Note 86 — Chapter II

Pre-Historic Times, p. 425. Also cited by Foster. In this connection I refer the reader to the argument of Mr. John H. Becker of Berlin, in the Congrès International des Américanistes, Luxembourg, 1877, tom. i, pp. 345–6: “These northern nations * * * have not quite forgotten the former existence and the exodus of these Nahua Mound-builders in and from the western prairie country. Cusick’s remarkable history of the Iroquois (Schoolcraft, vol. v) states again and again that ‘their hunters were opposed by big snakes,’ that the ‘great horned snake appeared on Lake Ontario,’ that the ‘lake serpent traversed the country, and they were compelled to build fortifications in order to save themselves from the devouring monsters,’ that ‘a snake with a human head prevented the intercourse of their several villages, as it had settled near the principal path of communication,’ also ‘that it retreats,’ etc., etc. Now, in order to understand the force of these passages, it is necessary to remind the reader that the Nahua race were perhaps even more properly and generally designated as the ‘Culhua’ the ‘Snake’ race, and one branch, remotely connected with them in blood and language, though wofully degenerated, the Snakes or Shoshones of Oregon, etc., carry the name to this very day. * * * ‘An expedition was sent towards the Mississippi River; they crossed it, reached an extensive meadow; they discovered a curious animal, a winged fish; it flew about the tree, it moved like a humming bird’ * * * the humming bird was the totem of the last tribe of Nahuas, arriving in Anahuac from Aztlan. The Cherokee tradition, told by Timberlake, is equally significant: ‘The prince of rattlesnakes lives in the glens of the mountains. His palace is guarded by obedient subjects. * * * And in the myth of the Algonquins, the god-hero Michabo is in conflict with the shining prince of serpents who lives in the lake; he destroys the reptile with a dart; clothes himself with the skin of his foe, and drives the rest of the serpents to the south.’”