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Snake Cult
From the great 11'th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica .
>To these characteristics of serpents and serpent-godlings we must add the control of the weather. This was ascribed to the nāga demi-gods and rajahs of India and to the “king of snakes” among North American Indians.[51] It is significant that in India the widely-distributed Naga-pančami-festival occurs in the rainy season. We have seen how closely the serpent is associated with water generally (§ 5 seq.), and since we meet with the belief that sources will dry up when the serpent-occupant is killed (Bechuanas, Zulus), or that they will resent impurities thrown into their springs by causing storms (tribes of the Hindu-Kush), it is not surprising to find elaborate precautions for the propitiation of such powerful beings. Now, there are popular stories of springs and waters which could only be used in return for regular human sacrifices.[52] In a story from the isle of Lesbos the dragon must receive a human victim twice a day. Curiously enough, an old authority tells us that the people of Lesbos were directed to throw a virgin into the sea to Poseidon, and the hero who vainly tried to save her reappeared years later with a wonderful cup of gold (Hartland, iii. 43 seq., 79, see Athenaeus xi. 15). In the Chinese annals of Khotan in Cashgar, when a certain stream dried up, a female dragon declared that her husband had died; one of the royal grandees sacrificed himself to meet the want, the water flowed once more, and the “husband” of the being became the guardian of the kingdom's prosperity.[53] A careful study of all the related traditions suggests that they preserve an unmistakable recollection of human sacrifice to serpents and other spirits of the water, and that the familiar story of the hero who vanquishes the demon and rescues the victim (usually a female, and especially a virgin) testifies to the suppression of the rite. An extremely rich dynasty in the Upper Niger was supposed to owe its wealth to a serpent in a well which received yearly a maiden attired as a bride; the cessation of the practice brought drought and sickness (Hartland iii. 57 seq.). In Mexico the half-serpent Ahuizotl dragged into its pool hapless passers-by; however, their souls were supposed to go to the terrestrial paradise — see on this idea, Rohde, ii. 374, n. 2 — and the relatives became rich through the unhappy accident (Hartland, 86 seq.). But in India human sacrifice was actually made in the expectation of gaining hidden treasure, and doubtless we have a survival of this when snake-charmers, for a drop of blood from the finger of a first-born, will track the snakes which are guardians of treasure (Crooke ii. 135, 170 seq.). Indian traditions tell how reformers have persuaded the people in the past to stop their human sacrifices to serpent-spirits (Fergusson, 64, Oldham, 101), and a survival may be recognized in parts of the N.W. Provinces when, at the Guruī serpent-festival, women make vicarious offerings by throwing to Nāg Deotā, the river demon, dolls which the village lads beat with long switches (Crooke ii. 139). It is unnecessary to refer more fully to the evidence for former human sacrifice or to the popular stories and grim superstitions which indicate its persistence; the grisly custom of our ancestors has been attested by comparatively recent observation in Mexico. Peru, Fiji and W. Africa.[54]
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Serpent-worship#Human_sacrifice.