Deer antlered snakes serpents
Such horned serpents are known as a-bich-kam (Algonquin) and
che-pich-kaam (Micmac)
(Figure 10). Antecedents can be traced back to artifacts of
the Mississippian mound-builder cultures (Lankford 2007), dating to a.d. 1200 –
1450, which depict various forms of horned serpents (Figure 9g), known in the
Mississippian literature as “ Horned Water Serpents ” (Lankford 2007:110 –
119). Such horned serpents are known as a-bich-kam (Algonquin) and
che-pich-kaam (Micmac) and among the Fox Indians it is known to cause illness
and swelling of the limbs or jaw (Lankford 2007: 119 – 120)...North American
horned serpents were associated with a watery underworld, winds, rain,
diseases, and their cures, suggesting that the association between these
supernatural creatures and illness and curing was widespread...
…In consequence,
these instances suggest either a widespread diffusion from Mesoamerica, or that
horned serpents are reflections of an ancient and deep-seated stratum of Amerindian
mythologies. Within Mesoamerica the melding of deer and snake are known from a
series of languages where they appear as a compound of the words ‘ deer ’ and ‘
snake, ’ designating large snakes, especially boas ( Boa constrictor ) (Figure
10). The repeated occurrence of the ‘deer-snake ’ compound in a variety of
Native American languages has been treated as a type of linguistic loan known
as a calque, which is to say as a literal translation, rather than the adaption
of a loanword directly from the donor culture (Campbell et al. 1986:553, 554;
Smith-Stark 1994:20, 36). In linguistics it is stipulated that the grouping of
terms and the concept behind particular calques originally stem from the
language of one specific culture group and by means of literal translations are
adopted into other languages as loan-concepts, implying that the particular
social context of the exchange is a bilingual one. The most exhaustive study of
the distribution of such calques in Mesoamerica (Smith-Stark 1994) found that ‘deer-serpents
’ are clearly represented in several languages (and language families), either
as calques or as loanwords (Table 1)…”
‘Distribution of
North American and Mesoamerican languages that exhibit the calque ‘ deer-snake
’ in their vocabulary and mythology. Archaeological cultures (Classic Maya,
Mogollon, Anasazi and Mississippian Moundbuilders) are rendered in diagonal
hatching. Findspots of the deer-snakes and horned serpents represented in
Figure 9 are rendered alphabetically. Scale is variable in this UTM projection
and the scale bar is computed in relation to the centre of the map.’
Based on maps in
Golla et al. (2007) and Kaufman (1994). Map drawn by Christophe Helmke.
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