(1) _Valley of the Bright Old Inhabitants._--p. 225.
Several of the Indian nations believe themselves descended from
rattlesnakes, and all, more or less, profess relationship with that
reptile. A Seneca chief told me that his maternal ancestor was a
maiden rattlesnake, but he destroyed the sublimity of the fiction by
asserting that on their nuptial night she bit off her husband's nose.
Heckewelder, after remarking that some of the Tuscaroras claim
affinity with the rabbit and the ground hog, says: "I found also that
the Indians, for a similar reason, paid great respect to the
rattlesnake, whom they called their _grandfather_, and would on no
account destroy him. One day, as I was walking with an elderly Indian
on the banks of the Muskingum, I saw a large rattlesnake lying across
the path, which I was going to kill. The Indian immediately forbade my
doing so, 'for,' said he, 'the rattlesnake is grandfather to the
Indians, and is placed here on purpose to guard us, and to give us
warning of impending danger by his rattles, which is the same as if he
were to tell us 'Look about!' 'Now, added he,' if we were to kill one
of those, the others would soon know it, and the whole race would
rise upon us, and bite us.' I observed to him that the white people
were not afraid of this, for they killed all the rattlesnakes they met
with. On this he enquired whether any white man had been bitten by
those animals, and of course I answered in the affirmative. 'No
wonder, then,' he replied, 'you have to blame yourselves for that.
Take care you do not irritate them in our country, they and their
grandchildren are on good terms, and neither will hurt the other.'"
Adair, after killing one which infested the camp of the Seminoles,
found himself in serious danger, whereupon he remarks in a note page
263, that the Seminoles "never kill the rattlesnake."