The serpent is a villainous creature, right? After all, the author of Genesis lays part of the blame on it for humanity’s fall from grace, resulting in Adam and Eve’s eviction from the Garden of Eden and an everlasting feud between modern hominids and every ophidian species on the planet. Nevertheless, that is only one perspective from our ancient ancestors on the roll of serpents in both the natural world and spiritual realms. If you’ve only been exposed to Christian theology, you might be in for a surprise when you survey the multifarious beliefs that exist about these fascinating animals.
Creation, Fertility, and Medicine
Surviving texts and oral traditions from many pre-Christian cultures disclose that some of our ancestors believed there was a link between ophidians and creative forces. Many myths from the ancient Near East involve a giant serpent living inside or guarding trees whose fruit gives either life or immortality. In fact, Patheos blogger Carl Gregg alludes to some Gnostic traditions that regard the serpent in the Genesis tale as a hero for imparting knowledge forbidden by the Old Testament god Yahweh.
Creator snake deities exist in West African belief systems and were imported into several African-influenced syncretic religions all over the Americas. For instance, the Fon people of modern-day Benin venerate Ayida-Weddo, a rainbow serpent that held up the heavens. In Haitian Vodou cosmology, she became a loa along with her husband, the snakelike sky-father Damballah. Interestingly, several indigenous Australian civilizations also believe in a Rainbow Serpent figure who helped create the universe and can bestow healing abilities through special rituals. Medicinal connections with serpents also appear with the Greek god Asclepius, who carries the familiar snake-wrapped staff symbolic in Western medical practice today.
Dispensing Wisdom and Learning
In multiple ancient stories and texts, serpents are often associated with dispensing wisdom. The most recognizable serpent wisdom deity is the Aztec’s feathered snake Quetzalcoatl, but serpents also frequently appear in the iconography of the Greek wisdom goddess Athena. Not only that, one ancient history blogger argues that Athena and the infamous snake-haired Medusa may be the same deity, citing several sources revealing that both could grant life and death as well as freeze people into stone with a single glance. The New World Encyclopedia discusses Fu-Xi and Nu-Wa, two beings in Chinese legends credited with creating humans and teaching them hunting, fishing, metallurgy, farming, and silkworm cultivation.
Protecting Places and People
To humans, the serpent’s seemingly calculated nature and venomous weaponry make it a perfect candidate to guard things, places, and people. One moving example comes from the Udana, a Buddhist scripture with several separate discourses in eight chapters. Ancient Buddhist Texts, an online repository of sacred Eastern and South Asian religious writings, houses a chapter of the Udana in which Mucalinda keeps watch over a meditating Buddha. According to the story, this cobra king coiled his body around and spread his hood over the enlightened being while he sat immobile for long periods under the legendary Bodhi tree.
Modern religions and popular culture contain leftover legacies of ancient serpentine beliefs. You might remember the New Testament story of Jesus Christ advising his disciples to be “as wise as serpents, yet harmless as doves,” but you may also recall the cunning Slytherin wizards in the Harry Potter universe or singer Taylor Swift’s allusions to the calculating creature in her music. Perhaps due to serpents’ formidable reputation in the wild, many civilizations view them with either cautious admiration, suspicion, or outright fear. Depending on the mythology, they can be wise and awesome deities dispensing boons and delivering deadly blows, sacred servants that help and protect, or powerful healers and creators.