12. Uktena, the Horned Water Serpent, was a near-invincible crystalline snake with a gemstone in its head
The Horned Serpent (known as Uktena to the Cherokee people) is a mythological monster that recurs throughout several Native American oral histories, especially in the Great Lakes and Southeastern Woodlands regions. Described as being as large as a tree trunk and covered in magical scales, with horns and a gemstone on its forehead, the Horned Serpent could not be harmed except in a single spot on its head. Whilst its breath was poisonous, to slay the monster would win the warrior a crystal of immense power granting a life of successful hunting, rainmaking, and romance. According to Cherokee legend a great warrior name Aganunitsi achieved this feat, wherein he discovered the crystal required a sacrifice of blood each week. Without this tribute the crystal searches for blood itself, becoming a ball of fire and murdering those its encounters.
Other variants of the Horned Serpent includes the “Tie-Snake (estakwvnayv) in Muscogee Creek traditions. Slightly smaller than the Horned Serpent and likewise covered with crystalline scales with a large gem in its forehead, the snake was considered capable of prophecy and its horns were believed to carry medicinal powers. Unlike the Uktena, the Tie Snake was not considered to be a evil or willfully harmful to humans. Equally the Alabama people told stories of a “Crawfish Snake”, or tcinto såktco, of a similar design and purpose. In contrast traditional Sioux belief claimed these serpents were dangerous water monsters of the ancient world, but had been destroyed by the Thunderbirds – supernatural beings of great power – and only their lesser ancestors, such as lizards and snakes, had survived; it is theorized this mythological belief stemmed from the discovery of dinosaur fossils by the Sioux, and the Thunderbirds of pterosaur skeletons.