The horned serpent is a figure present in numerous Native American oral traditions, ceremonies, and cosmologies. Legends about horned serpents trace their origins to the early mound builder civilizations, and similar creatures have origins in ancient European cultures. While tribal accounts vary, horned serpents are often depicted as large dragon- or snake-like creatures with elongated teeth and prominent horns. The creatures generally have magical powers and are able to change forms, become invisible, and control the weather. They are also depicted as benevolent animals that provide humans with strong medicines for healing and strength to achieve quests, so long as they present the serpents with sufficient offerings. In Native American cultures where there are multiple horned serpents, they are identified by the color of their horns. Horned serpents typically kill and eat people who venture close to their water homelands, but they can be appeased with offerings and gifts. In many cultures, the horned serpents and the thunderbirds are enemies, and only a lightning bolt thrown by a thunderbird can kill the horned serpents.
In the legends, horned serpents attack and kill individuals who pass through their territories. The animal is known to tip canoes, attack, maim, and eat people whether or not they have disturbed it. In several stories, a hunter pursuing a deer stumbled across a lake where a large horned serpent was resting. When the hunter woke the snake, it became angry and threatened to kill the hunter on the spot to make an example of him. Before the creature got the chance, the hunter promised that he would bring many gifts back with him, gifts far more appealing than a quick meal. In some versions, the hunter returns with many offerings and the horned serpent accepts them. However, it warns that unless the gifts continue to come, he will bring destruction upon all who use the waterways and will go back to killing and eating people. This particular story explains how the tradition of feeding and giving offerings to horned snakes began within certain communities. Yet in other versions the hunter does not return. Upset that he has been deceived, the horned snake begins killing and mutilating anyone he finds along the rivers and lakes.
The horned serpent is often characterized as an evil creature that harms people, but in some legends it provides assistance and encouragement. In one story a young boy looks for his grandmother and comes across a large lake that he cannot cross. A large horned serpent appears and tells the boy that he will help him cross the lake. The boy just needs to climb on and hold onto the serpent’s horns. The boy trusts it and rides it across the lake. As they proceed, thunderclouds appear and the sound of thunderbird wings can be heard. When the serpent asks the boy about the noise, the boy deceives him and says there is nothing to see or hear, and that he should not worry. As promised, the horned serpent delivers the boy to the other side of the lake. Before the horned serpent can retreat to the depths of the lake, however, a large thunderbird appears from the sky, flies down, and kills the serpent with a bolt of lightning.
According to legend, the horned serpent has tough, hard to penetrate scales, making the creature hard to kill. Thus the thunderbird from the sky is its main adversary. One legend describes a young woman working by the lake who meets an attractive man. The man tells her that he wants to marry, and then he brings her to meet his family. At first the young woman blends in and helps the man’s mother and sisters while he goes off to hunt. Eventually the man returns, but badly injured. He recounts the events of the hunt and describes getting stuck in brambles while tracking game. The woman stays by his side but as she is consoling him, he begins to turn into a horned serpent. Horrified by her husband’s real identity, she runs away, but the horned serpent soon begins to chase her. As the young woman makes her escape, she comes across three thunderbird figures and then chooses the youngest to protect her. The thunderbird kills the horned serpent and then takes the young woman home, where they have a child. Eventually the child must return to the sky and live with his father.
Horned serpent mythology appears throughout Native American cultures in the eastern United States and Canada, and horned serpent motifs decorate art and artifacts from the earliest periods into the present day. The symbol is even found in Pueblo Indian rock art in Taos, New Mexico, and scholars speculate that the design of the serpent mounds in the Ohio Valley region reflect the place of horned serpents in Native American cosmology and religious belief (Schaafsma 2007, 152; Johansen 2015, 644).
Michelle Nicole Boyer
See also Big Water Snake of the Blackfoot; Gaasyendietha, or Seneca Dragon; Mound Builder Myth; Thunderbird
Further Reading
Coleman, Loren. 2003. The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep. New York: Putnam.
Johansen, Bruce E., ed. 2015. American Indian Culture: From Counting Coup to Wampum. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Kirk, John III. 1998. In the Domain of the Lake Monsters. Toronto: Key Porter.
“Native American Horned Serpents of Myth and Legend.” 2015. Native Languages of the Americas website. http://www.native-languages.org/horned-serpent.htm. Accessed November 3, 2015.
Schaafsma, Polly, ed. 2007. New Perspectives on Pottery Mound Pueblo. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.