Note 378 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 2)

The stories first told in Europe of the Rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus) were of the most exaggerated kind. He was described as a reptile of prodigious size, which could fly, and which poisoned by its breath. (New England’s Prospect, p. 39.) The first mention of this snake in Massachusetts is found in Higginson’s New England’s Plantation [1630]. It is as follows: “This country being very full of woods and wildernesses, doth also much abound with snakes and serpents, of strange colors and huge greatness. Yea, there are some serpents, called rattlesnakes, that have rattles in their tails, that will not fly from a man as others will, but will fly upon him and sting him so mortally that he will die within a quarter of an hour after, except the party stinged have about him some of the root of an herb called snake-weed to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.” (Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 255.) Wood gives an admirable description of the rattlesnake (Prospect, pp. 38-9), and also speaks of “the Antidote to expel the poyson, which is a root caled Snake weede, which must be champed, the spittle swallowed, and the roote applied to the sore.... Five or six men have been bitten by them, which by using of snakeweede were all cured, never any yet losing his life by them.” Josselyn, in his Rarities (p. 39), says: “The Indians when weary with travelling, will take them up with their bare hands, laying hold with one hand behind their Head, with the other taking hold of their Tail, and with their teeth tear off the Skin of their backs, and feed upon them alive; which they say refresheth them.” He further says that the heart of the rattlesnake “swallowed fresh” (Rarities, p. 39), or “dried and pulverized and drunk with wine or beer” (Voyages, p. 114), is an antidote against its poison. In Clayton’s Virginia (III. Force’s Tracts, No. 12, p. 39), there is a very entertaining passage, too long to extract, on Rattlesnakes, and the use of East India snake-stones “that were sent [to Virginia] by King James the Second, the Queen, and some of the Nobility, purposely to try their Virtue and Efficacy,” at curing the bite of vipers, &c.