Nova Scotia Archives
George Creed - Mi'kmaq Petroglyphs
Tracing of a petroglyph of a house and a petroglyph of a snake and a female human figure
Date: 1888
Petroglyph tracings E: Human Figures #39. 1 negative and 4 positives.Second petroglyph may be interpreted as the Mi'kmaq girl who married a snake. Marion Robertson's Rock Drawings of the Micmac Indians interpret this petroglyph as "Snake and Indian Girl… In the Cape Breton version of the girl who married a snake, the proud daughter of an Indian family would not accpet any man as her suitor until one day she saw, sitting in the spring of water where she filled her water buckets, a handsome young man. She accepted him as her lover and he went with her to her father's wigwam and was greeted by her mother as her son-in-law. After a time they had a son. The young man wanted his parents to see their grandson. He took his wife and son to the shores of a lake and they disappeared in the water as two horned snakes and a little snake."
Reference: George Creed - Petroglyphs Nova Scotia Archives MG 15 Vol. 12 E39