Connection of Snakes with Ancestor-worship.
The connection is thus explained by Mr. Spencer: “The other self of the dead relative is supposed to come back occasionally to the old house; how else is it possible of the survivors sleeping there to see him in their dreams? Here are creatures which commonly, unlike wild animals, come into houses; come in, too, secretly at night. The implication is clear. That snakes which specially do this are the returned dead, is inferred by people in Asia, Africa, and America; the haunting of houses being the common trait of the kind of snakes reverenced and worshipped.”116 The benevolent household snake, which in the folk-tales assists the hero and protects the family of which he is the guardian, thus represents the soul of some deceased ancestor which has taken up its residence there. That the dead do appear as snakes is familiar in European folk-lore. Thus, for instance, the pious Æneas saw his father Anchises in the snake which crept from his tomb. We have already come across the same idea in the case of the Satî. It was an old European idea that this household snake, if not conciliated, and when dead buried under the threshold, a sacred place, prevented conception.117