Its cast-off skin was carefully collected by the savages
and stored in the medicine bag as possessing remedial powers of high
excellence. Itself thus immortal, they thought it could impart its
vitality to them. So when the mother was travailing in sore pain, and
the danger neared that the child would be born silent, the attending
women hastened to catch some serpent and give her its blood to
drink.[111-1]
It is well known that in ancient art this animal was the symbol of
AEsculapius, and to this day, Professor Agassiz found that the Maues
Indians, who live between the upper Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in
Brazil, whenever they assign a form to any "remedio," give it that of a
serpent.[111-2]
Probably this notion that it was annually rejuvenated led to its
adoption as a symbol of Time among the Aztecs; or, perchance, as they
reckoned by suns, and the figure of the sun, a circle, corresponds to
nothing animate but a serpent with its tail in its mouth, eating itself,
as it were, this may have been its origin.
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