiolatry in the Americas transcend these graphic and archaeological viewpoints is believed by some to
particular diffusionist views. Primarily because of the blood- be not analogy, but a unified approach-the only one possible-
group distribution data, we must look within the Western in reconstructing prehistoric societies. The subject is reviewed
Hemisphere for information which, in the context of man's re- by Orme (1974). Whatever one's theoretical position may be
ligious development, is more basic than, and relatable to an in this regard, my examples are not of the same class as mar-
era long preceding, the artistic expressions of the Classic periods riage and kinship customs and other such fragile social criteria.
of Meso- and South American civilizations. "We can only Rather, they reflect fear, adoration, and superstition involving
speak adequately of one Mesoamerican civilization," states cult animals in relatively recent or existing societies. No matter
Bernal (1971:50). "Such expressions as Maya civilization or how varied they may be in details of expression, in principle
Aztec civilization I consider misleading, since both the Maya they are basic behavioral attitudes which can be assumed to
and the Aztecs among many others are only part of a larger have remained unchanged since extremely remote times.
whole, even if particularly distinctive in different ways and Second, it is necessary to show a certain consistency of occur-
moments; both have been to a considerable degree fashioned rence in the New World of particular facets of the serpent cult-
by this larger whole." In other words, there is only one Meso- its symbolic connection primarily with the weather and fer-
american civilization, as there is only one Andean civilization, tility of the soil, the sun cult, and the cardinal points rather
though distinct societiesor culturesare recognizable within each. than (as is general in southern Asia) with human fertility. Ex-
I agree entirely with Bernal and would, indeed, go a step tensive documentation of this consistency is obviously unfea-
further. Whether civilized or "primitive," aboriginal societies sible here, especially with the purpose of underscoring possible
throughout the Americas were and often continue culturally exceptions. Isolated cases of such may of course exist, but, after
to be "only parts of a larger whole" in that they share, to a a meticulous search of the literature, I am aware of hardly any
very striking degree, certain basic attitudes towards serpents. exceptions involving large or important ethnic groups which
These attitudes seem to have been fashioned in very remote seriously threaten the validity of my viewpoint. The Aleuts
antiquity by much the same factors important in the differen- and related Eskimos seem to show no trace whatever of beliefs
tiation of the cults of other animals. They were in each case concerning serpents, but they are very specialized products of
an extremely harsh environment uninhabited by reptiles. If
3 The far more rapidly spread diseases, smallpox, typhus, tuber- ever the ancestors of these peoples gave the serpent any impor-
culosis, and measles, were unknown in the Americas before Euro- tance, memories of it no longer persist.
pean colonization. The Northwest (Pacific) Coast Indians are ethnically one of
No.
the oldest aboriginal stocks and geographically the closest to tribes everywhere generally attach much importance to the
the center whence the earliest immigrants journeyed southward number four, particularly in linking it with the cardinal direc-
into the New World. They comprise several tribes, of which I tions and with numerous mystical objectives. Boas (1935:113)
shall consider briefly only the Kwakiutl (Boas 1935, Locher recorded a very lengthy list of Kwakiutl beliefs founded upon
1932), the Nootka (Drucker 1951), the Haida (Gunther 1966), the use of the number four.
and the Bella Coola (Mcllwraith 1948). All inhabit a maritime The Hopi of the southwestern U.S.A. have a snake dance,
or riverine environment rich in fish and game, and this has fortunately described in great detail by competent observers in
moulded them into hunters and fishermen rather than settled the 19th century (Fewkes 1897,1900; Voth 1903), before many
agriculturists. They share essentially the same legends and re- of its complex features were lost through commercialization.
ligious myths, and the animals which dominate these reflect Its rituals and ceremonies reflect, in essentially the same way
this environment. The deer, the whale, the salmon, the thun- as among the Northwest Coast Indians, regard for the serpent
derbird, the sea otter, the squid, the wolf, the raven, and the as a creature of supernatural power. There are, however, two
bear-all familiar or useful creatures-are typical. Yet it is differences: the Hopi cultivate the soil for maize, and their
the serpent, the mythical sisiutl, portrayed with a double head arid region, besides being dependent on seasonal rains, is the
and occasionally with feathers or sometimes even in its aspect abode of many venomous serpents.
as a salmon, which occupies a key position in their mythology It is difficult to summarize adequately the extremely elabo-
and superstitions. This is all the more remarkable because ser- rate Hopi ceremonies and their emotional significance. The
pents are rare and venomous species totally absent (Drucker ambivalent attitude towards serpents is apparent in the fact
1951:154) in the cold climate of Vancouver Island, where the that, even during this period of intense celebrations invoking
Nootka and Kwakiutl dwell. this animal's supernatural power to produce rain, there is no
The basic attitudes I have mentioned are all there: The Kwa- veneration of an image of the serpent conceived as a deity.
kiutl believe that the mere sight of the sisiutl (which is to say, Rather, the animal is closely associated with the sun at its
of any serpent) causes fainting. Anyone who sees it must bite zenith; it also symbolizes man's ancestors, and accordingly is
his tongue and spit blood. Thunderbirds turn into stone if they treated deferentially. I shall mention here only those aspects
touch its dead body. Game is petrified the instant it is shot of the ceremonies which pertain to our theme.
down by an arrow to which sisiutl scales are tied. Even canoes The ceremonies involved the participation of a very select
are transformed into stone in the presence of the sisiuti. Its fraternity of priests and young helpers and began with an expe-
meat is poisonous, and its sight alone produces bodily contor- dition to collect serpents. These men were consumed by the re-
tions. Its clotted blood turns one's skin into stone at the very ligious fervor the occasion demanded; they were skilled in the
touch. It is bad luck to touch even the stone on which the ser- handling of poisonous serpents, as they amply and fearlessly
pent has lain. The list of trepidations can be lengthened: For demonstrated during the prolonged preparations for the dance
the Nootkans, small harmless snakes evoke dread. Chance sight and then during the dance itself, when undefanged serpents
of them is considered dangerous, for with lightning speed they were held in the mouth; and they were fortified by the belief
penetrate the unlucky observer through his bodily orifices. The that magical herbal potions and charms could ward off the
Bella Coola have a similar aversion to live serpents and believe effects of venomous bites. Yet they were very cautious and ad-
that they enter one's stomach, multiply there, and rupture it, mitted to nervousness during this initial collecting expedition.
or are released through vomit. Sisiutl and live serpents alike Fear and consternation also gripped the lay observers of the
are totally dissociated from any symbolic role in human fer- dance, who would scatter excitedly when a serpent accidentally
tility. In fact, to prevent miscarriage a pregnant woman must escaped among the crowd.
avoid their gaze. The ceremonies were dominated throughout by the repeated
Though the mythical sisiutl is a supernatural spirit with a use made of the mystic number four. Sand paintings showing
watery abode, the Northwest Coast Indians are exceptional in four differently colored zigzags (stylized serpents) rising from
not assigning it or its live serpent brethren a symbolic role in symbolic clouds represented lightning (fig. 3). The priest-
rain making. This is surely a consequence of their being largely dancers made four circuits of the dance plaza. The full course
nonagricultural. If rain is desired, Bella Coola rites prescribe of the festivities was twenty days, of which only nine were for
washing the penis of a large buck and throwing it in the ocean, ceremonies. These nine had a nomenclature suggestive of a
saying, "Please, may it be as it was when you held intercourse" division into two groups of four days each. These nine days of
-an illusion to the rainy season in October, when deer mate. ceremonies plus the ensuing four days of frolic made up the
One might assume the sun to be not critically important in mystic number thirteen. As already noted, the numerals thir-
the lives of nonagriculturists,but it is the most obvious attribute teen and twenty also had mystical significance in the Tonal-
of Atquntam, the supreme deity of the Bella Coola and the pauhalli calendrical system of civilized Mesoamerica, with four
creator of man and animals. Though there is no specific men-
tion of serpents in connection with the sun, overtones of such
are contained in the tribe's important sun dance and suggested
by the belief that the sisiutl was created in the beginning of
time. The Kwakiutl specifically assert that the sun wears a
double-headed serpent mask.
Among the Haida, the shaman's wands are decorated with
serpent motifs and sometimes with the thunderbird. In the
Nootkan klukwana,a sacred dance, the lightning-serpent is
represented in the "belt of the thunderbird," which is supposed
to be the serpent's tongue. The wolf dance or klukwalle(Ernst
1952) is an initiation ritual common among all Northwest Coast
Indians. Despite its great importance, it is believed to have
originated no more than about 250 years ago. In the wolf-dance
of the Quillayute, neighbours of the Nootka, the shaman dances
with a rattle-wand decorated, not with a wolf motif, but with 3
FIG papt N Mi(e
that of a double-headed sea-serpent. The wand is grasped sym-
bolically by both ends. This dance occurs after four days of
ceremonies (specifically, on the fifth night). American Indian
and five having importance in other respects-the association Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
with serpents being prominent in all cases. Five of the twenty
days in the calendars of the Maya and the Mexica are identified land boa rapes women and they give birth to reptiles; women
with reptilian glyphs. Of these, the fifth is Coatl (serpent) and in labor must avoid rivers or the anaconda will kill them; a
the fourth Cuetzpallin (lizard), the other three being tied to woman's death in childbirth is attributed to her having copu-
deities with reptilian attributes. Moreover, the present heaven lated with a boa (Goldman 1963). Similar beliefs are held in
and earth constitute the "fifth sun" of the Mexica, revived by western Amazonia by the Jibaros, who, incidentally, regard
Quetzalc6atl and Huitzilopochtli after the destruction of the the rainbow as no more than a huge boa in the air, whose gaze
four suns they had initially created. must be avoided by menstruating women lest they become
The Hopi serpent dance concluded with the priests marching pregnant by him (Karsten 1935:375).
out of the village to release the serpents. This departure took The archaeological relics of the Chaco-Santiaguen-a culture
place amid a veritable torrent of spittle, directed upon the of Argentina comprise large numbers of terracotta funerary
priests by the crowd of rooftop bystanders in symbolic anticipa- figurines, believed to represent anthropo-ornitho-ophidian di-
tion of the ceremony's successful entreaty of the skies for a vinities. Their bird aspect is the least appreciable and the ophid-
heavy downpour. The serpents, released in the four cardinal ian very pronounced. They are cylindrical, with one flattened-
directions, were believed to go to the house of the sun in the flared end representing the head and the other terminating in
west. a pair of legs. In many cases small conical human breasts iden-
Among the Cherokee (Mooney 1900) of the rich woodlands tify them as female. They are characteristically lacking in the
of the southeastern U.S.A., serpents and the sun were less con- organs of generation and never portray pregnancy or even sug-
genially associated. In one of their myths, the sun is a female gest it. Their funerary association suggests, on the other hand,
who hates people (because they make ugly faces when looking death, since some breastless specimens are portrayed lying in
at her) and in turn is hated by them. They send venomous ser- coffins or criblike enclosures and possibly denote propitiatory
pents to kill the sun-surely an act more indicative of the power or votive offerings to the female ophidian divinity (Wagner
of the serpent than of any permanent disrespect of the sun. Ser- and Wagner 1934:119-28).
pents also occur very frequently in their myths and supersti- Aside from a rare exception or two, it is doubtful that among
tions as "supernaturals" intimately connected with rain and the vast quantities of archaeological material from the Americas
the thundergods. Serpents were regarded with mingled fear human pregnancy or the male and female generative organs
and reverence and addressed respectfully as "grandfather," are overtly associated with the serpent. In the art of a region
"brother," or "uncle." Rattlesnakes were never harmed; they otherwise rich in serpent and other zoomorphic motifs, the
were referred to only in euphemistic or circumlocutory terms, ceramics of Oaxaca illustrate this rarity conspicuously: the
such as "the admirable one," and a bite was announced as a very few known pots whose spouts combine phallic and ophidian
"scratch from a briar." The mere sight of a rattlesnake was form surely reflect the artist's sense of humor rather than an
believed to produce an eye affliction resulting in ultrasensitivity institutionalized myth (Caso, Bernal, and Acosta 1967:fig.
to light. The inordinately deep-seated Cherokee terror of 162c,e).
rattlesnakes is apparent from their attitudes towards even The relics of the Andean civilization exhibit the same inti-
dreams of snakebite. In such cases, the medicine-man treated mate overlap of ophidian and sun cults and preoccupation with
the dreamer as though he had actually been bitten. Herbal the mystical value of numbers as elsewhere in the Americas. A
decoctions were rubbed upon the part of the body where the most succinct artistic expression of this is a low relief in stone
"patient" dreamt he had been bitten; the entire complex set from the Bolivian altiplano (fig. 4) showing the sun god Inti
of incantations used for cases of actual rattlesnake bite was re- as a circular human face from which radiate four stylized ser-
cited four times, the medicine-man on each occasion breathing
upon the "wound" four times, and finally the "patient" was
secluded for four days. Toothache was believed to be prevent-
able by grasping a greensnake by its head and tail and biting
four times along its midsection, gently and without hurting
the animal (Mooney and Olbrechts 1932:176). ti'7', _4 ,
The Iroquoian and Muskogean tribes of the northern and

southern regions of the eastern U.S.A. conducted elaborate
magico-religious games as part of their human-fertility rites.
Natural forces and spirits such as the sun, moon, trees, etc., Fio. 4.Facade showing the sun deity Bolivia(r o
were invoked, but serpents, though venerated in other respects,
were not at all involved (Salter 1974). Such examples can be
multiplied throughout the hemisphere. Even when serpents ap-
pear on occasion in myths pertaining to childbirth, they do not
emblematize human fecundity so much as the general esteem
they command.
Among the civilized Chibcha of Colombia, serpents, com-
monly associated with lakes and ponds, overshadow all others
as cult animals. In Chibcha creation myth, the goddess Bachu6
or Fura-choque ("benevolent female") emerges from a lake
with her young son, who, when he matures, marries her. They
have four to six children at each birth, and thus the earth is
populated. Exhorting their children to live peaceably, Bachue
and her son-husband reenter the lake as two serpents. The im-
portant point is that it is as humans and not as serpents that
they populate the earth. Furthermore, Bachue is looked upon
as a goddess not of human fertility, but of agricultural bounty
(Kroeber 1946:908.).
Kauffmann
Doig 1972 344fiE 558 by permission of author).
Among the Cubeo of the Brazilian Amazon forest, any con-
nections of serpents with childbirth are inspired by fear: the
No.
pents, each with an arrowpoint head, and a pair of human feet. number four is once again maintained in the wing and tail
In addition, the composition includes four llamas. The signifi- groups. Jaguar, condor, and serpent are the most commonly
cance of this animal is apparent in an object of gold repouss6, joined motifs in Andean art, but eagle, hawk, toad, viscacha,
probably of recent manufacture, from Ecuador (fig. 5). It bat, monkey, and fish figure occasionally as secondary motifs.
shows the sun god Inti as anthropomorphic, his head being the Of all these animals, it would seem a priori that the serpent
rayed sun disc. In his right hand he holds a sinuous serpent, must antedate the others in cultic origin, though it is clear that
and in the left is a scepter one end of which has a llama's head. the jaguar assumed equal importance. I am not competent to
The fingers or toes on each of the sun god's limbs number only evaluate the sequence of adoption of these animals, especially
four. the serpent relative to the jaguar, in Andean cult practices;
The Andean civilization best exemplifies the fusion of the systematic archaeological analyses-by area specialists may even-
characteristic features of different animals to produce an artistic tually prove very rewarding in this respect. Yet, two important
hybrid (Tello 1923). Figure 6 is of an embossed gold pectoral archaeological examples suggest the fundamental significance
showing the condor god, symbol of the sun. The bird's head is of the serpent as the Andean cult animal par excellence.
feline, but its crown consists of two stylized serpents, while the The monolithic granite idol "El Lanz6n," from Chavin de
wing and tail feathers are in the form of serpents, each with a HuAntar, Peru, is one example. Because of both its prominence
feline head seen frontally or in profile. The serpent-feline hy- in its sanctuary and its size, it was evidently the most sacred
brids bear the ventral scales of the reptile, and the mystical cult deity of this culture. Its body, though anthropomorphic, is
dominated by feline and ophidian features, especially at head
and crest levels; from the torso downwards it has a strangely
ophidian suggestiveness. It tapers into a rough cylinder as it
approaches the ground, in which the lowest part is buried. In
at least one previously published diagram of this monolith
(fig. 7, left) the rear surface of this lowest section possesses al-
most imperceptible engravings of a serpent's ventral scales,
much like those seen in the wings and tail of the condor god in
figure 6. Other animals, such as birds, are also represented at
the temple of Chavin de HuAntar, but these are lesser super-
natural beings and are positioned mainly at portals, away from
A
the "Lanz6n" (Tello 1960:172; Rowe 1962:9).
The second Andean example is even more indicative, at least
for one part of Peru, of the preeminence of the serpent motif
19358 i.9)
|n
FIG. 5. Sun deity, gold repouss6, Ecuador (reprinted from von
Diniken 1973:pl. 6, by permission of publisher; copyright G.P.
Putnam's Sons).
4 @'~~~~~
F.Cdg,m o
'I
Fio. 7. "El Lanzon," Chavin de Huantar, Peru. Left, from Rowe

(1962:fig. 7a), with dotted line added after Kauffmann Doig (1972:
fig. 251); right,from Tello (1960:178). (Rowe's drawing reprinted
courtesyof the AmericanMuseum of Natural History,Tello's cour-
tesy of the Universidad de San Marcos.)
as against the feline. It comes from recent excavations at Ko- Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
tosh, not very far from Chavin de Hufintar. The importance

of the Kotosh finds is that they predate the earliest, formative them. Thus, the principal creature in the creation myth of the
Chavin culture by about 300 years. They also confirm previous coastal Cuna of Panama is the sea tortoise. It is never harmed;
data regarding the absence of classic Chavin-style designs in its precious shell plates are removed by the Cuna for a liveli-
the earlier phases of Kotosh culture. It is significant, moreover, hood and the animal sent back defenseless into the sea. Neither,
that the representations of fangs which characterize the Chavin however, do they harm the rattlesnake. It is ambivalently
feline motif are not recognizable at Kotosh, though at a later called the friend of man, though the Cuna generally equate
period there are other undoubted Chavinoid influences in venomous serpents with demons who cause sickness and bite
Kotosh ceramics (Izumi and Sono 1963:153-57, pl. 41, 100c,d, violators of tribal taboos (Nordenski6ld 1938:375, 382, 396).
122; Patterson 1971:40). A number of anthropomorphic idols In concluding these examples, I should remark upon the
of clay, but not of stone, were discovered at Kotosh. Their jaguar, an animal whose cultic or totemic importance at times
faces have only a broad, depressed band to show the mouth, equals the serpent's. Much has been written about the cult of
which is plain and definitely nonfeline. Large quantities of the feline, largely because of the art it generated among the
llama bones were discovered, suggesting that the animal had advanced civilizations in Mesoamerica and in the Andean re-
been domesticated in the earliest pre-pottery period, radio- gion (Benson 1972). Yet it must be stressed that the jaguar
carbon-dated to earlier than 3,800 B.P., but the llama apparent- seems to have acquired this importance late and only as part
ly had not yet attained the obvious sanctity and association of the continual local differentiation of cult practices among
with the sun god that is discernible in figures 4 and 5. For our diverse groups descended from the earliest inhabitants of the
theme, it seems to me most significant that among the Kotosh New World, and that among many tribes other beasts may
finds from the Sajara-patac period, when neither obviously command similar esteem.
Chavin-influenced art designs nor feline motifs are recognizable, The amalgamation of serpent and jaguar characteristics is
the serpent does indeed appear. Anthropomorphic designs on common in the art of the Olmecs, and it occurs just as power-
ceramics of this period are "very rare, but the one representa- fully in the roughly contemporaneous culture of Chavin. These
tion of a human figure holding snakes is notable" (Izumi and cultures seem to have developed similar mythologies and re-
Sono 1963:157). ligions, joining zoomorphic traits in the art of their formative
The Peruvian predilection for combining the attributes of periods. The question of the increasing complexity of their art
different animals into a chimaerical deity was apparently a and the spread of "composite" animal deities is therefore re-
late development in religious art. Through all its rich variety, lated to the origin and possible relationships of these cultures
the ophidian motif emerges recurrently and reflects the same in remote antiquity. There can be little doubt that the cult of
strong popularity of chthonic cults as in the northern Andean the feline was abetted by a tropical habitat which directly or
region and beyond. In the religion of the Bahia phase (400 B.C.- indirectly affected both the ancestral Olmec and the ancestral
A.D. 280) in Ecuador, serpents and dragon-like elements were Chavin people (Lathrap 1971).
central. From the San Agustin culture of Colombia, whose be- The impression exercised by the powerful and dangerous
ginning may date to the 6th century B.C., comes a monolith jaguar upon the minds of people inhabiting the vicinity of
(fig. 8) in which ophidian and human features, and seemingly tropical jungles must indeed have been strong, and the awe
those of a frog, are combined (Bennett 1946:pl. 173; Reichel- and superstitions generated by it may be likened to those stem-
Dolmatoff 1965:88). ming from the venomous serpent or the gigantic anaconda. This
As parallels to such artistic works as these, one could cite view accords well with Reichel-Dolmatoff's (1972) anthro-
numerous superstitions in which serpents command great im- pological observations on present-day tribes of Colombia, such
portance among present-day South and Central American In- as the Paez. To the PAez, he says, the jaguar is the symbol of
dians, no matter how important other aniinals may also be to procreative power, a symbol with a strong sexual component
representing masculinity, the danger of sexual assault on wom-
en, and abduction. It also reflects clan rivalries and dangers of
warfare and is interpreted as associated with exogamic mar-
riage rules. Thunder is the theme of all Paez myths, and in
them the jaguar is the principal character signifying human
fertility: In the beginning of time, a young Paez woman is
raped by a jaguar, and from this union a thunderchild is born.
Embodying the jaguar spirit, this child grows up to be a culture
hero. He is in this respect little diffeirentfrom Quetzalc6atl.
The Paez live in the vicinity of San Agustin. There is, at this
UP':; ancient site, a sculpture which shows a jaguar copulating with
a woman. Symbols such as this are surely reflected in the be-
liefs of these successors of the San Agustin culture. Yet it is
remarkable that the modern Paez also provide a case which
seems to signify a transfer of a mythical behavioral trait from
jaguar to serpent. Hernandez de Alba (1946:953) mentions
that a sacredlagoon was drained, not much earlier than 1946,
because a serpent that dwelt in it was believed to seduce girls,
keeping them for a whole year and releasing them only when
they were about to become mothers. This assignment of the
symbolism of human fertility to the serpent is indeed a rare
instance in the Americas. That this function, normally the
prerogative of the jaguar in Pfaezmyth, was relinquished to the
serpent only redounds to the prestige of the latter.
The lithic sculpture of the west coast of Costa Rica, often
FIG.8. Monolith froma mound temple, San Agustin, Colombia (re- executed in the round, stylistically recalls Andean and sub-
printed from Reichel-Dolmatoff1965:88, fig. 18, by permissionof Andean art. The stone figures of the Diquis region strikingly
publisher). recall those of San Agustin in Colombia and of Los Barriles in
Vol. 17 * No. 3 * September1976

neighboring Panama (Stone 1964:192-209). The anthropo- as cult objects. Clearly, the jaguar's importance is less than the
morphic cult statues of the Diquis area commonly exhibit ser- serpent's in these regions of Central America.
pents issuing from the mouth singly or in pairs (fig. 9). Feline My final examples of the relative positions of serpent and
teeth occur occasionally in these human-headed statues. In a jaguar as cult animals must come from Mexico. It is in the art
specimen which is comparable to the art of San Agustin (fig. of the Olmecs that we see the most emphatic expressions of the
10), however, we have a clear combination of feline and ophid- feline cult. For the probable anthropological basis of this cult
ian aspects and of their anthropomorphic alter ego. The we must fall back once again on Reichel-Dolmatoff's useful
jaguar is subtly suggested in the form of the animal's head, but comparisons of Paez and Tukano myths from Colombia with
because of its general shape, its fanged mouth, and especially those still prevalent along the Mexican Gulf Coast near Vera-
its rounded-columnar body, it is the personality of the serpent cruz. Jaguar spirits called chaneques survive in the folklore of
which emerges most forcefully. this region as rain spirits who dwell in cascades and are in sev-
In the Nicoya region of Costa Rica and in Panama, a croco- eral ways closely comparable to the thunderchild jaguar of
dile deity is prominent and is represented zoomorphically or Nez myths. These Mexican chaneques are imagined as ferocious
by a crocodilian head over a human body. In either case, the baby jaguars that sexually molest and persecute women. It is
deity's ophidian character is also made evident by a bifid these spirits that seem to have been represented in Olmec
tongue or a tongue in the form of-a serpent. On the other hand, sculpture by emphasizing a generally baby-like appearance
jaguar traits are generally not as prominent in Costa Rica or and a pronounced jaguar mouth (Covarrubias 1957:56; Coe
Panama as in Olmec Mexico. They figure primarily in small 1962:85). Essentially rain spirits, they are believed to have
personal ornaments such as gold or jade pendants rather than been the prototypes of the rain deities of later periods in Mexi-
can history. Thus, the feline-mouthed Olmec sculptures per-
sonify two important elements-terror and rain-which are
also associated with the serpent. Did the Olmecs extend to the
jaguar traits belonging fundamentally to the serpent?
In the larger American context of deeply rooted ophidian
C > ~~~~~~~~~~~X beliefs, this is probably the case. Among the later cultures of
Mexico, upon whom the Olmecs left their impress, the ser-
pent's importance was increasingly reasserted at the expense
of the jaguar. Of course, the motif of this animal, joined with
that of the serpent, persisted with increasing embellishment
(Kubler 1972a), but the important rain and agricultural deities
were primarily ophidian. A sculptured head of Tlaloc, for ex-
ample, portrays him with serpents around the eyes and mouth
(fig. 11). In the larger context of cultic evolution, it seems likely
that the Olmecs superimposed their jaguar myths upon a pre-
existent serpent cult. Tlaloc's jaguar aspect is most readily ob-
servable in post-Olmec southern Mexican art (Rands 1953b:
362) and may have stemmed from the early phases of the Olmecs
in this region.
A number of archaeological sites show the spread of an un-
mistakably Olmec style from the Pacific coastal areas of Chia-
pas and Guerrero across the central highlands in Morelos to
the Gulf Coast, the classic heartland of the Olmecs. They
clearly disclose that during their late formative period, ca.
1000 B.C., a syncretism of ophidian and feline cult practices
FIG. 9. Stone effigy, Diquis region, Costa Rica (reprinted from had already begun. At Izapa and Pijijiapan, near the Guate-
Stone 1964:207, fig. 17, courtesy of Harvard University). mala border and not far from the Pacific coast, there are large
boulders of obviously religious interest. Atop these are en-
graved bracket-shaped marks (one even has teeth) combined
with curved processes, depicting in the most abbreviated but
.#"r4I. * w unmistakable terms the combination of jaguar mouth and
ophidian bifid tongue (Navarrete 1969:193, fig. 6a-d).
The relics of the Olmec Formative period which perhaps best
epitomize attitudes towards these two animals occur at Chal-
catzingo, in the central highlands of Morelos. They comprise a
series of simple but powerful paintings and low-relief engravings
Fxo. 90. Stone effigy, iusrgo,Costa Rica (reprinted
KufanDi
from
Soe1964:207,fig.173, courtermsyio
of HauhrvadUnvrst)
FIG. 11. Tlaloc, rain deity of the Aztecs (reprinted from Garcia
Payon.1975:147, fig. 11, by permission of publisher).
on rock (Gay 1971). There are two separate representations of Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
jaguars at Chalcatzingo, both naturalistic portrayals which re-
flect no reverence for the animal. One simply shows a seated northeastern Asia compatible with that from the Americas? The
jaguar. In the other, terror of the beast is the obvious theme; it question is a corollary to the circumstances that this part of
shows two jaguars trampling over and mauling helpless, re- Asia was geographically contiguous with the Bering-Chukchi
cumbent human beings. By contrast, the serpent at Chalcat- plateau which once linked it to North America and that its
zingo is depicted more frequently and with powerful cultic present populations still carry, as do American indigenes, high
overtones. The low reliefs include simple coiled serpent forms frequencies of blood-group 0. The answers lie in a special field
as well as "earth-monster" forms. There is a rain deity shown and can be given here only briefly.
within a cave whose opening is represented as the stylized open Long before the alleged Chinese influences upon the Chavin
mouth of a serpent, and there is a monstrous stylized serpent culture of Peru, ca. 600-200 B.C., the northernmost Chinese
with a human being either emerging from its mouth or being and Manchurian regions witnessed significant human migra-
swallowed up to waist level. A huge bifid tongue dominates tions. Some of their ancient inhabitants either stemmed from
the composition, giving the impression that it sprouts from the or were, because of the common conditions of existence, cul-
man's head (fig. 12). It may be that, like the jaguar panel, this turally akin in many ways to the Paleolithic hunting tribes
is a "terror" scene, for ophiolatry, after all, is rooted in terror. spread over the vast expanse of land from the Urals to eastern
Considering the almost universal overlap of serpent and solar Siberia. Initially western Siberian in origin, many tribes gradu-
cults, however, I am inclined to agree with Cook de Leonard ally migrated eastward from at least Upper Paleolithic times
(1967) that what is depicted here is the birth of the sun god. onwards. The kinship of contemporary Tungus and Yukagir
Or, extending the idea of the sun's role as the determinant of Siberian tribes of the Amur River basin with the ancient in-
the weather, might not the emergent human being represent habitants of the Lake Baikal region seems clear on the basis of
the serpent's alter ego, the rain deity? The painted red picto- cranial measurements. Similarly, the cultures of contemporary
graphs at Chalcatzingo include four signs, each about 12 cm tribes such as the Nanai, from the lower Amur, have affinities
long, precise portrayals of the bifid reptilian tongue. Directly with the Chinese and Manchu (see Okladnikov 1959).
alongside these tongues are painted, in parallel, four simple In all of these northeastern Asian tribal cultures, the passage
vertical lines. of time produced distinct individualities, but some remarkable
It is easy to concur with Gay's (1971:93) summation of the similarities of art and folk beliefs are detectable. The similarity
Chalcatzingo relics: "The serpent, not the jaguar, was central of the art of the Amur tribes with that of the Neolithic Yang-
to the prevailing religious system of Meso-america, from Maya shao culture of northwestern China, radiocarbon-dated to ca.
to Aztec, and as many of their basic principles were probably 4000 B.C. (ChMng1973), may have had its beginnings in even
derived from the Olmecs, it is highly probable that the serpent, more remote times. Okladnikov (1959:32,33) points out that
not the jaguar, was also central to the Olmec religion." To this both anthropologically and archaeologically the ancestral roots
statement I would add that as potential cultic rivals of the ser- of the eastern Siberian tribes are in varying degrees traceable
pent, other animals everywhere else in the Americas seem to to the Paleo-Siberian peoples of the Lake Baikal and Middle
have been no more successful than was the jaguar in Meso- Yenisei regions of central Siberia. Here, at Paleolithic sites
america. like Mal'ta, finds such as mammoth teeth engraved with ser-
pent motifs and other relics reflect the prevalence of an ancient
ophidian cult (Abramova 1967).
NORTHEASTERN ASIAN SURVIVALS Within this broad framework, the modern Chinese dragon
is a regional survival-a mythic, variant form of the serpent.
The apparent supremacy of the serpent as a cult object among A motif painted on a pot of the Yang-shao culture (fig. 13) is
widely disparate groups of American aborigines justifies this the earliest indication of this known to me (Tresors 1973:acc.
inference: Impressions of certain supernatural qualities of this no. 30). As a zoomorphic design it is a notable rarity, for it oc-
animal must have been firmly embedded in man's deepest curs on pottery of a class in which painted geometric motifs
psyche even as the earliest groups of immigrants from northern predominate. Cross-hatched over half its length and painted
Asia were trekking across Beringia to North America. This very
ancient legacy of superstitions eventually produced the widest
variations of details ancillary to a common thread of ideas.
Embracing the sun, the weather, numerology (especially the
number four), agricultural (but not human) fertility, and the
accommodation of other animals, these primitive religious
ideas are nowhere blended with ideas of Hindu-Buddhist origin.
Is the ethnographic and archaeological information from
FIG. 13. Painted pot, Yang-shao culture, Neolithic northern China

FIG. 12. Rock engraving at Chalcatzingo, Morelos, Mexico (re- (redrawn from Tr,'sorsd'art cIhinois1973 :fig. 30 after inspection of
printed from Cook de Leonard 1967:fig. 4, by permission of pub- the object at the Paris exhibition). The claws of the zoomorph'sleft
lisher). foot are partly obscured due to abrasion of the paint.
Vol. 17 N
No. 3 * September1976 439
solid over the other half, the animal is clearly intended to rep- stances in which serpents emblematize human fecundity. On
resent the Ouroboros, a reptile consuming itself progressively the contrary, overtones of this function are detectable in the
from the tail end-a symbol of the course of the sun, the diurnal cult of the bear, an important and widespread Siberian cult of
cycle, and related cosmic ideas (Deonna 1952). Its paired feet great age. Phallic ceremonies were part of bear worship and
suggest the incipience of the mythic dragon. Now, like the ser- ritual sacrifice; bear cubs were raised like foster children and
pent in the Americas, the modern Chinese dragon is a creature addressed as "son" or "daughter" in childless families; and
associated with moisture (clouds or rivers), and the spherical many myths, like those of the Yenisei Ostyaks, had to do with
object often seen clutched by the animal symbolizes the sun. bears fathering children or women giving birth to bear cubs
Moreover, symbols of thunder and lightning may be engraved (Alekseenko 1968).
within it. The dragon is characteristically associated with the From a diffusionist viewpoint, perhaps the most revealing
four cardinal points and with the four gods of rain and thunder survivals of ophiolatry occur among the Nanai. These inhabit-
(Lou 1957, Williams 1960). Might it not, then, be more than ants of the Amur and Ussuri River basins of easternmost Si-
coincidence that the feet of the Yang-shao zoomorph are four- beria employ amulets to heal or ward off disease .(Di6szegi
clawed and that four scales decorate its neck? And can the latter 1968:387). One type (fig. 15) is metallic and depicts pairs of
feature fail to recall the analogous markings on the necks of serpents facing each other. Normally, four pairs are roughly
lightning-serpents in Hopi sand paintings (fig. 3)? cut into each amulet.4 Ancillary figures of the bear or tiger
The most significant analogies to our American examples (around which, also, a cult exists) may or may not be cut into
come from Siberia itself. Figure 14 represents a gravestone from the amulet or hang from it. Another type (fig. 16) is anthro-
an Upper Paleolithic settlement in the central Yenisei River pomorphic and cut from wood. Its body is flat and the head is
basin, where numerous relics of a sun-worshipping people have oval. This is a "tiger" amulet, the stripes being shown by ser-
been found. One need call attention only to the bifid reptilian pents etched and painted on the head and body. Similar an-
tongue engraved over the sun deity's forehead, the horizontal thropomorphic "bear" and "panther" amulets are also made.
straight line across its face (perhaps to symbolize the diurnal In each case, it is remarkable that the oval heads are etched,
cycle, like the Ouroboros of fig. 13), and the four serpents rising on one or both sides, with a horizontal straight line. This can-
towards the sun face. not fail to recall the motif of the Upper Paleolithic sun deity
The ophiolatrous traditions of contemporary Siberian tribes from the Yenisei gravestone just described. Whether these
are well documented: Yakut tradition holds that their "first" Nanai amulets are in fact derived from cults of an age as dim
shaman's body was made up of a mass of serpents; the Evenki and distant as that represented by the Yenisei gravestone it is
(Tungus) shaman, who may employ a serpent "helper-spirit," difficult for me to ascertain. In any case, contemporary sur-
imitates the animal's sinuous movement during his seance;
Altaic shamans' robes are decked with ribbons and feathers 4 In some cases, simple separating grills may create the illusion
representing serpents (Eliade 1964). In an Evenki shaman's that there are more than four pairs.
chant, the line "the snake-my ancestress" occurs twice, fol-
lowed by a pause before the shaman turns around "according
to the course of the sun" (Vasilevic 1968:354,355).
As in the Americas, I have found in Siberian folklore no in-
FIo. 15. Metal amulets, Nanai culture, eastem Sibeira (reprinted

from Di6szegi 1968:388, figs. la, 1c, courtesy of Akademiai Kiad6).
FIG. 14. Sun deity engraved on gravestone, Yenisei River basin,

Upper Paleolithic period, Central Siberia (reprinted from Lipskii FIG. 16. Wooden amulets, Nanai culture, eastern Siberia (reprinted
1970:164, fig. 1, by permission of publisher). from Di6szegi 1968 :390, figs. 4b, 3b, courtesy of Akad6miai Kiad6).

vivals in general speak as eloquently for the antiquity of ophid- Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
ian cults in northeastern Asia as the American evidence does
for the antiquity of such cults in the Western Hemisphere. traordinary sexual powers and that they have the capacity to
impregnate women. Serpents are thought to be attracted by
menstrual fluids, and they may pursue menstruating women,
SUMMARY entering them through the vagina while they sleep or when they
have become inebriated (Roca 1966:61-64). Likewise, serpents
The origins of ophiolatry in the Western Hemisphere are ob- are fond of human milk, and they seek out lactating women
scure. It may be part of an extremely ancient, worldwide pat- from whom they can obtain it, surreptitiously, of course. In-
tern of veneration of cult animals; it may have arisen inde- deed, human milk is sometimes used as a remedy for snake
pendently among the Northeast Asian immigrants to the New bites, applied to the wound on a cloth (Oblitas 1971:479).
World only after they had crossed the Bering-Chukchi land Mundkur mentions the handsome serpent-princes who
bridge between at least 15,000 and 25,000 to 45,000 years ago; "weave their way through Hindu mythology, changing their
or it may have been affected, if not imported, by serpent- (or form at will to seduce ordinary mortals." Tales of this sort are
dragon-) venerating societies of the Old World in relatively fairly common in the Andean narrative tradition as well. Ex-
very recent times. Such influences could have come in the early amples can be found in the collections by Arguedas and Stephan
pre- or post-Christian centuries from Indianized Asia or from (1957:147-55) and by Miranda (1971:66-68). Undoubtedly,
China if these regions had had contacts with civilized pre- there are differences between the Hindu tales and the Andean
Columbian Meso- and South America as has been postulated tales, but the point is that serpent-seducersoccur in both places.
by some diffusionists. The latter alternative is here rejected on As further evidence for his argument, Mundkur cites sharp
the basis of examples which show the fundamental unity of differences in numerology between Indian Asia and the New
certain features of ophidian cults among both civilized aborigi- World. Again, the differences may not be as great as he believes
nal societies and the most backward and isolated indigenes them to be. Sharon's (1973) recent work on the mesaof a Peru-
throughout the Americas. Their myths and artistic creations vian shaman demonstrates the importance of the numbers one,
involving the serpent in relation to other cult animals, the sun, three, seven, twelve, and thirteen, as in Indian Asia, and all of
human and agricultural fertility, and numerology are too sharp- this in association with a serpent staff as one of the "power
ly dissimilar to Hindu-Buddhist traditions to have been influ- objects" in the ritual assemblage. To be sure, Sharon's materi-
enced by them. In addition, incongruities in blood-group dis- als may reflect European influences rather than aboriginal pat-
tribution patterns exclude the possibility of such late influences. terns, but the mystical significance of some of these numbers
On the other hand, these same criteria have been used with could be of Andean origin (Bolton and Sharon 1976).
examples from archaeology and ethnography to suggest that My intention is not to imply that the above information sup-
ophiolatry is one of the very earliest of cultural imports into ports a diffusionist position with respect to trans-Pacific con-
the Americas and that its strongest links are with northeastern tacts; other interpretations are conceivable, including some
Asia, particularly Siberia. not considered by Mundkur in his attempt to account for
Asian and American similarities in serpent lore (e.g., psycho-
logical theories). I do, however, consider the above data as
evidence which runs counter to Mundkur's argument against
Comments the diffusionsists' theory. It seems to me that one problem con-
fronting the antidiffusionist is the opposite of one faced by the
by RALPH BOLTON diffusionist: the latter depends on too little data, the former
Departmentof Anthropology,PomonaCollege, Claremont,Calif. must cope with too much. Both are plagued by the problem of
91711, U.S.A. 21 in 76 selectivity as a result, and the accusation of selectivity hurled
As evidence against a diffusionist interpretation of the existence by Mundkur against the diffusionists could as easily be directed
of similarities in serpent cults and related beliefs in Asia and the against his own analysis.
New World, Mundkur emphasizes what he regards as certain
"fundamental" differences in the content of the serpent lore
of the two hemispheres. He repeatedly asserts,for example, that by CHARLES E. BORDEN
the serpent is not connected symbolically with human fertility Laboratory of Archaeology,Departmentof Anthropology and Sociol-
in the Americas, whereas almost everywhere in southern Asia ogy, Universityof BritishColumbia,Vancouver, B.C., CanadaV6T
such an association is significant. He dismisses contrary cases 1W5. 26 iII 76
(e.g., the P'aez) as rare and isolated instances, pointing out that The results of Mundkur's wide-ranging comparative analyses
"after a meticulous search of the literature, I am aware of tend to refute hypotheses which propose that ophiolatrous be-
hardly any exceptions involving large or important ethnic liefs and cults were relatively late trans-Pacific imports from
groups which seriously threaten the validity of my viewpoint." Southeast Asia. Instead, Mundkur's research points to northern
But surely the contrast is overdrawn. Eurasia and more specifically ,to Siberia as the more likely
Examining the ethnographic records for the contemporary source of the cultural stimuli that spawned the many similar
Qolla and Quechua Indians of the Central Andes, two of the concepts and practices among American Indians concerning
largest ethnic populations in the New World, one encounters serpents and ophidian-related monsters. Such traditions extend
frequent references to beliefs and practices suggesting reptilian even to the Eskimo and Aleut, whom Mundkur cites as excep-
involvement in human reproduction. For illustrative purposes, tions to the universality of these beliefs in the New World be-
I would like to cite a few such items. Snake meat is recom- cause they "are very specialized products of an extremely harsh
mended by Kallawaya curanderos as a cure for female sterility environment uninhabited by reptiles." As is shown, for in-
and for male impotence; the Kallawaya are famous as curers stance, by the dragon-like palraiyukand the "man-worm" of
throughout most of highland South America. A soup made the Bering Sea Eskimo, ophidian and related creatures can
from snake meat is said to facilitate childbirth in difficult cases survive as mythological beings even in arctic habitats (e.g.,
(Oblitas 1971:36-39). Snake meat may also serve as a contra- Nelson 1899:397, 444-45; pl. XCV, 3; figs. 155, 156). This
ceptive if it is prepared properly; the snake must be killed, observation also eliminates the difficulty of bringing ophiola-
ground up, mixed with water, and drunk (Bolton and Bolton trous traditions through the formidable arctic filter, a problem
1976). According to Otero (1951:181), both Quechua and to which Mundkur alludes in his comments about the Eskimo,
Aymara speakers in Bolivia maintain that serpents possess ex- but upon which he does not elaborate.
Vol. 17 * No. 3 * September1976 441
The virtually universal supremacy of the serpent as a cult as in Alaska and Canada should provide a plethora of new data
object among aborigines in the Western Hemisphere persuades for the testing of old and new hypotheses.
Mundkur to hypothesize that "impressions of ... this animal
must have been firmly embedded in man's deepest psyche even
as the earliest groups of immigrants from northern Asia were by AKE HULTKRANTZ
trekking across Beringia to North America." This hypothesis Institute of ComparativeReligion, StockholmsUniversitet,Fack,
needs to be qualified, particularly in view of the dates of "be- 104 05 Stockholm 50, Sweden.14 II 76
tween at least 15,000 and 25,000 to 45,000 years ago" which The theme of this article echoes anthropological problems of
Mundkur cites for such crossings. times long past, and its somewhat patchy structure also seems
We may seriously doubt whether man accorded snakes much outdated. This is unfortunate, for we need to see much more
attention 45,000 years ago. Even many millennia later, as at- on religion and mythology in CA. An article like this could
tested by the thousands of examples of late Upper Paleolithic leave the impression that we are not yet ready for this sort
graphic and plastic art (ca. 25,000-11,000 B.P.) from through- of work.
out northern Eurasia, man was obviously mainly preoccupied I shall concentrate here on two main issues, the validity of
with two major themes: (a) the animals of his food quest and the task and the question of methods. As to the contents, there
(b) woman, perhaps chiefly as a mother figure of both human are some good observations, such as the comparisons with ideas
beings and animals (Abramova 1967, Graziosi 1960). In this
of snakes in Hindu-Buddhist traditions and the interesting sur-
vast assemblage of art, representations of snakes are extremely vey of relations between jaguar and snake in Mesoamerican art
rare; statistically they amount to no more than a small fraction and religion. Otherwise, there is a remarkable lack of informa-
of one per cent. As far as I have been able to ascertain, only a tion in this article on the role of the snake in American cultures.
single Siberian site, Mal'ta, in the Upper Angara River drain- The task the author has set for himself is not very rewarding.
age, has produced one artifact, a rectangular plaque of mam- There is worship of serpents in Asia and in America; whether
moth ivory, which is decorated on one face with three clearly they are offshoots of the same tradition is impossible to prove,
incised snakes (Abramova 1967:pls. L,2; LI,2). Parallel closely since we have no direct diffusional links between the two conti-
spaced wavy lines covering a few ornaments have also been nents. Archaeology does not help us. The idea of an introduc-
identified as snakes, but this interpretation is unconvincing. tion of such worship in later times, say, after the birth of Christ,
In short, the slender evidence from this one Siberian site hardly seems unwarranted. An ideology around the serpent might
justifies Mundkur's contention that it reflects "the prevalence of develop wherever religious symbolism is anchored in animals
an ancient ophidian cult" (italics mine). The Mal'ta finds are (as it is among hunters). It is the religious sentiment that seeks
terminal Pleistocene in age. The radiocarbon date for the earlier expression, not the other way round, the natural object that
of the two cultural horizons of the side is 14,750 + 120 B.P. provokes religion. Mundkur, however, is impressed by human
(GIN-97) or 12,800 B.C. (Klein 1967:226; 1971:141). Thus, on beings' general fear of the snake family. He dates serpent wor-
the basis of currently available data, the most we can say is ship in America to the beginnings of Amerindian culture be-
that an incipient interest in serpents is manifest in some north- cause, in its associations with moisture, the sun, and the four
ern Eurasian art of late Upper Paleolithic age. Consequently, cardinal directions, it was rooted in fear of the animal (a new
attitudes and early beliefs concerning snakes and related mytho- version of deosfecit timor?).It is possibly this simplistic attitude
logical creatures may have been introduced and spread in the to the origins of religion that lies behind the notion that the
New World by late Pleistocene-early Holocene population serpent "a priori" must antedate a line of other animals (such
shifts induced by the submergence of the huge and once popu- as the condor, eagle, hawk, and jaguar) "in cultic origin." I
lated land-mass of Beringia. These population movements do not think we can state anything of the sort.
would have been furthered, moreover, by the concomitant It would have been more beneficial if Mundkur had tried
vanishing of the continental ice sheets which had covered vast to analyze, comparatively, systematically, and phenomenologi-
areas of the North American continent during the last glacial cally, the ideas in question. For instance, his concept "cult of
maximum (Borden 1969, 1975). the serpent" seems to mean various things: a cult of this animal,
The development of formalized ophidian cults in all likeli- a cult of a god who may take its form, rites and observances in
hood did not occur until postglacial time. In this connection which snakes appear, myths and folktales about snakes. The
it is important to emphasize that, according to diffusion studies, author mingles all these aspects, and we may well ask whether
protracted intercontinental cultural exchanges continued even he is talking about snakes or religious thoughts and actions.
after the land connection between the two hemispheres was Some concepts are, to say the least, problematic: Mundkur
severed at the end of the Pleistocene (Borden 1962, 1975; speaks lightheartedly of the "cultic or totemic importance" of
Griffin 1960; de Laguna 1947; Leroi-Gourhan 1946; Schuster the jaguar (and serpent) and of "a particular animal totem or
1952; Tolstoy 1958). Hence, some of the remarkable parallels totems" possessed by the first immigrants across Beringia.
in ophidian mythology and cult practices in Asia and the Ameri- The author's methods are faulty. No real comparison with
cas may well be attributable to such postglacial exchanges.
Old World ophiolatry can be made unless all known expres-
Mundkur (fig. 14) cites as a significant analogy to American sions of snake worship and ideology have been registered for
examples a "gravestone" from the Yenisei River basin. De- the New World. The lacunae in this account are disturbing,
picted on the stone is the erect figure of a sun god, a corona of and important symbols, such as the antagonism between water
rays emanating from the deity's head and four serpents rising monsters and thunderbirds in North America, are overlooked.
toward the solar face. On the basis of all that is known about
(It seems, on the whole, that the intriguing problem of the
cultural development in northern Eurasia, this highly stylized meaning of serpent symbolism has been dismissed.) The
and formalized composition cannot possibly be of Upper
North American survey is superficial, fragmentary, and am-
Paleolithic age as Mundkur's article alleges. The artifact might
fit into a Neolithic context or perhaps date to an even later biguous (see, e.g., what is said about the Iroquois), and the
period. author evidently is not well informed. For instance, the North-
It is to be hoped that Mundkur's evocative article will focus west Coast Indians are presented as "one [!] of the oldest [!]
renewed attention on the problem of intercontinental culture aboriginal stocks." Our thoughts go immediately to the many
flow across the Bering Strait area. Ophiolatry is probably only stocks involved, among them the Na-Dene, who are of com-
one of many cultural complexes that travelled this route, and paratively recent origin.
very likely the flow was not all in one direction. The present These are some examples of the inadequacies of this article.
quickening of archaeological investigations in Siberia as well I am sad to say it falls short of the mark.
by ERIKA KANEKO Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
248, Kamakura-shi, Tebiro 537, Japan. 1 1 III 76
For reasons of time and space, my comments and reservations This was the explanation advanced for the lack of demonstrable
are presented in the form of a response to Mundkur's basic Asiatic influences on the American languages concerned.
misconceptions about Heine-Geldern's research on pre-Colum- Whether it is also relevant to the blood-group question, which
bian trans-Pacific contacts. was not discussed in Heine-Geldern's lifetime, will have to be
1. On diffusion, Heine-Geldern (1956:280) wrote: "The determined by experts.
only thing that counts is whether in a given concrete case a 5. Mundkur writes of "dubious comparisons" and charges
diffusionist explanation is scientifically reasonable or unreason- Heine-Geldern with "ignoring the elephant's characteristic
able." Does this make him a diffusionist? feature, unfailingly [italics mine] emphasized in Hindu-Bud-
2. Heine-Geldern (1956:280) imposed severe methodological dhist art . . . the animal's fanlike ears." If this is meant to apply
restrictions on data he would accept as comparative: "They to the Amaravati instances illustrating Heine-Geldern's (1951:
should belong to a large, well-defined complex, such as art 300) comparison, "subjectivity in comparison" is indeed the
styles and metallurgy, which in America, as well as in Asia, are danger Mundkur indicates.
restricted to definite regions and periods and can be dated by 6. Finally, it is disturbing that non-Hindu-Buddhist and
archaeological and historical methods." Further (1956:278), non- or pre-Sinicized Southeast Asia is left out of consideration.
"to demonstrate convincingly the existence of cultural rela- Adequate description and documentation being unfeasible in
tionships the respective correspondences must be highly spe- this context, selective reference is made to data from Rukai and
cific and must concern complicated inventions or concepts, the Paiwan (Austronesian-speaking ethnic minorities of Taiwan),
repeated independent origin of which can only be imagined which not only share the conceptual characteristics of Mund-
with difficulty." These methodological premises explain not kur's non-Hindu-Buddhist ophiolatrous complex, but may, in
only Heine-Geldern's self-imposed limitation to "relatively review of their culture-historical situation, add a different dimen-
cent pre-Columbian periods and a Mesoamerican focus" sion to the subject.
(Mundkur), but also why a cultural trait like ophiolatry, "one
of the most primeval of animal cults," "widespread" and based
on man's "extraordinarily primordial reverential fear of this by DAVID H. KELLEY
animal" (Mundkur), does not signally lend itself to cross-cul- Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.,
tural comparison with conclusive results. Canada T2N 1N4. 12 II 76
3. Heine-Geldern's trans-Pacific research is in no way limited Mundkur makes much of negative evidence from blood groups
to "a basis of artistic analogies" and a Mesoamerican focus as disproving contacts between Asia and Mesoamerica. The
(Mundkur), but includes complicated metallurgical techniques idea that a small group of travellers, perhaps 300 at a maximum,
(lost-wax casting, chemical colouring of gold), decorative de- would have had much genetic effect on a population which
signs, pottery forms, shouldered stone celts, weaving and highly may be reasonably estimated at 20 or 30 million people and
distinctive dying techniques, gold and precious stone inlay on that the effect would be necessarily differentiable from the
teeth, musical instruments, games, watercraft, plant geography, effect of such things as the post-Spanish introduction of Filipinos
cosmological and calendar systems, iconography, etc. Besides, and other Asians seems to me naive.
the bibliography and casual references to "meanders and spi- The assumption that distributional evidence of the wide-
rals" and "diffusionists whose theories depend primarily on spread presence of comparable beliefs about serpents indicates
artistic criteria" sustain the doubt that Mundkur probably their great antiquity is a common anthropological fallacy. It is
does not know Heine-Geldern's trans-Pacific research suffi- no more valid than assuming that the presence of the seven-day
ciently well to justify his wholly rejective evaluation of it (cf. week from Ireland to China indicates its vast antiquity (which
bibliography in Kaneko 1970). we know, from historical evidence, it does not). The evidence
4. Heine-Geldern writes (1958:386, my translation):' that the earliest human groups to arrive in the New World
Above all it is necessary to free oneself of the notion that the settling possessed animal totems is nonexistent, and even contemporary
of Asians in America was in the nature of the post-Columbian evidence of close relationship between cult beliefs and totemic
European settlement. There is no doubt that the two events were beliefs is scanty. Yet this fantasy underlies the rest of the recon-
fundamentally different. In the European case it was a mass immi- struction. One should not be too critical of detail in such a
gration connected with the establishment of agricultural colonies. broad summary, yet I am taken aback to find the thunderbird
... On the other hand, there are no indications whatsoever of pre- listed as a "familiar or useful creature"-it suggests a mental
Columbian trans-Pacific mass migrations of civilized Asian peoples framework in which any mythical creature is assimilated to the
[Hochkulturvolker], or that Asian peasants ever felt a need to emigrate
readily observable, which I regard as a poor way to approach
to America to till the soil there. All indications are that only small
mythology.
groups belonging to definite occupational levels of Asian popula-
tions were involved in trans-Pacific contacts with America and The view that jaguar cults must be late and serpent cults
that those who settled for good on the foreign continent were soon must be early is a conclusion based on no archaeological evi-
absorbed into the indigenous population. dence and no clearly defined system of interpretation. The state-
ment that the serpent's importance in Mesoamerica was "re-
1 "Vor allem ist es notig, sich von der Vorstellung freizumachen,
asserted" after Olmec times is a misleading way of stating that
dass die Niederlassung von Asiaten in Amerika den gleichen Cha- in the earliest extensive material we have, the serpent is not
rakter gehabt haben muisse wie die der Europaer in nachkolum- as important as the jaguar.
bischer Zeit. Es kann keinem Zweifel unterliegen, dass die beiden The diametrically opposed conclusions of Mackenzie (n.d.)
Vorgange grundverschieden waren. Bei den Europaern handelt es seem to me to depend on substantially more verifiable detail,
sich um Masseneinwanderungen, die mit der Anlage von Acker-
baukolonien verbunden waren.... Andererseits spricht nicht das despite occasional carelessness with details and naivete.
Geringste dafiur, dass in vorkolumbischer Zeit je eine Massenein-
wanderung asiatischer Hochkulturv6lker iuber den Pazifik nach
Amerika stattgefunden hat oder dass asiatische Bauern das Be-
diurfnis gefiuhlt hatten, nach Amerika auszuwandern, um dort by WILLIAMJ. KORNFIELD
Feldbau zu betreiben. Vielmehr deutet alles darauf hin, dass es Cajon 514, Cochabarpba,Bolivia. 12 III 76
sich bei den transpazifischen Beziehungen von Asiaten mit Amerika This stimulating paper would seem to indicate that the "cult
um kleine Gruppen bestimmter Bevolkerungsschichten gehandelt
hat und dass jene, die sich dauernd in dem fremden Kontinent of the serpent" in the Americas was not a result of late diffusion
niederliessen, bald in der einheimischen Bevolkerung aufgingen." (ca. 600 B.C. to A.D. 700) from Asia or Indian Asia, but rather
No.
had its origins much earlier, via Siberia. Besides using archaeo- by GEORGE A. KUBLER
logical data to substantiate this viewpoint, Mundkur refers to Departmentof the History of Art, Yale University,Box 2009,
recent past and present ethnographic studies which would indi- 56 High St., New Haven,Conn.06520, U.S.A. 2 III76
cate that the serpent, generally associated with rain-making Mundkur's combination of the iconological analysis of cultural
crop-fertility ceremonies in the Americas, has a quite distinct symbols with the genetic history of human blood-types yields
connotation in Indian Asia, related to human fecundity. One a productive approach to the otherwise unrewarding topic of
of his more conclusive arguments stems from genetics, which trans-Pacific diffusionism in Americanist studies. Drawing on
appears to demonstrate that the unique deficiency of blood- his biological training and on his studies of Indic myth and
group B (which is dominant over 0) in the Americas, together pre-Columbian archaeology, Mundkur presents an argument the
with the very high incidence of 0 among the more isolated ramificationsof which are important for Americanists. He states
indigenous peoples of the Americas, cannot be tallied with that American ophiolatry differed fundamentally from that of
present-day blood groups in Asia or India and thus points to the Old World. He therefore rejects the naive diffusionism of
an origin much further back in time than a relatively late dif- some Americanists, noting (1) that the serpent's associations
fusion could possibly account for. His use of ethnographic data were with human fertility in India, but with weather in Ameri-
for a widespread cult of the serpent related to rain making also ca; (2) that the highly probable absence of A, B, and AB blood
seems quite compelling, even though his information seems groups in ancient Amerindian populations opposes the diffu-
mostly limited to North America. sionist argument and supports early genetic isolation in the
Concerning his analysis of Andean civilizations, while he Americas; and (3) that Amerindian civilizations were only two
correctly concludes that the jaguar, condor, and serpent "are (Mesomerican and Andean) rather than many reflections of
the most commonly joined motifs in Andean art," I must take different waves of diffusion. Points 1 and 2 carry weight, but
exception to his statement "Of all these animals, it would seem 3 is both more controversial and less substantial, given the
a priori that the serpent must antedate the others in cultic fluidity of our notions about "co-traditions" and their demarca-
origin, though it is clear that the jaguar assumed equal impor- tion. I would also question the equal weighting given to recent
tance." In ten years of study in Andean archaeology, including ethnological and ancient archaeological instances of serpent
fieldwork, I have been much more impressed by the dominance motifs and rituals (Kubler 1972b, 1975), as well as the equal
of the feline motif in Chavin art styles. His inference from the weighting of small groups and major civilizations. This question
still earlier Kotosh artefacts, while suggestive, is by no means seems unavoidable with the long durations and hemispheric
conclusive-that the presence of serpent motifs with a corre- extent of Mundkur's examples. A final section on northern
sponding lack of feline designs at this one particular site would Asian survivals traces the history of the dragon in China,
indicate that the former preceded the feline in Andean art suggesting that its meaning and antiquity parallel those of
styles is a generalization of doubtful validity. ancient America without contact. Sinologists familiar with
As Willey (1951) has indicated, "The central representation both forms of ophiolatry will better be able to judge the
of Chavin art is the feline being." Tello, Bennett, Bird, Corbett, relevance of these examples.
Larco, Busnell, and Kidder II also concur with the view that
the feline motif is the dominating characteristic of the Chavin
period: "In no other Peruvian art style is a single design con- by HAROLD FRANKLIN MCGEE, JR.
cept so dominant" (Bennett 1943). Kauffmann Doig (1963), a Departmentof Anthropology,Saint Mary's University,Halifax,
Chavin specialist from Peru, indicates that the feline is "the N.S., CanadaB3H3C3. 27 II 76
preferred motif of Chavin art." For Tello, "the Chavin problem Mundkur's article is characterized by unwarranted assumption
was the history of the feline deity in the development of Peru- presented as fact and the use of sloppy methods to test only one
vian cultures," and his greatest work, Wira Kocha, is an unusual of many possible explanations for the presence of serpent cults
essay on the occurrences and recurrences of the feline deity in in the New World. Mundkur tells us he has made a "meticulous
all regions and periods of Peru (Willey and Corbett 1951). search of the literature" and is aware of "hardly any exceptions
While impressed with the great amount of data collected and involving large or important ethnic groups which seriously
Mundkur's creditable attempt at a unified holistic approach to threaten the validity" of his viewpoint. Is being a threat to the
ethnographic-archaeological research, I have sensed at times a validity of his viewpoint one of the criteria for smallness or un-
stretching of rather isolated data to prove his thesis of Asian importance? More important, he seems not to understand that
origins for a supposed serpent cult in the Americas from archae- it is the exceptions to hypotheses that allow one to refine theory
ology (for example, his citing of terracotta figurines from the (see Nadel 1952). I want to know more about the cases Mund-
Chaco-Santiaguefia culture of Argentina, a low relief in stone kur threw out.
from the Bolivian altiplano [fig. 4], and an object of gold re- Not even the cases he allows us support his assumption that
pousse from Ecuador [fig. 5]). I prefer Rowe and Menzel's the serpent is associated with weather, soil fertility, the sun, and
(1967) approach to a better understanding of art styles: the cardinal directions, to the exclusion of human fertility
Let us attempt a decipherment which . . . will enable us to see (what about curing and sexuality?). The equation of the serpent
Chavin art as its makers intended it to be seen. There are two in- and the jaguar, which are concerned with human fertility,
dispensable conditions for this kind of decipherment. The first is weakens his case, as does the Nootkan instance of snakes' en-
to pay close attention to context, asking always where and in what tering human body orifices, migrating to the stomach, and
combinations design elements or complete designs are used. The causing it to swell and rupture-one can "of course" view this
second condition is to be able to sort the monuments according to as unnatural coition, conception, and abortive birth. Many of
date. It is not necessary to know their dates in years, but we do Mundkur's other examples can be reinterpreted to suggest that
need to be able to tell, in any comparison, whether two pieces are
snakes are neither as sexually innocent nor as impotent as he
contemporary or not, and if not, which is the earlier.
would have us believe. Before one can begin to determine ori-
The seeming lack of archaeological context, together with an gins of belief systems, it is necessary to understand what those
absence of meaningful comparative chronology for much of belief systems are. Mundkur must first understand the rela-
Mundkur's data, would seem to make it difficult to prove that tionship between form, content, and action in the world views
a "serpent cult" indeed existed throughout the Americas. I find of New World peoples before he tells us from whence they
his use of ethnographic materials and comparative blood groups derive.
both interesting and convincing. I would like to feel the same The section on "blood groups and the migration of cults"
about the way he analyzes the archaeological data in support could have been dealt with in a footnote. The author does not
of a serpent cult in the Americas and its Asian background. demonstrate why "fear adoration. and superstition" are more
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY
discernible in the archaeological record than "marriage, kin- Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
ship customs, and other such fragile social criteria." Isolation

may foster conservatism, but I should like some proof that it The section dealing with the connection between the serpent
gives rise to belief in totemic animals. I am not convinced that and the sun tends, however, to be a little unclear. It is stated
fear of poisonous snakes is "of course" the proper etiology for that in the Americas the serpent is associated with the sun,
the special ideational attention given to serpents-I imagine whereas in Indian Asia the animal connected with the sun is
that Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, or even a second-year the horse, not the serpent. On closer examination, however, a
undergraduate might suggest an alternative. I shall stop here, relation between the sun and the serpent can be detected:
but one could go on for pages indicating where Mundkur sub- "Vrtra or Ahi (literally 'serpent') is the demon who causes
stitutes assertion for fact, ignorance for familiarity, and convic- drought," but drought can in reality be caused by the sun; thus
tion for hard work. serpent is here synonymous with sun. The symbolizing of the
solar or time cycle with a circle formed by a serpent biting its
own tail could be taken as another example of this relationship.
byYOSHIOONUKI An important aspect of the serpent cult not included in this
The Little WorldFoundationMuseumof Man, 1-223 Sasashima- article is the underlying connection between "rebirth" and the
cho,Nakamura-ku,Nagoya,Japan. 17 in 76 serpent, which may have some relevance to the question why
Mundkur's article touches a very important point: the problem human fertility rather than fertility of the soil is emphasised in
of the unity underlying the diversity of the aboriginal cultures a region having a strong religious belief in "reincarnation."
of the Americas. These remarksare just comments on details which do not in
We often find in the Americas similarities of cultural ele- general affect the main thesis and the conclusions.
ments among distantly separated regions and even times.
Whether these similarities represent independent emergence or by JOHN Tu ER-WEI
diffusion has been much debated. One example involves the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, National Taiwan
common characteristics of the decorations on the oldest pottery University, Taipei, Taiwan. 27 II 76
discovered in Ecuador, Colombia, and the Southeast of North Mundkur's article is partly acceptable and partly not. I do not
America. Another example is the possible relationship between differ with him in his view that the serpent myths of the Ameri-
Olmeca and Chavin. Still others are the similarities between cas have been influenced by those of Siberia and China, but
Mississippian and Mesoamerican Preclassic pottery and simi- I disagree with him when he says that the myths of the Ameri-
larities in sacred numbers (as Mundkur reports), skull deforma- can Indians involving the serpent and numerology are too dis-
tion, the use of hallucinogenic plants, and the myth motif of similar to Hindu traditions to have been influenced by them. I
the copulation of a woman with a jaguar or bear. see great similarity between the Mexicans and the Hindus with
It seems to me that the reason for these common features or regard to the number four and the four cardinal directions. The
similarities can be sought in the unity of the basal stratum of Mexicans had four powerful godheads for the four cardinal
the American aboriginal cultures rather than in diffusion or directions: Xiuhtecutli, the fire god; Tezcatlipoca, the war god;
independent invention, and therefore I welcome Mundkur's Tlaloc, the rain god, and Quetzalcoatl, the wind god; each of
statement that the importance of the serpent in myths and the four is connected both with the serpent and with the moon
rites, along with several attributes of the serpent cult, is pan- (Codex Magliabecchiano XIII, 3 fol. 89). Further parallels are
American. Levi-Strauss and Reichel-Dolmatoff are also seeking found among North American Indians in general. This myth
this kind of unity, in a sense, and this direction of research de- conception may have come from India, where there were origi-
serves more attention. nally four (later eight) world-wardens who supported the cardi-
This unity is possibly composed of a number of elements, nal points: Indra, the storm god; Agni, the fire god; Varuna,
both on the level of material culture and on the level of thought, the rain and water god; and Mitra (or Yama), the underworld
the latter being most important and elementary. It may not god. These four gods also had much to do with moon myths.
be the "impressions . .. firmly embedded in man's deepest Thus, in India we have water, fire, storm, and underworld
psyche," but a more concrete and more clearly manifested gods, in Mexico water, fire, rain, and wind gods. Are these
thought, even among the first Americans. similar or not?
Finally, I would like to present two archaeological facts Other similarities between the Americas and India are the
which I hope will be somewhat useful to Mundkur. First, in following: It is well known that there are accounts of contests
the 3d millennium B.C. in Japan, serpents in relief and modeling between Quetzalcoatl (the bright moon god), the feathered
appear on Middle Jomon pottery. Second, in the Andes, a serpent, and Tezcatlipoca (the dark moon god), the god of the
double-headed serpent is reported on a cotton textile from Hua- night wind. These may be compared to the contests of Indra
ca Prieta of the 3d millennium B.C., and there is a painted ser- and Asura. Besides, a Creek myth says that the serpent is in
pent on a stone wall of the preceramic Mito period (probably opposition to the rabbit; the rabbit gives the serpent a respite
2000-1500 B.C.) at Kotosh (see Izumi and Terada 1972:140, of four days to prepare for the contest and then vanquishes the
fig. 82). The point made by Mundkur about llama domestica- serpent. The Toda of India have a similar myth of serpent and
tion around 3,800 B.P. at Kotosh must be corrected. According hare (Kunike 1926:75). The mythology of the thunderbirds'
to the research done by Elizabeth Wing, included in the Kotosh constant warfare with the horned water snakes is well known
report cited above, llama bones increased from the Chavin pe- in the Plains and Woodlands. In India, Garuda (the mythical
riod; in the pre-Chavin periods, deer bones predominate over bird) is the implacable enemy of the serpent. There is a bird-
those of the llama. serpent symbol in Maya art (Alexander 1920:134).
Still clearer is the following similarity: According to a Winne-
bago myth, the creator made four mammals and four serpents
by MARY SCHUBERT the bearers of the world; since they did not support it well, a
8069 Oberlauterbach, Haus Nr. 55, FederalRepublicof Germany. big bear was appointed to take their place (Kunike 1925:31).
23 III 76 On the other hand, the Batak of South Asia say that the earth
Mundkur's comprehensive discussion of the Asian background rests on the horns of a serpent (Naga). Sesha, the world serpent
of the cult of the serpent in the Americas has successfullyunited of Hindu mythology, bears the world on his thousand heads.
specialized fields in the study of humanity. His use of human- Both in India and the Americas, there are myths identifying
genetic research discoveries to substantiate his thesis is especial- serpents or tortoises as bearers of the world (Tu Er-wei 1966:
ly noteworthy. 97-99, 101-3).
Vol. 17 N
No. 3 September1976
Thus the influence of India on the Americas in the case of jectural, is a fair one. The point is not whether this small South
serpent myths appears to be undeniable. Mesoamerica is no Asian population could possibly have left a marked genetic
exception. That the serpent mythology is originally a lunar one effect all over the Spanish colonial domains (obviously, it has
is an opinion held by a number of authorities (e.g., Seler, Ku- not). The least we can expect, as I took considerable pains to
nike, Briffault, Schmidt). This is not the place to go into the explain, is that simple Mendelian dominance would ensure
details. rapid diffusion of the imported group-B (or -A) genes aroundthe
religious or ceremonialcenters of civilized Mesoamerica, or wher-
ever this or similar other small populations presumably settled
or diffused their art styles and technology. The idea of genetic
Reply dominance is a very simple one, and its practical effects are
startling alterations of ratios of inherited characteristics like
by BALAJI MUNDKUR blood groups. Putative South Asian group-B and -A genes, if
Biological Sciences Group, University of Connecticut, Box U-N42, they were imported ca. A.D. 700 or earlier and fortified by
Storrs, Conn. 06268, U.S.A. 29 iv 76 Spanish and Filipino (?) genes since the 16th century, have had
The contrasting comments elicited by my views are such as one more than sufficient time to express themselves phenotypical-
might expect in the wake of a theme centered around the ly-at least 1,300 years, on the basis of Ekholm's (1953)
general subject of cultural diffusion. I have, of necessity, hypothesis. Yet, scientific surveys (Matson 1970: tables 1 and
painted an extremely broad canvas, with the serpent as the 2, map 1) from Mexico to Panama, tribe by tribe, show the
"synthesizing element" and trans-Pacific migrations as its remarkable extent to which the 0 group has remained un-
background. Theories of these migrations have in the past contaminated by B or A. Among Chol, Zoque, Lacandon,
generated sharply divided reactions even when other criteria Tzeltal, and Tzotzil-all residents of "Complex A"-the
were used and the canvas was much narrower. The literature frequency of B phenotypes, largely an Asian trait, is zero,
reviewed by Gardini (1974) and Riley et al. (1971) illustrates while that of group 0 is very nearly to fully 100%. The picture
this amply. is no different among populations more distantly located in
Specific points of detail raised by some of the commentators Mexico and Guatemala, and right dowrnto Panama. Calcula-
seem more amenable to debate in these columns than another, tions of gene frequencies show that such hybridization as has
quite crucial issue-the question of blood-group distributions occurred (near urban centers, principally) is attributable to
and their far-reaching implications. Since much else is depen- relatively recent, Spanish colonial times.
dent upon, and can be clarified with reference to, this issue, I One might speculate that Kelley's 300 immigrants from
urge my readers to devote special attention to that section South Asia (or Oceania) did not at all contribute their domi-
while evaluating the rest. Some of the commentators seem to nant A and B genes to American society. That this small
have neglected or misunderstood, if not ignored, its message. immigrant population-allegedly so influential that it affected
I shall therefore open my arguments with a few remarks the artistic, calendrical, technical, and folkloric achievements
pertaining to that section and then tackle more specific points of a pre-Columbian civilization already rich in these aspects-
of detail raised by my colleagues. In doing so, it is impractical did not interbreed with American indigenes is a prospect quite
to discuss each one's comments separately and in toto. Hence, incompatible with the contributions diffusionists have claimed
it will be necessary to shift from commentator to commentator on their behalf. Indeed, Heine-Geldern (see comment by
as occasioned by the sequence of my arguments. The incon- Kaneko) postulated that such small groups "were soon ab-
venience this may cause some of my readers will, I hope, be sorbed into the indigenous populations." Kelley might have
offset by an overall gain in perspective. indicated why he doubts the genetic argument and its relevance
to socioanthropology. If he had invested more time in technical
verifications, he would have realized that the argument is
I significant, not naive.
The question of ABO blood-group frequencies has generated I will take this opportunity to strengthen the evidence that
disproportionately little serious debate in comparison to its the absence or vanishingly low frequencies of A and B genes
significance. Hematological comparisons, being a biochemical among American indigenes cannot be attributed to selective
tool, afford great analytical precision and have fewer limita- elimination of their carriers by venereal syphilis, unjustly
tions than are inherent in osteological comparisons. Kornfield, branded a New World disease. I will be brief, as the details and
Kubler, and Schubert, who support and compliment me for less important alternatives should be given elsewhere. The
my examination of this criterion, find it persuasive and recog- antiquity of treponematoses in the Old World is indicated by a
nize its value to the general problem of culture diffusion, but human skull from Tasmania, at least 10,000 years old, that
they have not elaborated upon my observations. As the fre- shows the ravages of infection, possibly treponarid (the pre-
quency distribution figures are unassailable and the biological ferred term for endemic syphilis) evolved from yaws. Pure-
basis invoked in my discussion is empirical, I wish they had blooded Tasmanians and their ancestral Australian aborigines
offered more comments upon my arguments and the reper- have high frequencies of group 0, ranging up to 78.57%
cussions of the data for Americanists. (Mourant et al. 1958:210). Though one cannot be sure what
There are, on the other hand, two detractors-Kelley and blood group this and similar other skulls represent, they at least
McGee. Kelley cannot envision the possibility that "a small place treponematoses in their time perspective (Hackett
group of travellers, perhaps 300 at a maximum, would have 1975:238-40). Moreover, a treponeme resembling that of
had much genetic effect" on a much larger indigenous Ameri- yaws has been isolated in wild baboons (Sepetjian et al. 1969,
can population. I assume he has Mexico and Guatemala in Fribourg-Blanc 1972). The infection occurs over a wide area
mind. His estimate of a population of 20 to 30 million seems of West Africa. Treponemal parasites, like all microorganisms,
inflated. The population of the whole of Mexico in 1960 was can mutate to produce a more virulent form of the same
less than 40 million. Ca. A.D. 700, the imagined period of Asian disease or a related new disease showing different symptoms,
contacts according to Ekholm (1953), it must have been far such as yaws, pinta, and the two main types of syphilis. Coinci-
less, and even smaller numbers dwelt near religious centers in dent with the baboon infection, yaws occurs in man in the
"Complex A," where the immigrant Asians are believed to northern parts of West Africa, while treponarid occurs in man
have exerted their influence. Let us, for the sake of argument, in the south. This strongly suggests that the baboon infection
assume that Kelley's figure of 300 immigrants, though con- arose at the latest before treponarid mutated from yaws, or

perhaps even before the origin of the treponema of yaws itself. Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
(I am grateful to C. J. Hackett, now retired from the World
Health Organization, Geneva, for this information, received II
privately.) The mutational step from human endemic syphilis
to venereal syphilis must have occurred relatively swiftly in Borden's comments on the archaeological problems concerning
the Old World; exactly where is unknown. G. M. Antal of the human migrations and the origins of cults in time are pertinent
WHO Division of Communicable Diseases has confirmed for and very thoughtful. I, too, have found these questions vexing.
me an important point about a related matter: that there I agree with him about the paucity or absence of extremely
seems to be no correlation between the various blood groups old archaeological relics with ophidian motifs. Borden empha-
and the susceptibility to venereal syphilis. sizes that there is only one very ancient relic with a naturalistic
Finally, there is positive support for the view that, far from portrayal of serpents-the plaque from Mal'ta, Siberia, about
being eliminated by syphilis, the B gene, if it had been intro- 14,000 years old, illustrated by Abramova (1967). He is
duced from South Asia, would actually have thrived in the correct, but I believe he is too conservative in disregarding the
Americas before the arrival of the Spaniards. Over 25 years value of other, highly suggestive symbols such as meanders and
ago, Boyd (1950:335) cited research to suggest the idea, then zigzags and the very important batons, also from Mal'ta,
tentative but now no longer so, that "if selection does act on originally described by Gerasimov (1935:83) and illustrated
blood group characteristics, there is some reason to think that by Abramova (pl. 53, figs. 7 and 8). These batons even have
B is somewhat favored over 0 and A, since the present distribu- heads, tapering bodies, and incisions seemingly in imitation of
tions [suggest] that the B characteristic [a relatively recent the ventral and dorsal scales of a serpent. Indeed, Gerasimov
mutant] has increased markedly in Asia and Europe ... even himself surmised that they represented serpents. Borden's
within historical times." Boyd also argued (pp. 337-42) against conservatism does scant justice to man's tendency towards
the belief that a blood-group gene that was not very common to artistic stylization. Meanders and zigzags are common, con-
begin with (as B would have been if it had been introduced by ventional ways of representing serpents. I have elsewhere
a very small population of South Asians as diffusionists would drawn attention to the very considerable body of literature on
have us believe) was in danger of being submerged or lost by such symbolism connected with archaeological objects from the
random genetic drift, without any action of natural selection Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (Mundkur 1976a).
whatever. The significance of the Mal'ta mammoth's tooth plaque
Cultural anthropologists have much to gain by taking data lies not only in the representation of three undoubted serpents,
of this kind seriously. Yet, McGee is supercilious. He would with swollen heads and sinuous bodies, engraved on it, but
consign my entire section "Blood Groups and the Migration of also in the pattern etched on its other face. Borden does not
Cults" to no more than a footnote! It is not clear why he dis- mention this, and its probable cultic significance may have
dains this section while demanding verbiage on other, ancillary escaped his attention. This face of the plaque is etched with
and less crucial points. He calls for psychological interpreta- swirling, spiral, dot patterns, usually interpreted, and I think
tions, involving issues not only peripheral to my thesis but also correctly, as solar or lunar symbols (Hentze 1932). The rarity
demanding of space. Does he think the genetic data are un- of such finds, the cosmic and serpent symbolism, and the
important, or irrelevant to my theme? Can he show that I have absence of similar plaques depicting any other animal, com-
not added to the arguments of Stewart (1973)? Have the data bined with the swirl pattern, make the Mal'ta specimen a very
no bearing on cultural anthropology in general? Perhaps Mc- important, if solitary, archaeological treasure. In addition, it
Gee is diffident about attempting a direct criticism of their has a central hole, probably for passing a cord for suspension.
implications. One wonders whether he has read the section Taken together, these circumstances suggest that the object
carefully and, more important, understood its message. was an amulet, not merely utilitarian and decorative, but
Let me recapitulate explicitly the ramifications of our cultic. It is significant, moreover, that the motifs on the Mal'ta
knowledge of blood-group distribution: It is consistent with plaque are of serpents, not of bears, bovids, horses, or other
the current consensus in physical anthropology that human animals. Other undoubted serpent symbols occur in Siberia
settlement of the Western Hemisphere occurred via Beringia and sub-Arctic and Arctic Europe, possibly belonging to
alone, many thousands of years ago. It seems to have been several elements within cultures shaped by similarities of
unidirectional, for geophysical reasons discussed by Stewart environment, but their discussion is not appropriate here. In
(1973). There is little evidence of American contacts with addition, there are the relics described by Lipskii (1970), one
South Asia or Oceania, and what evidence there is is quite of which appears as my figure 14. Borden disputes its identifica-
recent; some sporadic and very small-scale contacts probably tion as a late Paleolithic gravestone and considers it to be
took place between South America and Easter Island (Bellwood Neolithic; I am unable to judge this myself. The information
1975:16). The genetic repercussions of such contacts are not was given me by a competent interpreter of Russian, and I
detectable in the Americas, however, though research shows have since confirmed her accuracy. Borden's dispute is with
that Polynesian blood is derived from a gene pool contributed Lipskii, not with me, since I have no opinion regarding its
by South America, Indonesia, and Western Polynesia (Sim- dating. Lipskii states (p. 163) that evidences of the cult date
mons 1965). Studies in analogies in art motifs, religious systems, back to the Upper Paleolithic at the site where the object was
calendars, technologies, etc., between the Americas and Asian found and that by the Late Eneolithic these seem to have
countries are of absorbing interest insofar as they disclose vanished.
aesthetic preferences and thought progressionwithin the human All things considered, the Paleolithic archaeological finds,
family. As indicators of cultural influences, however, they seem albeit meagre, taken together with more recent ophidian
to me to be futile exercises. They have no support from the traditions in Siberian shamanism, suggest that ophiolatry has
ABO blood-group data. The first significant alteration in both had a long history in northern Asia, antedating the Paleolithic
cultural and genetic balance occurred in the Americas in the finds. Because of the limitations of archaeological discovery, it
early 16th century, following the Spanish conquests. The sole may be impossible to establish rigorously the "true" period
fount of preconquest culture was northern Asia, diffusion of when primitive practices centered around an animal matured
populations taking place gradually southward and eastward in into a "cult.'' One would be too sanguine to expect to find
the Americas. Primitive popular beliefs and cults involving archaeological evidences dating hack some 45,000 years. Still,
animals are intimately a part of these intercontinental and I hope my readers will not deny me the latitude of asserting
American migrations. my belief that the cult of the serpent is one of great antiquity.
No.
It could not possibly have sprung up with explosive suddenness bear deity. They have an earth goddess, Takotsi Nakawe, who
relatively late in man's social history. There is very substantial is closely identified with crops, such as maize, beans, and
and impressive archaeological material from the Near East, pumpkins, and also with the bear. The latter distinction,
Egypt, Cyprus, Crete, southern Europe, China, and Japan however, is diluted because the goddess is also simultaneously
(see, for example, Onuki's comment) dating to Neolithic associated with the armadillo and peccary (Seler 1960, vol.
times, 3000 B.C. and earlier, which is indicative of the impor- 3:379). In Mesoamerica, there are deities conceived in the
tance given to serpents. They are not mere decorative motifs. forms of the bat, the coyote, the crocodile, the jaguar, etc.,
They betray cultic sentiments. It is impossible to document this but there is no deity, as far as I have been able to determine-
effectively in an article such as this, since numerous illustrations certainly no major one-which has ursine attributes. By
and extensive and detailed descriptions of archaeological contrast, ophidian attributes characterize the major deities
objects are necessary. Evidence from Paleolithic times is less Coatlicue, Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, and Chicomecoatl. Still
abundant on a worldwide scale, but surely it is not unreason- farther south, in the Andes, an important deity, "El Lanzon"
able to entertain the view that serpents were venerated long (fig. 7, right), has obvious ophidian aspects combined with
before man fashioned material evidences of them for posterity. feline. The bear is scarcely depicted anywhere in Andean
This belief is perfectly consistent with the notion-kept alive by chimaerical animal representations (Kauffmann Doig 1972).
structural anthropologists-that primitive man has always Another important Andean deity, Ai Apec, has a double-
lived in close harmony with nature and developed a special headed serpent attribute (Kutscher 1954: pl. 77). Serpents
relationship towards a particular animal or animals. I believe (and felines) are prominent motifs in both Mesoamerican and
I have shown that this is true of the serpent, as clearly as space Andean sculpture, pottery, and textiles; bears are conspicuously
in a journal article allows. absent or rare: Seler (1960, vol. 5:70) mentions a curious
bear's paw form only in connection with a tomb in Colombia.
III To these Mesoamerican and Andean examples one may add
ophidian myths, a vast assemblage which seems to overshadow
We may now consider certain cross-cultural aspects of the bear mythology. One should recall the modern Siberian
relationships of man and beasts. Several commentators have ophidian survivals mentioned in my article. Okladnikov
touched upon them. Kaneko takes the extreme view that (1962:55, 58-60) mentions that serpents, deer, and waterfowl
"ophiolatry . . . does not signally lend itself to cross-cultural are the most prominent among the motifs on petroglyphs of
comparison with conclusive results." I am not aware how far the Amur and Ussuri valleys, dateable to the 2d to 1st millen-
her own analyses have progressed to instill such confidence in nium B.C. They are chiefly local creations, unrelated to the
her, or just what her criteria for conclusiveness are. Let me Central Siberian. Okladnikov's figure 4b does seem to be a
once again illustrate my thesis that the serpent is more firmly representation of a bear's face, though he does not specifically
fixed in human sentiments than any other animal in aboriginal mention either the bear or feline motifs in these petroglyphs.
America by comparing it with another species pertinent to the Bear and tiger cults still prevail among the Nanai of these
Beringia connection: the bear. The Siberian cult of this animal river valleys (Dioszegi 1968), and Okladnikov stresses the
can be traced back to ancient times (Alekseenko 1968). It is relationships of their art forms to these ancient petroglyphs.
still a cult animal among several tribes, for example, the On the other hand, Arctic fauna includes neither serpents nor
Yenisei Ostyaks; a bear cult exists among the Ainu of Japan tigers. Yet Eskimo art retains traces of serpent motifs (I thank
(Munro 1963). The bear's habitat ranges (or ranged, before its Borden for drawing my attention to this). From all this, one
populations were hunted thin) over very wide regions of the conclusion seems inescapable: the importance of the serpent is
Northern Hemisphere. Many North Asian customs surrounding a persistent phenomenon, while that of the bear was lost in
the bear have close analogies among several North American Mexico and the Andes, a remarkable fact considering that this
Indian tribes, notably the Northwest Coast people, the Ojibwa, loss occurred despite the bear's having been a member of the
and others. There are 85 subspecies of Ursus americanus,and aunas of these regions. Extrapolations can be made in terms
they ranged abundantly in historic times from Alaska to of a feline cult; I need not elaborate upon this beyond the
Central Mexico. The "spectacled" bear Tremarctosornatus, statements I have already made regarding the jaguar. Suffice
now rare, lives in the Andes from southern Venezuela to it to say that such a feline cult is hard to detect between Alaska
northern Chile. Now, it is remarkable that while the serpent and Central America.
was woven, along with other animals, into the thinking of Kornfield and Hultkrantz question my view that the serpent
innumerable tribes in North America (Klauber 1972: chap. 16), probably antedates certain other animals as a cult object. The
Mesoamerica, and the Andean region, the importance of the former correctly understands that I was referring specifically
bear is scarcely noticeable as one proceeds southward in the to the Andean civilization; his observations are reasoned and
Western Hemisphere. To cite one archaeological example: to the point. Hultkrantz is not specific; he gives the impression
Frequencies of various motifs found in Nevadan and eastern that my statements refer to the Americas as a whole. Since his
California petroglyphs dating from ca. 5000 B.C. to A.D. 1500 objection seems to spring from personal bias on this topic and
are recorded in detail by Heizer and Baumhoff (1962:86-87). is unsupported by references to scholarly literature, I will
Predominating over all other animal forms are mountain confine my answer to Kornfield's observations. Much of what
sheep, numbering 259, and serpents, numbering 244. The I have already said about migrations and the transience of
latter figure is a conservative count, since simple sinuosities, particular animal cults in different geographic zones should be
curvilinear meanders, zigzags, and wavy lines which may recalled here. I agree with Kornfield, with reservations, that
represent serpents are not included. Only those motifs are the feline motif may be a "dominant" one, though this is
included which have "headlike thickenings at one end ... truer of more recent periods of art than of the earlier. I think
some [of them] unquestionably meant to represent snakes, a it is more correct to call it "prominent," however, even in the
few even [having] the rattles of a rattlesnake." Foot or paw later periods, because kenning, or composite inclusion of other
marks number 92, but Heizer and Baumhoff specifically animal motifs with the jaguar's, reduces the "dominance"
discount the possibility that the paws represent bears. Since of the latter to the level of equality. However, art alone does
representations of all quadrupeds (except mountain sheep) not often betray cultic origins; mythology, especially religious
put together number only 78, the frequency of serpent motifs mythology, can give some support. Andean cult origins have a
seems all the more impressive. Farther south, there appears to continuous (if hidden) evolutionary history not unrelated to
be no comparable archaeological example, but the Huichol Mesoamerica or even areas farther north. The Kotosh finds
of northwestern Mexico provide one of the rare examples of a are among the few overt indicators of this history. They are
significant if only because in the earlier Kotosh periods feline Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
motifs are unknown, whereas the only animal shown alongside
a human figure is the serpent (see also Onuki's comment). hint at this. "El Lanzon" seems to express it more forcefully.
Future excavations at pre-Chavin sites may tell us more. The importance I accord the serpent in cross-culturalstudies
In "El Lanzon," from the Chavin period site at Chavin de rests on no weak base.
Hu'antar,we have a remarkable cult idol whose general bodily
form is markedly ophidian. Its face is generally spoken of as
IV
feline-human, but there is little that distinguishes it from a
serpent-human visage. In fact, it is only the presence of the Bolton astutely remarks (presumably in a South Asian con-
fangs which make "El Lanzon's" face seem feline to some; to text) that the problem facing an antidiffusionist, such as my-
others, like myself, the general form of the body may make the self, is a surfeit of information. He cites examples purporting
face seem ophidian. The form is vertical, like a rearing serpant, to oppose those I selected in support of my statements that
tapering, with stylized, large scale plates frontally and natural- the serpent in the Americas symbolizes weather and moisture
istic ventral scales below, in the rear (fig. 7, left). It is an idol and agricultural bounty and not, as in Hinduized South Asia,
whose chthonic aura is enhanced by its subterranean location. human fecundity. Bolton's examples are ill-chosen. He re-
Why is "El Lanzon" not a quadruped like so many other, casts my proposition and then proceeds to lay bare its inade-
lesser, decorative feline motifs in Andean art? At least, why quacy without regard to the literature I have cited.
are feline bodily characteristics so little emphasized? If the Carefulreaders will recall that I have throughout emphasized
jaguar were a dominant cultic animal, why is this not more with examples a religious or "cultic" approach, utilizing folk-
apparent in "El Lanzon"? These are difficult questions, and lore when it complemented a known religious outlook or if it
this is why my statements were more a priori than a fortiori. was the only available information. This is not to say that
And though I guardedly expressed uncertainty about "the folklore is to be shunned; however, I will show how fragile
sequence of adoption of these animals, especially the serpent this criterion can be when folktales lack a firm religious base.
relative to the jaguar in Andean cult practices," I tend to Now, in India, as in the Near East, particularly Mesopotamia
favor earlier cultic origin of the serpent mainly on the basis and Elam, serpents are the attributes of several deitieswho are
of the early Kotosh relics and "El Lanzon." regarded with ambivalent fear and veneration (Vogel 1926,
Kornfield remarks that "Kauffmann Doig (1963), a Chavin Frankfort 1939, Mundkur 1976a). The important Hindu god,
specialist from Peru," indicates that the feline is "the pre- Siva, has both phallic and serpent emblems, though he is
ferred motif of Chavin art." I must correct this impression not typically a "functional" deity equivalent to Mudamma,
pointedly. Kauffmann Doig, in more recent work (1972:168-72, who is primarily an ophidian goddess who presides over the
translation mine),' describes the zoomorphic elements in the sacred function of procreation. Indian serpent lore stresses,
Formative period of Chavin lithic art in terms that clearly among other things, childbearing as a divine boon mediated
support my own position: "Representations of the jaguar are by the Nagas and Naginis, though, in some parts of India,
rare in the lithic art of Chavin ... individual or preponderantly these mythical creatures are more apparent in religious litera-
feline representations are exceedingly scarce.... The serpent ture and art than in folklore. Serpents, conceived as semi-
occurs in many cases, and frequently its mouth with fangs, divinities,as a tribe are delightful and virile seducers who bring
sometimes with a single fang in front, has superficially been about much-desired childbirth. Serpents, as animals, do not
taken for a feline mouth. Andean myths (coastal and highland) ordinarily figure in folklore as evil, detestable instruments that
revolve especially around birds and serpents; and [only] sec- impregnate women and for this reason must be killed. The
ondarily around felines.... the serpent-bird is representative Indian and Mesopotamian motif of entwined serpents is the
of the entire Mesoamerican mythology." standard fertility emblem par excellence, with scarcely a con-
The monkey, viscacha, frog, etc., are minor motifs at Chavin. ceptual equivalent in the religious or decorative art of the
Kauffmann Doig observes (p. 170) that eagles and falcons are Americas. The Andean folkloric examples chosen by Bolton
the animals most frequently represented. They may have been are not rooted in religion and on closer inspection turn out to
portrayed for purely decorative reasons, as symbols of the sun, be no parallels at all to the Hindu cases. The point is not that
or, at best, as deities. It is important to note, however, that seducer-serpents do not occur in Andean tales, or even that
there is no trace of avian characteristics in the supreme idol Nagas and Nagin-isare extremely prominent in Hindu art, but
"El Lanzon"-"For the rest, no ornithomorphic allusions are that serpents disclose fundamentally different cultural out-
revealed" (p. 218, translation mine).2 In fact, Kauffmann Doig looks in Indian Asia and in the Americas.
believes (p. 218 n. 19) that the eyes of this idol are very sug- Bolton's examples, far from justifying his criticism, rebound
gestive of a serpent's, considering that avian symbols are absent. in my favor; he ignores the deeper meanings of the anecdotes
Thus the view of Bennett, Tello, and others that the feline he has cited, though they are obvious in the original versions.
motif is dominant is squarely opposed by the views of Kauff- Initially thin and lithe, the seducer-serpent in the Quechua
mann Doig. Obviously, a line should be drawn between purely tale is evil; he waxes fat and red on the blood he sucks from the
decorative uses of animal motifs and those pertaining to cult. young girl he has seduced. Her parents spitefully bludgeon him
The emphasis placed by Kauffmann Doig on bird and serpent on the head when they discover their daughter's pregnancy.
myths is significant. If we accept his experience and scholar- She aborts, not humans, but a multitude of baby serpents,
ship, as certainly both Kornfield and I do, it is not the jaguar, which also are killed (Arguedas and Stephan 1957:152-54).
but the serpent, which emerges as the stronger candidate in The Paez superstition recounted in my article, though seem-
culticcompetition. The Kotosh finds, being meagre, may only ingly suggestive of a transfer of fertility symbolism from
jaguar to serpent, reflects a similar aversion to seducer-
1 "Las representaciones de jaguar son contadas en el arte l'itico de
serpents. This P'aez creature performed no sacred function.
Chav'in ... representaciones individuales o preponderantemente
On the contrary, the sacred lake in which he dwelt was ac-
felidas son escasisimas.... La serpiente esta presente en muchos tually drained, perhaps less than 50 years ago, to extirpate his
casos y, con frecuencia su boca con colmillos, algunas veces con un potential for evil. I could cite similar Andean tales illustrating
solo colmillo delantero, ha sido estimada superficialmente como my contention that, in general, the serpent's role in child-
boca de felino. Los mitos andinos (costa y sierra) giran especial- bearing is a fearful, malicious, and undesirable one and there-
mente alrededor de aves y de serpientes; y en segunda instancia
sobre felinos . .. la serpiente-ave es representativa de la mitologia does not correspond with that of the Nagas. The latter, if
mesoamericana toda." sometimes malicious, are at least desirable. Bolton's own ex-
2 "En lo demas no se descrubren alusiones ornitomorfas." amples of potions derived from serpents bespeak their medicinal
Vol. 17 * No. 3 * September1976
potential. Klauber (1972:1193-1201) lists a large number of its bite was the just reward for transgressing tribal customs
medicinal uses with sexual connotations. They frequently (Kroeber 1907:fig. 4; DuBois 1908:93-99; cf. Waterman 1908:
reflect antagonisms and fear of the serpent. The ascription 303-4).
of contraceptive and abortifacient properties to various The point of all this is not merely to show that Bolton's
rattlesnake parts is common not only in the Andes, as Bolton remarks are irrelevant and distractive, but also to suggest that
says, but also elsewhere in the Americas. Should not serpents the serpent is cast in ambivalent roles. Two factors-fear and
qualify as symbols antithetical to fertility on the basis of moisture-dominate the endless variations of fables in the
Bolton's reasoning? Americas; human procreation may be interwoven in these,
Francisco de Avila (1968[1598?]:39) records a Quechua but by itself seems to have no outstanding association with
myth about two serpents and a double-headed toad. Together, serpent symbolism comparable to that apparent in the religious
they tempt a woman into adultery by causing her husband to be myths of Hinduized Asia. If the serpent figures in folklore or
sick. The situation is corrected by killing them. Is not the toad tribal cult in sexual or, occasionally, human fertility contexts,
in this and similar Andean cases a "fertility symbol," particular- it is because it has, like any other animal, flexible roles and the
ly because toads, frogs, and serpents are grouped together in capacity, as it were, to alternate between the metaphoric and
such fables (Roca Wallparimachi 1966)? Frogs and toads metonymic modes of human thought. About this, few structural
never play this role in Indian religious symbolism. anthropologists will disagree.
The fragility of folkloric criteria as opposed to the more Bolton doubts that the differences in numerological prefer-
stable ones rooted in cult or religion is apparent in ancient ences in Hinduized Asia and the Americas are as sharp as I
Peruvian myths featuring Amaru, a monstrous, double-headed believe they are. He mentions the occurrence of certain numbers
serpent listed by De Avila under "Dioses y Heroes" (pp. 97, in a circumscribed modern Peruvian situation and holds that
99). A malignant lake-dwelling creature, it steals the hoar- they "demonstrate" exceptions to my generalized view. His
frost flower-the very germ of rain. In more recent Quechua argument is vitiated by his admission that both European in-
folklore, there are versions in which the serpent is replaced fluence and aboriginal mysticism may be reflected in his ex-
by a bull, but the ancient name Amaru is retained (Arguedas amples and by the fact that the number thirteen, which figures
1970:83-86, 261-64). Amaru, the serpent, personified not importantly in them, also has mystical value in Mesoamerica
human fertility, but moisture, and it was an animal to be but is not auspicious among the Hindus and Buddhists. (He
feared. De Avila recounts a myth in which it is vengefully carelessly misrepresents me on the latter point, clearly stated
stabbed in the back and thereupon turns into stone. He says in my article.) Bolton's reasoning in this matter is in line with
that the highland people of Caquiyoca scraped the stone his other statements: He reproves me for falling into the trap
identified with its remains and used the powder as medicine. of unawareness, even selectivity, regarding examples which
In reminding us of the aphrodisiac and parturifacient uses run "counter" to my numerological information. Oddly, up
of serpent meat among Andean aborigines, Bolton ignores the to the time I write this Reply, neither of the two articles
consideration that these erotico-medicinal superstitions are (Sharon 1973, Bolton and Sharon 1976) which, we are told,
far less concerned with the desire to bear children than they "demonstrate" this has been published. When they are, we
are rooted in fear of the serpent's venom. Fear is the motive will know whether their disclosures have significant concor-
explicitly conveyed by one of the authors (Oblitas Poblete dances or are superficial and pointless from the standpoint of
1971:37, translation mine)3 cited by Bolton himself: "in their comparative analyses.
daily prayers [the Indians] do not forget to ask the divinity to
tie up his dogs [-=snakes] so as to avoid being bitten; it is for
V
this reason that snakes have unquestioned medicinal virtues."
Up to early conquest times, Bolivian Indians venerated two Questions about ophiolatry in general and about fear as a prime
ophidian deities, Yaurinkha and Huayra-tata. Each was as- motive in ophiolatry have been raised directly or indirectly
sociated with water. The former was a lake-dwelling monster- in a few comments. Hultkrantz and McGee demand explana-
serpent whose every movement produced earth tremors. The tions involving such subjects as serpent symbolism and psy-
idol of the other, represented as a double-headed human figure chology. Hultkrantz makes the astonishing statement that "no
with coiled serpents disposed from head to foot as its attributes, real comparison with Old World ophiolatry can be made
was associated with hurricane winds and fertilizing rains. On unless all known expressions of snake worship and ideology
the other hand, Ekhakho, the deity of human fertility, was de- have been registered for the New World." Does he presume
void of ophidian symbols. He was propitiated specifically by that this has been done for the Old World, or that discussion of
young girls seeking sexual bonds or marriage and was repre- this subject is premature? If his yardstick of "real comparison"
sented as a fully anthropomorphic, diminutive, paunchy man were taken seriously, a goodly part of cultural anthropology
(Paredes 1963:59, 77-79). would have come to a dead halt decades ago. McGee cannot
Among the Luisefios of southern California, puberty rites accept my self-evident statement, made in an ethnological
for both girls and boys were part of Chungichnish worship. context, that fear, adoration, and superstitious attitudes, i.e.,
(These rites had their equivalent among the Dieguefios.) basic human emotions, are immutable and more reliable
Girls' puberty rites concluded with their painting large geo- criteria than temporally fragile details of social customs. He
metric motifs upon boulders. These elongate patterns were says I ought to "demonstrate" this, and in the archaeological
highly suggestive of the dorsal and ventral scales of a serpent. record, besides!
Naturalistic renditions of serpents also figured prominently in As a scientist active until recently in experimental investiga-
their sand paintings. However, there is no evidence at all that tions, I find McGee's thoughts on the value of documenting
serpents symbolized human fertility in these puberty cere- "exceptions" quite edifying. I "threw out" none, at least not
monies. On the contrary, Chungichnish worship was primarily prejudicially or capriciously, because, as I made clear, I en-
"a religion of fear," the rattlesnake being "considered beyond countered none that were weighty. In fact, I strove hard to
all others [animals] the medium through which punishment discover exceptions to my data and came up with only two
falls for ceremonial offenses." It was the overseer of virtue, and in a dubious category-the Eskimo situation and the Paez
myth. Documentation of "exceptions" of the type McGee
demands can be limitless, since even the examples that other
3 "en su oracion cotidiana [los indios] no olvidan pedir a la
divinidad, que ate sus perros [= culebras] para evitar su morde-
commentators and I find positive and useful are disdained by
dura; es por esta raz6n que las culebras tienen virtudes medicinales him. The physical and biological sciences afford great precision
insospechadas." in quantification, identification, and analysis of variables. In
addition, the nature of the data is often such that it can be Mundkur:CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
expressed succinctly. Yet, it is not customary for researchers
unduly to expend space in their periodicals with details of VI
negative, i.e., rejected, information of the kind McGee would
like to see. The descriptive and interpretative nature of the "Classical" diffusionist arguments are voiced by two persons-
symbolic content of myths makes his expectation virtually Kaneko and Tu Er-wei. I will answer Kaneko only briefly on
impossible to satisfy in the present instance. It was up to the question of South Asian trans-Pacific contacts. My position
McGee to point out examples, if he could, contradictory to is clearly spelt out, and I have amplified it above. In terms of
mine. I would then have reasoned with him about their human biology and physical anthropology, it is fundamentally
relevance or otherwise. I have done exactly this in the cases incompatible with the diffusionists' position. I do not regard
pointed out by Bolton, Tu Er-wei, and Schubert and indicated their criteria of art, technology, or religion as invalid per se,
the hazards of lightly invoking interpretations which violate though they are useful only as criteria;it is the specific arguments
not only known religious sentiments, but also the distinctions based on them which I find unacceptable. Furthermore,
I specifically make. these arguments fly in the face of scientific ones. If the dif-
I will not for a moment deny that symbolism and structural- fusionists' arguments in the fields of religion, art, calendrical
anthropological interpretation are important, interesting, and systems, etc., were substantial, if they left no room for the
deserve attention. They are bound to provide fodder for in- possibility of independent invention, and if their evidence were
terminable debate, as they often have in the past (Leach 1974). acceptable to archaeologists and iconographers, the scientific
But are not Hultkrantz and McGee asking too much? The main data would indeed be puzzling. These threats seem remote to-
thrust of my article is in other directions, and it is not critically day.
dependent upon a discussion of matters that are more within I have of course utilized only one criterion, human blood-
the purview of religious psychology. The latter is hardly an group genetics, since recent information makes this a powerful
appropriate subject for debate for our purposes, though it has scientific tool. I have not gone deeper into calendrical systems
been necessary for me to voice my view that ophiolatry is because it is a specialized topic needing lengthy consideration.
rooted in fear. There are limits to the extent to which an author My own view is that this endeavor and cognate fields of
can be expected to cater to a critic's predilections. Rapport astronomy leave much opportunity for independent thought
with Hultkrantz and McGee was obviously impossible. Their and identical conclusions among diverse peoples. They are,
demands seem as excessive to me as, I am sure, mine would after all, based on observations of nature and astronomical
seem to them were I to insist, in their writings, on theoretical computations. Noriega (1954:275) shows how similar computa-
considerations dear to my way of thinking but only subordinate tional practices regarding the 260-day calendar were among
to theirs. Well, chacun 2 son gout! the ancient civilizations of India, China, the Near East, and
Certainly, as Hultkrantz says, religious sentiments seek Egypt. The problem of symbols connected with it, however, is
expression through animal symbolism, but I disagree with a separate one, susceptible to many interpretations.
him 100% when he says that "it is not the natural object that Kaneko defends Heine-Geldern without actually spelling
provokes religion." My point is that the serpent has done out her own position. Heine-Geldern's 1966 paper, cited by
precisely this, inciting not so much a whole religion as cultic me, is a clear summation of the views expressed in the earlier
veneration. The serpent, in my view, has provoked veneration papers listed by Kaneko. It leaves no room for misconception.
primarily through the power of its venom. My readers will It is only that his views are at odds with the requirements of
judge this for themselves on the basis of the numerous examples the antidiffusionists. In questioning his mostbasicassumptions,I
I have provided and the bibliographic support. My remarks on am not alone. I need only mention the very important objec-
fear as an inciter of veneration are treated lightly by both tions voiced by Caso (1964) against the similar assumptions
Hultkrantz and McGee. Perhaps it is hard for them to en- of another diffusionist, Kirchoff (1964), and point again to
vision the experience of peasants dwelling in the company of Willey's (1974:329) statement about the serious lack of any
venomous serpents. Perhaps they are unaware of snakebite archaeological support for the diffusionist position.
mortality statistics; or it may be that they have bypassed at On Kaneko's Point 1, the answer is yes. Heine-Geldern on
least three important works cited very early in my article- the matter of trans-Pacific contacts between South Asia and
Vogel (1926), Klauber (1972), and Hastings (1956). In any the Americas is, by any reasonable criterion, a diffusionist. I
case, I do not favor complex psychological explanations, no should be surprised if anyone who has read Heine-Geldern's
matter how elegant they may seem to some. There is ample 1966 article doubted this. Answers to her Points 2, 3, and 6
direct evidence that ophiolatry is to an extraordinary degree may be spotted in my article and in Sections I and III above.
rooted in elementary fear of the serpent's venom. This is Her statement that the "blood-group question . . . was not
apparent in ancient religious texts from Egypt, Mesopotamia, discussed in Heine-Geldern's lifetime" is erroneous. The works
and India, particularly in creation myths, incantations, of Boyd (1950), Garn (1957), and Coon (1965), to name only
charms, and general superstitious beliefs. Analogous beliefs three directly impinging upon transoceanic contacts, appeared
among primitive peoples are immensely varied. while Heine-Geldern was still active. It is quite appropriate to
I have explored the question of fear separately using just say that he did not think in terms which were remote from his
this approach and, in addition, another, which cultural own very circumscribed endeavors. Caso (1964) fully and
anthropologists will find unusual. It includes an analysis of effectively rebuts Kaneko's Point 3, and I endorse his stand
various biological factors-corporeal, physiological, behavioral, entirely. I appreciate the interesting "parallels" published by
and ecological peculiarities of venomous serpents-peculiarities Heine-Geldern, but I reiterate my wholly rejective evaluation
which make them uniquely impressive among animals that of his conclusions. In Point 4, Kaneko defends him on a theme
in Indian art about which she apparently knows little. I must
incite fear by virtue of qualities which, to use structuralist's
repeat that in Indian art elephants are almost invariably
terms, make them "bonnes a penser" and "suggest modes of "naturalistically" represented; they are rarely stylized, at
thought" (Levi-Strauss 1962:13). Such analyses were neither least never exaggeratedly. Their ears, in any case, are un-
accommodable nor crucial in this article. When they are failingly emphasized. One only need compare the earless
eventually published, they may mitigate, if not quench, both "elephant," a simple "naturalistic" image from El Salvador
Hultkrantz's hasty assessment and McGee's intemperance by (Heine-Geldern 1966a: fig. 14) with the Pallava, Chola, Gupta,
opening up vistas which, apparently, neither of them has Pala, and Sena Period elephants from India and South Asia
encountered within his own sphere. copiously illustrated in Zimmer (1960:2). This applies to
Vol. 17 * No. 3 * September1976 451
Amaravati elephants as well; elsewhere I have reproduced a 548-52) lists the meanings, in Sanskrit, of chatur("four") and
portion of an Amaravati frieze with elephants in a meander tri ("three"), along with their cognates. The entries of a re-
motif (Mundkur 1975:fig. 2) and presented a bibliography on ligious nature under tri and cognates are by far the more
elephant-headed deities in India. Comparisons of elephants and numerous and impressive. Tu Er-wei should note that the god
makarasin Indian art and their Mesoamerican "counterparts" Kubera, the Regent of the Northern Quarter, has an epithet
are, I am afraid, not rewarding as efforts towards proving rooted in the number three; he is, in addition, sometimes repre-
India-America links or showing that Heine-Geldern has in sented as three-legged (Apte 1890:410).
any conceivable way been misconstrued. I must flatly contradict Tu Er-wei's espousal of lunar as-
Tu Er-wei's comments on the diffusion of cultures puzzle sociations of the four Hindu deities he has compared with the
me. He initially says that he does "not differ with [my view] four Mexican ones. In Vedic hymns, Agni personifies fire, and
that the serpent myths of the Americas have been influenced he is constantly associated with the sun in simile and metaphor-
by those of Siberia and China"-even though I never at any "the sun became visible when Agni was born" is one example;
point compared the mythsas such (i.e., as stories) from these Indra, as the rain and weather god, is distinctly identified with,
regions, but confined myself to a few broad archaeological and and directly addressed as, the sun; Mitra, as god of the day,
ethnographic considerations. He concludes by saying that regulates the course of the sun-a belief more amply evident
"the influence of India on the Americas in the case of serpent in the Persian Avesta; Varuna is primarily a solar god, "sun-
myths appears to be undeniable." There is something surely eyed," and his chariot "shines like the sun." None of these
amiss between these mutually irreconcilable remarks. four Hindu divinities mentioned by Tu Er-wei possesses
Stressing the criterion of the cardinal directions (and the serpent attributes. Their solar associations are extremely pro-
number four automatically suggested by these), he says that nounced; the lunar are not evident or are hardly ever referred
"this myth conception may have come from India" to Mexico. to. The literature in support of this is so plentiful that I cannot
He forgets the numerous very basic differences in the mystic begin to cite it. Tu Er-wei should refer to Macdonnell (1963)
values assigned to various numbers. In India, the numbers and to my reply to Schubert below. Now, regarding the Mexi-
thirteen, twenty, and fifty-two do not at all possess the mystic can deities: Tlaloc, the ophidian rain god, personifies the nega-
significances so characteristic of them in Mesoamerica. Now, tion of the sun's desiccating effects and is to be considered more
the body of Hindu religious myths recorded in the Puranas is in solar than in lunar contexts (Garcia Payon 1975:166-68);
incredibly immense. For example, the myth of Durga as Xiuhtecuhtli, like the Hindu Agni, personified fire, the sub-
Mahi?asuramardini, in which the goddess, riding a feline (a stance of the sun, but, unlike Agni, carried a serpent with
Mesoamerican favorite!), slays a buffalo-headed demon, is a solar associations, the symbolic Xiuhcoatl. This serpent symbol
prominent theme in Indian sculpture and painting and occurs was also borne by Huitzilopochtli/Tezcatlipoca, two aspects of
in Southeast Asian art as a cultural import. Nothing remotely one and the same solardivinity (Palacios 1935:253-55; Sejourne
like it is known in Mexico. Many similarities involving deities 1957:182-89). In Mexico, the solar cult in general commanded
of the cardinal directions might be expected if India had in- distinctly greater importance than the lunar. The solar as-
deed exported her culture to Mexico. Tu Er-wei, and others sociations of the serpent are correspondingly far more evident
who see great significance in trifles of the kind adduced as than the lunar. Tonatiuh, the sun god, was represented in art
evidences of cultural influences, would be hard put to offer as a disc either with bifid, serpent tongues corresponding to
us really acceptable similarities in iconography. In Indian art, rays emanating from the cardinal points or with a serpent
iconographic conventions are highly developed and intimately encircling the sun-face (Beyer 1921:149 and fig. 25). The
reflect the Puranic myths. Iconographic traditions in Mexico symbol of the moon god, Tecciztecatl or Meztli, was not a
are also highly developed, but in radically different ways. serpent but a large shell in front of his head (Burland 1967:97).
Again, diffusionists, and those who point out "similarities," If Tu Er-wei had examined authoritative literature in Spanish
ignore the most basic differences which divide the cultures of or English before drawing his analogies, and if he had compared
Indian Asia and Mexico in matters of religious art. icons of the Hindu and Mexican deities, I am confident he would
Tu Er-wei attempts to build a case on the basis of superficial have had little to disagree with me about. The differences of
similarities in mental images prompted by the cardinal direc- iconography, mythology, and numerology are as sharp as I
tions and their automatic suggestion of the number four, and assert they are. Similarly, the correspondences cited by Tu
of deities who send rain, wind, fire, or light from the four quar- Er-wei regarding American tribes such as the Winnebago are
ters. He incorrectly states that, in India, the four wardens of no more than a veneer which obscures facets of Hindu myth-
these quarters "later" proliferated to eight. A set of eight ology that invalidate the similarities he imagines.
Hindu deities, known as Dikpalakas, presides over the clirec- To sum up: My contention is that similarities of the type
tions. All eight were prominent in the Vedic period (mid-2d considered above depend upon imprecise and flimsy precepts;
millennium B.C.), long before Brahma, Visnu, and Siva of the that elemental cultural dissimilarities are submerged by super-
Trinity gained ascendency. Dikpalakas are described in detail ficial analogies; and that such analogizing appears to be un-
by Gopinatha Rao (1914, vol. 2: 515-38). Besides, there are inhibited by the data from human biology and the cautions
eight elephants, the Dig-Gajas, who protect the eight points urged by physical anthropologists.
of the compass. If, as some diffusionists allege, Indian ele-
phants have artistic counterparts in Mexico, is it not odd that
this animal, so beloved in the mythology of India and so com- VII
mon in her art, is conspicuously omitted in Mexican references In conclusion, I wish to make a few very brief statements:
to the four directions and the Mexican deities whose "similari- My observation that the Northwest Coast tribes are one of
ties" to the Hindu are allegedly the products of "influence"? the oldest aboriginal stocks in North America is not accurate.
Each of these four Mexican deities, as Tu Er-wei agrees, had I thank Hultkrantz for pointing this out.
pronounced serpent symbols. None of the eight Dikpalakas Kubler questions the correctness of my giving equal weight
had serpent symbols, though each was assigned a different to primitive societies and civilized peoples in the Americas.
animal attribute. I see no harm in this at all, since the latter only continue tra-
My point was not that the number four is missing in the ditions derived from their primitive past. Orme's (1974) review
Hindu religious context, but that it does not command the discussesthe general matter of parallels, and his work should be
inordinate prominence it is accorded almost everywhere in consulted for further details.
the Americas. My point was that three (rather than four) is I agree with Schubert's useful observation that Vrtra-Ahi
the "magic" number among the Hindus. Apte (1890:482-83, is functionally equivalent to the sun in the sense that, like the

sun, this serpent-demon is the cause of terrestrial desiccation Mundkur:
CULT OF THE SERPENT IN THE AMERICAS
(he monopolizes all available water by drinking it up). This
symbolic equivalence, however, is created only in the modern ALEKSEENKO, E. A. 1968. "The cult of bear among the Ket (Yenisei
mind, and it illustrates the hazards of placing undue emphasis Ostyaks)," in Popular beliefs andfolklore traditionin Siberia. Edited
by V. Dioszegi, pp. 175-91. The Hague: Mouton.
on symbolism without reference to a firm religious base, as ALEXANDER, H. B. 1920. Latin American[mythology].(The Mythology
some of my psychologically oriented colleagues might be of All Races, 11.) Boston: Marshall Jones. [JTE]
tempted to do. Actually, the situation is exactly the opposite ANDERS, FERDINAND. 1963. Das Pantheonder Maya. Graz: Akade-
of that imagined by Schubert. In Hindu religious literature mische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.
APTE, VAMAN SHIVRAM. 1890. Sanskrit-English dictionary. Poona:
(Satapatha BrahmaUaI, 6, 4[18]), Vrtra-Ahi is identified with Shiralkar.
the moon,Indra being the sun. These personifications are apt, ARGUEDAS, J. M. 1970. Mitos, leyendasy cuentosperuanos. Lima:
since Vrtra-Ahi is the antithesis of the solar Indra, the slayer Casa de la Cultura del Per?u.
ARGUEDAS, J. M., and R. STEPHAN. 1957. The singing mountaineers:
of the serpent-demon. This event is likened to Indra's "swallow-
Songs and tales of the Quechuapeople. Austin: University of Texas
ing" of the lunar Vrtra-Ahi at new moon. Press. [RB]
I thank Onuki for supplementing my examples of ancient ARMILLAS, P. 1947. La serpiente emplumada, Quetzalcoatl y
Peruvian serpent representations and for calling my attention Tlaloc. CuadernosAmericanos31:161-78.
BELLWOOD, P. 1975. The prehistory of Oceania. CURRENT ANTHRO-
to more accurate dating of llama bones at Peruvian sites.
POLOGY 16:9-28.
Kelley seems impressed by Mackenzie's Myths of Pre- BENNETT, WENDELL C. 1943. The position of Chavin in Andean
Columbian America.I cannot think of a better way of convincing sequences. Proceedingsof the AmericanPhilosophicalSociety 86:323-
my readers how astray in adjudication a commentator oc- 27. [WJK]
casionally can go than by recommending that they read this . 1946. The archaeology of Colombia. Bureau of American
EthnologyBulletin 143:823-50.
book. Kelley calls it a source of "verifiable detail." It was BENNETT, WENDELL C., and JUNIUS B. BIRD. 1964. 2d edition.
written more than a half-century ago, when the great ar- Andeanculture history. Garden City: American Museum Science
chaeological discoveries of Mesoamerica and the Andes were Books. [WJK]
incompletely docuinented or interpreted and physical anthro- BENSON E. P. Editor. 1972. The cult of thefeline. Washington, D.C.:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections.
pology was still in its infancy. We cannot fault Mackenzie for BERGER, R., R. PROTSCH, R. REYNOLDS, C. ROZAIRE, and J. R.
his literary efforts. That Kelley champions the conclusions SACHETT. 1971. New radiocarbon dates based on bone collagen
expressed therein, largely on the murky subject of diffusion of of California Palaeo-Indians. Contributionsof the University of
cultures from South Asia to Mexico, leaves one wondering CaliforniaArchaeologicalResearchFacility 12:43-49.
BERNAL, I. 1971. The Olmec region-Oaxaca. Contributionsof the
whether he has consulted the literature I have cited or read University of California ArchaeologicalResearch Facility 11:29-50.
Mackenzie's book and my article perspicaciously. BEYER, H. 1921. "El llamado 'calendario Azteca': Descripcion e
I am mildly perplexed at the attitudes of only two of my interpretacion del cuauhxicalli de la 'casa de las aguilas,' " in
colleagues-McGee and Hultkrantz. Their remarks, which I El Me'xicoantiguo 10. Edited by C. Cook de Leonard, pp. 134-
256. Mexico, D. F.: Sociedad Alemana Mexicanista.
have tried to answer where possible, at times reflect an inac- BOAS, F. 1935. Kwakiutl cultureas reflectedin mythology.Memoirs of
curate estimate of my views. This in itself is not disquieting- the American Folklore Society 28.
not even McGee's absurd claim that my examples do not BOLTON, R., and C. BOLTON. 1976. Concepcion, embarazo y
show that the serpent in the Americas reflects values different alumbramiento en una aldea qolla. AntropologiaAndina 1-2:58-
74. [RB]
from those in South Asia or the fact that he sneers at the in- BOLTON, R., and D. SHARON. 1976. Andean ritual lore: An intro-
formation from human genetics. Readers will draw their own duction. J7ournalof Latin AmericanLore. In press. [RB]
conclusions. McGee's remarks finally verge on diatribe, and BORDEN, Charles E. 1962. "West coast crossties with Alaska,"
this has stifled debate. The very wide range of topics I have in Prehistoriccultural relations betweenthe arctic and temperatezones
of North America. Edited by John M. Campbell, pp. 9-19.
compressed here can be expected to suffer some inadequacies Arctic Institute of North America Technical Paper 11. [CEB]
of exposition. However, much of my information-the data on . 1969. Early population movements from Asia into western
blood groups, archaeology, or religious symbolism, for ex- North America. Syesis 2 (1 and 2): 1-13. [CEB]
ample-must surely be new to these commentators and perhaps . 1975. Origins and early developmentof Northwest Coast culture
difficult for them to understand or evaluate. If they choose to to about 3000 B.C. National Museum of Man, Mercury Series,
Archaeological Survey of Canada Paper 45. [CEB]
ignore these, or interpret parts of my article differently, that BOYD, W. C. 1950. Genetics and the races of man. Boston: Little,
is their privilege. Still, when Hultkrantz pronounces on its Brown.
shortcomings, suggesting that it "could leave the impression BURLAND, C. A. 1967. The gods of Mexico. London: Eyre and
that we are not yet ready for this sort of work," he does not, Spottiswoode.
BUSHNELL, G. H. S. 1963. Peru. Lima: A.B.C. Bookstore.
I hope, presume to speak on behalf of other commentators and CASO, A. 1935. "El templo de Tenayuca estaba dedicado al culto
readers. Otherwise, the approval of my manuscript by the solar (Estudio de los jeroglifos)," in Tenayuca. Mexico, D.F.:
referees will have been as much in vain as CA's eclecticism. Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Historia y Etnografia.
Writing for CA has given me much pleasure. I would re- . 1964. Answer to Paul Kirchoff. Diogenes 47:29-35.
CASO, A., I. BERNAL, and J. R. ACOSTA. 1957. La ceramicade Monte
iterate almost everything I have stated, with many more ex- Alban. Memorias del Instituto National de Antropologia e
amples where space permitted. I am especially touched at Historia 13.
not having been spared the candor which normally typifies CHENG, TE-K'UN. 1973. The beginnings of Chinese civilization.
Antiquity47:197-209. $
CA's comment columns; not being formally trained as an
COE, M. 1962. Mexico. London: Thames and Hudson.
archaeologist or anthropologist, I wish to be corrected within COOK DE LEONARD, C. 1967. Sculptures and rock carvings at
the latitudes I allow myself. I appreciate this candor the more Chalcatzingo, Morelos. Contributionsof the University of California
in that it has enabled me to shed inhibition, meet my colleagues ArchaeologicalResearchFacility 3:57-84.
COOMARASWAMY, A. K. 1927. History of Indian and Indonesianart.
on their own ground, and show what I think are some of their
New York: Dover.
own inadequacies. I thank all my colleagues for the courtesy COON, C. S. 1965. The living races of man. New York: Knopf.
they have shown me by reading my manuscript and stimulating CORBETT, JOHN M., and GORDON R. WILLEY. 1951. The Chavzn
a discussion. problem: A review and critique. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
COVARRUBIAS, MIGUEL. 1957. Indianart of Mexico and CentralAmerica.
New York: Knopf.
DAS, R. C. 1913. Numbersin Hindu magic and religion.
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The Cult of The Serpent in The Americas

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What is the main topic discussed in the document?

What evidence is provided to support that serpent worship is one of the most primeval animal cults?

Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

The Cult of the Serpent

Its Asian Background'

FIG. 2. Naga and Ndgini with offspring, Goa, India (photograph

The Iroquoian and Muskogean tribes of the northern and

Fio. 7. "El Lanzon," Chavin de Huantar, Peru. Left, from Rowe

tosh, not very far from Chavin de Hufintar. The importance

Vol. 17 * No. 3 * September1976

FIG. 13. Painted pot, Yang-shao culture, Neolithic northern China

FIo. 15. Metal amulets, Nanai culture, eastem Sibeira (reprinted

FIG. 14. Sun deity engraved on gravestone, Yenisei River basin,

440 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

ship customs, and other such fragile social criteria." Isolation

446 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

452 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

454 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

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