Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

notes that in processions "The fire-born serpent leads the way."

Etruria, of which Rome was a colony, probably borrowed its serpent worship from Egypt. It was there, as elsewhere, a form of sun-worship, as the reptile hybernates to renew its strength, and casts off its slough to renew its youth, as the sun is renewed at spring. And yet Ruskin says, "The true worship must have taken a dark form, when associated with the Draconian one."

Africa is well known to be still under the cruel bondage, of serpent worship, and that of the evil Apophis kind. The negro's forefathers appear to him as serpents. Over the Pacific Ocean, the serpent, carved in stone, was adored Tales, in Fiji Isles, spoke of a monster dragon dwelling in a cave Samoa had a serpent form for the god Dengie. Even in Australia, though in ruder style, the serpent was associated, as in Oceana, with some idea of a creator.

America astonished Spaniards of the sixteenth century with its parody of their own faith. The civilized Aztecs and Peruvians adored serpents Vitzliputuli of Mexico held, like Osiris, a serpent staff Cihuacohuatziti, wife of the Great Father, was an immense serpent The name of the goddess Cihuacohuatl means the female serpent.

But the wilder North American Indians bowed to the serpent, as may be known from Squier's Serpent Symbol. A serpentine earthwork in Adam's County, Ohio, upon a hill, is 1000 ft in length Mounds in Iowa, arranged in serpentine form, extend over two miles A coiled serpent mound by St Peter's River, Iowa, is 2310 ft. long. In the desert of Colorado have been reported lately the remains of a temple. It is said that the capitals for the two remaining pillars are stone serpents' heads, the feet of the columns look like rattlesnakes The pillars seem to be rattlesnakes standing on their tails.

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