Snakes in American Culture

Snakes in American Culture PDF Author: Jesse C. Donahue
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476662657
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The literature on snakes is manifold but overwhelmingly centered on the natural sciences. Little has been published about them in the fields of popular culture or the history of medicine. Focusing primarily on American culture and history from the 1800s, this study draws on a wide range of sources--including newspaper archives, medical journals, and archives from the Smithsonian Institute--to examine the complex relationship between snakes and humans.

Snakes in American Culture

Snakes in American Culture PDF Author: Jesse C. Donahue
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476662657
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Get Book

Book Description
The literature on snakes is manifold but overwhelmingly centered on the natural sciences. Little has been published about them in the fields of popular culture or the history of medicine. Focusing primarily on American culture and history from the 1800s, this study draws on a wide range of sources--including newspaper archives, medical journals, and archives from the Smithsonian Institute--to examine the complex relationship between snakes and humans.

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes PDF Author: Daniel Everett
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651224
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahs, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. Everett describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Pirah language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won. Everett's views are most recently discussed in Tom Wolfe's bestselling The Kingdom of Speech. Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book.

Snakes in American Culture

Snakes in American Culture PDF Author: Jesse C. Donahue
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147663453X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The literature on snakes is manifold but overwhelmingly centered on the natural sciences. Little has been published about them in the fields of popular culture or the history of medicine. Focusing primarily on American culture and history from the 1800s, this study draws on a wide range of sources--including newspaper archives, medical journals, and archives from the Smithsonian Institute--to examine the complex relationship between snakes and humans.

Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History PDF Author: Diane Morgan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313352933
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The snake is one of humankind's most powerful and ambiguous symbols: it has at various times represented immortality and death, male and female, deity and demon, circle and line, killer and healer, the highest wisdom and the deepest subconscious. By virtue of its mysterious movement, potent poison, fearful grip, unblinking gaze and lightning quick strike, the power and image of the snake has wound its way into every culture. Whether snakes are worshipped as gods, feared as devils, or handled in religious ceremonies to test faith, snakes have played a critical role in the human heritage. This book explores the cult of the snake in world history, religion, and folklore. Fascination with snakes has been around since the dawn of time. Even today, images of snakes attract attention, fear, disgust, or admiration. Morgan examines that obsession with this mysterious creature, covering in vivid details such topics as mythical snakes like the Plumed Serpent, serpent iconography, tall tales, as well as the psychological symbolism that has attached itself to snakes. Cultures as diverse as pre-Columbian America, India, Egypt, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Celtic Europe, and the United States have all accorded the serpent a special place in their culture—apparently regardless of whether or not real snakes play an important part in the life of the people. Here, the mysterious nature of the snake unfolds, enchanting readers with a colorful and lively discussion of its place in our history, stories, religions, and cultures.

Landscape with Reptile

Landscape with Reptile PDF Author: Thomas Palmer
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820354112
Category : Natural history
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
In this entertaining book, first published in 1992, Thomas Palmer introduces us to a community of rattlesnakes nestled in the heart of the urban Northeast. Recognizing the unexpected proximity of rattlers in our urban environs, he examines the ecology, evolution, folklore, New England history, and American culture that surround this native species.

Combing the Snakes from His Hair

Combing the Snakes from His Hair PDF Author: James Thomas Stevens
Publisher: American Indian Studies
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
James Thomas Stevens braids language and silence, memory and longing, loss and renewal, into an utterly original and eloquent music. --Arthur Sze.

Salvation on Sand Mountain

Salvation on Sand Mountain PDF Author: Dennis Covington
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458766276
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
For Dennis Covington, what began as a journalistic assignment - covering the trial of an Alabama preacher convicted of attempting to murder his wife with poisonous snakes - would evolve into a headlong plunge into a bizarre, mysterious, and ultimately irresistible world of unshakable faith: the world of holiness snake handling, where people drink strychnine, speak in tongues, lay hands on the sick, and, some claim, raise the dead. Set in the heart of Appalachia, Salvation on Sand Mountain is Covington's unsurpassed and chillingly captivating exploration of the nature, power, and extremity of faith - an exploration that gradually turns inward, until Covington finds himself taking up the snakes. University.

American Snakes

American Snakes PDF Author: Sean P. Graham
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421423596
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
125 million years ago on the floodplains of North America, a burrowing lizard started down the long evolutionary path of shedding its limbs. The 60-plus species of snakes found in Sean P. Graham's American Snakes have this ancestral journey to thank for their ubiquity, diversity, and beauty. Although many people fear them, snakes are as much a part of America's rich natural heritage as redwoods, bald eagles, and grizzly bears. Neither a typical field guide nor an exhaustive reference, American Snakes is instead a fascinating study of the suborder Serpentes. Brimming with intriguing and unusual stories- of hognose snakes that roll over and play dead, blindsnakes with tiny vestigial lungs, rainbow-hued dipsadines, and wave-surfing sea-snakes- the text is interspersed with scores of gorgeous full-color images of snakes, from the scary to the sublime.

A Field Book of North American Snakes ...

A Field Book of North American Snakes ... PDF Author: Raymond Lee Ditmars
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Snakes
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description


Rattlesnakes

Rattlesnakes PDF Author: Laurence Monroe Klauber
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520210561
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 798

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Book Description
This virtual encyclopedia of the rattlesnake became a natural history sensation when it was first published in 1956. The republication of the Second Edition, with a new foreword by Harry W. Greene, will give amateur and professional herpetologists alike reason to rejoice. Volume 1 covers taxonomy, physiology, and behavior; Volume 2 concentrates on the rattlesnake's interactions with other organisms, including humans. Klauber's detailed and thorough study is still one of the most complete rattlesnake references ever published.Greene's Foreword discusses the initial impact and continuing value of Klauber's work and recounts some of the advances in knowledge of rattlesnake biology during the past 25 years. Also included is an update of rattlesnake taxonomy.