"
Its sinuous course is like to nothing so much as that of a winding
river, which therefore we often call serpentine. So did the Indians.
Kennebec, a stream in Maine, in the Algonkin means snake, and Antietam,
the creek in Maryland of tragic celebrity, in an Iroquois dialect has
the same significance. How easily would savages, construing the figure
literally, make the serpent a river or water god! Many species being
amphibious would confirm the idea. A lake watered by innumerable
tortuous rills wriggling into it, is well calculated for the fabled
abode of the king of the snakes. Thus doubtless it happened that both
Algonkins and Iroquois had a myth that in the great lakes dwelt a
monster serpent, of irascible temper, who unless appeased by meet
offerings raised a tempest or broke the ice beneath the feet of those
venturing on his domain, and swallowed them down.[108-1]
The rattlesnake was the species almost exclusively honored by the red
race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses
the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small
birds and squirrels.
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