Horned Serpent

The Horned Serpent appears in the mythologies of many Native Americans.[1]

Details vary among tribes, with many of the stories associating the mystical figure
with water, rain, lightning and thunder. Horned Serpents were major components of
the Southeastern Ceremonial Complexof North American prehistory.[2][3]

Horned serpents also appear in European andNear Eastern mythology.

Contents
In Native American cultures
Other known names
The Horned Serpen design is a
In European iconography common theme on pottery from
In Mesopotamian iconography Casas Grandes (Paquimé)

See also
Notes
References
External links

In Native American cultures

Horned serpents appear in the oral history of numerous Native American cultures, A Horned Serpent in a Barrier
Canyon Style pictograph, Western
especially in the Southeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes.
San Rafael Swell region of Utah.
Muscogee Creek traditions include a Horned Serpent and a Tie-Snake, estakwvnayv
in the Muscogee Creek language. These are sometimes interpreted as being the
same creature and sometimes different—similar, but the Horned Serpent is
larger than the Tie-Snake. To the Muscogee people, the Horned Serpent is a
type of underwater serpent covered with iridescent, crystalline scales and a
single, large crystal in its forehead. Both the scales and crystals are prized for
their powers of divination.[4] The horns, called chitto gab-by, were used in
medicine.[5] Jackson Lewis, a Muscogee Creek informant to John R. Swanton,
said, "This snake lives in the water has horns like the stag. It is not a bad
snake. ... It does not harm human beings but seems to have a magnetic power
over game."[6] In stories, the Horned Serpent enjoyed eating sumac, Rhus
glabra.[7]

Alabama people call the Horned Serpent, tcinto såktco or "crawfish snake",
which they divide into four classifications based on its horns' colors, which can Rock art depicting a Horned Serpent, at
Pony Hills and Cook's Peak, New Mexico
be blue, red, white, or yellow.[6]

Yuchi people made effigies of the Horned Serpent as recently as 1905. An

effigy was fashioned from stuffed deerhide, painted blue, with the antlers painted yellow. The Yuchi Big Turtle Dance honors the
, lightning, disease, and rainbows.[5]
Horned Serpent's spirit, which was related to storms, thunder

Among Cherokee people, a Horned Serpent is called anuktena. Anthropologist James Mooney, describes the creature:
 Those who know say the Uktena is a great snake, as large around as a tree trunk, with horns on its head, and a bright
blazing crest like a diamond on its forehead, and scales glowing like sparks of fire. It has rings or spots of color along
its whole length, and can not be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head, because under this
spot are its heart and its life. The blazing diamond is called Ulun'suti—"Transparent"—and he who can win it may
become the greatest wonder worker of the tribe. But it is worth a man's life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the
Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. As if this were not
enough, the breath of the Uktena is so pestilential, that no living creature can survive should they inhale the tiniest bit
of the foul air expelled by the Uktena. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his
family.

According to Sioux belief, the Unhcegila (Ųȟcéǧila) are dangerous reptilian water
monsters that lived in ancient times. They were of various shapes. In the end the
Thunderbirds destroyed them, except for small species like snakes and lizards. This
belief may have been inspired by finds of dinosaur fossils in Sioux tribal territory.
The Thunderbird may have been inspired partly by finds ofpterosaur skeletons.[8]

Other known names

Awanyu—Tewa
Misi-kinepikw ("great snake")—Cree
Msi-kinepikwa ("great snake")—Shawnee Tie-snakes on a Mississippian
sandstone plate from theMoundville
Misi-ginebig ("great snake")—Oji-Cree
Archaeological Site
Mishi-ginebig ("great snake")—Ojibwe
Pita-skog ("great snake")—Abenaki
Sinti lapitta—Choctaw
Unktehi or Unktehila—Dakota
Olobit—Natchez
Uktena—aniyunwiya

In European iconography
The ram-horned serpent is a well-attested cult image of north-west Europe before
and during the Roman period. It appears three times on the Gundestrup cauldron,
and in Romano-Celtic Gaul was closely associated with the horned or antlered god
Cernunnos, in whose company it is regularly depicted. This pairing is found as early
as the fourth century BC in Northern Italy, where a huge antlered figure with torcs
and a serpent was carved on the rocks in Val Camonica.[9]

A bronze image at Étang-sur-Arroux and a stone sculpture at Sommerécourt depict

Cernunnos' body encircled by two horned snakes that feed from bowls of fruit and The antlered deity of theGundestrup
corn-mash in the god's lap. Also at Sommerécourt is a sculpture of a goddess cauldron, commonly identified with
holding a cornucopia and a pomegranate, with a horned serpent eating from a bowl Cernunnos, holding a ram-horned
of food. At Yzeures-sur-Creuse a carved youth has a ram-horned snake twined serpent and a torc.

around his legs, with its head at his stomach. At Cirencester, Gloucestershire,
Cernunnos' legs are two snakes which rear up on each side of his head and are eating
fruit or corn. According to Miranda Green, the snakes reflect the peaceful nature of the god, associated with nature and fruitfulness,
[9]
and perhaps accentuate his association with regeneration.

Other deities occasionally accompanied by ram-horned serpents include "Celtic Mars" and "Celtic Mercury". The horned snake, and
also conventional snakes, appear together with thesolar wheel, apparently as attributes of the sun or sky god.[9]
The description of Unktehi or Unktena is, however, more similar to that of a Lindorm in Northern Europe, especially in Southern
Scandinavia, and most of all as described in folklore in Eastern Denmark (including the provinces lost to Sweden in 1658). There,
too, it is a water creature of huge dimensions, while in Southern Sweden it is a huge snake, the sight of which was deadly. This latter
characteristic is reminiscent of thebasilisk.

In Mesopotamian iconography
In Mesopotamian mythology Ningishzida, is sometimes depicted as a serpent with horns. In other depictions, he is shown as human
but is accompanied by bashmu, horned serpents. Ningishzida shares the epithet ushumgal, "great serpent", with several other
Mesopotamian gods.

See also
Avanyu
Coi Coi-Vilu
Chinese dragon
Feathered Serpent (deity)
Kukulcan
Lindworm
Moñái
Nāga
Quetzalcoatl
Sidewinder rattlesnakeof the American Southwest, a living "horned serpent"
Kitchi-at'Husis and Weewilmekq
Tciptckaam
Horned deity

Notes
1. Horned serpent, feathered serpent(http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsavanyu.htm)
2. Townsend, Richard F. (2004). Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10601-7.
3. F. Kent Reilly and James Garber, eds. (2004). Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms. University of Texas Press.
pp. 29–34. ISBN 978-0-292-71347-5.
4. Grantham 24-5
5. Grantham 52
6. Grantham 25
7. Grantham 26
8. Morell, Virginia (December 2005)."Sea Monsters" (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2005/12/sea-monsters/morell-
text/1). National Geographic, pages 74–75.
9. Green, Miranda. Animals in Celtic Life and Myth. pp. 227–8. Celtic Mars: carving at the curative sanctuary at Mavilly
(Cote d'Ôr). Celtic Mercury: carving at Beauvais (Oise) and Néris-les-Bains (Allier).
Association with the solar wheel:
Gundestrup cauldron, altar at Lypiatt (Gloucestershire).

References
Grantham, Bill. Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians.Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002.
ISBN 978-0-8130-2451-6 .
Willoughby, Charles C. (1936). "The Cincinnati Tablet: An Interpretation". The Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Quarterly Vol. 45:257–264.

External links
 Horned serpent, feathered serpent.
Lakota creation myth involving Unktehi
The Uktena And The Ulûñsû'tï

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