SNAKES IN MYTH,

MAGIC, AND HISTORY

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SNAKES IN MYTH,
MAGIC, AND HISTORY
The Story of a Human Obsession

Diane Morgan
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morgan, Diane, 1947–

Snakes in myth, magic, and history : the story of a human obsession / Diane Morgan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–313–35292–8 (alk. paper)
1. Snakes—Folklore. I. Title.
GR740.M67 2008
398.24
52796—dc22 2008028206
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright 
C 2008 by Diane Morgan

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008028206
ISBN: 978–0–313–35292–8
First published in 2008
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Steve Irwin and his efforts to conserve
the wildlife of the world.
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Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi

1 The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 1

2 The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 27
3 Snakebite! 66
4 Mortal Coils: The Big Constrictors 101
5 Real Charmers: Cobras and Their Kin 119
6 Generation of Vipers 141

Afterword 175
Selected Bibliography 177
Index 179
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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Suzanne Staszak-Silva, senior editor at Greenwood, for taking a

chance on this book, Sweety Singh, project manager for her patience and profes-
sionalism, and Meigha Rawat for meticulous copyediting. Any errors in the book
are my fault, not theirs.
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Introduction

While snakes have a fascinating natural history, their supernatural history is equally
strange and powerful. Natural history tells us the truth about snakes. Our notions
about them tell the truth about us. This odd creature, of only moderate economic
or ecological importance, is the very stuff of myth and legend and has wound its
long way into the deepest recesses of the human psyche. Indeed, serpents are the
cornerstones of our foundational myths. From the primeval Paradise of biblical
lore to the plumed serpent of the Aztecs, from the sky-enfolding Cosmic Serpent
to the invisible Kundalini coiled in the spine, the cult of the snake pervades every
human culture. In India and Egypt, this iconic serpent is the cobra. In Europe it
is the viper. In Africa it is the python. In the Americas it is the rattlesnake. Over
and over, myths both ancient and modern, reflect our complex, ambivalent attitude
toward this most powerful, most magical, and most terrible of all creatures.
Snakes are charmed by fakirs, slaughtered by exterminators, embraced by
exotic dancers, kept by fanciers, tortured by sadists, and worshipped by millions.
Their image is tattooed on bodies, emblazoned on flags, carved out of rock, rooted
in myth, and torn out of nightmare. Their true kingdom, after all, is the realm of
the human mind.
The closer one looks the harder it becomes to disentangle myth from reality or
to know the “real” from the “imaginary.” The tale of the serpent is a tangled coil
worthy of the most serpentine among us. The serpent was in the Garden of Eden
and has joined us in our long exile from it. He watched the birth of the human
race. He will undoubtedly be with us at our end.
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CHAPTER ONE

The Natural and Unnatural History

of the Snake

He has no legs, no ears, no sternum, no eyelids, no diaphragm, no shoulders,

no bladder, no eardrums, and only one lung. (Perhaps as a concession to these
deficiencies, he does have two penises.) He cannot run, jump, fly, howl, or even
chew. He hears very poorly or not at all. He is immobilized by temperatures
dipping below 55 degrees and goes positively stiff at 40. And despite his age-old
reputation for wisdom, he is not even very smart. A mouse outranks him in the
brains department.
Despite these drawbacks, however, the snake has managed rather well. He can
swim, climb, and strike with remarkable speed. He can be all but invisible, yet
has made his home on every continent except Antarctica. (Indeed, if you want to
be assured of a snake-free environment, you are limited to Antarctica, the coldest
parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and a few islands.)
Although we usually think of snakes as ground creepers, they can appear
anywhere and are lords over all the elements—having been from earliest times
and in all cultures associated with earth, water, air, and fire. They can dangle from
trees and navigate lakes, rivers, and even the ocean. Sir Richard Owen, a well-
known nineteenth-century anatomist, observed that the serpent could “outswim the
fish and outclimb the monkey.” And lest you think this is a bit of an exaggeration,
it is well to recall that some snakes live upon fish and others dine on monkeys—so
they have to be able to catch them. Some species even do a fair imitation of flying
for short distances, a feat which has helped transmogrify them into the dragons of
myth.
Although snakes exist almost everywhere on earth, and certainly everywhere
in human myth, they live a famously secret (and secretive) life. They are at least
as anxious to avoid our presence as we are to avoid theirs. Snakes that live near
human habitations are more interested in our unwanted rodent companions than
in us. Despite their shyness, however, snakes can appear a lot more often that
most people would wish. They can pop out of holes, slither along fences, and
2 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

curl up under your porch. Many species are quite comfortable living in your attic,
basement, or walls. Since the 1960s, numerous urban legends have circulated
about snakes being found in coat pockets, usually a garment from the Burlington
Coat Factory or other discount outlet. They are also periodically said to appear
in roller-coaster cars. The fact that these tales are universally shown to be false
hasn’t stopped their constant resurrection. We know what we know. Besides, every
once in a while, a snake does pop out of someone’s toilet. That always makes the
papers.
Even though snakes are quiet, unobtrusive, and come in a handsome assortment
of colors, almost everything about them strikes fear or revulsion in the human
heart—from the feel of their skin to their (literally) creepy locomotion to their
bite.
According to the Discovery Health Channel, snakes are listed as the Number 1
“extreme fear” by 25% of Americans. The terror most of us feel at the glimpse of
one of our legless friends (or even at the mention of one) is immediate, powerful,
visceral, and deeply embedded in the mammalian psyche. Monkeys, apes, dogs,
and horses often react precisely the same way, so it appears we come by our
revulsion naturally. Technically the fear of snakes is called ophidiophobia and is
classed as a disease, which makes for a whole lot of sick people. However, even
people who escape a morbid fear of the snakes are still unnerved by them.
Their sudden appearance (and their appearance is almost always sudden)
makes our blood run as cold as theirs does. “But never met this fellow / Attended
or alone / Without a tighter breathing / and zero at the bone,” Emily Dickinson
shivered in the poem usually referenced “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass.” And she
was just talking about an American Garter Snake creeping decently along at her
feet, not a Black Mamba.
Even places that have no snakes have snake myths. Queen Liliuokalani of
Hawaii, while under house arrest in 1895, recorded the creation myth of her
people, in Hawaii’s story by Hawaii’s Queen. Part of it centered on a “humpy
lumpy” serpent with a “long and waving lengthy tail,” who lived on “dirt and
mire” and whose lifestyle consisted of eating, resting, and throwing up. There are,
of course, no snakes native to Hawaii.
There are no native snakes in Ireland either, as everyone knows. This is not
particularly surprising, since many islands are naturally snakeless. However, the
Emerald Isle has a famous and beloved myth attached to its situation: St. Patrick
drove away the serpents from the island at the same time he banished evil and
heresy. He stood on a hill, raised his wooden staff, rather like Moses, and evicted
them into the sea. Interpretations of the story suggest that snakes represented evil,
and Patrick got rid of the evil, or alternately that snakes were sacred to many
ancient pre-Christian religions, and Patrick got rid of them to foil the pagans. For
the early Christians, pure evil and pre-Christian religions were pretty much the
same thing.
According to one twist of the tale, a certain snake declined to leave. St. Patrick
outwitted the serpent by constructing a small box and daring the snake to enter.
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 3

The snake insisted the box was too small, and an argument ensued. Finally, the
stupid snake said, “Okay, I’ll show you how tight this thing is.” He crept in, and
Patrick slammed the lid down on the box and threw it into the ocean. So much for
the ancient wisdom of the serpent.
Evolutionary herpetologists give St. Patrick no credit. They blame the Ice
Age and Ireland’s subsequent separation from the mainland for the island’s being
snake-free. You can believe what you want. I am sticking with St. Patrick. It seems
safer. Later Irish folklore claims that Irish air is so pure that no snake could live in
it. And even today someone from Ireland can simply draw a circle around a viper
to immobilize it. So they say.
However, we shouldn’t be too tough on snakes; our fear of them is almost
completely misplaced. They are not out to get us. Of the approximately 3,000
species of serpents on earth, not one considers a human being ordinary prey. In
fact, doctors probably kill more people than snakes do. Putatively friendly dogs,
horses, and cattle are each responsible for killing more Americans every year
than is the wily serpent. Worldwide, mosquitoes cause millions of human deaths
annually. I could say that animals in general have it in for us, but we kill a far
greater number of them than vice versa. And in this country more people are
injured by golf balls than by snakes. (Golf balls take their toll on snakes, too.
Every once in a while a snake attempts to swallow one, probably mistaking it for
a succulent egg. Without surgical intervention the hapless snake is doomed. In
one case recently, a carpet python pocketed four of them, which were removed
surgically and then sold on eBay.)
Still, no matter how often we are told that mosquitoes, lightning, and walking
across the street are more dangerous than snakes, it doesn’t matter. Snakes are
scary and Fords are not. Everyone knows that. Even some herpetologists don’t
like snakes, preferring lizards and amphibians.
Yet snake terror is not, after all, completely irrational. The snake’s killing po-
tential is legendary. He can do it quickly with a single venomous bite or slowly by
constriction—the only vertebrate who makes a regular habit of the latter practice.
And snakes do kill people once in a while, usually in a particularly terrifying,
spectacular, and painful way, involving lots of bleeding, tissue and cellular de-
struction, vomiting, spasms, paralysis, massive infection, and seizures. The fact
that snakes attack us almost entirely in self-defense does little to relieve our fears.
After all, who knows what a snake may find threatening?
The Greek fabulist Aesop (sixth century b.c.e.) attempts to explain the age-old
enmity between human beings and serpents. Once upon a time, there was a snake
that used to lurk around the front door of a farmer’s house. One day the snake
struck the farmer’s son, biting him on the foot and killing him at once. The boy’s
parents were filled with sorrow, and the anguished father took his axe to deal the
snake a lethal blow. However, he missed and managed only to cut off the tip of its
tail. The terrified man then regretted his action and offered the snake traditional
gifts of cakes and water and honey and salt. (The man might have made out better
had he offered the snake a dead rat or two.) In any case, the snake was unappeased
4 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

and hissed, “Man, do not trouble yourself any longer: there can be no possible
friendship between you and me. When I look upon my tail, I am in pain. The same
is true for you whenever you look upon the grave of your son. Never will we be
able to live in peace.” The moral is no one can put aside thoughts of revenge as
long as he sees a reminder of the pain that he suffered. To this day, snakes and
humans have been at odds.
Snakes don’t have to be very big to be effective in the “scaring humans”
department. They don’t even have to be real. Here is a case in point, according to
widely circulated news stories. In Austria, hardly the snake capital of the world,
travelers were getting sick and tired of the pervasive stink of urine in local rest
stops and highway restaurant parking lots. It appears that human males had been
urinating in the bushes rather than walking a few steps to the free toilets. Officials
solved the problem by simply sticking up a few signs in Polish, Czech, German, and
English, which read, “BEWARE! MORTAL DANGER! SNAKES!” accompanied
by a picture of a cobra. Franz Perder, manager of a motorway restaurant, said
happily, “We tried other signs, but they were useless. These signs, though, have
really worked. You see men coming up to bushes, getting ready to have a pee and
then quickly zipping up their trousers again when they see the signs.”
Despite, or because of, the terror and respect we have of each other, snakes
and people are old companions. In Brittany, at Carnac, a name which means
“hill of the serpent,” winds an 8-mile long sinuous prehistoric “snake” made of
stones. The aboriginal Australians portrayed more realistic but equally impressive
Water Pythons (Liasis fuscus) and Death Adders (Acanthophis antarcticus) in their
strange and powerful “Dreamtime” paintings. The Olmec Indians created a pair
of enormous sculptures, probably representing a rattlesnake, of green serpentine
rock and buried them in the La Venta ceremonial ridge. Similar snake-shaped
structures were the stone “serpent clubhouses” erected in Middle America, which
became over time large religio-military centers.
Pictographs of serpents appear in Utah, Texas, and other North American
locations. In Adams County, Ohio, there is a massive snake, 400 yards long,
of yellow clay and stones, created more than 2,000 years ago by people of the
Adena or Hopewell cultures. Its tail is coiled, and it appears to hold an egg,
the universal symbol of rebirth, in its mouth. It could also, however, be eating
something. The ambivalence of the Ohio structure may even be deliberate, as the
same ambivalence, the tension between snakes as death dealers and snakes as
eternal life bringers, occurs in much serpent myth and art all over the world.
Among the first written references to snakes occur in the Rig-Veda, the oldest
and most sacred text of Hinduism. Here the serpent is the powerful demon Vritra,
who was defeated in battle by Indra, the thunderbolt-wielding king of the gods.
This same Vritra had particular charge over the watery deep, which of course
represents life as well as death. (Water is as complex a symbol as the snake, and
it is not surprising that both are considered life and death forces.) Vritra was
especially despised because he held back the waters under his control and caused
terrible droughts in the land. According to the Rig-Veda, Book 1, Hymn xxxii,
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 5

“Indra with his own great and deadly thunder smote into pieces Vritra, worst of
Vritras.” (A little redundancy is the norm in epic verse.) When the snake was
dead, Indra opened its belly, and the pent-up waters poured out. However, I should
mention that according to at least some texts, Indra himself suffers for the murder
of the primal serpent, is nearly killed, or is forced to give up his throne. In a
case of life following myth, in many parts of India it was traditional for one who
killed a snake, even accidentally, to pay a penance or be ritually unclean for a
period following the incident. The killed snake had to be cremated with honor on
a funeral pyre, just like a human being.
Vritra is not the only evil snake in the Rig-Veda. Indra also killed Arbuda, a
demon serpent of the watery air, by “piercing him with frost” (Book 8, Hymn
xxxii). However, although Arbuda is the very personification of evil in this hymn,
later Vedas transmogrify him into a wise, powerful lord of the earth, son of the
Himalayas, and the king of snakes. He is said to have rescued Nandi, the sacred
bull of Shiva, from a chasm, and his sons are depicted as friends of Indra. These
lordly beasts are called the Nagas, who have been worshipped since Dravidian
times. Eventually the Nagas were fully anthropomorphized into kings. Indeed,
Arbuda teaches the sacred “science of snakes” or sarpavidya, a science which
is said to be as sacred as the holy Vedas themselves. And who better to teach
this knowledge than the king of snakes himself? Although the text, if there ever
was one, of the sarpavidya no longer survives intact, parts of it may be found in
the numerous charms against snakebite in the Atharva-Veda, another sacred text.
Indeed, in traditional Indian medicine, Ayurveda, sarpavidya is coexistent with
toxicology. A sarpavid, or snake expert, is just the person to turn to in case of a
snake emergency or indeed for any toxicological problem.
Turning evil demons into wise and benevolent gods marks an important switch
in strategy in dealing with the supernatural power of snakes. Instead of trying to
eradicate them, it seemed a much better idea to try to harness those very powers.
The sacred snake lords of India took on special duties—protecting the house
and its inhabitants, especially protecting the foundations of a home. They also
purified the earth and protected their worshippers from the bite of harmful and
less reliable snakes. Some authorities divided the supernatural snakes into three
classes: yellowish “lord of earth” snakes were associated with Agni, the ancient
Vedic fire god; white ones were the lords of the wind and atmosphere; and in a
bit of cross-categorization that omitted any color references, the “overpowering
heavenly ones” belonged to Surya, the sun god.
In Hindu myth, the most important of these eternal, beneficent snakes are the
dark blue Anantas, literally the “endless ones,” whose physical form was repeated,
so it was claimed, in the island chains south of India. One of the Anantas’ jobs was
to help the gods churn up the seas. There is very probably a connection between the
phallic shape of the snake, the resemblance between semen and foamy churned-up
ocean water, and the idea of creation. Indeed, one Indian legend tells of the giant
snake Vasuki, whose body was rolled around the world mountain Meru as the gods
churned the primeval milky sea into butter.
6 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

The king of the Anantas is Shesha, the thousand-headed being who symbolizes
eternity. He forms the couch of Vishnu, the sustainer god. Vishnu relaxes on this
couch during the periods between the dissolution of one universe and the rebirth
of the next. Perhaps this is what D. H. Lawrence had in mind when he wrote in a
May 14, 1915 letter, “The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep,
and a snake is strangling it, but it can’t wake up” When Vishnu is asleep, and
Shiva the destroyer god is at work, the cobra goddess Manasa rules the earth.
Shesha was a particularly devout Brahmin snake, unlike his “dull-witted” sib-
lings. But he was just as dangerous, since he practiced his religious austerities
with such devotion that he created a blazing heat all around him, so powerful it
burned up everything and everybody in his path. The kind creator god Brahma
asked him what his most “heart-felt desire” was, and the snake responded he just
wanted to be rid of his awful brothers and sisters, so that he wouldn’t have to see
them ever again, not even after death. He figured the best way to do this was to
become liberated. Brahma granted his wish and in return Shesha agreed to bear
the earth forever in his endless, comforting coils. When Shesha stirs and yawns,
his massive, gaping jaws cause earthquakes. A structure called Shesha’s well still
exists in Benares; it contains forty steps that lead to a stone door embossed with
cobras. Behind the door? Patala, the underworld of serpents.
According to Book 12, Hymn iii, of the Atharva-Veda, divine snakes protect the
four quarters of the world: Asita, the “black one,” protects the East; Tirashchiraji,
the “striped one,” protects the South; Pridaku, the “adder,” covers the West, and
Svaja, the “viper,” handles the North. The glory of snakes, therefore, covers the
entire universe. Indeed, exclaims Book 6, Hymn lvi, “The serpents that are sprung
from the fire, that are sprung from the plant, that are sprung from the water, and
originate from the lightning; they from whom a great brood has sprung in many
ways, those serpents do we revere with obeisance.” On the other hand, biting
snakes are less fondly regarded. A later passage in the same hymn praises the gods
Agni and Soma: “Agni has put away the poison of the serpent, Soma has let it
out. The poison has gone back to the biter. The serpent is dead!” There is also a
lot of talk about crushing snakeheads and throwing them in the river (Book 10,
Hymn ix).
Thus the supernatural serpents serve as a boundary between vulnerable human
beings and dangerous but mundane snakes, as Laurie Cozad notes in her Sacred
Snakes: Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship. They are a nexus between
the ordinary world and the strange, numinous one of the gods. But it’s a thin
and wavering line. You can say all you want about magical serpents, but ordinary
snakes have magic in them, too. As the book of Proverbs (30:19) maintains, “the
way of the serpent upon the rock” counts among the things “too wonderful” for
comprehension.
The snake remains the world’s most emotionally evocative—and most
ambivalent—of all creatures: the most feared, the most reviled, yet, paradoxi-
cally, the most honored among all animals. Perhaps because the snake is so utterly
alien, so absolutely “Other” he may be conjured up as anything. We cannot even
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 7

decide if he is beautiful or hideous, god or demon, worm or dragon. He is all these

things and more. That is part of his magic.
But what we see in the serpent may not be, in the last analysis, totally so
alien, after all. Jeremy Narby, in his The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of
Knowledge, speculates on the deepest connection of all: between the shape of the
serpent (whose Aztec name, coatl, means “twin”) and the twinned DNA molecule.
From there it was a comparatively short leap to connecting the various spiral
ladders, caduceuses, braided ropes, endless knots, twisted vines to the structure of
DNA itself. The serpent is in us. He is us.
Narby probably goes too far in his analysis, making some rather forward
pronouncements about the “mindedness” of nature. However, his work is too
important to ignore and too compelling to scoff at. He is only one of many who
find in the serpent a jumping-off point for new theories about the mind, the body,
and the spirit. Freud had his own ideas on the subject, and so did the ancient rishis
of India, the magicians of Egypt, and the shamans and healers of small and remote
tribes. If the snake cannot stir one’s spirit, nothing can. Cultures as diverse as
pre-Columbian America, India, Egypt, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Celtic Europe,
Nordic Europe, and the United States have all accorded the snake a special place
in their culture. For traditional African people, the snake is an ancestor. In India,
he has been a hero and a villain, sometimes both at once. In South America he is
a terrifying lord.
The mythic world knows nothing of genotypes, enzymes, and DNA, but it has a
lot to say about the origin not only of snakes but also of the universe, and snakes are
frequently credited with the creation of all that is. Indeed, the two were curiously
entangled. In the beginning, it seems, there were snakes, not only around the world
but also literally around the world—enfolding it and wrapping it like a ribbon.
This is a motif that occurs all over the planet. The Dahomey people of Africa, for
instance, honored the snake god Danh, who carried the creator god in his mouth.
He encircled the earth like a giant belt; this prevented the planet from bursting
apart into splinters. Danh also pooped so much that he made literally mountains of
excrement. This sounds bad, but the stuff was filled with gold. (Something of the
same sort happened to the Indian elephant-headed god, Ganesha. He was tripped
by a snake and his stomach split open, spilling its contents. Ganesha immediately
picked up the snake and used him for a belt, taping himself back together.)
Snakes, whether real or mythic, always seem something more than just another
animal. Indeed, they even seem to be more than snakes. It is a dizzying, indeed,
serpentine path one treads when one gets involved in snake lore. We are never
satisfied with snakes’ own natural magic, which is enormous, but are intent upon
making them out to be bigger, deadlier, and even more powerful than they really
are. In the natural world, for instance, snakes don’t devour themselves or spin
themselves into a hoop and go hurtling through the countryside spitting poison on
everyone they meet. Yet over and over, this story appears, not just as some mythic
motif, but as a sworn-to actual “fact.” And when this circular snake uncoils, it is
said to “sting” with its tail, just as it bites with its fearsome jaws. Many myths from
8 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

around the world attest to this behavior, although in actuality no snake stings. And
while many natural species of snake inhabit ponds, rivers, and even the ocean,
the myths of mankind have transmogrified these ordinary water snakes into huge,
fearsome, slithering sea monsters, hundreds of feet long.
Many peoples, the world over, have capitalized on the snake’s double nature,
imagining him as a bridge or conduit, often representing the “umbilical cord”
between human beings and mother earth. The Warao people of the Orinoco delta,
for example, tell the story of the Mother of the Forest; her husband is a serpent that
forms a bridge from the heavens to the earth. Souls cross this great serpent bridge
to the afterlife. In Buddhist legend, a great company of cobras formed a bridge
across the Ganges so that the Lord Buddha could cross easily. Since so many
snakes volunteered for bridge duty, four separate bridges had to be formed. Which
bridge would the “Lord of all Worlds” choose to cross? The compassionate Buddha
obligingly became four Buddhas and crossed all four bridges simultaneously so
that none of the snakes would feel slighted.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) also uses the concept of the snake
as a bridge in his wonderful short story, “The Green Snake and the Beautiful
Lily” (1795). Almost alone among European writers he describes the snake as
symbolizing the spread of humanity and of our spiritual development. It should
be admitted that Goethe’s snake was an unusual serpent from the get-go, as she
dined upon spicy herbs and drank dew. However, her tale really gets going when
she swallows some gold pieces and becomes both luminous and transparent. In
the story, the snake sacrifices herself, allowing the Prince to marry his beautiful
lily. It is a lovely, if rather complicated, tale involving (beside snake bridges) will-
o’-the-wisps, a ferryman (who wants artichokes, onions, and cabbages rather than
gold for transport payment), magical piles of gold, giants, hawks, deadly flowers,
and kings made out of metal.
Snakes are more frequently presented as demons than as cheerful helpers,
however. Indeed, in this guise they are a worldwide phenomenon. For example,
demons with snakeheads were said to live in the Guangxi province of China. They
had a habit of calling out to people, but one was well advised not to respond
if so summoned by them. Nothing good would come of it. The same province
boasted snakes so large they could gulp down elephants, although an alternate
translation of the same ideogram could refer to government officials, probably
wishful thinking on the part of the mythmakers.
In Chinese myth, the first legendary ruler was a divine being with the body of
a serpent. This was Fu Hsi, who created the first I Ching, the famous collection of
Chinese oracles.
The snake (she) also occupies the fifth palace of the Chinese zodiac. Just like
the Genesis snake, the Chinese serpent was clever but treacherous, and so are
people born under his sign. Indeed, in China a traitorous person is said to have a
“snake heart.” In more recent folklore, snakes are regarded as one of the “five
noxious beings,” although once snakes were worshipped as gods, too—or else
gods were portrayed as snakes. The most famous of these was the snake god of
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 9

the Yellow River. He is depicted as being golden in color with a square head
and red dots beneath his eyes. He was apparently fond of dancing and plays, so
theatrical shows were regularly staged before him to keep him in good temper.
Other serpent gods, however, required something more substantial in the way of
offerings—such as young virgins. Several folktales tell about how a hero dressed
in women’s clothes to get close enough to kill the beast, showing how easily a
divine snake can devolve into a horrible demon.
Snakes are more generous in other Chinese tales, however, giving away pearls
and other jewels to those who rescue them. In one story, a young man who saved
a snake asked not for gems but for the snake’s own liver, as the emperor had
expressed a wish for just this organ. (The Chinese considered snake liver to be
both a prime delicacy and a medicine.) The irritated snake swallowed the stupid
lad. In another and similar tale, a boy found an egg and took it home. A snake
hatched from the egg and the boy lavished it with love and care. When it came
time for the boy to leave home, he asked the snake for a present in return for all
the care he had given it over the years. The snake spat up a pearl of tremendous
size and value, and the young man took it away with him. When he reached the
capital, he decided to offer the pearl to the emperor as a bit of a bribe. It worked;
the emperor was thrilled. But now our hero was without his precious pearl, so he
decided to return home and get another one. This time the snake ate his benefactor.
Generosity has its limits.
Lest you think that snake legends are confined to ancient and far-off China
or India, it’s well to remember that the mythmaking process is alive and well in
contemporary America, too. The first and most widespread of these stories is that
of the so-called horn snake. This is one of America’s great legends (which may
actually have European origins). It is true some snakes like the Mexican Horned
Pit Viper (Ophryacus sp.) have a hornlike appendage on the snout or “horns”
above the eyes as in Sidewinder (Crotalus cerastes). But the horn snake is a horse
of another color, so to speak, for it possesses a sting in its tail! The English traveler
J.F.D. Smyth, in his A Tour in the U.S.A. (1784), writes about a trip to North
Carolina in which he almost sees the horn snake. A young boy claimed to have
killed one, and Smyth excitedly followed him to the place where it had been left.
Alas!

[W]hen we arrived there, to my great disappointment, it was not to be found.

He assured me that it must not have been quite dead, and had recovered so
much as to be able to crawl from the spot on which he had left it. . . . However,
everyone . . . avowed their having seen such snake, though very seldom. They
represented them to me as the most formidable and direful foes in existence to
the human race, and to all animation; poisonous and fatal to a degree almost
beyond credibility.
He is described as something resembling a black snake, but thicker, shorter,
and of a colour more inclining to dark brown. He never bites his adversary, but
has a weapon in his tail, called his sting, of a hard horny substance, in shape and
10 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

appearance very much like to a cock’s spur: with this he strikes his antagonist,
or whatever object he aims at, when he least expects it, and if it penetrates the
skin it is inevitable and sudden death.
So very virulent is his poison that it is reported, if he should miss the object
he pointed at, and should strike his horn through the bark of a young sapling
tree, if it penetrates into the sap or vital parts, the bark or rind will, within a few
hours, swell, burst, and peel off, and the tree itself will perish.

While some snakes do indeed have rather pointed tails, they are not filled with
venom, and they don’t sting, despite worldwide tales to the contrary. Smyth also
credits the same animal with curling up in a hoop and cycling madly around the
countryside, as we shall see later.
An even earlier horn snake turns up in a 1688 letter, published in Tracts Relating
to America, written by John Clayton to the Royal Society of London. In this case,
the writer actually claims to have seen the horn snake; only, unfortunately the
actual horn was just out of sight:

The Horn snake, is as they say, another sort of deadly snake; I never saw any
of them unless once, shortly after my Arrival in that Country, which I cannot
attest to being the Horn-Snake, for I could not distinctly view it, being in a
thicket of sumach; it was perched up about two feet high in a Sumach Branch,
its Tail twisted about the Shrub, and about a quarter of a yard stood bolt forward,
leaning over the forked branch thereof: I could not see the Horne, with which it
strikes, and if it wounds, is as deadly as the Rattle-Snake’s Bite. The Gentleman
that was with me told me it was the Horn snake; but being in hast [sic], and on
Horseback, and the Snake in a Thicket, I could not see the Horn.

Things don’t get any less complicated when one considers that normally horns
are attached to the front end of the animal and a stinger to the back, but with
snakes anything is possible. Robert Beverly, in his History of Virginia remarks,
“They have likewise the Horn snake, so called from a sharp horn it carries in its
tail, with which it assaults anything that offends it, with that Force, that as it is said
it will strike its tail into the But end of a Musquet, from whence it is not able to
disengage itself.” Beverly doesn’t claim to have actually met up with the creature.
Nor did Alexander Hewatt. However, that didn’t stop him from making claims
about it. In his Historical Account of South Carolina and Georgia (1779), he
declares, “The horn snake is also found here, which takes his name from a horn
in its tail, with which he defends himself, and strikes it with great force into every
aggressor. This reptile is also deemed very venomous, and the Indians, when
wounded by him, usually cut out the part wounded as quickly as possible so as to
prevent the infection spreading through the body.”
Even the Romantic poet Lord Byron apparently fell for this snake sting story,
writing in his journal on January 11, 1821, “Self-love for ever creeps out like a
snake, to sting anything which happens to stumble upon it.” But perhaps he was
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 11

merely exercising poetic license. Of course, no real snake has a stinger or a horn,
although some Blind snakes and Thread Snakes do have sharp spines at the tips of
their tails that can prick a handler. The function of this thorn or spine is unknown,
but it is thought to aid locomotion under ground.
There is also a horn snake in Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tra-
ditions; it is said to bring rain. Perhaps in aid of this, it makes a sound similar to
thunder, although it is stressed that it is not in fact thunder.

WHENCE SNAKES?
A faultless design (with or without horns) doesn’t happen overnight, and the
natural history of snakes is a winding one, although details of its journey are not
completely worked out. The Hindu epic the Linga Purana maintains that snakes
originated from the creator god Brahma’s tears, which flowed when he realized
he could not create the universe alone. This is a beautiful view, unfortunately not
universally held by contemporary herpetologists. Most of them believe that snakes
descended from lizards.
And in this, many myths agree. So in this matter, fable mirrors fact. Snakes
used to have legs like the rest of us—in the old days, when they were not snakes
but true lizards. The snake’s closest living relative may be the burrowing Earless
Monitor (genus Lanthanotus) found in Borneo, which has incorporated several
snakelike anatomical features into its skull. To confuse things a little, I suppose I
should mention a group of legless lizards, the glass lizards, who look like snakes
and pretty much act like snakes but which are not snakes. They have eyelids,
thick tongues, and ear holes. And if you happen to turn one of them over, you’d
discover not the single row of belly scales characteristic of snakes but several rows
of small scales indicative of lizardry. The technical term for scale arrangement
is “squamation.” Now you know. Apparently squamation, eye structure, tongue
style, and hearing apparatus are more important for species assignment than a
minor matter of whether or not someone has any legs.
We can get even more confusing, if you like. Some primitive snakes bear
“residual” limbs within their bodies. Pythons and boas possess tiny clawlike
appendages on each side of the cloaca; these itty-bitty claws are all that’s left of
their legs. Blind snakes (typhlopids) and Slender Blind snakes (leptotyphlopids)
also have vestiges of a pelvic girdle. No snake, however, has any remnant of front
limbs. The myth of snake evolution can be turned around, however; the priests of
Thebes in Egypt thought that humanity came from snakes that had grown feet.
For most snakes, though, the standard issue skeleton is just a skull, ribs, and a
vertebral column.
Perhaps we should step back and look at the bigger picture, just for a moment.
Scientists believe that reptiles, the large class to which snakes belong, emerged
from some archaic group collectively called, rather poetically, labrynthodonts,
which means “maze-toothed.” The idea of the labyrinth was called up by the way
the tooth enamel all folded in upon itself, creating a mazelike pattern. Reptiles
12 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

managed to get out of this puzzling group and form their own by inventing the
amniote, or shelled egg, which depends in turn upon internal fertilization, another
important invention of reptiles. The great advantage of this domestic device is
that the newly evolved group was no longer dependent upon water for hatching
its young, as modern-day amphibians still are. The hard, impermeable shell kept
the vital fluid neatly packed within it, and the eggs could be laid on dry land.
A corollary benefit was that reptiles were now free to move about the terrain,
establishing their presence far and wide. This was a large area, as the major
landmasses of earth at the time were joined into the supercontinent Pangaea, a
C-shaped landmass spread across the equator.
The very earliest reptile fossils we have (and we are talking about 315 million
years old) hail, rather surprisingly, from Joggins, Nova Scotia—where they were
found in some petrified tree stumps back in the nineteenth century. It is amazing
what you can find if you look hard enough. The area today is known as Joggins
Fossil Cliffs. The animal was Hylonomus lyelli, the forest mouse. Hylonomus was
not a mouse, of course. It’s just some little scientific joke. In 2002, Hylonomus
lyelli was named the provincial fossil of Nova Scotia, which shows what can
happen when you get desperate enough. The Hylonomus belonged (or belongs—
one never knows quite how to refer to extinct animals) to the cotylosaurians, a
group destined to give birth to all sorts of diverse animal families: turtles, modern
mammals, dinosaurs, snakes, and even birds.
As far as snake fossils go, however, we are, scientifically, in rather a dead spot.
Dates relying on fossil evidence are pretty uncertain; newer studies for reptile
evolution based on DNA analysis may yield clearer answers. In any case, early
snake fossils are quite rare, with some dating to the Cretaceous period, about
100–150 million years ago, in the place we now call Argentina. One, the Dinilysia
Patagonia, was related to present-day boas, anacondas, and pythons (boids), which
are among the most primitive of modern snakes, best known for their large bodies,
numerous and rather blunt teeth, and habit of squeezing their prey to death.
(“Primitive” is a rather pejorative term, and I don’t like it. The primitive reticulate
python can hold its own, almost literally, in a fair fight against practically anything,
including highly advanced humans.) And in 2006, also in Argentina, an extremely
ancient, primitive two-legged snake was discovered. Named Najash rionegrina,
the 3-foot snake has a sacrum, an anatomical feature lost by all other snakes.
Apparently it used its back legs only occasionally.
Other ancient snake remains have been found in Spain, Madagascar, and the
Sahara Desert. Snakes were probably not very common anywhere in the world,
until the small mammals that are their main prey emerged on the evolutionary
scene.
In general, what snake fossils do exist are pretty sketchy, often only a couple of
vertebrae or so. This is probably because, first, there weren’t too many snakes to
start with, and, second, snakes have delicate skeletons that don’t fossilize readily,
unlike those of bulky dinosaurs. Third, snakes often refuse to live and die in places
where fossilization is likely. Ancient skull bones in particular are exceedingly rare,
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 13

and that’s a shame, because the skull yields some of the most crucial information
about a snake’s life habits. In death, as in life, snakes remain secretive, sly, cunning.
A semisolid consensus is that snakes probably evolved from burrowing lizard-
like creatures, an idea reinforced by the powerful bony braincase of some burrow-
ing snakes. Many modern snakes make use of burrows, but only a few primitive
kinds, the so-called shieldtail snakes, are actually able to dig their own. For bur-
rowing animals, legs are rather a disadvantage than otherwise, and it is theorized
that snakes decided to trade in limbs for holes in the ground.
Other evolutionary herpetologists (but in dwindling numbers) dismiss this sug-
gestion and lean toward a more aquatic ancestor, perhaps Pachyrachis problem-
aticus, a 100-million-year-old, 3-foot long limbless sea critter whose fossilized
remains were found about 12 miles outside Jerusalem in the late 1970s. This
creature’s very name suggests its complex and confusing relationship to modern
snakes. I have never been an ardent fan of Pachyrachis problematicus myself, but
it does have its coterie of avid supporters.
In any case, it is generally agreed that the earliest snakes were relatives of
today’s large, slow-moving boids. Then, about 36 million years ago, there was a
fresh development. A new group of snakes emerged, the vast and vastly successful
clan of Colubroidea—smaller, quicker, and more agile than their old-fashioned
and bulkier relatives. Their name stems from the Latin coluber, meaning “snake.”
Coluber has also entered the English language as a term denoting a wide group of
common, usually nonvenomous snakes like garter snakes, also called colubrids.
The contest between the rival families remained fairly even until geology and
geography asserted their iron rule. To be brief, the Ur-continent Pangaea began
to split during the Triassic Age into two constituent continents. Events unfold
very slowly in the world of plate tectonics, so the split didn’t happen overnight.
The continent subsequently called Laurasia began to drift north. The heavy, heat-
loving boids couldn’t make the adjustment and surrendered the northlands to their
lither rivals, themselves preferring Gondwanaland, the southern continent. The
Colubroidea (the so-called advanced snakes) took tremendous advantage of their
new world and started creating new species like crazy. Today, the Colubroidea
make up the majority of all snake species on earth, and they can be found in both
northern and southern areas. However, even Colubroidea have their limits. The
further north one travels, the fewer the number both of species and total number
of snakes.
However, evolution never rests on its laurels. Some members of the Colubroidea
clan made further improvements, this time concentrating on dental design and
toxicology rather than their slender figures. It is a matter of disagreement among
evolutionary herpetologists as to which came first—big back fangs or venom,
with the venom-first crowd getting the edge. According to recent DNA studies by
Bryan Fry, Deputy Director of the University of Melbourne’s Australian Venom
Research Unit and top researcher in the field, snakes began developing venom
glands right at the base of the Colubroidea tree, a good deal earlier than previously
thought.
14 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

It happened this way: Evolution decided that it might be a good idea for snakes
to start digesting their prey before it was even dead. This marks the birth of
venom, a toxin injected into the struggling prey animal to incapacitate it further.
Snakes already had (and have) the raw materials of venom, as we do. It is nothing
more magical than saliva, which contains enzymes to help digest food. With a
little more work, enzymes can become seriously deadly, destroying and killing
tissue before the prey is officially dead. Most snakes then merely had to build the
actual venom-delivery apparatus, consisting of the venom glands (simply modified
salivary glands), ducts, and fangs. Venomous snakes have two fangs in the upper
jaw and an oval venom gland for each. There are no fangs or venom glands in the
lower jaw.
While in most snakes the venom glands are confined to the head, some species of
vividly colored Asian snakes, collectively known as “long-glanded snakes” (genus
Maticora), have venom glands that extend down almost half the length of the
body. And one unusual modern snake, the Natrix stolata, of India, Sri Lanka, and
Thailand, still has no specialized teeth for delivering venom, although it has plenty
of venom. It bites its prey with ordinary teeth and just lets the venom soak into the
wound. This is an inefficient plan that was soon abandoned by smarter snakes.
The venom glands of certain more primitive types of venomous or protoven-
omous snakes are sometimes referred to as Duvernoy’s glands as opposed to the
true venom glands of vipers and elapids; this distinction has been abandoned by
some herpetologists. Garter snakes, for instance, have Duvernoy’s glands, which
produce proteins, the stuff of venom, not just harmless mucous secretions.
Some snakes also hit upon the plan of enlarging their back teeth to better control
their squirmy prey, opting for fewer, but sharper, teeth. In other words, fangs: long,
curved, pointy, and dripping with venom. The new teeth came handily equipped
with a groove down the side along which the venom was channeled. These rear-
fanged snakes are called opisthoglyphs and probably appeared about 15 million
years ago. Opisthoglyph is a rather old-fashioned term, developed in the nineteenth
century; however, modern herpetologists still find it useful. Opisthoglyphs are
still considered part of the mighty family of colubrids; however, an important
divergence in dental design was taking place. (All nonvenomous snakes are deemed
aglyphous, meaning “without a groove,” in this system of classification.)
Even while the rear-fanged snakes were glorying in their achievement, the front-
fanged venomous snakes appeared: elapids (like cobras and kraits) and vipers, all
with canaliculated fangs—that is, with a hollow channel running through the fangs
and an opening at the tip, resembling a hypodermic needle, that allows for the
most effective delivery of venom. In order to bring their venom-bearing teeth into
play, the rear fangers must grasp the victim with their front teeth and work their
jaws forward. This may be somewhat awkward. Front fangers can just inject the
venom and then let go, leaving the prey to die at its own pace. This reduces the
chance of the snake being injured by its own victim.
While several families of snakes seemed to catch onto the idea of venom at
about the same time, the vipers decided to work hardest on refining the delivery
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 15

system still more. They figured the best way to get ahead in this world was to
develop some fangs worth talking about—great, big, huge, long, spectacular ones.
There was a momentary glitch perhaps when they discovered that they had made
them so long they couldn’t shut their mouths. With anatomy like that, they might
have gone the way of the saber-tooth, but vipers cleverly hit upon the notion of
creating a rotating maxillary bone so that they could fold their fangs back neatly
when not in use. In other words, they invented an oral switchblade. It is one of the
masterpieces of evolutionary design. They apparently have voluntary and separate
control over these fangs, for yawning snakes have been known to raise first one,
then the other.
The final touch was developed by the pit vipers, the most advanced and spe-
cialized of all snakes. Their contribution was not in superior killing ability (the
true vipers had that down pat) but in finding their prey more efficiently—night
or day. They developed very large and sensitive heat-sensing pits to make this
possible. And that’s where things stand—or crawl—today. It is rather frightening
to consider what snakes might think up next.

LORD OF WATER, LORD OF SKY

Whether natural snakes emerged from land or water, most mythic serpents of
origin are intimately connected with the watery deep. The Navajo people, for
instance, tell of their great sea serpent Tieholtsodi, who ruled the “third world.”
(There were five worlds altogether.) It may seem odd that a desert people envi-
sioned their own sea serpent, but such is the magic of snakes. In the lovely third
world, it was said that as long as the great snake was left in peace, all would be
well. Naturally, the mischievous Coyote started causing problems. He went ex-
ploring in the ocean and was so charmed with the sight of Tieholtsodi’s beautiful
children that he carried them away. Tieholtsodi was so infuriated that he decided
to flood the earth and thus literally “flush out” the thief. The humans and animals
began to climb one mountain after another in search of safety. At last they had to
climb a reed to enter a whole new world. The turkey was the last to make it to
safety, by the way. The floodwaters actually lapped at his tail feathers, staining
them permanently white.
Another Indian folktale tells of a river snake who carried a woman across in
return for the hand of her daughter in marriage. The promise was fulfilled, and the
girl lived with the snake beneath the waters, producing over time four snake sons.
Still, she never forgot her original home, and one day went off to visit her mother.
Her brothers were taken aback at the sight of her and said, “We thought you
drowned in the river.” The girl hastened to assure them that she had not drowned
but married to a snake. The brothers demanded to see her husband, and indeed
the obliging but naı̈ve reptile left his watery home to pay his in-laws a visit. The
brothers got him liquored up on rice beer, and when he fell asleep in a stupor, they
cut off his head. The sister went back home, but the fate of the four snake children
is not recorded.
16 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

An extremely similar story is told in Russia. In this case the snake persuaded
the girl to marry him by refusing to get off her dress left on the riverbank while
she bathed until she promised that she would. She promised, got the snake off
her dress, and then ran home, assuming she was safe from the beast. However,
soon after, not just one snake, but an entire army of them rolled themselves into a
massive ball, smashed in the window of her cottage, and bore the girl away. She
lived underwater for 3 years and had two children, enjoying herself like anything.
In fact she rather reluctantly went back to the old homestead for a visit with mom.
But the mother wanted her daughter back, so she took an axe, marched up to
the riverbank, and called the snake by his name: “Osip! Come here!” The snake
obliged, the woman chopped his head off, and her daughter got so mad she turned
herself and her children into birds and flew away.
Another water serpent husband comes from the Gongola River region in Nige-
ria. One day a young girl named Jaliya was pushed into the water by her “friends”
and eventually found herself in a splendid underwater palace. The serpent king
asked Jaliya to sing to him. As she sang, her sweet voice floated up to the surface,
where it was heard by the human king of Gongola. The smitten king ordered a
dam to be built so that he could find out the source of the music. As the water level
fell, the king discovered the serpent, which immediately unfolded his wings and
flew off into a deeper part of the water. (It is frequently asserted that serpents of
all habitats can fly when they need to.) They also discovered Jaliya playing upon
a golden harp, wearing a golden crown, and singing with her golden voice. She
informed the king that the snake had made her queen of the river. However, the
realistic serpent allowed the girl to return to land to marry the king, provided the
king offered up a sacrifice once a year.
Early settlers of the Mekong River basin believed that the beneficent King of
the Snakes (a “naga”) was lord of an underwater kingdom called “Muang Badan.”
This “city” was so vast that it stretched far beyond the borders of the Mekong
region. The kind serpent king guarded not only the local people but also all the
coral, shells, and pearls in the river. Indeed he bore in his head a pearl considered
priceless.
The Lenge people of Mozambique had a water spirit which drew young people
and possessed them so that they would throw themselves into a sacred pool where
the spirit would teach them sacred lore. They came back from the rite with a
snake (ndzundzu) wrapped around their necks. Similarly the Yao people of Lake
Malawi honor the tsato (python), king of the rain cult. A statue of the snake is
shown to the boys during their initiation rites. The Zimba tribe of Mozambique
have a rain-making dancing rite in which they carry snake-possessed women into
the forest to pray. These spirit snakes, the malombo, love this dance. In addition to
bringing rain, they have the power to utter oracles about the diseases which they
themselves have caused. For some reason, the snake spirits mainly attack women.
There is also an American legend that hanging a dead black snake on a post will
bring rain. This will probably work sooner or later, if you let it hang there long
enough. It’s bound to rain sometime.
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 17

While North American water snakes (other than the exceptionally ill-tempered
Cottonmouth) are harmless, their mythological counterparts have a dangerous
reputation in Native American, especially Lakota, mythology. Premier among
them, perhaps, are the Unktehi, the fearsome water guardians of the Missouri and
other rivers (and among some people of the oceans as well). The term Unktehi
can refer to any large animal, so it is sometimes hard to separate myths properly
belonging to the water snakes from those relating to other beasties. It was generally
believed that the males lived in the water, and the females on land. They were
blamed for floods and polluting water sources. But they were also mentors who
taught people valuable lessons such as how to paint their bodies for ceremonial
purposes. In his long narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow records
this creature as “Unktahee,” the god of water, who ambushed and murdered
Chibiabos, Hiawatha’s companion:

Unktahee, the god of water,

He the god of the Dacotahs,
Drowned him in the deep abysses
Of the lake of Gitchee Gumee

But enough of that. A very little Hiawatha goes a very long way.
Considering their evil reputation, it might be tempting to identify the water
spirits with the Cottonmouth rather than the more common water snakes; however,
this myth is not found in Cottonmouth territory.
The Unktehi was another of America’s mostly mythical “horned” snake vari-
eties. It is said to be as big around as a tree trunk, and has rings or spots along its
whole length. It cannot be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from
the head; under this spot is its heart and life center. It is sometimes said to bear a
brilliant crystal on its head, and it has scales that glow like fire. The diamond-like
crest is of inestimable value, but whoever glimpses it is compelled to run headlong
into the beast—and even its breath is poison. This snake is so dangerous that
even seeing it asleep is fatal. The myth of a diamond-bearing snake is still found,
however, and its origin may be in India.
One can’t talk about water snakes without mentioning the Bear Lake Monster
of Utah. In most respects, it resembles a brown water snake. However, it is 90
feet long, and has ears. Some report it also has little short legs that enable it to
make brief forays onto land. In the water it swims a mile a minute. It eats a few
swimmers every year and playfully blows water on a few more. Some recount how
Pecos Bill wrestled with it for days and days; the fight was so furious, in fact, that
it created a hurricane around Bear Lake. In the end, Pecos Bill slung the critter
so far it landed in Loch Ness, where it remains to this very day. In this case, the
connection between the various water monsters is not just thematic but also literal.
Skeptics maintain, however, that the Bear Lake monster is merely hibernating and
may awake at any moment. The first printed reports about the Bear Lake monster
appeared in 1868, published in the Deseret News by Joseph C. Rich. Rich listed
18 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

the story as an Indian tale and reported that Indians would neither swim in the lake
nor allow women and babies to sleep anywhere near it. The last reported sighting
was in 2002. (There are reports of multiple Bear Lake monsters, by the way, so
the last sightings and the Pecos Bill story could both be true. They could also both
be false.)
Other great serpents were sky dwellers—but they brought the rain. One of the
oldest snake deities known is Australian Rainbow Snake/Serpent (also known as
Almudj or Kalseru); his story goes back 8,000 years. In some stories, the Mother
Creator is Una, but she holds the Rainbow Snake in her arms. Both the Australian
Aborigines and the Desana people of Colombia worshipped a form of this divine
serpent. In both cases, too, the power of the serpent was associated with quartz
crystals, which in turn symbolize rain, as they also do in some European cultures.
In Australia, it is an androgynous creator god in charge of rain and fertility,
the gateway between the “real” world and the eternal Dreamtime. The Rainbow
Serpent haunts deepwater holes and may swallow folks whole; its image can also
be seen as a wavy pattern along the Milky Way. The shamans were said to dive
deep into these holes to learn the sacred songs of the snake.
It was not the Australian aborigines alone who saw snakes in the sky. The
Totonac people of the Mesoamerican coast maintained that in the old days, when
their ancestors lived in a dark cold world, the only light came from the “shining
sky serpent,” the Milky Way itself. The Maya agreed that the Milky Way indeed
was a vast serpent, perhaps a Fer-de-lance. It should be noted that there is some
argument as to the exact nature of the “Rainbow Snake,” with some pumping for
a “Rainbow Crocodile” instead.
The connection between snakes and rain bringing is both deep and widespread.
Snakes of all species are often credited as rainmakers. Some American myths state
that killing a King Snake will trigger a thunderstorm, and even seeing one will
bring about the sound of thunder. The connection of snakes with rain, thunder,
lightning, or all three is extremely ancient and practically worldwide. Indeed, the
snake may have been the first thunderbolt symbol, appearing on the cave walls of
our ancestors as a zigzag, the universal symbol for snakes, water, and lightning.
The Shoshone people of North America tell a story of a horrendous, prolonged
drought. The lakes and rivers dried up; leaves withered on the trees; and people
were searching for shade and seeking help. The heat was so intense that only a
small and scaly snake could endure it. Snake offered to help the people by using
his magical powers. He said he could hold up the sky and use his scales to scratch
some rain and snow from the blue icy meadows in the sky. He told the people to
throw him into the sky as high as they could. Once he reached the topmost levels
of the firmament, he uncoiled himself and grew longer and longer, until his head
and tail curled back toward the earth. His spine curved high above, and he began
to scrape the blue ice off of the sky. The body of Snake kept changing color from
red to yellow, green, and purple. Ice in the sky melted, and the rain began to fall
to the earth.
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 19

Things came back to life. Rivers filled with water, and all of the animals returned
to their native grounds. The flowers began blooming. The people were pleased
and joyful as they looked up, while the rain washed them clean. They began to
dance in honor of the snake that even now remains in the sky, curving his body
and shining like a colored ribbon over the earth each time there is rain on a sunny
day. This story is reminiscent of the Cosmic Serpent tale found in many cultures
and links the concept of earth lord and sky god.

THE SHAPE OF THE SERPENT

The snake is a subtle beast, as the Bible notes, and of infinite variety and a
shape-shifter of the greatest ability. We ordinarily think of the snake in one of
two forms—the line and the circle. In its straightened form, the snake oozes the
male principle and its symbols: the phallus, the arrow, the line, the thunderbolt,
the spear, the wand, the sword, the lingam, the caduceus. In one North American
Indian myth, the masculine symbolism is almost excessively blatant. Gee-chhe
Manito-ah, the Great Spirit, was annoyed with his penis because it kept getting in
his way. He twisted it off and it turned into a snake.
But the snake has its feminine side as well. When coiled, it represents the eternal
cycle of life: the woman, the circle, the earth, the moon, the chalice, the bowl,
the egg, the ring, the mandala, the mandorla, the horseshoe, the wheel, the globe,
the halo, the shell, the crown, the navel of the universe, infinity.
The connection between the snake’s fangy mouth and the mythical but psycho-
logically powerful vagina dentata remains relevant. Among the Kwakiutl tribes
of the Pacific Northwest, the vulva of one of the ancestors is the mouth of a
rattlesnake. A culture hero spits on her genitals, and she turns into an ordinary
woman again.
Then there is the lamia. The traditional image of a lamia is of a serpent with a
woman’s head and breasts, although representations vary. The original Lamia was
the serpent goddess of Libya, probably related to the Greek Medusa and Egyptian
Neith. Lamia is also a poem by the Romantic poet John Keats, in which the central
figure has been trapped in the body of a serpent. Keats never says how she fell
into this sad condition, but she is made to say mournfully to Hermes, “I was a
woman, let me have once more / A woman’s shape, and charming as before. / I
love a youth of Corinth—O the bliss! / Give me my woman’s form, and place me
where he is” (I.117–120).
Thus the beast asserts its twinship. In one royal myth, to hold a globe in the left
hand and a scepter in the other was to claim dominion over all; in its dual form
the snake is both the globe and the scepter. (Indeed, the scepter of the Byzantine
emperors was actually decorated with a snake.)
The snake is always double: real and mythic, male and female, deity and demon,
fire and water, circle and line, killer and healer, power and potential, the highest
wisdom and the deepest instinct. It is good and evil, wisdom and its shadow,
20 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

cunning. It is both the Yin and the Yang in an eternal, sacred, circular, slithering,
weaving dance. It is god and devil, savior and enemy, life and death, creation and
destruction, worm and dragon, cosmic and chthonic. The serpent tempted Eve and
protected the Buddha. It is death, and it is immortality. It is sublime myth, and it
is terrifying reality.
Which is the true shape of the serpent? It is the shape of magic, the image
of ambivalence. Like light, which is sometimes wave and sometimes particle,
the serpent can be arrow straight or completely coiled, drawing its power from
both the masculine and feminine archetypes. Together the two images form the
coil or spiral: potential becomes power, life dealing death. It is Kundalini, which
lies coiled in the pelvis until awakened. Even the word “Kundalini” comes from
the Sanskrit and means “coiled like a snake.” The Kundalini represents the vital
energy which can be transformed into pure spiritual power. The Kundalini serpent
twines upwards through the “mystical spine” or merudanda, the central axis of
the human body. By her yogic powers, she pulls herself up in a double spiral. One
half of the spiral is the pingala, sunward (rightward) spiral, and the other is ida,
lunar (leftward) spiral. The end result looks very similar to the twin-serpented
caduceus, the DNA molecule, and other spiraled forms. This is the iconic image
of the snake, as the Greek Heraclitus recognized long ago. In its fearsome coil, all
contraries are abolished.

SNAKES AS VICTIMS
While snakes are often depicted as gods or demons, in the real world they
most frequently play the role of victims, particularly when human beings are
concerned. But they are also prey to fellow animals, including raccoons, weasels,
foxes, raptors, alligators, and other snakes. The American roadrunner makes snake
eating a specialty. Pigs eat a surprising number of them as well. (The thick layer of
fat on a pig protects to some degree even from venomous bites.) Snake mortality
rate, as might be expected, is highest during the snake’s first year, when it is
smallest and least experienced.
According to a myth propagated by the Greek writer Aelian, deer were respon-
sible for knocking off snakes on a regular basis. The deer places its nostrils into the
snake’s hole, breathes into it strongly and “sucks the snake out. When the snake
appears the deer eats it. This usually happens in winter.” It is true that deer may
occasionally kill snakes but certainly not in the manner described. Sheep are also
said to kill snakes: the reptiles get “caught up in their wool.”
The most famous enemy of snakes, at least of cobras, is the mongoose, which
has a partial immunity to cobra venom. (Cobras have a complete immunity to the
venom of their own species.) However, the mongoose relies more on its quickness
than any immunity to avoid a bite and seize a meal. It doesn’t even seek cobras out,
particularly. Most of the encounters are accidental. Sherman S. Minton, in his
Venomous Reptiles, reports scornfully about set-up “fights” between mongooses
and cobras: “A cobra–mongoose combat may be part of the snake charmer’s
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 21

performance. Rarely does either principal have any heart for this affair, and it
usually develops into a real farce with the cobra doing its best to escape and
mongoose either sulking or going into an hysterical screaming fit.”
The gods were after snakes as well. The Greek god Zeus, it is said, was once
represented as a serpent, but about 500 b.c.e., sensibilities changed, and he became
instead a killer of snakes. Indeed he assumed his godheadship by defeating Typhon,
the terrifying hundred-headed creature whose lower body was that of a serpent—
or, according to another myth, from whose thighs were born snakes. Typhon was
the child of the Gaia, the earth goddess. Typhon’s wife was Echidna. Together
they bred monsters.
Snakes are also popular villain-victims in the life of Heracles, the Greek hero
and son of Zeus. His other name was Ophioctonus or snake killer. As an infant
in his crib, Heracles is said to have strangled two huge snakes (one with each
hand). The snakes had been sent by Hera, who was jealous of Heracles’ mortal
mother Alcmene. Later on, as part of his “twelve labors,” Heracles killed Hydra,
the nine-headed serpent. Well, Hydra started out with nine heads, anyway. Every
time one got lopped off, two more grew in its place. For his last labor, Hercules
was confronted by the three-headed guardian of Hades, Cerberus (many heads
seem to be a motif in Herculean tales). Cerberus was venomous like a viper, but
for good measure he wore a wreath of snakes around each neck. In Egyptian myth
too, the underworld is guarded by a two-headed serpent named Nehebkau; all over
the world, it seems that multiple heads are required for his job. Snakes as guardian,
whether good guardians or bad ones, is a worldwide tradition.
Using snakes as guardians to ward people away is a practice not restricted to the
realm of ancient history or myth. Contemporary criminals have taken a page from a
very old book. On June 29, 1993, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agents
at Miami International Airport found 36 kilos of cocaine wrapped in condoms and
stuffed into 312 living boa constrictors (average length 3.5 meters). A sharp-eyed
customs official noticed what he identified as an “unnatural bulge” in one of the
snakes and ordered it X-rayed. He must have been highly snake savvy, as most
people are unable to distinguish between natural bulges and unnatural ones in our
serpent friends. This was the largest recorded discovery of drugs in snakes, but
no one was ever arrested. In another case, officials in Denver, Colorado, raided a
crack house and discovered some large packages of cocaine placed in the cages
of a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) and an Asian Pit Viper
(Trimeresurus sp.).
According to Japanese Shinto myth, the storm god Susano-o defeated the
immense eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-orochi. He found a sacred sword in the
snake’s tail and used it to free the princess Inadahime, who had been held captive
by the snake. The couple later married. In a similar trial of courage, recorded in
the Ynglinga Saga of Scandinavia, Sinfjötli, son of Sigmund, is tested by being
ordered to make bread from a sack of flour in which there is a snake. His two
older half-brothers failed, but he passed. Sinfjötli was supposed to be so “hard-
skinned” that no venom from without could harm him. So perhaps it didn’t take
22 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

much courage after all. Siegfried was another well-known snake slayer. He killed
the dragon-serpent Fafner, ate his heart, drank his blood, and gained tremendous
power. (He lured the beast out of his cave by playing his special horn and then
stabbed him with his special blade.)
Then there is Medusa, who as you may remember is the Gorgon with venomous
snakes for hair. She was so scary that anyone one who even looked at her died.
Perseus managed to settle her hash by using his polished shield as a mirror, so
he was looking only at Medusa’s reflection, not at the old girl herself. He was
thus able to cut off her head and carry it home. Every drop of blood from the
decapitated Medusa, however, turned into a snake. (He must have been pretty
good with a sword to chop off her head behind his back like that.) He eventually
gave the head to the goddess Athena, and it became her aegis. Perseus ran into
another snake problem later on, when he rescued Andromeda from a giant sea
serpent. He decapitated that creature too and later married the girl. The Gorgons,
who also wore a belt of two intertwined serpents, may have been feared and hated,
but they were also honored. In fact, the Gorgon was placed at the highest point
and center of the relief on the Parthenon.
Beheading snakes also appears to be a modern pastime. In August 2007 a
thirty-three-year-old bricklayer from Northern Ireland named Shane Harte got
into a fight with his girlfriend and bit her pet snake’s head off. It was a small Royal
Python (Python regius). The snake was subsequently examined by a specialist
who said it would “have suffered a very traumatic death and would certainly have
felt a great deal of pain.” The judge refused bail.
Many people, of course, are prone to kill even harmless and beneficial snakes
on sight. But sometimes, their own consciences—or perhaps something else—will
haunt them. W. H. Hudson, in his Green Mansions writes about a snake-killing
explorer:

I found a serpent coiled up in my way in a small glade, and arming myself with
a long stick, I roused him from his siesta, and slew him without mercy . . . No
coral snake this, with slim, tapering body, ringed like a wasp with brilliant
color; but thick and blunt with lurid scales, blotched with black; also a broad,
flat, murderous head, with stony, ice-like, whitey-blue eyes . . . “O abominable
flat head, with ice-cold human-like fiend-like eyes, I shall cut you off and throw
you away!” And away I flung it, far enough in my conscience; yet I walked
home troubled with a fancy that somewhere, somewhere down on the black,
wet, soil where it had fallen, through all that dense, thorny tangled and millions
of screaming leaves, the white, lidless, living eyes were following me still, and
would always be following me in all my goings and comings about in the forest.

Still, not everyone has it in for snakes. The environmentally conscious Navajo
people said that it was evil to kill a snake; indeed it would make your heart dry
up. Charles Manson also forbade his followers to kill snakes: he said it was bad
karma, although he obviously had no trouble killing humans.
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 23

But for the most part, especially in the West, snakes are considered evil, and
the sooner they’re all killed off the better. Rattlesnake hunts have been popular
in this country almost from its inception. These events, which pass for family
entertainment, usually occur at the wintering-over spot. It is reported that back in
1849 in Iowa, the participants each put up 2 bushels of corn to be used as prizes
for the team who caught most. The yield was ninety snakes within 90 minutes,
and the total for the year was 3,750.
Even purported lovers of the species do further damage by overcollecting the
creatures or housing them in poor conditions. Millions of wild-caught reptiles
are imported into the United States every year, to the detriment of the captured
individuals (most of whom die from shock) and the decimation of the species as
a whole. Currently over 200 species of snake are considered endangered from
reasons ranging from direct human predation to habitat destruction. While some
of the imports are legal (although they probably shouldn’t be) many others are
plain cases of smuggling, often of deadly snakes. And it doesn’t occur just in the
United States. In April 2007, environmental inspectors in South Africa discovered
ten venomous snakes in video cassette cases, when they searched a suspicious
package from the Czech Republic at a post office. Inside were live albino Monocle
Cobras (Naja Kaouthia), Arabian Saw-Scaled Vipers (Echis coloratus), Namibian
Spitting Cobras (Naja nigricollis), and Australian Taipans (Oxyuranus sp.). No
antivenin existed for any of these species in South Africa. The snakes were taken to
a zoo. Obviously, they had not only been smuggled out of the Czech Republic but
also into it in the first place, as none of these snakes are native to any part of Europe.
A Swedish tourist, twenty-eight-year-old Per Johan Adolfsson, tried to smuggle
eight baby snakes into Australia in his trousers. The four baby King Cobras had
all died, but the four baby Emerald Tree Boas (Corallus caninus) were still alive.
He picked them up in Bangkok, although they are native to the New World. He
ended up with a 2-month jail sentence.
A similar trouser trick killed a Cambodian man named Chab Kear, thirty-six
years old, in October 2007. Only this man died after being bitten by a 6-foot
cobra, which he had trapped by using his trousers as an improvised snake bag. He
apparently planned to sell it. The snake bit him three times and killed him. His
last words were reported to be, “Don’t worry: it’s nothing a drink can’t fix.”
Imported snakes also created havoc in May 2004 in Little Rock, Arkansas. A
delivery driver noticed a wooden box on a street corner whose label read, “Live
Venomous Reptiles.” For reason passing all understanding, the driver then lifted
the lid, at which point a big cobra launched itself out of the box, prepared to strike.
Luckily for him (but not necessarily for the gene pool) the driver was not bitten.
He at least had the sense to take the box to the zoo, where competent herpetologists
unpacked it to find a Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca), a 6-foot Green Mamba
(Dendroaspis augusticeps), a 4-foot Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis), and
a 14-inch rear-fanged Twig Snake. “I thought, holy cow! We’ve got some pretty
serious animals,” said keeper Randal Berry. The case also contained hypodermic
needles.
24 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

These very same snakes are also suspected to be behind the mysterious death
of a Scottish businessman, forty-eight-year-old Garrick Wales. Wales, a computer
programmer, had been found slumped in his rented car near Little Rock Inter-
national Airport on May 13, pale and spattered with vomit. He had hypodermic
needles in his shirt pocket, too. Wales apparently ordered the snakes over the
internet from a reptile dealer in Florida and had them shipped to the airport. Wales
had ordered other snakes in the past, but no one is sure what he did with them.
His wife wouldn’t talk, but neighbors said they had no idea the man was a snake
collector. For some reason the mamba got blamed for the bite, although for all
anyone really knows it could have been the Twig Snake. It seems that mambas
take the heat for everything.
Nor did anyone find out why the box was found across town from the airport.
The Little Rock Police Department said it didn’t have the time to investigate the
case any further. Department spokesman Terry Hastings said, “We still don’t have
a clue and probably will never know what he was doing with those snakes or why
he threw them out of the car.” So there.
Various snake parts are valued in traditional Chinese medicine and are often
collected with a ruthless disregard for life. Snakes are stunned and their bodies slit
open while they are still alive. The gall bladder, bile, or blood is extracted, mixed
with liquor, and drunk. This is supposed to be a wonderful tonic. In Taiwan, snake
liver is touted as being good for the eyes.
Truly, snake meat is a powerful diet item. The English playwright John Fletcher,
in his comedy The Elder Brother (1625), wrote, “You can eat a snake. And are
grown young, gamesome and rampant,” reflecting a common idea.
The Chinese also make a say gong (snake soup) by boiling up snake bones,
flesh, and blood with some bamboo shoots and onions. Supposedly this disgusting
concoction is good for you. The Chinese, who are well known for eating anything,
munch their way through 10,000 tons of snake meat every year. One of their
culinary delights is fancifully named “The Dragon, the Tiger, and the Phoenix”
that consists of cobra, sea krait, and rat snake, together with other intriguing items.
The Chinese also make various sorts of snake liquor, often using cobra blood as
the primary ingredient. They will even rip the living heart out of a cobra and throw
it in a shot of vodka for you. This will improve your sexuality. In Indonesia it is
even called “Viagra in a glass.”
Vietnam is in the same dietary place. Hanoi even has a “Snake District,” where
your serpent will be killed right at your table for your additional dining pleasure.
Recently, however, China and Vietnam have attempted to put a damper on the
culinary snake trade. Local populations of snakes were disappearing, and more
important from their point of view, the rat population had tripled. In January
2008, customs officials in Vietnam discovered a ton of live rat snakes on a plane.
They were hidden inside sixty boxes marked “fresh fish” and were destined for
restaurant kitchens in China. Many of them were already dead—and the rest were
taken to the Wild Animal Rescue Center near Hanoi.
The Natural and Unnatural History of the Snake 25

In other parts of Asia, a viper is pickled in whiskey; that is also supposedly

good for one. However, the Chinese say that snake fat is a very bad medicine
indeed; if a man eats it, his penis will shrivel up and be of no use any more. One
cannot help wondering how many overburdened wives served up a little snake fat
on the side—or at least were accused of doing so. In actual fact, snakes have very
little fat.
Snake oil has been touted as a panacea for generations, and the original source
of the miraculous oil may be China, where for millennia it was massaged into the
skin to relieve inflammation and pain from arthritis and similar ailments. On this
side of the ocean, the Nahuatl women of Central America thought that rattlesnake
oil promoted healthy hair growth. Chinese laborers working on American railroads
brought it along and passed it on to the locals. Snake oil is rendered just like any
other fat and has been touted for use in a variety of cures, mostly for arthritis.
Presumably the litheness of the snake gave people the idea that consuming its oil
or putting it on the joints would create the same effect in them.
In 1989, research by Richard Kunin, published in The Western Journal of
Medicine, confirmed that the oil from certain snakes includes high quantities of
eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), an important omega-3 fatty acid. While it is not
always clear as to precisely what species is being referred to by the term “sea
snake” when traditional Chinese snake oil is mentioned, a good guess is the
venomous Erabu Sea Snake (Laticauda semifasciata). In this regard it is much
superior to rattlesnake, the reputed source of the “snake oil” in the old-time West,
and indeed is the richest (20%) source of EPA known. At any rate it was reported
in Fisheries Science [68 (2002): 239–240] that feeding the stuff to mice made
them smarter and gave them greater swimming endurance than mice fed lard or
even fish oil. (Their blood lactate levels were lower and muscle glycogen levels
were higher, indicating increased reliance on fat for fuel.) Some spoilsports, of
course, would rather eat salmon. The people of Okinawa, by the way, smoke this
snake and eat it as food.
Eating snakes has been culturally acceptable among many peoples, and snake
meat is sometimes marketed in the United States. At one time it was given fanciful
names such as “musical jack” or “prairie eel.” However, it is now often sold
under its own name, fried, baked, or served in a stew. In 1931, a certain George
K. End started a rattlesnake canning enterprise in Arcadia, Florida, advertised as
“genuine diamondback rattlesnake with supreme sauce.” A 5-ounce can sold for
$1.25, a veritable fortune in those deep Depression days. By-products of the reptile
included venom, snake oil, skin, and rattles, all of which were profitably pawned
off on the American public. In 1944 Mr. End was bitten by one of his victims and
died. Snakes are still on the menu in Florida; Spotos Snake Joint in Dunedin sells
appetizers for $10, which are said to taste like a cross between chicken and veal.
The snakes are purchased from a rattlesnake farm in Colorado, grilled, and served
with tobacco onions. The same restaurant serves Burmese Python, crocodile, and
kangaroo with chocolate sauce.
26 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Yes, in the real world the snake is much more frequently our prey than our
persecutor. But in our minds, the snake holds as much power over us as ever. It
is curious. We, the big-brained, upright, toolmaking ones, the talkers and singers
and striders and riders, who have mastered the seas, flown in the wind, dominated
the earth, and even landed on the moon, have not quite yet succeeded in crushing
the head of the serpent.
Let us hope we never do. Human beings are more than makers of tools. We are
the makers of symbol—and in the serpent we have found a treasure thereof.
CHAPTER TWO

The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents

Taxonomically, all snakes belong to the class Reptilia, the order Squamata (Latin
for “scaly”) and the suborder Serpentes (Ophidia). Lizards also belong to the
order Squamata but have their own suborder. The other reptile orders are Testu-
dinata (turtles and tortoises), Crocodilia (crocs and gaters), and Rhynchocephalia
(tuataras). Altogether there are about 7,400 species of living reptiles.
The credit for developing a standard format for classifying animals goes to
Carl von Linné (1707–1778), Latinized to Carolus Linnaeus. Despite the fancy
Latinization, Linnaeus was a Swede. Linnaeus was a botanist and particularly
despised reptiles, repeatedly calling them “foul, loathsome beings.” To be honest,
he felt the same way about frogs.
As their name indicates, animals in the suborder Serpentes are snakes, which are
further divided into eighteen families, including colubrids, elapids, vipers, boids,
sea snakes, sunbeam snakes, blind snakes and worm snakes, thread snakes, shield-
tail snakes, and false coral snakes. There are other families, but those are extinct.
These classifications are not fixed forever, and there is a push in some quarters to
“do something” about the huge colubrid class, which seems to be comprised of a
lot of snakes who don’t have all that much in common. Thankfully, that discussion
is largely beyond the scope of this book, although I will have something more
to say about it when we start talking about venom. At any rate, after family,
snakes break down into genus, species, and in some cases subspecies. Take the
common American Timber Rattlesnake. It belongs to the family Viperidae, the
genus Crotalus and the species (and subspecies) horridus. When scientists write
about timber rattlers, therefore, they call them Crotalus horridus horridus. Timber
rattlers are not nearly so horrid as other members of the Crotalus genus, but they
are stuck with the name, and there is nothing they can do about it. They are horrid
enough, anyway.
Some groups, such as blind snakes and thread snakes, are rare and unobtru-
sive. The world’s tiniest snake is the Martinique Thread Snake (Leptotyphlops
28 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

bilineatus); it measures less than 4 inches, even at its longest, and lives mostly
on ant larvae. The most well-known of the tribe is the burrowing Brahminy
Blind snake, native to southeast Asia. It has spread to all warm climates around
the world, including the United States. It has a habit of hiding out in flowerpots
and is sometimes even called “the flowerpot snake.” This is one of the species that
can reproduce parthenogenically; it can start a new colony by itself. All known
specimens are female.
Some blind snakes are called minute snakes in French literature because they
are so tiny; a linguistic mix-up occurred, however, and the tiny snakes got the
reputation of being able to kill a man in a “minute.” This is completely untrue;
blind snakes are harmless to people. However, they play an interesting role in the
life of the screech owl. Screech owls capture Texas blind snakes whenever they
can and carry them to their nests—not to eat but to delouse their nests; the snakes
eat the larvae of parasites that plague the birds. The owls leave the snake there
until the baby screech owls are fledged.
One famous group, the boids, consists of boas, pythons, and anacondas. These
are tropical snakes and get really, really big. They kill their victims by constriction
and have a mouth full of back-curved teeth to help control their prey. None are
venomous. They are featured in Chapter 4.
A very large group, composed of several families, of snakes is the Colubroidea;
this group includes the most celebrated snakes that are not pythons, boas, or
anacondas. (This means all venomous snakes as well as many nonvenomous
types.) It includes Atractaspididae (12 genera, 65 species of stiletto snakes);
Colubridae (the most familiar types, including garter snakes and rat snakes),
placed in 290 genera and about 1,700 species; Elapidae (cobras, mambas, and
kraits), arranged in 63 genera and about 300 species; and Viperidae (vipers and pit
vipers), settled into 30 genera and about 230 species. Every one of these families
includes at least some venomous members, with some being entirely venomous.
(It is very easy to get the large group Colubroidea mixed up with its smaller subset
Colubridae, but this is not my fault. That’s the way it is. I am sure I could have
come up with something simpler.)
The Atractaspidids are the burrowing asps or mole vipers. As is the case
with most snakes who spend much of their time underground, no one seems to
know much about them—or wants to, which is just the way the snakes like it. All
members of the family are venomous and have hollow fangs like vipers and cobras.
At various times they have in fact been placed in the cobra, viper, and colubrid
families. Apparently no one really wants to claim them, and they get shifted around
a lot. Most live in tropical Africa or occur spottily in the Middle East. Although
their fangs are not very long, their heads are so tiny that their teeth appear very long
indeed. Unlike other vipers, they can’t swing their fangs far forward but elevate
them one at a time and stab their victims while their mouths remain closed. They
also like to “sideswipe” their victim as they approach it from the side. Only one
member of the group, however, the Natal Black Snake (Macrelaps microledotus) is
considered to be a danger to people. Its venom produces severe local symptoms like
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 29

blistering, pain, nausea, and alteration in the heart rate. One genus, Apparallactus,
contains eight species whose diet consists solely of centipedes. It seems like a great
waste of perfectly good venom, but there you are. Curiously enough, in Chinese
myth the centipede (wu-gong) is considered the archenemy of the snake, and many
Chinese folktales concern a hero who is saved from a snake by a centipede. And
in ancient south China, it was said that people who ventured into the mountains
carried with them a bamboo “rattle,” which imprisoned a large centipede. If a
snake was nearby, the centipede warned the travelers by stirring uneasily about in
its bamboo prison.
The colubrids are the most familiar snake group, comprising about two-thirds
of the 2,700 or so snake species. They got their start at the beginning of the
Miocene period, about 30 million years ago, and are what you might think of as
“typical snakes.” Many of the world’s most commonly kept “pets,” such as King
and Milk Snakes (genus Lampropeltis), Garter Snakes (genus Thamnophis), Corn
and Rat Snakes (genus Elaphe and others), are colubrids.
About a third of the colubrid family developed venom; these are the rear-fanged
venomous snakes (appearing in about seventy genera). The most troublesome rear-
fanged snake is the Brown Tree Snake (Boiga irregularis), a nocturnal, mildly
venomous serpent native to Indonesia, New Guinea, and northern and eastern
Australia. It kills using a combination of constriction and venom.
Between World War II and 1952 this snake was accidentally introduced to
Guam, probably from the Admiralty Islands. Soon all hell broke loose. The only
native Guam snake is the earthworm-sized Brahminy Blind snake (Ramphoty-
phlops braminus), who lives its life practically unnoticed by anybody. The Brown
Tree Snake, on the other hand, made itself noticed immediately and in a bad
way. Straightaway it began to decimate the native bird population and virtu-
ally extirpating most native vertebrates. Of the eighteen species of native Guam
birds, seven are now extinct, two are extinct in the wild (the Guam Rail and the
Micronesian Kingfisher that survive only in captivity), six are rare, and three are
uncommon. Five native lizard species have become extinct locally, and many small
mammals are gone. However, the introduced mouse and black rat are doing just
fine.
Despite its name, the Brown Tree Snake is perfectly happy in grasslands as
well as forest areas. While normally only 3–6 feet long, the creature reaches a
length of 10 feet in its adopted home, due no doubt to the rich supply of food
available—prey animals that have no natural enemies. The opportunistic Brown
Tree Snakes eat almost anything and have reached extraordinarily high densities
of as many as 13,000 per square mile. That is a lot of snakes; in fact, it is among
the highest snake densities ever recorded anywhere. It does appear that the larger
adults are showing signs of food-deprived stress, but they live long enough to
mate and make baby snakes which snack handily off the small lizards, so the
cycle continues. (Larger specimens have been documented stealing hamburgers
off barbecue grills.) They can be highly aggressive when cornered, lunging and
biting repeatedly—and envenomating small children, although no deaths have
30 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

occurred. They frequently play havoc with the electrical grid as well, causing the
main lines to be shut down after dusk, when the snakes are most active.
The people of Guam would like nothing so much as to rid themselves of this
terrible nuisance; however, the snakes are difficult to spot, secretive, and clever
at hiding. While many ideas have been suggested as to how to get rid of them,
none have proved workable. Most creatures that would eat Brown Tree Snakes
would also eat the same things that the Brown Tree Snake does; King Snakes,
which may target snakes in their diet, are terrestrial and not successful at climbing
up after these arboreal invaders. More than 6,000 snakes are trapped and killed
every year, but it’s not making much of a dent in the population. One possible
solution involves spreading a paramyxovirus among the snakes; this promising
virus cannot survive in animals with body temperatures above 95 degrees, making
it no threat to mammals or birds but hard on snakes. It’s a thought.
Brown Tree Snakes have also begun to show up on other previously snakeless
islands, no doubt stowing away aboard merchant ships. So far more than six have
appeared in Hawaii, which has no native snakes—and where it is strictly illegal to
keep any species of snake as a pet. There is supposed to be a program in Guam to
keep Brown Tree Snakes out of Hawaii, but it has run out of money. It’s hard to say
where they will show up next.
Elapids (cobras, kraits, mambas, and company) arose from the colubrids but
left that estimable family long ago to form their own. There are about 300 species
altogether of elapids, most of whom live in tropical areas. All are venomous. The
most primitive elapids are burrowers who live in New Guinea and are so little
known that they have no common English names. Kraits are short-fanged, vividly
colored snakes found in open country throughout Asia; mambas come from Africa.
Cobras are found all over Africa and Asia. Australia is the luckless home to the
Small-Scaled or Inland Taipan and the Tiger Snake, both elapids ranking among
the most venomous land snakes on earth. Altogether Australia has about sixty or
so species of elapids, ranging in size from tiny burrowers to huge Taipans. Only
one genus of elapids (Micrurus) occurs in North America, which consists of Coral
Snakes.
The sea snakes (family Hydrophiid), consisting of about fifteen genera of true
sea snakes and one genus of Sea Kraits, are not generally well known, although
they are common in the warm waters off Australia and Malaysia. Their encounters
with people are rare and usually unremarkable, since they feed upon fish and
are usually disinclined to bite people. However, all marine species are terribly
venomous, so it is well to stay on their good side. Their rare bites are practically
painless but frequently lethal.
One of the most notorious families is the Viperids, a group containing more
than thirty genera and over 200 species. Like the elapids and hydrophiids, all are
venomous. Vipers tend to be stocky, heavy-bodied creatures with wide, menacing
heads and a nasty expression. Some herpetologists describe them as “plump,” but
that doesn’t seem quite right somehow. Despite their fearsome appearance and
deadly capabilities, most have a fairly nonaggressive nature. About fifty of these
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 31

(grouped into twelve genera) are “true vipers,” lacking a facial pit. There are no
true vipers in the New World, but they are widely scattered throughout Europe,
Asia, and Africa. Indeed, the widest ranging snake on earth, the common European
Viper (Vipera berus), is a member of this group.
The pit vipers, or crotalines, are noted for their eponymous heat-seeking
organs—although some boids have them too, in a slightly different arrangement.
Pits are a subfamily of vipers, although some taxonomists insist that they should
have their own family, the Crotalidae, based on those extra holes in their heads.
Others insist that true vipers and pit vipers should respectively be classified as
Viperinae and Crotalinae and that are both subfamilies of Viperidae. This all gets
rather wearying, since we are just rearranging snakes.
Pit vipers occur in North America, South America, and southern Asia. Alto-
gether, there are six genera of pit vipers: Crotalus (most rattlesnakes); Lachesis,
with the Bushmaster (Lachesis muta) formerly as the sole member of the genus but
now split into three or maybe four species; Agkistrodon (Moccasins/Cottonmouths
and Copperheads); Bothrops (about thirty-one other New World pit vipers like the
Fer-de-lance); and Trimeresurus (Asiatic pit vipers).
Things are on the move in taxonomy, by the way. The class of Reptilia is
getting bigger, not because new species are being discovered but because of some
classification shuffling. For example, Reptilia now includes not only turtles (Tes-
tudines), snakes and lizards (Squamata), crocodiles and their relatives (Crocodilia)
but even—gasp!—birds (Aves). It is the addition of birds that has caused such a
stir, especially among people who can see little resemblance between a humming-
bird and a boa constrictor. If asked, most birds would probably not like to be
hooked up with snakes, either. Nonetheless, that’s the way it is.

SNAKES 101: WHAT SNAKES DO

In the natural world, snakes have a simple mission. They are designed to seek
prey, kill it, swallow it, relax, and then repeat the process. However, since one
meal lasts a snake a good long while, snakes spend a lot of time doing nothing at
all—apparently.
They spend little time on love and none on parenting. They have no hobbies,
make no art, and are not capable of returning the affection of those who claim
to love them. If they philosophize, we have no way of knowing their thoughts or
theories. Perhaps it is enough that they have inspired in human civilizations great
myths, wondrous tales, and even entire religious cults devoted to their worship.
For themselves, snakes concentrate on being snakes. There may be little to love,
but there is much to admire—and something to fear.

BODY DESIGN: THE LEGLESS WONDER

Snakes are most famous for their revolutionary body design—at least revolu-
tionary for vertebrates. The most notable feature about snakes is that they have no
32 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

legs, and the most famous story of how the snake ended up legless occurs in the
second chapter of Genesis, along with an explanation of why people have to work
and why childbirth is painful. (Eve and the Snake get the blame, but an objective
reading of the story casts a dim light on God as well.) In any case, the snake’s
temptation of Eve is one of the world’s great stories, not least because people
cannot agree about what it means.
The most curious thing about the temptation is the nature of it. The snake didn’t
tempt Adam and Eve to have illicit sex, get drunk, smoke pot, or even indulge
in a high-fat dessert. He simply invited them to nibble on some fiber-filled fruit,
which is supposed to be good for you. Western tradition has generally depicted
the forbidden fruit (hanging from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) as
an apple, but that is probably wrong. Apples don’t grow well in the Middle East.
A pomegranate, or perhaps a nice persimmon, would be a more likely choice. The
Bible simply tells us that the forbidden fruit was a tappuach, which isn’t very
helpful. It must be that the tappuach was some kind of magical fruit, since neither
apples and persimmons nor pomegranates wise you up any.
At any rate, the snake told Eve to go right ahead and eat the fruit and that God
forbade it only because he was afraid it would make the First Couple wise. The
snake was telling the truth, but he got into trouble anyway. The same cannot be
said for God. God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree, since, if he did, he
would die that very day. This turned out to be a blatant falsehood. Adam not only
did not die that day but actually hung on till the ripe old age of 930, an impressive
record even by biblical standards.
Some people try to make the case that if Adam and Eve had not eaten the
tappuach, they would have lived forever and that God only doomed them to die at
some (later) point in their lives. But that doesn’t make sense. It’s the fruit of the
Tree of Life that gives immortality, not the Good and Evil Tree.
However, the Bible lays the blame squarely on the snake. His punishment was
to crawl on the ground forever and have his head bruised by the heel of the woman.
More than one person has met death by stepping on snakes, but the Bible doesn’t
mention any of that. In any case, the Genesis story is one of many that show up
the serpent as being smart enough to trick people but getting his comeuppance
anyway. Myth is just not usually kind to snakes.
While Christian exegesis usually identified the famous tempter of Eve with
Satan, the author of this section of Genesis, usually simply identified by the letter
“J,” makes no such assumption at all. The snake is wise, crafty, and possibly
deceitful, but he is no Devil. The Devil is not even mentioned in the story. Indeed,
the writers of the Hebrew Bible had not discovered Satan yet and wouldn’t for
centuries—until after the Babylonian Captivity.
The symbolism of the biblical snake has haunted both laymen and biblical
scholars from that day to this. Was the snake meant to be an emblem of sexuality,
immortality, evil, wisdom, or all four? Was it the Devil? Or was it simply a snake?
Were its intentions good or evil? Was it lying or telling the truth? Was it treated
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 33

fairly by God—and consequently by us? Is its blackened reputation undeserved?

(Later on, people identified other entities with the Devil, including, at divers times,
Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Mormons, Catholics, Procter & Gamble, and various
heads of state, including past and current presidents of the United States.) The
early Christian work known as Physiologus drew a strange conclusion from the
Genesis story. Noting that Eve seemed to get along well with the snake while in a
state of undress, it concluded that just as snakes bite only people who are dressed
and stay away from naked people, Christians should shun lust and presumably
stay clothed. An alternate interpretation of this obviously silly story is that naked
Christians would remain safe from snakebite. One early Gnostic group, active
until Roman times, took the snake as their mascot and even named themselves the
Ophites (“serpents”). They honored the Genesis snake and viewed him as the hero
of the story. God, or the “Demiurge” as they called him, was the villain.
A Talmudic tale adds some interesting details—and does bring in the Devil.
According to the story, Satan (or Samael) entered the Garden on the back of a
snake. As soon as the other animals got wind of the creatures, they sensed the
presence of immense evil and took off. Then Satan began to sing some of the
hymns he recalled from heaven. His voice was so sweet that even Eve stopped to
listen to him. In such a way Satan was able to tempt her to take a bite out of the
fruit, and she in turn tempted Adam.
Snakes also make an appearance in Exodus. Moses and Aaron battled with
the Egyptian magicians, turning their rods into serpents and so on in what was
apparently a rather common parlor trick of the day. However, Aaron’s rod-snake
won: “For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but
Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” Later, in the same work the story of the
brazen serpent appears, which is probably a remnant of a snake worship cult. A
later Israelite king finally destroyed it.
The Bible is not alone in its portrayal of snakes hiding out in the Tree of
Life. Snake-infested, magical trees appear in other mythologies as well. In Norse
myth the Nidhogg (the “dread biter”) lies coiled around one of the three roots of
Yggdrasil, the Norse version of the Tree of Life. Nidhogg attempts to either choke
the tree or chew the life from its roots. Yet another Life Tree is found in the old
Slavic religion. Here the snake god Volos reigns over the underworld, watching
over the roots of the Tree of Life. (In some renditions Volos is more properly a
dragon than a snake, a confusion appearing worldwide.) The Maya also had a
world tree, in whose branches lived the Cosmic Serpent Kukulkan.
What snakes lack in legs they make up for in vertebrae. They are a snake’s
forte, with most species owning about 120 of them; the Oenpelli Python (Morelia
oenpelliensis) boasts 585. This large number is necessary to give the snake its
tremendous flexibility; the vertebrae interlock in a sort of ball and socket joint. In
addition, each vertebra possesses bony prongs called zygapophyses which stretch
forward to touch similar prongs in the vertebra just in front. This jigsaw-like
arrangement means the joints are terrifically strong but does limit twisting to
34 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

about 25 degrees between individual vertebrae. (The Navajo make necklaces of

snake vertebrae.) Every vertebra except the first two and those in the tail has a pair
of ribs that encircles more than half the trunk.
To make things match up even more neatly, most snakes (except the Typhlopidae
or blind snakes) have a pair of ribs for each belly scale—so if you count the belly
scales you will know how many ribs the snake in questions has. Technically, belly
scales are known as scutes, which indeed help the snake “scoot” along the ground.
The vertebrae and free ends of the ribs are linked by powerful muscles that aid
locomotion and in some species help kill prey.
While to the casual onlooker, snakes seem all in one piece, they actually have
tails. Vipers tend to have short tails, while elapids and colubrids have longer ones.
But that’s a generalization, and it requires looking more closely than most people
want to. The subject of the snake’s tail or lack of it has churned up a good deal of
folklore. A Romanian folktale about Noah’s flood addresses this topic. It seems
that while Noah was afloat on the high seas, the Devil was busy below drilling
holes into the ark so that it would sink. The cunning serpent, however, slid up to
Noah and said, “What will you give me if I stop up these holes? You know what
a good swimmer I am. I can do it from beneath the ark. Otherwise, I’ll just jump
ship and swim away.”
“What do you want?” cried the desperate Noah.
“After we land, you hand over one person every day for me to eat.”
“All right,” murmured the defeated sailor. The snake swam under the ship and
neatly plugged up each hole with a bit of his tail, which he then cut off. This
explains why snakes have no tails now. Some people might say that snakes have
nothing but tails, but everyone is entitled to his own view. Anyway, the ark landed,
and Noah made his famous burnt offering to the Lord in thanks. At that inopportune
time, the snake appeared demanding his first course. “You must be crazy,” said
Noah. “One person a day! There are only eight people left in the world now!” He
grabbed the snake and threw it into the fire, where it burned up and began to stink
something awful.
“Goodness, what a stench,” thought God. He rustled up a big wind, which blew
the snake ashes all over the globe. The ashes hatched into billions of fleas which
together, so the tale says, drink up enough human blood to supply one person to
make the snake’s original demand come true. Actually, fleas probably consume a
lot more than that.

THE REAL SKINNY ON SCALES

Contrary to popular opinion, snakeskin is not in the least slimy; it is dry
and smooth and feels more like cheap plastic than anything else. But it’s pretty
magical stuff. It protects the snake from bacteria and other insults, helps control
body temperatures, produces sex-related hormones, and even regulates water and
gas exchange. Unlike mammals and birds, snakes have neither fur nor feathers,
although hairy, bearded, and feathered snakes turn up with unnerving frequency in
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 35

mythology. In some parts of Africa, special “snake hair” can be used as a powerful
charm. The trick is trying to get the hair: the snake has to be made drunk on beer
first. As snakes are both hairless and teetotalers, there is real magic involved in
this pursuit.
Despite the natural fact that snakeskin is dry and often rough, the notion that
snakeskin is slimy is perpetuated among many cultures. The Lakota people, for
example, tell of a one-horned snakelike beast, Uncegila, 30–50 feet long and
cunning beyond measure. A “bad witch,” she could move both on the ground and
beneath it, oozing a deadly slime the whole while that was lethal not merely to
human flesh but also to plants and even the earth itself. Uncegila could swallow
people whole, suffocate them with her weight, kill them at a glance from her single
eye, or at the very least make them crazy. This is proved by the fact that today
people who have claimed to see her are universally considered mad.
Since snakes are not able to control their own body temperature, they often feel
rather cold to the touch, which is not, for most people, a pleasant sensation. But the
real miracle of snakeskin is that it has to be smooth and rough at the same time—
smooth enough to glide effortlessly along the ground but rough enough to take
advantage of uneven ground to help move them along. This is why overlapping
scales, characteristic of most snakes, are such a great invention. Blind snakes and
other burrowing snakes, however, have smooth, shiny scales all over, to help them
slide through the ground with ease; they lack the wide ventral scales that other
snakes use to move along with. The Royal Python, although not strictly a burrower,
does spend a lot of time underground and also has distinct, nonoverlapping scales.
Other species, like Puff Adders and Wart Snakes (and indeed most vipers), have
rough or keeled scales that aid in gripping surfaces.
Real snakeskin consists of two (or three, depending on how you are counting)
layers. The inner layer, or dermis, is loaded with blood vessels, glands, and nerve
endings; it is soft and pliable. This layer contains the pigment cells that give
each species its unique color. The Roman naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder,
in his monumental Natural History, reported that “ordinarily” snakes “are of
the color of the earth wherein they lie hidden.” As is generally true of serpent
lore, sometimes this is true, and sometimes it isn’t. And while many are indeed
cryptically inclined, other blaze with glorious and terrifying color. Pigments in
snakeskin are black, yellow, and red, all created by color-producing cells called
melanophores, xanthophores, and erythrophores respectively.
Melanophores are the most numerous of pigment cells, and the amount of
black pigment (melanin) they produce creates the overall color pattern. Melanin
also acts to protect the internal organs from solar radiation. It is quite common for
snakes to be born with differing amounts or none of some of these pigments. A
snake lacking melanin, for example, exhibits a pattern called “amelanistic.” Those
lacking red are “anerythristic,” and those without yellow are “axanthic.” Those
with no pigment at all are true albinos, a rare phenomenon. Such snakes have pink
eyes. White snakes have long been thought to be magical; the thirteenth century
occultist Michael Scott (the so-called border wizard of Scotland), for example,
36 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

tasted the “juice” of a white snake and acquired wisdom. The Mensa Bet-Abrahe
people of Ethiopia tell a tale about a pure white snake known as heway, which has
huge eyes and a lethal stare. It’s safe enough if you see the snake first: just close
your eyes and run away. But if the snake sees you first, you’re a goner. And if you
drink from a well the heway has drunk from, you’ll die from the poisoned water.
Luckily, say the old-timers, the heway is seldom seen these days.
Blue is a trickier color to come by. “If snakes were blue,” wrote Robert Penn
Warren in his poem of that title, “it was the kind of day / That would uncoil in
a luxurious ease.” In fact, snakes can be blue, although it is not common. A set
of cells called iridophores contains purine crystals. These crystals refract light
to make blue, an interesting process usually called Tyndall scattering, after John
Tyndall took the first steps in 1859 to study it. He wasn’t interested in snake
coloration, though. Like everyone else, he wanted to know why the sky is blue. He
didn’t get it exactly right (Einstein explained it correctly in 1911), but it was a start.
Yellow pigment is a fat-based compound. It breaks down when the snake dies,
so that the snakeskin changes from green to blue or gray. Snakes have no “green”
pigment; yellow and blue have to be combined to form it. According to Robert
Beverly (1722) the color of a snake becomes more vibrant as it “charms” its
prey. Even more remarkable, according to a very early (1642) account reported by
Kauber, a person who is bitten by a rattlesnake will acquire the very colors and
patterns of that snake.
One of the most interesting color tricks is possessed by the nocturnal Green
Tree Python (Chondropython viridis), which lives in Papua New Guinea and the
tip of northeastern Australia, spending its entire life in the tree canopy. It is born
either bright yellow or brick red and may stay that color for 2 to 3 years, although
some change within a few weeks after birth. Different colors can appear in the
same clutch. Then, over the course of just a few weeks, it changes into its green
adult color and not by shedding. Instead, a green spot appears in the center of each
scale and gradually spreads until each scale is bright green. A few adults, however,
remain yellow or turn blue. This snake is endangered because of habitat destruction
and the skin trade. Juvenile snakes of many species are colored differently from
their parents, although the reason is not clear.
In addition to ordinary color pigments, a few snakes such as Rainbow Boas
(Epicrates cenchria), Sunbeam Snakes (Xenopeltis unicolor), and Reticulated
Pythons (Python reticulatus) possess a special layer of smooth scales that creates
a shimmering, iridescent effect. The Western Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) is
known for being able to change its color from dark to light and vice versa within
the space of a minute or two depending on its surroundings. Other species such as
Dwarf Boas (genus Tropidophis) and Madagascan Boas (genus Sanzina) are able
to darken or lighten with change in daylight, but the process takes longer.
Some species of snakes such as Garter Snakes (genus Thamnophis) sport a
wide variety of spots, stripes, and blotches, depending on the individual and the
geographic region. An Okanagon myth explains one color pattern of the common
Garter Snake: Every winter the fearsome Thunderbird of the north demanded
the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden from the Indian villages. As everyone was
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 37

rightly terrified of the Thunderbird, Garter Snake (Sku-qua-wel’hau) decided to

do something about the yearly virgin sacrifice. (The young lady chosen that year
was one of whom the snake was particularly fond.) As the maiden, crying and
wailing, approached the monster to be eaten, Garter Snake crept quietly behind
her, wearing his best war bonnet. The maiden caught a glimpse of her friend and
begged him to return to the village lest he too be killed. “No deal,” said Garter
Snake grimly. “I go where you go.” Soon the roar of wings announced the arrival
of the dreaded Thunderbird, spitting fire and lightning in all directions. Garter
Snake held firm and even spat fire back at Thunderbird. Thunderbird hung fire,
confused. Then he inquired what Garter Snake did fear.
“Nothing!” spat the snake, filled with bravado. “You want a fight, big guy? You
got one!” And he spat some more fire at Thunderbird. That did it for Thunderbird,
who, like all cowards, was unable to back up his threats, and he hightailed it back
north, chased by the spitting Garter Snake, who yelled at him the whole way:
“And you know what else, Thunderbird? You will never terrorize my people
again! From this day on, you’ve got to stay in the sky and fly through space. The
earth belongs to us, to the human people and the snake people.” It should not be
surprising that Garter Snake was able to chase the Thunderbird so far north. In
general they are among the most cold tolerant of snakes, being among the last to
go into hibernation and the first to emerge in the spring. The villagers were so
grateful to their little snake champion that they gave him a beautiful green stripy
blanket to wear—and he has proudly worn it ever since.
Indeed, the humble Garter Snake has played a surprisingly large role in Indian
legend. These ubiquitous creatures (among the most widely distributed snakes in
the United States, occurring from Canada to Mexico, and the only snake found in
Alaska) generally have a benevolent role in Native American tales. The Arapaho
people tell the legend of the Sun Dance Wheel, in which the Garter Snake created
the wheel that symbolizes all creation. To this day, the Sun Dance Wheel features
the image of this snake. Among snake fanciers, they are rather commonly kept
as pets; they are handsome, tough, resilient snakes adaptable to a wide variety of
environments, tame quickly, and are not fussy in their eating habits. With a little
patience they can be induced to dine upon bologna and hot dogs, although this
isn’t any better for them than it is for humans. Possibly because they are so cold
tolerant, they have a higher metabolism than other snakes. In any case, they need
to eat on a regular basis; fasting seems to wear them out.
I should point out that there are Garter Snakes and Garter Snakes: common
names can be deceiving. There are Garter Snakes (genus Elapsoidea) in Africa, for
instance, but unlike the American species of the same name, these are semibur-
rowing elapids. All are venomous. Still, you never really know about snakes.
Naturalist and African snake expert Stephen Spawls, in his Sun, Sand, and Snakes,
recounts how his friend Matthew Parker was bitten in the hand by an African
Garter Snake; Parker suffered only minor pain, but the snake died 4 hours later.
Modern snake hobbyists and commercial breeders are very keen on developing
unusual color patterns in snakes, including albino. The Corn or Red Rat Snake
(Elaphe guttata), native to the southeastern United States, is probably the most
38 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

widely bred commercial snake in the world. This lovely nocturnal snake comes
in several designer patterns; the name “Corn Snake” derives from the appearance
of yellow or parti-colored “corncobs” on its side. Tasty-sounding color varieties
such as “butter corn,” “caramel corn,” and “snow corn” are on the market. Popular
patterns include motley, striped, Aztec, Creamsicle, and candy cane. These snakes
are highly desirable “pets,” as they are beautiful, docile, and eat their dinners
without complaint. (Despite the fact that so many people fear being devoured or
at least bitten by snakes, captive specimens of many species are reluctant to eat
anything at all.)
The skin’s outer layer of cells, or epidermis, is much thinner than the dermis,
only about two-thousandth of an inch thick, but it’s very tough. Its main job is
to produce waterproof scales made of keratin, a hornlike substance. Human nails
are also made of keratin; we have more in common with snakes than you might
imagine. Keratin itself does not stretch, but there are thin, flexible, stretchable
areas of interstitial skin between the scales that do this work. Snake scales protect
against rough ground, parasites, predators, and even would-be victims. They also
aid in locomotion. Despite the toughness of snakeskin, it is as sensitive as human
fingertips. A snake can respond immediately to being tickled with a feather.
Snake scales are merely folded skin—not individual scales such as fish have.
The largest scales are generally located on the top of the head; body scales occur in
regular rows, with a fixed number for each row. The number is usually odd, ranging
from thirteen to twenty-seven. This number is fixed for each species and remains
the same throughout the life of the snake. Each scale has an outer surface, an inner
surface, a “hinge zone” (where the actual folding happens), and an extra piece that
usually overlaps the next scale. Some scales have apical pits. The function of these
pits is obscure, but they have nerve endings, so presumably they do something.
They may be light sensitive, or they may play a part in chemical communication.
However, not all species have them. A few snakes, such as Sidewinders, possess
specialized scales above the eyes. They look like horns and are sometimes even
called horns, although the technical term for them is “supraoculars.”
The very outer layer of snakeskin is dead and must be shed if the snake is to
grow. This happens up to six times a year, depending upon many factors. (Snakes
do not shed during hibernation, however.) In one myth, rattlesnakes shed their skins
once a year for 7 years and then stop forever. The technical name for shedding
is ecdysis, but the terms “molting” and “sloughing” are also used. Of course, we
human beings shed our skin as well: we just do it constantly in little bits instead
of in one big piece.
In myths all around the world, it is the snake’s ability to shed his skin that has
intimations of his immortality. The Wafipa and Wabende people of East Africa tell
this story. One day the great god Leza stepped down to earth and asked all living
creatures, “Who wishes never to die?” Unfortunately, everyone was asleep except
for the eyelid-less snake who immediately responded, “I do!” It is he therefore
who never dies but who gains renewed life and strength every time he sheds his
skin. In an American Indian myth, the friendly Garter Snake wants men to shed
their skins as he does and thus live forever, but the other snakes want humans to
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 39

die, and they win. In modern Egyptian myth, snakes never die. When they grow
old, they sprout wings and fly away, yet another version of the ubiquitous winged
serpent story. There is a Welsh myth to the effect that snakes who drink a woman’s
breast milk that has spilled on the ground and then eat sacramental bread will
sprout wings and fly. This is such as unlikely combination of events that it may as
well be true as not.
According to the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, snakes developed this remarkable
ability when Gilgamesh discovered a magical plant that conferred eternal life. (In
modern Arabic the words for “snake” and “life” are very similar—el-hayat for
life and el-hayyah for snake.) While Gilgamesh was washing himself at a pool, a
snake rose up out of the water and ate the plant, thus acquiring the immortal gift
for himself, a gift manifested every time the snake sheds his skin and acquires
“new life.” The connection to the snake in Eden, who in a way stole the gift of
eternal life from Adam and Eve, is pointed. It is especially so when we know that
the writer of the Genesis tale was well acquainted with the Gilgamesh story.
Despite being a symbol of immortality, real snakes don’t have a preternaturally
long life. While we can only guess at the lifespan attained by wild snakes, the
record for a captive snake is a Ball Python that arrived at the Philadelphia Zoo
as a young adult and lived for 47 years afterward, nothing compared to the vast
ages attained by some large tortoises. Other captive snakes have lived for 15–30
years. There seems to be no relationship between size and length of life, however,
at least judging by the little data we have. Nor will an injured snake die before
sundown, as some folktales claim. An injured snake will die in its own good time
or heal and get on with life, just like the rest of us.
Another story centering on ecdysis comes from Vishnu Sharma’s the Pan-
chatantra, an Indian collection of ancient animal fables. A Brahmin named
Devasarman and his wife were childless. He offered up a sacrifice for the birth
of a child and was promised a son of surpassing beauty and virtue. Imagine how
surprised the couple was when the wife gave birth to a snake. Still, she loved
her scaly son dearly and kept him in a large clean container. He dined upon milk
and fresh butter and attained his full growth within a day. She began to think of
marriage for her son and sent her husband out to look for a suitable wife. He
returned with, not a snake as you might expect, but a beautiful young woman. The
girl was somewhat taken aback when she met her snaky fiancé but bravely went
through with the ceremony. “A promise is a promise,” she said, and in fact the girl
became a model wife to the serpent.
One night as she lay sleeping in bed, a handsome man climbed in beside her.
“Heavens,” she said. “Remove yourself immediately from my bed. I am a married
woman!”
The young man said, “Indeed, honored one, I am your husband.”
“You cannot be,” she insisted. “My husband is a serpent.”
The husband obligingly went back to his container, wherein lay a snakeskin,
entered it, and then reemerged as a handsome Brahmin adorned with glittering
jewels and gold, thus proving to his wife his dual nature. They then enjoyed a
night of love. The husband’s clever father, when he discovered what was going
40 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

on, quickly threw the snakeskin into a fire, so that his child would remain a human
being and ideal son forever after. No complaints from the wife either.
There is a similar folktale from Germany, in which a servant girl is chosen to
marry a snake that is, of course, a prince in disguise. (He was born a snake because
his parents were very disagreeable.) In this case his princeliness was revealed on
their wedding night. “Get undressed,” he told his bride. “You first,” said the shy
girl. He stepped out of his skin. This is repeated until he stepped out of seven
skins, but eventually his true self was revealed, and they lived happily ever after.
The Hitchiti Indians of Mississippi tell a tale of a hunter who also turned into
a snake—on purpose. This is rather a “reverse shedding” myth. He apparently
just wanted to see what it would be like, so he ate the magical transformational
formula—the brain of a black snake, the brain of a wild turkey, and the brain
of a black squirrel. Sure enough, he felt himself slowly turning into a serpent
until he was a 100% bona fide snake. He regretted the experiment of course, but
it was too late, and there was nothing to be done about it. He crawled sadly up
to his distraught parents, who had learned what had occurred, and lay his head
against his mother’s cheek. He wrapped himself around both parents, snuggling
up as close as possible, but it was useless. A snake he was, and a snake he would
remain. Slowly and sadly he crawled back into the forest lake. This is the origin
of the so-called “Tie” snake, considered by the Hitchiti more “human” than other
members of the serpent clan.
In the days before shedding, the snake becomes lethargic and its colors dull.
(The Roman naturalist Pliny stated that snakes eat or rub themselves with fennel
prior to shedding to help the process, although this is a phenomenon never observed
by anyone else.) In order to prepare for the big event, the snake secretes a special
fluid between the old and new layers. The fluid darkens the skin and turns the eye
caps blue. The blood vessels in the front of the head become engorged, and the
whole head of the snake swells. As the swelling starts to go down, the paper-thin
skin starts to detach, beginning right along the edge of the jaws. The snake then
rubs his head on a jutting root or rock and crawls out of the old skin, turning it
inside out in one piece. If the skin is shed in several pieces, it may be a sign that
the animal is not in good health.
A Pennsylvania Dutch legend says that shedding snakes pull themselves
through briar patches; the briars act like hooks to help pull off the snakeskin.
The shedding process takes several hours, and the resulting product is an exact
copy of the snake’s scale pattern. Held up to the light, it is almost transparent.
The shed skin is somewhat longer than the original snake, since it stretches as
the snake sloughs it away. This has led to several exaggerated accounts of various
snake sizes. The brand new snakeskin is glowing and very impressive, possibly
one reason for the many stories told about snake shedding their ugly skins to reveal
a glorious being within. In Chinese lore, a snakeskin should never be thrown away,
for if kept it will bring riches.
The Galla people of East Africa tell this story about snakeskins and their
connection to immortality. God wished to grant his people eternal life, and he sent
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 41

down the Holawaka bird to spread the good news. The intended message was,
“When men grow old, they will be able to slip out of their wrinkled skin and begin
life again.” He even gave the bird a crest as a badge of office, which it carries to
this day. However, as the bird was flying along, he came upon a snake devouring
a meal and begged some. The snake refused. Flustered with greed, the bird said,
“I will tell you a secret if you share.” “Okay,” agreed the snake.
However, the bird, his brain confused by greed and hunger, mixed up the
message, and said, “When people get old and wrinkled they will die, but snakes
will be able to slip out of their skins and start life anew.” And so it was.
Sometimes skin shedding is presented more allegorically. The unknown author
of the early Christian work Physiologus, for instance, taking for a model the
snake’s shedding its old skin, urges Christians to slough of the “old age of this
world” and become rejuvenated.
Snakeskin has some economic importance, too. For example, the nocturnal
Elephant’s Trunk Snake, also known as the Javan Wart Snake (Acrochordus ja-
vanicus), belonging to a family not closely related to other snakes, provides leather
under the name karong. (Other snakeskins used in the leather goods business in-
clude that of the huge Reticulated Python.) Besides its importance in the leather
trade, the most interesting thing about this aquatic Javan Wart Snake is the loose,
saggy skin that does not bulge after a big meal the way those of other snakes
do. While it seldom grows longer than 6 feet, its girth measure a foot. Although
it is not venomous, it has a reputation of being rather ill-tempered with a nasty
bite—enhanced by the fact that its teeth often break off into the wound. Its bad
nature is probably the result of being the target of the handbag industry. This snake
is becoming increasingly rare—as it will not breed in captivity. Fortunately, coun-
tries such as India and Sri Lanka have banned the sale of snakeskins altogether,
although plenty of poaching occurs.

GETTING A MOVE ON: REALLY CREEPY LOCOMOTION

Snakes employ a variety of ways of getting along (literally) in the world,
although most people simply designate their movement as a crawl. Actually, it is
a lot more complicated than that. The word “serpent” derives from the Sanskrit
word sarpa, which has its roots in the sr.p, which means “to glide.” Their motion
is indeed a glide, sometimes seen as sensual, sometimes as disgusting, depending
upon the observer and his feeling about snakes or sex. In one of his lectures,
S.T. Coleridge actually compared the work of Shakespeare to the movement of a
serpent, “which makes a fulcrum of its own body, and seems forever twisting and
untwisting its own strength.”
Movement type is partly indicated by body shape. In general, vipers and boids
are bulky types, while colubrids and elapids are slender. Ground-dwelling species
have a flattened underside, but burrowers are cylindrical. Tree snakes, as you
might expect, tend to be light, with long pointed heads that won’t “weigh the
snake down” as it proceeds up to the next branch. Other species, though, are flat
42 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

to give them both rigidity and lightness as they glide from branch to branch. Some
arboreal snakes may be more “loaf-shaped”; this gives them an extra “edge,” as it
were, to grip bark as they climb. Kraits are triangular in shape—but no one is sure
exactly why.
Snakes have a choice of four major perambulatory styles, sometimes dictated
by species, although many snakes use different methods, depending on terrain and
circumstance. The most popular style is the eponymous serpentine (undulatory or
sinusoidal) movement, a series of S curves, and nearly all terrestrial snakes use
this movement at least sometimes. Herpetologist Clifford H. Pope once wrote, “A
crawling snake suggests a stream of water flowing along a winding bed.” The Pima
Indians tell a folktale in which Rattlesnake was called “Soft Child,” because his
movements were as soft as a breeze. But there is really nothing soft about it. The
snake uses powerful muscles that alternately contract and relax to bend the spine.
The forward thrust is localized on the outer rear edge of each curve of the snake’s
body, so the snake pushes and pulls at the same time. As the snake undulates, the
track left behind is a straight line; indeed each part of the body passes along the
same points on the surface. The snake can employ this motion while swimming,
climbing, or moving along the ground.
Long, thin snakes are most efficient at this kind of movement. They get sufficient
traction by pushing off from a pebble or other slight irregularity in the terrain. If a
snake were placed on a plate of smooth glass it would not be able to proceed. Even
swimming snakes perform essentially this same kind of locomotion, using the
back edge of the body’s loop to throw themselves forward. All snakes, including
desert varieties, can swim. It comes naturally to them. Sea snakes, however,
compress their bodies in a more marked S, which gives them even greater speed.
They also have vertically compressed tails, which gets them through the water
faster.
A second way of making progress is the accordion or concertina method, used
primarily by tree-dwelling snakes. A form of this motion is also used by burrowing
snakes when digging. When the tunnel is actually built, snakes use a serpentine
motion to get through it. The arboreal Green Whip Snake is an example of such a
mover; perhaps the Garden of Eden snake, who lived, one assumes in the branches
of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was a member of this species. In
this movement style, the serpent concentrates the S curves, so they are bunched
up like an accordion. From the bunched, stationary position, the snake shoots out
straight, using its tail as a sort of “anchor.” When the snake’s front end hits the
earth, it acts as the new anchor while the rear drags along behind and forms a new
series of bunched S curves. Both burrowing and arboreal species have a penchant
for this movement, as they can use a branch or the side of the burrow for additional
purchase. Tree snakes may also use a more conventional locomotion method, when
it serves their needs. And while the majority of tree-dwelling snakes have small,
light heads, some, like Chunkhead (Blunthead) snakes have heavy heads that
permit maximum body extension across gaps in the branches. (The Rough Green
Snake is the only U.S. species that regularly lives in trees.)
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 43

Most curious perhaps is a third locomotive method—the famous sidewinder

movement employed by desert snakes around the world, even ones not closely
related to each other. The sidewind is actually a combination of swimming and
crawling motions. This movement is necessitated when the ground surface gives
no real purchase. Sand, for instance, never stays where it is supposed to but keeps
shifting beneath the snake.
In sidewinding the “resistance points” are yielding, not rigid. The snake throws
his head and upper part of his body forward and then presses them down to gain
a hold. The snake loops the middle part of his body both forward and sideways,
pressing the body down again at the new “anchor.” The rest of the body is then
twisted forwards. Only two short parts of the snake are touching the ground at any
one time. It not only solves the shifting-sand problem but also allows minimum
contact with the blazing hot desert floor. The snake seems to move sideways,
although he isn’t really, and the tracks left behind look like the letter J. The “cross
piece” of the J is made by the tail as it pushes free of the ground. For reasons not
clearly understood, sidewinders seem to have more endurance and tire less easily
than other snakes. This is important, as they must frequently travel long distances
to find food in the desert. Sidewinder tracks can sometimes be traced for hundreds
of meters.
Noted sidewinders include the Sidewinder Rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes), the
Desert Horned Viper (Cerastes cerastes), and Peringuey’s Death Adder (Bitis
peringueyi). Peringuey’s Death Adder has another remarkable ability as well, also
conferred by the necessity of living in the desert. It actually raises and flattens
its neck in order to condense coastal desert fog—then drinks it. Another desert
dweller, the Rosy Boa (Lichanura trivirgata), is known for its amazing ability to
climb straight up vertical rocks; indeed it is seldom found away from them. It is
not really “rosy,” as its common name suggests, however. But many individual
have wonderful orange stripes, and that makes up for a lot.
There might be something truly magical about sidewinders and their tracks.
Julian Hayden, an old time desert rat and collector of archaeological materials,
recounts that in the 1960s he was traveling through the volcanic cones of Mex-
ico’s Pinacate region and admiring the multitude of sidewinder tracks. Then he
noticed something strange—small human footprints among the tracks appearing
suddenly in the smooth sand, then just as suddenly disappearing. He never found
an explanation, but it is likely that the snake had some reason to assume human
shape as least temporarily. It seems to be a common occurrence.
Snakes can also move in a straight line without the handy S movement. In this
fourth type of movement, they shove themselves along by using their large belly or
ventral scales. These scales protrude just enough for the snake to use the scale edge
like a tractor tread. Each rib is pulled forward by the contraction of muscles on the
vertebrae immediately in front of the rib. There is no sideways (lateral) motion at
all; the contractions are symmetrical. This is really stranger than it seems, because
the snake literally moves its scales forward and then sort of slides the rest of
his body into them to “catch up” in a straight line. Contractions pass rearward
44 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

toward the tail. This is called rectilinear crawling or creeping and is favored by
big heavy snakes who don’t want to expend a lot of energy. It is also sometimes
used by smaller snakes when stalking prey and during the cool of the evening or
when the snake is crossing a road or other smooth surface. Rectilinear crawling
is slow, purposeful, and just as creepy as every other kind of snakey movement.
Sometimes this kind of motion is called “walking on his ribs,” although the ribs
are not actually employed.
While some slender colubrids do attempt to chase down their prey, their failure
rates are very high. It’s probably not worth the effort. Snakes do better sneaking up
on or ambushing their prey. However, even the fastest snakes are not generally very
fast—and most move at the rate of about 2 miles per hour, although an irritated
Black Mamba can skip along at 10–12 miles per hour. The American Black Racer
(Coluber constrictor) is another aggressive snake that may in fact occasionally
chase people. It can move at the pace of a very fast walk for people. However, it does
not target pregnant women, as is frequently asserted in folklore, although women
in late pregnancy are somewhat slower than they might be if unencumbered. Nor
under any circumstances do snakes outrun horses. It is sometimes said that if
chased by a Black Racer, all the runner needs to do is to change directions quickly
and the snake’s back will be broken.
To complete the picture (and to possibly add a fifth movement), we have only to
mention the tree snakes of Borneo and southeast Asia (genus Chrysopelea), who
in their leaping from branch to branch, flatten out their stomachs and glide down-
wards. These snakes have specially adapted ventral scales that create a “pocket”
along the full length of the trunk to make a kind of full body parachute. They ac-
tually “swim” through the air in an undulating movement and can travel over 330
feet in this way. There is a myth that such “flying snakes” can pierce the eye of an
innocent victim; if anyone does get bopped by a gliding snake, it’s just an accident.
The gliding snake is possibly the source of some “flying snake” myths. Ac-
cording to Greek lore, for example, the agricultural goddess, Demeter, pursued
Hades in a chariot of winged serpents. As a typical earth goddess, it seems fitting
that snakes should be her special animals, although of course these were special
snakes too. In more ordinary times, Demeter was the patroness of pig farmers. It
is well known that pigs hate snakes. It’s an odd world that we live in.
There is a bit of an argument going on in herpetological circles as to whether
or not snakes can jump. The Navajo people warned that if you do run across a
snake, it’s wise to keep your mouth shut. If you open it, the snake will jump in.
Normally, we should say this is a myth, but there is the odd case of the Jumping
Viper (Bothrops nummifer), affectionately known as the Tommygoff, which lives
in Mexico and Central America. It is able to hurl itself at its enemies by springing
off its tail, which it also may raise above the ground a couple inches. Despite this
fearsome show, the Tommygoff is not very dangerous, although it can certainly
give someone a scare.
No discussion of snake movement can be complete without mentioning the
hoop snake. The hoop snake is a creature “known” to grasp its tail in its mouth
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 45

and form a hoop with its body—then escape by rolling away. (This motif is as old
as time; indeed there is a Gnostic image of a world serpent who forms a circle in
just this way. According to the English traveler J.F.D. Smyth, whose Tour in the
U.S.A. I previously mentioned in connection with his lies about horn snakes:

[a]s other serpents crawl upon their bellies, so can this; but he has another method
of moving peculiar to his own species, which he always adopts when he is in
eager pursuit of his prey; he throws himself into a circle, running rapidly around,
advancing like a hoop, with his tail arising and pointed forward in the circle, by
which he is always in the ready position of striking. It is observed that they only
make use of this method in attacking; for when they fly from their enemy they
go upon their bellies, like other serpents. From the above circumstance, peculiar
to themselves, they have also derived the appellation of hoop snakes.

In a more startling and expanded version of this notion, it is stated that the
hoop snake kills everything in its path as it rolls ferociously along. Sometimes
it accomplishes this feat by straightening out at the last second as it whirls by
and stinging or skewering the victim with its tail. One’s only chance is to hide
behind a tree and hope the snake stings it instead. If it does, the tree will wither
up and die. The relationship between hoop snakes and horn snakes is complex, as
often happens among mythical animals, with some people claiming they belong
to different species and others, like Smyth, maintaining that they are one and the
same. Since both are imaginary it’s impossible to say who is right.
Every once in a while someone claims to have seen a hoop snake rolling across
a pasture, just as people claim to see yetis and the Loch Ness Monster. In the early
part of the twentieth century, the famed herpetologist Raymond Ditmars placed
$10,000 in trust at a New York bank for the first person to provide real evidence
of a hoop snake. It went unclaimed.
One species of hoop snake apparently lives in Pennsylvania, according to a
story retold by S.E. Schlosser, author of the Spooky series by Globe Pequot Press:

One feller I knew, he was hoeing in his field when a hoop snake came rolling
towards him. He ducked behind his hoe, figuring he was a goner, but the snake’s
tail hit the hoe instead of him, and there it stuck. Well, he just high-tailed it out
of there right quick and headed for home. He knew he had to wait until dusk to
get his hoe. Hoop snakes what get into fights never die before sundown. Sure
enough, he went back after sundown, and that hoop snake was as dead as your
average doornail. The handle of the hoe was so swollen up with poison that the
farmer had it cut up and shingled his barn with it. ’Course, I happen to know
that they all fell off after the first big storm because the rain washed the poison
right out of them. But you can’t blame a feller for trying.

Stories of the hoop snakes are found in the Pecos Bill legends, and the animals
supposedly reside along the Minnesota–Wisconsin border, in the St. Croix River
46 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

valley. There is a strong but probably not derivative connection here with the
ouroboros, or tail-swallowing snake, of Greek mythology.
Some experts believe the hoop snake is just another version of the Sidewinder
(Crotalus cerastes), Rainbow Snake (Abastor erythrogrammus), or Mud Snake
(Farancia abacura), the last two of which are indeed known in parts of the South
as “hoop snakes.” However, this attribution is doubtful, as many hoop snake tales
emerge from regions where these snakes are unknown. In any case, no snake of
any species makes hoops and rolls around.
Back in 1925, Karl Patterson Schmidt, assistant curator of reptiles and am-
phibians at the Field Museum of Natural History, offered his own theory in “The
Hoop Snake Story: With Some Theories of its Origin” in Natural History maga-
zine (January–February issue): “The habit of the common black snake of eastern
North America of gliding along at great speed over the tops of bushes, without
descending to the ground, may have a bearing on the origin of the belief in the
hoop snake’s rolling method of progression. Where Rainbow Snakes do not occur,
there seems to be a tendency to identify the hoop snake with the Black Snake or
Blue Racer.” He also suggests some scorpion mythology got mixed up in all this.
However, no snake, hoop or otherwise, no matter how talented, can crawl
backwards. Worms can but not snakes. There’s a limit to everything.

THE COLDEST BLOOD

Like all reptiles (indeed like all animals except birds and mammals), snakes
are saddled with the unattractive moniker “cold-blooded.” The technical name
for this sort of creature is “ectotherm,” a term derived from the Greek, meaning
“outside heat.” Birds and mammals, by contrast, are “endotherms,” which means
we can use our internal metabolic heat to maintain a comfortable and consistent
temperature.
Snakes must have an external heat source. The main external heat source,
naturally, is the sun, and for most snakes the ideal temperature is a balmy 85
degrees or so, somewhat lower than for lizards. A warm temperature is critical
for their digestive process, which stops when the snake cools down too much. Of
course, the temperatures can get too warm as well; about 104 degrees is the upper
limit most snakes can stand.
The snake’s long body creates both problems and advantages, ectothermically
speaking. Because of its high surface area–body mass ratio, temperature extremes
can be truly dangerous. A body can heat up really fast in the desert, which requires
most desert snakes to be nocturnal. However, the rapid warming can be very useful
on an early spring day in temperate zones. The long body shape also enables snakes
to expose just parts of themselves to gain needed warmth, with the rest of the body
conveniently hidden. Desert snakes, when not on the prowl, often bury themselves
partly or completely in the sand, which keeps them cooler during the day and
warmer at night.
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 47

Snakes of a more northerly stripe, so to speak, resort to ingenious methods

to keep alive. In the first place, they tend to be more conservative in size and
coloration. Smaller size means less heat needed to maintain life, and darker colors
enable the snake to absorb sunlight more efficiently. A really big northern snake
would take so long to heat up that it wouldn’t have time for its hunting activities.
Snakes living in colder climates also tend to bear live young, keeping the eggs
within the body until they hatch. They are thus able to provide their developing
embryos a more favorable environment.
Second, snakes take advantage of basking in the daytime in order to soak up
enough heat to provide energy during the cooler evenings. The yellow-bellied sea
snake (Pelamis laturus) floats very close to the surface of the water and stays
perfectly still, soaking up the rays. Desert snakes need to be particularly adaptive.
Many of them hide in burrows during the summer days and become active only at
night. In the winter, on the other hand, the same species may be active only during
the day.
The European Viper or “Adder” (Vipera berus) and American Garter Snake are
the snake champions for handling cold, with some individuals found almost as far
north as the Arctic Circle. The former is the only snake found in Scotland. Scotland
therefore has the honor of being the one of the few places in the world where all the
native local snakes are venomous. Another record setter is the Himalayan Viper
(Gloydius himalayanus), a rare pit viper native to Pakistan, India, and Nepal,
which has been found at elevations up to 9,000 feet. Possibly due to its chilly
surroundings, it is generally reported as being “sluggish” in temperament.
Aesop tells this Tale of the Farmer and the Freezing Viper. One winter, a farmer
found a snake that was frozen stiff from the cold. Compelled by compassion, the
farmer took it home. The warmth quickly revived the snake, and it instinctively bit
the farmer, inflicting a mortal wound. “Oh,” cried the farmer with his last breath,
“I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.” The moral: the greatest kindness
will not bind the ungrateful. This is a cross-cultural tale (sometimes featuring a
scorpion rather than a snake) found in India and the United States as well, in
almost endless variations.

A LONG WINTER’S NAP

The snake’s cold blood makes necessary one of his more pleasant habits—to
disappear during the cold winter months. Snakes dwelling in the so-called tem-
perate climates, although there is nothing temperate about Montana, for instance,
that I can see, hibernate, slowing down their metabolism and surviving on glyco-
gen reserves stored in the liver. Some technically minded people insist that the
proper term for reptile hibernation is “brumation” and that only warm-blooded
creatures “hibernate.” This is a little too finicking for my blood, and in this book
we’ll continue to refer to winter sleep as “hibernation.” Most snakes seek out
a winter den, technically called a hibernaculum. These are frequently caves or
48 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

rock crevices. The idea that snakes prefer caves is of long standing, and the early
Christian work Physiologus claims that snakes leave their poison behind in their
cave when coming forth to drink from a spring and so leave the water pure. In the
same way, it counsels, the Christian in search of eternal life should leave behind
the sins of this earth.
It appears that some species of snake are “facultative” hibernators, who use
external clues such as dropping temperatures to know when to hibernate. Others,
such as European Asps (Vipera aspis), are “obligate” hibernators and rely on
internal cues to head into winter sleep regardless of ambient temperatures. Garter
Snakes, the first to wake up in the spring and the last to enter hibernation in the
fall, can survive with 40% of their cell fluid turned to ice crystals. This talented
creature has managed to produce a substance that prevents tissue damage from
freezing.
Once a snake has found a good wintering-over spot, it may return to the same
den year after year. It has been suggested that the same rock dens have hosted
snakes for literally thousands upon thousands of years. Good dens are not that easy
to find. Almost any shelter that reaches below the frost line will do, and snakes
have been known to travel more than 10 miles to find the right spot. Hector St.
John de Crèvecoeur (1735–1813) in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782)
wrote of a rattlesnake den:

“I once saw, as I was traveling, a great cliff which was full of them; I handled
several, and they appeared to be dead; they were all entwined together, and thus
they remain until the return of the sun.” It is quite true that rattlesnakes will
gather in large numbers, and some species even twist themselves together in a
companionable ball. It’s still not a great idea to handle them, however, no matter
how tired they appear.

Garter Snakes may ball up in the hundreds, and some snakes are willing to share
winter sleeping quarters with snakes of other species. One study in Pennsylvania,
reported by Donald W. Linzey and Michael J. Clifford in Snakes of Virginia,
noted sixteen snakes of several different species plus four salamanders cuddled
up together. It is unknown which critter arrived first. Some American rattlesnakes
were discovered hibernating underwater at the bottom of a well; it is not known
whether they made periodic trips to the surface to breathe or actually stayed
underwater for the entire period of their hibernation. According to one Amish tale,
snakes will not emerge from their winter dens until after the first thunderstorms in
the spring. This is one of many myths associating snakes and thunderstorms.

VISIONARIES
Snakes probably had to reinvent vision. That’s because their immediate ances-
tors, the burrowing lizards, had useless or rudimentary eyes, and so snakes, as they
emerged into the daylight, had to start all over again, using bits of this and parts
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 49

of that, jerry-rigging the entire apparatus. The problems went far beyond having
no eyelids. Snakes are lacking the muscles most other animals use to change the
shape of the lens to focus; the lens is hard and round and cannot easily change
shape. Instead, snakes have to move their whole lens forward to change the focus,
rather like a zoom lens in a camera. The lens is also yellow and apparently works
as a sort of color filter.
In like manner, most snakes lack the muscles used to swivel their eyeballs
around to look at something: they have to move their entire head to look in a
different direction. This accounts for the swaying motion you observe in a cobra
being “charmed.” He is not swaying to the music (which he probably cannot hear)
but is instead following the movement of the flute player, whom he regards as a
threat. If the charmer sat perfectly still while playing, so would the cobra.
Even cleverer is the Eastern Tiger Snake (Notechis scutatus) of western Aus-
tralia. About 10% of these snakes are blind because their eyes have been pecked
out by birds defending their nests. (The snakes eat birds’ eggs.) Yet they function
very well, sightless though they are, and can even find mates with ease. This ability
probably harks back to their burrow-dwelling days.
Most snakes also lack the fovea, the tiny pit that serves as a focusing point in
the retina for most animals, which limits the snake’s ability to detect forms. The
exception is a few tree snakes, who do possess a fovea, however, another reason
that their eyesight is superior to that of most snakes. Snakes have a difficult time
separating focus objects from their background as long as they are stationary (and
it is not clear how well they can discern shapes, if at all), but they have a quick
eye for movement. Most prey animals are not identified as such until they start to
move. Thus it is advisable to stand still around dangerous snakes.
Snakes do have pretty good short distance vision. However, snakes do not
have true binocular vision—and they have a hard time estimating distance. This
is another reason you might see snakes on the prowl moving their whole head
around: they are triangulating distances. Again a partial exception is a few species
of arboreal snakes. The Long-Nosed Tree Snake is unique in that his eyes can see
forward along a groove in his nose. A few tree-dwelling snakes in Asia (genus
Ahaetulla) and Africa (genus Theoltornis) have elongated, horizontal pupils. This
feature gives them a nearer approximation of true binocular vision—something
they need as they chase their prey through the trees as well as to be able to judge
distances when moving from branch to branch.
The pupils of the snake’s eye reflect their function, no pun intended. Nocturnal
snakes often have slit-like pupils similar to cats—and for the same reason. This
arrangement allows them to open the pupil to its widest extent and gather the
greatest possible light. These snakes often have larger eyes than other snakes as
well. Diurnal snakes, on the other hand, usually have round pupils that can contract
to pinpoints to exclude excessive light. And one group of snakes, burrowers like
blind snakes, lack externally visible eyes. They are effectively blind, although they
can probably distinguish light from dark. However, there is an old Albanian tale
that maintains they can see for just a few hours on Fridays only. This idea probably
50 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

harkens back to the notion that snakes are related to the Devil, who seems to gain
temporary ascendancy on Fridays during the hours in which Jesus was being
crucified.
Snake eyes possess both rods and cones, so they presumably can see in color,
although boids (pythons and boas) have fewer cones than do other snakes and so
probably have more limited color vision. Some experiments done at the San Diego
Zoo, involving dyeing mice a variety of colors, indicate that snakes don’t seem to
care what color their dinner is: green eggs and ham would suit them just fine.
Although snakes cannot blink, their eyes are protected by a transparent covering
called an “eye scale,” spectacle, or eye cap, also technically known as a brille.
This is a modified version of a body scale and is in fact sloughed off with every
shed. It may be a remnant of the days when snakes lived a more burrowing life,
and its function was to protect the eye from particles of dirt.
It has recently been discovered that at least one species, the Olive Sea Snake
(Aipysurus laevis), has a light wave sensor in its tail, whose use is, at present, a
matter for conjecture. It has been suggested, for instance, that the receptor serves
to let the snake know when its tail is sticking out of the water. This seems a bit
far-fetched to me, but you never know.
The Pomo Indians of California believe that if one removes the eyes from a
rattlesnake just before it sheds and rubs them on an abalone shell, the shell will
turn into a magical amulet. Simply shine it into an enemy’s eyes, and he will
become blind.

DEAF AS AN ADDER
Can snakes hear? The answer depends upon how you define sound. If you define
sound as a vibration that strikes the eardrum, the answer is no, since snakes don’t
have eardrums or even an external ear opening, which seems to make the whole
enterprise rather futile. They do, however, have a middle and inner ear. Mammals
have more “ear bones” than snakes do: we borrowed some little reptilian jawbones
we didn’t need and turned them into the vibration-carrying malleus, incus, and
stapes. Snakes have only the last named and the small jawbones. They need
them to eat. Indeed there is an old saying: “Deaf as an adder,” but like most old
sayings, it’s misleading, if not outright wrong. All you need to do is to define
sound a little differently, leaving out the eardrum part. Snakes can hear, not
just ground vibrations but also low-frequency airborne sounds, and they do it as
miraculously as they do everything else. Credit goes to the snake’s remarkable
jawbone.
Mechanoreceptors in the skin of their bellies (and perhaps their venter) pick
up vibrations and transmit them via the spinal nerves to the stapes bone, which
in turn pushes against the quadrate bone in the skull, which transfers them to
the inner ear and auditory nerve. It is not true that the lower jawbone has to be
in contact with the ground, as was previously thought. The sound route is thus
skin–muscle–bone. This works best for low-frequency sounds—like approaching
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 51

footsteps, perhaps. Most snakes hear best in the 300-hertz range, but their range
is apparently from 100 to 1,000 hertz, compared to about 20 to 20,000 hertz for
humans. There is also a theory that the lung can act as a receptor when a sound
strikes the body wall, but no one is sure how this vibration gets transmitted to the
inner ear. In Korea, it is said that whistling will draw snakes. This is a myth, but
the Modoc Indians have a similar one: if you whistle around an elderberry bush,
you’ll be bitten by a rattlesnake. (This is false too, although interestingly enough
some European myths claim that elderberry bushes themselves are capable of
whistling—and hearing one will keep you awake.)
In brief, ophidian hearing apparatus is a fairly crude arrangement that won’t
permit a snake to enjoy Beethoven. Still it is better than nothing. In medieval times,
it was claimed that while devious humans attempt to lure serpents from their holes,
the snake, according Isidore of Seville in Book 12, 4:12–16 of his Etymologies
(and repeated all throughout the Middle Ages in countless bestiaries), “presses
one ear to the ground and closes the other ear by sticking its tail in it, to shut it up.
Thus, not hearing the magical noises, it does not go forth to the chanting.”
It is probable that in a quiet room, a snake can “hear” a person speaking in a
normal tone at a distance of about 10 feet. Whether they understand what they
hear is another matter.

SMELLING A RAT (AND PERHAPS TASTING ONE TOO)

Snakes are masters of smell, largely because their olfactory powers are aug-
mented by clever use of their forked tongue, which literally can “taste” the air by
picking up the chemicals floating around in it. The tongue isn’t actually smelling
anything, just transferring odors around. Later legend connects the forked tongue,
which points in two directions at once, as the symbol of deceitfulness—there being
only one truth but many lies.
This clever piece of equipment sends the information about the picked up
particles to the brain via a branch of the olfactory nerve, which analyzes them
for evidence of potential prey or danger. All done in the flick of a tongue, which
occurs every few seconds if the snake is hunting or senses any danger. Any sort
of movement near the snake will elicit this quick response. (Chinese folklore
says snakes are drawn to the smell of women’s underwear—and in fact this was
considered to be the best way to catch them.) Just the opposite, declared the Hopi
people. The smell of a woman is enough to anger a rattlesnake and make it bite.
Tasting is a slightly different matter. Snakes do not apparently possess taste
buds on their tongues the way lizards and people do, although they may have a
few in other places in the oral cavity. This is probably a good thing, considering
the amount of hair and other nasty diet items they must consume. The Greek
philosopher Aristotle, in his Parts of Animals, Book II, thought that snakes had
forked tongues so that they would get “double the pleasure” from their food, but
considering what they eat, this seems a weak conclusion at best. Again I refer
you to the contents of their diet. In the seventeenth century, the Italian naturalist
52 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Giovanni Hodierna (1597–1660) suggested that snakes use their forked tongues
to pluck the dirt from their noses.
A legend from India explains the forked tongue in this way. Serpents were
charged with guarding the prison cell of demigoddess Vinata. They agreed to free
her in exchange for amrita, the drink of immortality. The snakes had just had time
enough to lick a few drops of the stuff before it was snatched by other gods, but
the drop they got to taste was enough to make snakes immortal. Amrita, however,
is strong stuff. The very taste was enough to split their tongues.
The mythical Asclepius and his followers were said to use snake tongues in their
healing arts. Blind people, for instance, could recover their sight just by touching
a snake’s tongue. It is not clear if the tongue was still attached to the snake. An
alternate story claimed the snake had to crawl over the bodies of the sick at night
to heal them. Possibly many people claimed they were healed to avoid the whole
procedure. Another Greek myth said that people could acquire extrasensory sight
or hearing if their eyes or ears were licked by a snake. Indeed this miraculous piece
of equipment imparted prophetic powers on the prophetess Cassandra—as when
a serpent licked her ears, she received the gift of foreknowledge. Alas, Apollo
cursed her at the same time by making it so that no one ever believed what she
said, even though she was always right.
The Romans also thought that snake licking had therapeutic powers, especially
for ulcers of various sorts; they even wore serpent rings as amulets against ill
fortune. The so-called Aesculapian snakes (Zamenis longissimus) were placed in
bathhouses or other houses of healing, and many escaped and set up housekeeping
nearby. In fact, the species is known for is spotty distribution around places of old
Roman temples, even in Germany and Austria. It is not clear how many people
were brave enough to attempt the cure, although apparently only nonvenomous
snakes were employed. Even today, in some parts of Turkey, wrapping a snake
around your head is considered good for what ails you.
The most famous snake wrapping image is that of the caduceus. The most
ancient image of two serpents entwined around a staff is that of the Sumerian
deity Ningizzida, lord of magic and healing. He himself is often depicted as a
snake with a human head. In Western culture, the caduceus is a confusing object
which has two definitions. It sometimes refers to the emblem of Asclepius, the
Graeco-Roman god of medicine, who learned his art by watching as one snake
used special herbs to restore another to life by reuniting its chopped up body. In
like manner the Roman goddess of health, Hygeia, is also depicted holding a snake.
This caduceus properly has only one snake, usually identified as a nonvenomous
rat snake, probably the so-called Aesculapius Snake of Italy.
However the caduceus is sometimes identified with the winged staff, entwined
with a pair of snakes, which Apollo gave to Hermes, the messenger of the gods.
An ancient altar to Hermes exists which has on one side a caduceus-like image of
entwined snakes and on the other an erect phallus. According to some mythogra-
phers, Hermes himself was once a snake. However, over time the two forms of the
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 53

caduceus had been confused to such a point that both are usually portrayed with
two snakes.
The myth of segmented snakes being able to restore themselves to their appar-
ently immortal life is an old motif. A German folktale tells of a husband entombed
with his wife. (He had promised to stay with her even in death.) While he himself
was waiting to die, a snake slithered into the tomb, apparently to attack his wife.
“No, you don’t! Stay away from my wife!” shouted the husband and chopped
the snake into three pieces. However, soon another snake showed up with three
magical leaves in its mouth, which it placed carefully on the wounds of its friend,
restoring him to life. The amazed husband soon realized that he could use the
same left-behind leaves to restore his wife to life. It worked. Unfortunately, the
wife had lost all her love for her husband during death and came to a bad end
herself. But that part of the story has nothing to do with snakes. One cannot help
wondering if these leaves were from the very plant that an ancient Mesopotamian
snake nabbed from Gilgamesh. Certainly they were the ones Aesculapius saw. The
name Aesculapius actually means “cut up.” Zeus got mad at him for something
or other and killed him with his thunderbolt—then placed him in the sky as the
constellation Ophiuchus (“serpent bearer”). We have gotten rather far away from
snake tongues, however, and now it is time to return to them.
It was formerly thought that, using its tongue as a vehicle, the snake deposited
the scent particles directly into two (hence the value of the forked tongue) saclike
organs located toward the front of the roof of the mouth. This twinned structure is
the famous fluid-filled Jacobson’s organ, also called the vomeronasal organ. Now,
however, the received opinion is that the tongue transfers the scent particles to a
pad on the roof of the mouth first, which serves to scrape off the scent particles.
Some scientists refer to the Jacobson’s organ as a “chemoreceptor”: whether or
not this can be called “tasting” is a matter of dispute.
Snakes also smell via the normal route—through their noses. The scent particles
are transferred from the nasal passages into the olfactory chambers. The Jacob-
son’s organ, nasal passages, and the olfactory chambers possess sensory cells that
transmit the chemical reaction of the odor particles with the cell surfaces as nerve
impulses. The impulses are sent directly to the brain for reading and interpretation.
Herodotus reported that in Arabia the frankincense trees were always surrounded
by winged, brilliantly colored serpents, which were apparently drawn to the trees’
delicious perfume.
Snakes can smell so well that it is reported that when newborn Queen Snakes
(Regina septemvittata) are presented with extremely tiny dabs of various odor
samples on cotton swabs, they are quick to home in on the one item in their
diet—crayfish—and ignore everything else.
Contrary to legend, snakes generally do not lick their prey before swallowing
it, although the African Egg Eater will use its tongue to check out the freshness of
an egg. Snakes are not capable of “stinging” people with their tongues any more
than with their tails, despite persistent myths on both counts. Nor do they use
54 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

their tongues for lapping up water (as they don’t drink that way) or to aid them in
hissing. The tongue’s only purpose seems to be as an accessory to smelling and to
aid in threat posturing. The snake thrusts its tongue out very far when threatening.
Considering the amount of attention that has been lavished on this tiny organ, it
has succeeded in that role.

EXTRA SPECIAL SENSORY APPARATUS

Since snakes are so special, it should not be surprising to see that some species
have special senses, beyond the five possessed by ordinary mortals. As mentioned,
the highly evolved pit vipers use pits on each side of the face (located between
the eye and nostril) to detect heat. This fact was not discovered until 1937; until
then the function of pits was a source of controversy among herpetologists. These
heat-sensing pits consist of inner and outer cavities separated by a membrane. The
rear part of the pit records ambient temperature, and the front part senses the heat
of a prey animal; this helps the snake not only locate the prey but also strike at it.
The pits are lined with a thin layer of cells richly endowed with nerve endings that
connect to the brain via the optic nerve. The fact that it’s the optic nerve at work
here suggests that snakes somehow “see” what is giving off the heat, much like
infrared goggles. This is a handy trick for snakes that live upon warm-blooded
prey and is especially important for those snakes that hunt at night. Pit vipers can
can detect subtle differences in temperature (less than an eighth of a degree) from
as much as a foot away. The pits seem to act in stereo to exactly target the prey
animal’s location. This apparatus is so sensitive that it can distinguish between the
main body of the prey and an appendage.
One experiment with rattlesnakes showed that even under conditions of total
darkness, a rattler scored a direct hit on its prey 98% of the time. However when
its pits were covered, its success rate was only 27%. (I wonder how much the
experimenter was paid for that part of the procedure.) In parts of Latin America,
pit vipers are even nicknamed cuatro natrices (“four nostrils”) on account of their
prominent pits.
Some boas and pythons, mostly the arboreal types like the Green Tree Python
and Emerald Tree Boa, also have tiny heat-sensitive pits that are lined up in a row
right above the upper lip. Herpetologist pranksters like to call them “hot lips.”
Sometimes these pits are covered with scales, but they are still quite functional.
However, the pit vipers are better endowed in this regard; their sensitivity to heat
radiation is five to ten times higher than that of boas and pythons.

A TIGHTER BREATHING
Reptiles invented the modern lung, but serpents, due to their unique body shape,
have had to make some radical adjustments. Two normal lungs just don’t fit into a
serpent body, so some snake species have elected to retain a large right lung and
let the left one dwindle down to next to nothing.
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 55

In some snakes, especially sea snakes, the hind part of the right lung acts as an air
reservoir, while the front part and windpipe take in oxygen. In aquatic snakes, the
right lung may be so long that it extends back almost to the tail. In this case, one of
the lung’s purposes is to make the animal more buoyant. Some species have a third
“tracheal lung” that helps the snake keep breathing as it swallows its oversized
prey; this lung is really just an extension of the right lung. This lung has no
respiratory pulmonary epithelium to absorb oxygen; the air reservoir maintains
the oxygen supply while the snake is engulfing its prey.
Snakes can also extend their epiglottis (a muscle in the windpipe) to help take in
air while eating. The snake windpipe is a curious organ as well. Most vertebrates
have complete rings of cartilage around their tracheas, but in snakes these rings are
incomplete. In addition, the membrane of the windpipe near the lung has a porous
lining, so it acts like an auxiliary lung. Some desert snakes can even breathe under
sand. They can hide there and spring up on their prey, a rather unnerving thought.
Other species have decided to forgo the left lung altogether. Even those snakes
that retain a left lung don’t usually make use of it. It’s just taking up room. The
exception is the boas and pythons who use both lungs—although even in them the
left lung is a lot smaller than the right.
Like all reptiles, snakes lack a diaphragm; they use the muscles in the body
wall to do the same job, which is to push air in and out. As ectotherms, snakes
don’t need to breathe as often as warm-blooded creatures. Breathing occurs in a
two-step process—ventilation and pause. In snakes the pause period or apnea can
last for several minutes if they are quiet or resting. Freshwater snakes can go for
more than 10 minutes underwater without drawing a breath, and sea snakes can
go for 30 minutes to an hour while hunting.

VOICELESS?
Although snakes have larynxes, and some species even possess vocal chords,
the only sound regularly made by snakes is the hiss and, in rattlesnakes, the rattle.
The former is produced by filling the lungs with air and then forcing it out quickly
by constricting the body and expelling the air out through the glottis. Generally,
the snake has his mouth open when he does this. Different species make somewhat
different sounds, which an expert can distinguish between. Rattlesnakes, of course,
vibrate their tails when annoyed or threatened, and even rattleless snakes stir their
tails menacingly about in the leaves, perhaps hoping the intruder will think they are
rattlesnakes. The Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis carinatus) makes a scary and distinct
f-f-f-f sound by rubbing its coils together—hence its name. To some it sounds like
water sizzling on a hot plate. It is sometimes claimed that certain snakes whistle.
They don’t, unless they are suffering from a respiratory infection.
However, myth supplies snakes with powers that natural snakes do not possess.
One interesting desert elapid of Egypt and Arabia is the Desert Black Snake or
Desert Cobra (Walterinnesia aegyptia). The Bedouins say that it calls with the
tempting voice of a young woman—but those who answer the summons will meet
56 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

their deaths. At other times this animal remains silent but appears in the form of
a mirage—a camel full of milk. When the thirsty traveler approaches, however, it
bites him. Either way, it’s a killer.
One Romanian legend declared that wearing a chrysoprase would enable one
to understand the language of snakes; however, some critical details as to how this
is done appear to be missing.

HEARTLESS?
Snakes are not truly heartless, of course, but their hearts do lack a ventricle,
and hence they have an only three-chamber heart (like most reptiles) instead of a
four-chamber heart like mammals. (The snake has two atria, and a ventricle that
is almost but not quite divided into two chambers.) The three-chamber heart is
not very efficient. Blood going to the lungs is mixed with blood returning from
the lungs, so the blood supply to the tissues is not fully oxygenated. This is one
reason why snakes get tired easily. Their heart rate depends almost entirely upon
the ambient temperature.
Most animals, including us, have two arteries that carry blood to the brain.
Snakes have only one, the left one. The most famous snake heart belongs to
Uncegila, the mythical serpent mentioned earlier. According to legend, she bore
within her body a ruby red freezing cold heart which would grant its bearer all
his wishes. Two brothers killed her and took away her heart, but eventually they
found that having every wish fulfilled was a boring existence, so they broke the
heart and returned to their normal lives. John Josselyn (1608–1675), who gives
his occupation only a “gentleman,” wrote in his Two Voyages, “The heart of the
Rattlesnake, dried and pulverized, and drunk with beer or wine is an approved
remedy against the biting and venom of the rattlesnake.” Josselyn also reported
seeing sea serpents off the shores of Cape Ann but was dissuaded from bagging
one by his Indian guide, who told him it would be bad luck.

THE MIND OF THE SERPENT

While snakes are supposed to represent unutterable wisdom, in the real world,
they are none too swift. They survive primarily on instinct. Jesus of Nazareth’s
injunction to his disciples to be “wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16) reflects folk-
lore rather than fact. The snake’s brain is remarkably primitive. The snake does
possess a competent “interbrain” or diencephalon, which connects the midbrain
and forebrain and is concerned with processing information about the external en-
vironment and temperature. Right behind the diencephalon is the midbrain, which
handles sensory information. Then there is the cerebellum which controls mus-
cular movement. At the very back is the medulla oblongata, which is responsible
for automatic functions like heart rate and breathing. Occasionally, a two-headed
snake shows up. In such cases, one head is “in control”; the other one requires no
care at all. However, if one head is eating something and the other head finds out
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 57

about it, the second head will attempt to eat the first one, much to the subsequent
detriment of both heads.
The areas of the brain in charge of learning are small and lack the folds and
ridges that characterize smarter beings. Snakes are not good learners and will make
the same mistake over and over when transferred from their natural environment.
For instance, they will repeatedly hit their heads against a glass barrier in an
attempt to go through it. Sometimes, of course, this persistence pays off. As any
experienced snake owner can attest, unless extreme care is exercised, a captive
snake will eventually get out—simply because he never manages to learn that he
can’t. In other words, he never gives up pushing against a door.
However, many captive snakes do seem to learn a routine and to recognize
their keepers. Some snakes allow certain familiar people to handle them but try to
bite strangers, although this may be a function of how nervous the handlers are.
And it is true that snakes can to some extent be acclimated to human beings and
tamed by gentle and repeated handling. (It was said that Native Americans could
tame snakes by wrapping them in fine linen, although the details about why this
would work are not clear.) However, it should be emphasized that snake taming is
a matter of “to some extent” only, especially with generally nervous and reactive
species. They only need to forget they are “tame” once to deliver a painful and
possibly lethal bite. It happens all the time to people hubristic enough to suppose
they can forge a special alliance with snakes.
And for every myth about the cunning of the snake, there are numerous folktales
to show his other side. Here is one of my favorites, “The Dueling Water Snakes”
from Oklahoma:

A rabbit had a favorite drinking spot on a bend along the river. Two snakes lived
in the river, too, one on each side of the bend, unknown to each other. This
gave the mischievous rabbit an idea. He walked up to the snake who lived on
the upper bend and challenged him to a game of tug-of-war. “You can’t outpull
me,” said the snake.
“I challenge you,” insisted the rabbit. “Just let me get a grapevine for the
rope. If I pull you onto land, I win. If you pull me into the water, then you win.”
“Oh, all right,” said the snake.
The rabbit next went to visit the lower bend snake and arranged for a similar
contest. Then he took a long grapevine and strung it across the bend, giving
one end to each serpent. The snakes began tugging fiercely, disconcerted at the
supposed strength of the rabbit. Then the rabbit started to laugh. This alerted the
snakes to the fact that something was amiss. They both released the grapevine
and swam to the middle where they met for the first time. Furious at the rabbit
for making idiots of them, the snakes agreed that the rabbit would have to
find himself another river to drink out of, or they would bite him in the nose
whenever he came by. The clever rabbit avoided the consequences of his mischief
by turning himself into a fawn whenever he got thirsty, thus fooling the snakes
again.
58 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

ROMANCE AND CHILDREN

Like the rest of us, snakes are anxious to reproduce their kind. And while the
Greek historian Diodorus Sicculus (d. 21 b.c.e.) reported that the deserts of Egypt
generated serpents spontaneously, most herpetologists agree that snakes reproduce
in more conventional fashion.
For them, the age of consent is generally between 2 and 5 years. Northern
snakes usually mate in the spring, tropical serpents before the rainy season. For
humans, it is not always easy to tell lady and gentleman snakes apart, although
females are generally larger. Often the most distinguishing characteristic is the
tail. The male tail base is wider, since the hemipenes are stored within it when not
in use. Females tend to have a narrower, shorter, more tapering tail. In pythons and
boas, the claws apparent at the cloacal opening are bigger in females. And some
male cobras have longer fangs than the females of the species. Since none of these
differences afford much help to a casual observer, you often just have to guess. It
is not wise to go around checking cobra fangs and searching python cloacas just
to satisfy your curiosity.
During the mating season, male snakes will often closely follow the females,
giving rise to the myth that they “travel in pairs,” which is not exactly true, or that
if one of them is killed the other will seek revenge. This is not true at all, although
there are some movies such as the Indian blockbuster Nagin (1976) sporting the
theme that an injured snake will gain its revenge sooner or later.
The male follows his lady friend because she secretes a strong odor from glands
at the base of her tail, and he uses his Jacobson’s organ to track her. As is so often
the case, males seem much more excited about the prospect of mating than females.
Male rattlesnakes have been known to travel as many as 8 miles in search of a
female. (Sometimes they can make an error in this regard. W.H. “Marty” Martin, a
renowned expert on the Timber Rattlesnake, told me that one time a ready-to-mate
female slid across the top of his boots. He was then followed by a male for about
an hour, which had to have been a somewhat unnerving experience.)
When the male snake does catch up with his lady, he lovingly rubs his chin along
the supple length of her body. (And if he is a boid, he scratches her gently with
his claws to stimulate a breeding response.) The snakes may also tap their heads
together in a friendly way. If more than one fella wants to breed with the same lady,
the two rivals may engage in ritual wrestling in which the combatants entwine and
try to press the rival’s head into the ground. The loser is not injured during this test
of strength. Not all kinds of snakes engage in this behavior, although it has been
seen in mambas, adders, Bull Snakes, and rattlers. According to Mexican folklore,
this is all a very civilized process, and the male rattlesnakes politely remove their
fangs before engaging in ritual courtship, so that no real harm comes to their
rival.
If the lady snake accepts his advances, she distends her cloaca and may wave
her tail around provocatively. As I mentioned earlier, the male has two identical
reproductive organs called hemipenes, one of which transports the sperm into
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 59

the female’s reproductive tract. Sperm is carried from the elongated testes to the
hemipenes via the ureter. Each hemipene receives sperm from the testis on its
side of the body. These handsome objects are covered with a special arrangement
of knobs and spines which help lock the male into the correct position during
mating. The snake pushes them out from its vent by a combination of muscle
action and hydraulic pressure. However, the snake uses only one hemipene during
the actual mating. The female has a corresponding set of grooves in her cloaca.
(And yes, if you must know, she also has a twinned clitoris.) It is presumed that this
arrangement keeps snakes of different species from falling in love successfully.
Medieval folklore maintains that snakes mate when the male places his head into
the mouth of the female and spits semen into it. His annoyed wife then bites off
his head.
The mating snakes may stay in position for several hours. They generally
stay quite still with the exception of some jerking and twitching on the part of
the male. Eventually the female decides she’s had quite enough and moves on.
The male is rather forced to follow the female’s every movement, although he
sometimes seems to take revenge by biting her neck. Or perhaps he’s just hanging
on. Killing copulating snakes may have unintended consequences. The Greek
prophet Tiresias, for instance, killed such a pair with a stick, and thereafter he
was turned into a woman and cursed with the power of second sight. He came
across another pair, 7 years later—and he wisely left them alone and returned to
manhood. At least that’s one story. There are others.
After copulation, the male’s equipment is retracted into its original position
behind the cloaca. He has a special retractor muscle in the tail just for this purpose.
In snakes, the testes and ovaries are arranged like the kidneys—with the right one
in front of the left one, instead of side-by-side. Both male and female snakes of
some species may seek other partners after mating with their first love, and a brood
of offspring may have more than one dad. Common Garter Snakes have a different
strategy. They have been known to engage in group sex (called “balling,” and I am
not kidding). Large numbers of them, emerging from hibernation, get all vamped
up and ready for love. They may all stay entwined for up to a month. However,
the first guy to get his gal follows the seminal ejaculation with a strange fluid that
hardens into a contraceptive plug, effectively ensuring that no other males will be
allowed to penetrate the sacred space.
The female snake has a sac called the seminal receptacle in which she can
store the sperm for months—or in some cases even years, giving her a good deal
of decision power about when to start her family. The semen-retention record is
about 7 years.
It is sometimes claimed that Bull Snakes crossbreed with rattlers. The progeny
of these encounters are venomous and fanged like the rattlesnake but have the
color pattern of the Bull Snake. And they have no warning rattle, so they are
especially dangerous. None of this is true, although Bull Snakes do possess a
vaguely rattlesnake-like color pattern. Similar myths are told of Garter Snakes
crossbreeding with Copperheads.
60 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Regardless of how they act in real life, in the world of fiction, snakes make
superior lovers. One very ancient Chinese tale has been translated to the silver
screen. Green Snake (1993), directed by Tsui Hark, tells the ancient tale of two
snake spirits, White (played by Joey Wong) and Green (played by Maggie Cheung),
who wish to become human beings, so that they can experience the joys of romance.
As we have seen, snakes are not too competent in this department. White in fact
falls in love with a teacher, and Green becomes jealous—showing that snakes may
know more about love than they give themselves credit for. And so on.
In a related version of the myth, an old Buddhist monk tells a young man
that his wife, Lady White, is an evil 1,000-year-old snake, who will eventually
reveal her true nature and devour him. (The husband was wondering why sleep-
ing with his wife seemed to be emasculating him.) Her true character is revealed
during the Dragon Boat Festival, where everyone drinks nasty-smelling realgar
wine (flavored with arsenic) to drive away snakes. The major ingredient of this
beverage is arsenic ore. The husband forces his wife to drink the wine, and she
turns into a big white snake coiled up on the bed. She reverts to human form
after a while, and there is a lot of shape-shifting back and forth. Eventually he
has her shut up in a pagoda or in some versions under the pagoda—which ac-
tually stood until recently on the West Lake near Hangzhou. The woman was
expecting at the time, and when her son was born, the husband made her reg-
ular visits, which was very nice of him. The pagoda was burned down, how-
ever, and Lady White eventually broke free and flew away. There are dozens of
versions of this tale, one of which became a Chinese opera. In most versions,
Lady White becomes a perfect wife and mother who protects her family from
all sorts of calamities. It is the usual respect–revulsion attitude typically awarded
snakes.
About 25% of snakes bear live young. They are still technically egg layers, as the
snakelets are not nourished by a placenta but develop inside a thin membrane rather
than a shell and “hatch” internally. These kinds of snakes are called ovoviviparous;
the process usually takes 4–6 months, depending on the ambient temperature. As
with alligators, the temperature determines gender—with higher heat producing
males and more moderate temperatures producing females. Some live-bearing
snakes, like European Vipers and common Garter Snakes, even have a kind of
“placenta” to help nourish the young. All the boas are ovoviviparous, and so are
a great many vipers and pit vipers. These snakes eat little or nothing during their
pregnancy and are emaciated when the young are finally born. It may take the
mother a year to regain condition and be able to become pregnant again. The
young of these snakes have a better chance of “making” it than do the more old-
fashioned egg layers (oviparous species), but there are fewer live offspring than
hatchlings. Alone among snakes, mom and pop cobras are monogamous; they will
also at least attend to and guard the nest.
Female egg-laying snakes usually take the time to look for a safe place to hatch
their young and will then cover them with moist leaf litter or soil. The eggs cannot
be completely buried, however, since the young need to breathe the air through the
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 61

shells. Cobras will actually dig out a nest. All cobras are egg layers except spitting
cobras, for some reason. The female Indian python (Python molurus) molurus,
who may lay over a hundred eggs, coils herself around her clutch, and by twitching
her muscles, she warms up her body; the extra heat helps the young snakes develop.
This is very nice of her and probably the ultimate in parenting skills among snakes.
Once the baby pythons hatch, however, they’re pretty much on their own. A few
members of the viper clan do seem to hang around their live-born young for several
hours after the birth and may be protecting them to some degree. However this is
debatable. Perhaps the mother is just tired.
Other snakes, like King Cobras, choose piles of rotting vegetation, which also
provide extra heat. Tree snakes give birth in the branches of trees; the young snakes
have a sticky membrane that keeps them attached to the leaves, while they are still
finding their sea legs, so to speak.
Most sea snakes are born live; the advantage of this is that the young can swim
immediately to the surface for air. The Sea Krait (genus Laticauda), however,
which is less aquatic than other sea snakes, lays eggs, usually in caves above the
high tide level.
A Medieval Latin bestiary lists yet another way snakes—at least vipers—give
birth. According to the text, the young, instead of being born via the natural route,
gnaw through the mother’s side and burst out. At this point, the mother snake
perishes. Since, according to the same folklore, the father’s head has already been
bitten off by the mother, all the snakelets are orphans. The same text also informs
us that the vi in “viper” stands for violent. A tradition of the Paraguay Indians is
that the young snakes emerge from the bodies of dead adults, and so they always
advise dragging dead snake bodies far away.
For egg layers, the incubation period is usually 2 or 3 months, mostly depending
upon the temperature. The number of eggs laid is variable partly according to
species, with big snakes laying, on the average, more eggs. Snakes in tropical
lands tend to lay more than one clutch a year, while snakes from more temperate
zones produce only one. Snakes also seem to adjust their reproductive habits to
the abundance of prey animals. When there are fewer rats and mice, for example,
there are fewer snakes.
Just before hatching, the white, leathery eggs become wrinkled, and several
marks made by the egg tooth of the snakelet become visible. These cuts turn into
gaps through which the young snake will emerge. Once out in the world, young
snakes grow rapidly; rattlesnakes can double their length in a year—and some
pythons can triple theirs. Of all the snakes that hatch, fewer than 10% will survive
into adulthood.
One myth claims King Snakes (genus Lampropeltis) or (in another version of
the myth) Garter Snakes swallow their young to protect them. This is a very old
story told about many snake species and has been traced back to ancient Egyptian
sources. In some cases the snake hisses at her young first, to alert them to the
danger. None of these stories are true. Young snakes are generally in a great hurry
to get away from their mothers. This is probably especially true in the case of King
62 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Snakes, which feed upon other snakes and anything else they can get their mouths
around. It is crocodilians that sometimes take their babies into their mouths, not
snakes.

ONE IS WHAT ONE EATS

As a group, snakes eat a wider variety of foods than any other carnivore,
although individual species may have quite specialized dietary habits. Their main
feeding strategy is to eat a lot but infrequently as opposed to, say, herbivores,
who are always munching down on something. Arboreal snake species tend to eat
more frequently and with less of a tendency to gorge themselves than terrestrial
species; one has to be light on one’s feet, so to speak, when skimming along the
tree branches.
Snakes, like other ectotherms, require relatively little in the way of food, com-
pared to a mammal of equal size. The average size Corn Snake, for example, needs
about one mouse every 2 weeks. Bigger snakes need bigger, but not more frequent,
meals. Captive pythons are rather notorious for fasting for extravagant lengths of
time and then suddenly starting to eat again for no apparent reason. Some snakes
have been known to fast a year between meals, but this is not good for them.
Gilbert White (1720–1793), a British clergyman who sometimes ventured to jot
down his opinions (and they were no more than opinions) on reptiles, suggested,
“The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year; or rather, but only just at one
season of the year.” For those interested in more of White’s opinions, see The
Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). Herpetologist Sherman A.
Minton reports that once his captive rattlesnake bit a mouse prefatory to eating it.
Just as he was about to swallow his dinner, however, the mouse made an unex-
pected recovery. The disconcerted snake lost all interest in the mouse and refused,
in fact to eat anything.
Unlike mammals, snakes continue to grow throughout their lives, although
growth is rapider when they are young. Smaller snakes species generally mature
faster than bigger ones. Snakes also have the ability to stop growing when the
food supply is short, which is a definite advantage over mammals—who have to
grow (and perhaps starve) even when there’s nothing to live on. Sexual maturity
is more a function of size within any species than of age.
All snakes are obligate carnivores. This means they must eat meat; in fact
they cannot eat vegetables or fruits. Little snakes eat little animals like insects,
worms, snails, and centipedes. Bigger snakes eat bigger things. Some snakes prefer
mammals, others reptiles (even other snakes), or eggs. The Cuban Boa (Epicrates
angulifer) eats bats. Many snakes like fish and frogs.
A Palestinian folktale explains how snakes came to like frogs. The story begins
when God shut the devil out of Paradise. He was desperate to get back in, so he
bribed the serpent with the promise of the sweetest food. “Which is?” hinted the
snake. “People,” whispered the devil. The snake was intrigued and hid the devil
in the hollow of his fang and crept into Paradise. Then came all that business
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 63

about the Tree and whatnot. You see, all the time Eve thought just the serpent was
jabbering, but it was really Satan.
At any rate, the snake was about to claim his free dinner (Adam) when the
human-loving swallow found out what was going on. “Hsst,” she whispered.
“You’re not going to eat that man, are you?”
“Yep,” said the snake. “It’s the sweetest flesh. The Devil told me so.”
“Are you dumb enough to believe that lying scoundrel?” asked the swallow.
“Right!” said Adam desperately. “Everybody knows the Devil is a big-time
liar. Let me ask the mosquito what flesh is really the sweetest. She drinks blood,
and I’ll send her around the world to find out the truth.”
“All right,” the snake grudgingly agreed. “But tell her to hurry up. I can’t fast
forever.”
Off flew the mosquito, but the swallow tailed her closely. At the end of a year,
the swallow said, “Well? What’s best?”
“Oh!” said the mosquito. “Human flesh, by far!”
“What?” said the swallow. “I’m a bit hard of hearing.”
“It’s hum . . . ” At that point the swallow snipped her tongue right out of her
head. And to this day mosquitoes can only hum.
The swallow went to the snake, and said, “Oh dear, I’m afraid my little friend
has quite lost the power of speech. But just before she did so, she begged me to tell
you that the sweetest flesh is that of frogs.” The snake didn’t believe any of this
and took a bite of the swallow’s tail (which explains why it is forked). However,
he was condemned to eat frogs anyway.
Very often snakes are reputed to drink milk. Until recent times, it was said that
the peasants of Greece had a “snake door” in their homes down which they poured
milk in service to the snakes who lived nearby and kept their houses free of rats.
Cobras are said to enjoy a bowl of cow juice now and again, but in the United
States it is the Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum) who does the honors. Milk
Snakes are common around barns, but it’s not the cows they’re interested in—but
the mice and rats. They also like cool, dark places. While the story goes that Milk
Snakes can actually suck the udders of a cow at night, it is totally untrue. It’s what
I call milking a good story. Milk Snakes are not capable of suction. (Even most
mammals cannot after infancy.) Snakes can’t even digest milk properly. Besides, a
cow would hardly permit her teats to be gnawed on by a sharp-toothed snake. Nor
will Milk Snakes drink milk from a bowl, as portrayed in the Sherlock Holmes
story “The Speckled Band.”
There is also a tale about a boy who periodically disappears into the forest;
when he is followed he is discovered giving milk to a snake. The snake is killed
and then the boy dies as well. More myth. A bigger problem for Milk Snakes is
that people may mistake them for copperheads. Actually, Milk Snakes are not only
not Copperheads but will even eat them if they can.
The Pueblo Indians tell the story of Coyote, the Trickster, and Rattlesnake, who
had a trick focusing on food choices played on him by Coyote. Coyote invited
Rattlesnake over for dinner but probably regretted it, as the constant rattling was
64 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

getting on his nerves. Nonetheless, he cooked up a pot of rabbit meat and offered
it to the snake. “No, thanks,” said Rattlesnake. “I don’t understand your food. I
eat the yellow flowers of the corn.”
“Really,” said Coyote. “That’s a new one.”
“No, really,” insisted Rattlesnake. “That’s what I eat.”
“Fine,” grumbled Coyote, and went out in search of some of the desired flowers.
When he returned, Rattlesnake asked him to place the flowers on the top of his
head, so he could eat them by flicking them into his mouth with his tongue.
Coyote nervously obliged. “Very good,” Rattlesnake announced. “Come to my
pad tomorrow. I’ll feed you.”
“Great,” thought Coyote. “Just what I need, going into a rattlesnake den. Well,
I’ll just make me some rattles by putting some pebbles in a gourd. Then I’ll tie
the gourd to my tail. That will get that snake to sit up and take notice.” When
he arrived, Rattlesnake had a nice fat rat barbequing on the fire, but Coyote said,
“Sorry, friend. I don’t eat rats. But maybe I’ll try the cornflowers.”
Rattlesnake obligingly placed the flowers on Coyote’s head, but the animal’s
tongue could not reach them, so he went without dinner that night. It is unclear as
to exactly what this tale is trying to show, but it is in error about the feeding habits
of rattlesnakes.
Although different species have different killing or even dining strategies, it
all goes to the same place afterwards. Snake tummies have the same expansive
properties as do their mouths and throat. The stomach is extraordinarily elastic,
expanding to accept the bulkiest of meals. It is also surprisingly short, considering
his body is so long. It is really just an enlarged portion of the gut. The snake
possesses powerful digestive juices that can melt down even teeth and bones,
although they may be regurgitated along with the other indigestible ingredients
like hair and feathers. The actual speed at which digestion occurs depends on
ambient temperatures. This can be a problem if the weather is too cold: the food
can actually start to rot inside the stomach before it is digested, and that is not
a good thing, even for snakes. When conditions are right, digestion may proceed
rapidly, although when conditions are unfavorable, the process can take months.
The so-called light foods like fish and amphibians are digested more quickly than
are mammals. And since the food requirement of snakes is low, they can skip
meals without harm, going for days or even weeks without eating. If the food is
not forthcoming, the snake simply “shuts down” until dinner is ready again. The
record for between-meal fasts is 3 years, recorded in a captive snake. In the wild,
who knows?
Because snakes live on meat, a high-value food, rather than the nutrient-poor
grass the way cows do, they don’t require a complex digestive system designed to
gain every last iota of nourishment. They take what they need, store the extra as
fat in special cells along the intestines, and get on with life.
Snakes do have two kidneys—and, in fact, they are quite large, considering
the size of the snake’s body. The long, narrow kidneys are richly lobed and lie
staggered, one behind the other, as the snake’s body doesn’t allow for much left
The Cold-Hearted Family of Serpents 65

and right sidedness. The left kidney is located behind the right one. And while all
kidneys perform the same task—removing toxins from the blood—in snakes the
protein waste is converted into a uric acid crystal (a dry white paste) rather than
water soluble urea. There is no urinary bladder; the ureters empty directly into the
cloaca, which discharges urine and feces together. In other words, snakes don’t
pee. The advantage of this arrangement is that snakes can conserve their water,
always a good idea. (Some snakes further reduce water loss by “coiling” which
reduces the surface from which water can evaporate.)
Snakes also don’t distinguish between reproduction and elimination as clearly
as they might. Both the digestive and reproductive tracts open into the cloaca,
which in turn opens to the outside world via a slit located just in front of the tail.
Snakes possess a liver, which is, as you might expect, long. It has a highly
developed right lobe and an almost nonexistent left lobe. Snakes also have a
gall bladder (which is more than you can say for horses) and a pancreas located
between the stomach and the proximal segment of the small intestine. Snakes have
a large intestine too; it is short and only slightly coiled near the region of the small
intestine. In general, the entire alimentary canal is a straight shot from the mouth
to the vent. All this is actually a great advantage for snakes. The animals of more
conventional shapes have to make do with a many-coiled intestine that can get
into all kinds of shenanigans.
Snakes are capable of drinking as well as of eating, although they meet a good
deal of their water requirement through food. They are able to sip water collected
in small hollows or depression and, most wonderful to behold, may even drink
dew.
CHAPTER THREE

Snakebite!

Baron Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), the great French naturalist, once reportedly
remarked, “Show me your teeth and I’ll show you what you are.” Snakes have
truly amazing and terrible teeth. But their number, and even function, varies from
species to species. While normal people have thirty-two teeth and dogs forty-two,
the number of teeth possessed by snakes is variable, even among members of the
same species. Many species have more than 200. Venomous snake have only a
few, but the ones they have really do the job.
Only in legend do snakes kill in ways other than biting or constricting. I’ve
already mentioned stinging snakes, but the Coachwhip Snake, whose amazing
scientific name is Masticophis flagellum flagellum, has his own share of mythology.
The common name for this diurnal snake is said to derive from the fact that its
scales resemble a braided whip. This is one of the fastest of all snakes and found
over much of North America in diverse habitats. Apparently because of its active
lifestyle, it eats about twice as much as a Rattlesnake of similar size. Not that
many rattlers approach the Coachwhip in the length department, which is one of
the largest U.S. snakes and can attain a length of nearly 10 feet. The Coachwhip
is said to bind a person with its coil and then whip the victim to death with its
tail. Finally it will stick its nose up the person’s nose to see if he is still breathing.
This is not true, of course. However, it is true that the Coachwhip Snake has an
extraordinarily nasty disposition and is fond of biting its keeper as often as possible.
It is only fortunate that it is not venomous. Another story about Coachwhip Snakes
avers that they will suck the breasts of a nursing mother and poison her nipples.
The baby will then get very sick. This is another tale that combines two common
pieces of misinformation—that coachwhip snakes are venomous and that they or
any snake imbibes milk.
Nonmythological snakes have to rely on their teeth to catch their prey. Snake
teeth are not set in sockets like ours but attached directly to the inner side of the
jawbone. These teeth have no roots. The technical term for this sort of teeth is
Snakebite! 67

“pleurodont.” Curiously, some teeth are actually lodged in the bone on the roof of
the mouth. And when a snake loses a tooth, a new one will grow to take its place.
This phenomenon is called polyphyodonty.
Snakes use their teeth to grasp their prey, not to chew it. Snakes can’t chew and
indeed have no “chewing teeth.” Nor do they have hands or claws or paws to hang
onto their prey, while they rip it into tidy pieces. They are condemned, if that is the
right word, to eating their prey whole and entire, usually headfirst. It’s safer for
the snake that way; it helps prevent being bitten while eating. The fur or feathers
of the victim also lie down flatter, making it easier to swallow. They devour their
prey (and now this is the really creepy part) by literally grabbing it and crawling
slowly over and around it. The teeth are backward curved to help the project. The
whole prey body goes in—hair, teeth, horns, everything. As mentioned earlier,
snakes can protrude the glottis to keep their air passage open, so they can breathe
and eat at the same time.
The fact that the snake is a great “swallower” is yet another unnerving aspect
of this all-too-creepy creature. Jim Morrison (1943–1971) of the Doors, himself
an iconic, almost mythic figure to those of my generation, said in a 1970 interview
with Salli Stevenson for Circus magazine, “I used to see the universe as a mammoth
snake, and I used to see all the people and objects, landscapes, as little pictures
in the facets of their scales. I think peristaltic motion is the basic life movement.
Swallowing.”
The image of the snake holding its tail in its mouth and continually swallowing
it is the ouroboros (also spelled ourorboros, oroborus, uroboros, or uroborus). It is
a universal element in our dreams. It is both bounded and infinite, enclosing and
never-ending, protecting and imprisoning, the atom and the universe. This is one
of the most powerful and ancient of all symbols, being at least 20,000 years old,
making an appearance in Africa, Europe, and India. In 1890, the German chemist
Friedrich August Kekulé (1829–1896) insisted the hoary old symbol appeared in
his dreams—divulging the secret of the structure of the benzene molecule. Later,
he claimed he saw “long rows . . . all twisting and turning in snakelike motion,”
adding, “One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled
mockingly before my eyes.” (He revised this story several times, so it is hard to
know what really happened if anything.) Some later commentators have doubted
the truth of the whole tale, but it is probably best not to judge another man’s
dreams or visions.
However, few people, it seems, can dream simply of snakes, without any
symbolic or prophetic attachments. In Western civilization, for example, snake
dreams are often supposed (by Freudians anyway) to represent sexuality, usually
repressed. In other cultures they bear other meanings. In China, it is said if a
pregnant woman dreams of a black snake, a son will born; if the snake is gray
or white, the child will be a daughter. In Taiwan, dreaming about a snake of any
color means you will lose your fortune. Another Chinese story claims that if a
man dreams of a single snake, he will acquire a new woman friend. If the snake
is coiling around your legs or body, a change is coming. (The S shape of snakes
68 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

almost universally symbolizes both energy and continuance through time.) The
Cherokee thought that dreaming of snakes was a harbinger of sickness, but the
California Pomo believed that dreaming of a rattlesnake or a Bull Snake was lucky.
If the snake abandoned the dreamer, however, it was bad luck. These things can get
complicated. For the Maya, a snake dream meant a quarrel with one’s spouse. On
the other hand, as Freud is reputed to have said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
We may add that sometimes a viper is just a viper. But that can be bad enough.
Film director Oliver Stone said in a 1997 interview with Harry Kreisler, “We all
have nightmares, we all have really horrifying fears. Mine may be being eaten by
a giant snake or something.”
Snakes are experts at gulping down victims who seem surely too large for them.
But snakes are deceiving in this matter, as in so much else. First, their mouths
are a lot bigger than they look, extending back beyond the eyes. The jawbone can
literally dislocate from the skull. Each half of the lower jaw is attached to the rest of
the skull by means of two moveable bones (the same bones that became inner ear
bones in mammals) giving even more flexibility. This allows them to open wide.
In addition, the halves of the lower jaws are not conjoined, as is the case
with other self-respecting animals. Instead the halves are connected by a stretchy
ligament that allows each half of the jaw to move independently at the corners—
forward, backward, up, or down. In snakes, the lower jaw is actually a series of
bones—and only the foremost bone, called the dentary, sprouts teeth. When a
snake eats, the jaws on one side of the head open and those on the other side bite
down. While one side is biting, the other side moves forward, so the snake begins
to slide relentlessly over its prey.
As if this is not enough, the tooth-bearing bones of the upper jaw can move
independently too. The exception here is the blind snakes whose skull bones are
fused, so they have a stronger head to burrow their way through the earth. These
snakes generally take only very small prey anyway, like ants and their pupae.
(The Greeks had a mythical anteating snake, Amphisbaena, with a head at each
end and who could walk both ways with equal ease. She was spawned from the
blood that dripped from the head of Medusa.)
Like the jaws, the snake’s esophagus is also flexible, and the ribs are not attached
ventrally, so they can expand to let the food slide down. The average snake can
swallow prey up to three times the diameter of his head. After dinner, snakes yawn
vigorously a couple of times to reset the jawbones, and then it’s off for a nice long
after-dinner nap. In case something untoward happens, such as being surprised at
dinner, a snake coughs up its prey alive, allowing itself to make a quick getaway,
without the hindrance of a large meal in its gut. The snake’s brain, what there is of
it (which is not much as revealed by the example of Houdini), is cushioned by lots
of fluid, so that it doesn’t get slammed against the skull while the snake is dining.
One of the most spectacular eaters is the Common African Egg Eater
(Dasypeltis scabra), which distends its mouth and jaws to an almost unbeliev-
able degree while engulfing his only food item—birds’ eggs. (There are five other
species of African egg eaters, who perform the same incredible feat.) To save itself
Snakebite! 69

discomfort later on, it checks the egg with its tongue first to make sure that it is
fresh. It takes about half an hour to get the thing down. Once swallowed, the thirty
some spines that jut into his belly from his backbone pierce the shell and break it.
The snake will later eject the intact shell with a single “burp.” The entire process
is worked out so neatly that not a single bit of eggshell is retained—and not a bit
of the nutritious contents of the egg is regurgitated. The Egg Eater gorges during
the egg-laying season and then fasts the rest of the year. These snakes have very
rudimentary teeth and are unable to eat anything except eggs.
Another eating skill is possessed by the members of the Dipsadidae clan, a
group of South American and Asian snakes who specialize in escargot. These
animals (whose Greek name literally means “thirst” snakes) carefully extract the
snail from the shell by biting down on the exposed part and thrusting their lower
jaw between the shell and the body of the victim. They then quickly retract the
lower jaw and allow the upper jaw to “rachet” the snail from the shell. It takes
between 2 and 3 minutes. In these snakes the lower jaw may be three times
long than the upper one. Another snail-eater, the North American Brown Snake
(Storeria dekayi) twists the prey right out of its snug little home.
As for hunting strategies, the myth has developed that snakes somehow “hypno-
tize” their prey into immobility. Actually, snakes do not rely on their considerable
charm to get dinner. They either sneak up on their victim, as many nocturnal
snakes do, or lie in wait and ambush them, the custom of most day hunters and big
slow snakes like pythons. The lither colubrids cover considerably more distance
in their hunt for food. Most prey animals, if they observe the snake, fly or hop
away. They do not wait around to be snatched and eaten. It is not in their best
interest. While it is true that some prey animals do seem to freeze before a snake
strikes, the likelihood is that they freeze as a survival tactic—as snakes work best
if they observe movement. It should also be said that snakes are clever enough to
adjust their hunting tactics when needed and move to new hunting grounds when
old ones prove unproductive.
In case you’re wondering, most snake hobbyists buy prekilled rodents for their
charges, although sometimes they kill their own. For this procedure, Lenny Flank,
Jr., a snake owner of many years’ experience, suggests in his Snakes: Their Care
and Keeping “placing the rodent in a plastic or cloth bag, grasping it by the top
and whirling it in a circle one or twice to build up some momentum, and then
bringing it down quickly and firmly on a table top.”
Because a snake’s skull is so flexible, it is also weak. You can’t have everything.
And so while some snakes (mostly colubers) simply grab and bite, other snakes
have to make up for the weakness of the jaws by alternate strategies. The most
notorious of these are constriction and poisoning. That’s up next.

THE POISONERS
The poisoners are a very elite group. Only about 10% of snakes worldwide are
venomous; about 200 are considered dangerous to people. However, that seems
70 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

a sufficient number, when you stop and think about it. While many people use
the term “poisonous” to describe a venomous snake, the more correct term is
“venomous.”
The word “venom” is derived from the Latin venenum, meaning a “magical
charm” as well as “poison.” These connections run very deep indeed. (The word
toxin comes from the Greek toxikon, a poison applied to arrows.) Venom is
defined as a particular kind of poison—animal rather than plant or mineral in origin
and typically administered by a bite or sting. Scorpions, spiders, lionfish, bees,
and some snakes are therefore said to be venomous. Tiny shrews are venomous
(with toxic saliva), and the platypus carries venom in its spurs. The slow loris, a
primate, secretes a toxin in the sebaceous tissues on the inside of its elbows, which
it applies to its teeth. It is generally considered that poison is a substance harmful
if ingested or inhaled. An animal which is merely poisonous, however, like some
fish, is harmful only if eaten. The secretion exuded by certain species of toads is
also considered a poison. The Hawksbill Turtle is a poisonous reptile—and eating
it can be lethal. But you can eat a rattlesnake, if that sort of thing appeals to you.
On the other hand, sixty-four people were hospitalized in Somaliland after they
devoured the meat of a camel which died of snakebite.
It has been estimated that venomous snakes bite at least 300,000 people every
year, but some estimates go as high as 5 million, with 4 million in Asia, 1 million
in Africa, and 350,000 in the Americas. Snakes kill more people in India and
Burma every year (both in absolute numbers and per capita) than any other place
on earth, but estimates of exactly how many vary widely—from 12,000 to more
than 50,000.
Not all venomous snakebites result in symptoms of envenomation, but as many
as 125,000 people die annually from snakebite. However, statistics are very hard to
come by, as many bites and even deaths go unreported. Many people, especially in
rural Asia and Africa, who are bitten do not receive competent medical aid. They
try to recover at home or seek the aid of a native healer. In Asia the chief culprits
are the Asian Cobra (Naja naja) and Russell’s Viper (Daboia russelii); in Africa
it is the Puff Adder (Bitis arietans). The high death rate is due partly to the highly
toxic nature of the venom, of course, but is also helped out by the comparative
lack of quick medical care and the habit of the residents to walk around shoeless
at night. How bad a venomous bite will be depends on many factors, including the
type and amount of venom delivered, the condition of the victim, and the site of
the bite.
Humans are generally bitten below the elbow or knee, areas not well supplied
with blood; they are thus likely to recover from bites—if they are treated promptly.
Very many, if not most, snakebites are termed “illegitimate,” meaning that the bitee
has been doing something to the snake he shouldn’t have, such as handling and
molesting the animal. The fact that most victims in the United States are young
males, bitten between the hand and the elbow, provides a clue as to how the bite
was obtained. In other words, they didn’t step on the snake. Other bites occur
when people do step on snakes, stick their hands into holes (as when retrieving
Snakebite! 71

golf balls), pick up “dead” or presumably “harmless” snakes, or turn over rocks
or logs just to see what’s underneath them.
Snakes don’t content themselves with biting mere mortals, however. They go
after the gods, too, as an Egyptian myth shows. Isis wished to dethrone the aging
sun god Ra by putting forward her own son Horus. She caught Ra asleep and
fashioned the drool leaking out of his mouth into a large venomous snake, and
breathed magic into it to make it come alive. She then left the snake on a path
Ra frequented, and sure enough, it worked. Ra was bitten by his saliva/snake and
cried aloud to the nine gods of the Ennead to help him. But the other gods were
powerless, and the poison began working its way through his system; Ra became
feverish and started to sweat. Isis then appeared and told him that she could help
him—in return for Ra’s disclosure of his true, secret name. This, in accordance
with ancient custom everywhere, would give her power over him. Ra agreed, and
Isis spoke, “Flow, poison, come out of Ra. Eye of Horus, come out of Ra, and
shine outside his mouth. It is I, Isis, who work, and I have made the poison fall on
the ground. Verily the name of the great god is taken from him, Ra shall live and
the poison shall die; if the poison live Ra shall die.”
Isis in turn revealed the secret name to her son Horus, and thus he gained
power over the old sun god. Ra later bitterly complained about being bitten by a
snake before he had even finished creating the world. Being a god is not as easy
as it seems. This may have been the impetus for Ra’s being so murderous to the
chthonic serpent Apophis, as we shall see, but it’s hard to say. These Egyptian
myths get terribly confused, and the Egyptians didn’t seem anxious to reconcile
them.
Ra later gave mankind a handy magical word to protect us from snakebite. That
word is hekau. The charm works best if written on papyrus or linen over a figure
of Temu (also known as Heru-hekenu) or Isis or Horus, then steeped in water and
drinking that water. In modern times, some Egyptians Muslims believe a verse
from the Quran will work even better.
Venomous snakes come in several varieties, and from the earliest times, nat-
uralists have attempted to categorize them. One such attempt was made by the
Englishman Edward Topsell (1572–1638) in his wonderful (and wonderfully illus-
trated) Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, Describing the True and Lively Figure
of Every Beast. “There are many kinds of asps,” he cautions:

One kind is the dry asp. This is the longest of all other kinds, and it has eyes
flaming like fire or burning coals. Another kind is called asilas, which does not
only kill by biting but also with spitting, which it sends forth while it sets its
teeth hard together and lifts up its head. Another kind is called hirundo, because
of the similitude to swallows, for on the back it is black and on the belly white,
like a swallow.

It’s pretty obvious he correctly identifies the Spitting Cobra, but what the dry
asp and hirundo are is anyone’s guess. He then adds a fourth kind of asp—the
72 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

hypnale: “It kills by sleeping, for the wound is given, the person falls into a deep
and sweet sleep wherein he dies.” He also suggests this is the very snake that
killed Cleopatra, of whom more later. Contemporary herpetologists hypothesize
the creature referred to was some sort of cobra, perhaps the Black Desert Snake,
both of which have potent neurotoxic venom. There is a Hump-Nosed Viper
(Hypnale hypnale) who also goes by this name; but it is unlikely this is the
animal Topsell meant. It is a biter though and attacks Sri Lankan farmers regularly
although usually without fatal results.
However, Topsell seems to be thoroughly mixed up about asps (vipers) and
cobras: “The asp is a small serpent like a land snake but yet of a broader back. The
neck of asps swells beyond measure, and if they hurt while in that passion there can
be no remedy.” (He seems to be referring to cobras here.) He also thought that the
asp was poor of sight but quick of hearing. It was also of a sluggish temperament.
All this, he claimed, prevents her from “many mischiefs and are evidence of the
gracious providence of Almighty God, who has given as many remedies against
evil as there are evils in the world.” His theology may be imperfect and illogical
(and makes one wonder why God wouldn’t just skip the snake part altogether or
make people immune from their venom), but it is charming nonetheless.
The most famous venomous snakes belong to one of three families: the Viperi-
dae (true vipers and pit vipers), the Elapidae (cobras, mambas, kraits, and taipans),
and Hydrophiidae (the sea snakes). There is also a class of venomous snakes called
Atractaspididae which includes Stiletto Snakes and Mole Vipers, but since they
live underground and hardly ever bite anybody, they are largely overlooked. It’s
too bad, in a way. They have their own special brand of venom that contains a
unique and potentially very dangerous cardiotoxin. Every species belonging to
the viper, elapid, hydrophiid, or atractaspidid family is venomous. Rear-fanged
venomous snakes are yet another group, but they colubrids, a large class that also
includes many harmless varieties.

VENOM: THE SPICE OF DEATH

We all know that some snakes produce venom, but precisely what is this terrible
concoction? What’s it made of, and how does it work? It’s not much to look at,
resembling viscid, watery orange juice. Some venoms are cloudy, others clear.
It also appears to be a pretty stable substance. Experiments confirmed that the
venom from a certain cobra that had been stuffed years previously was still potent
enough to still kill mice and presumably people, and it is well known that snake
venom can be powdered and kept for decades without noticeable change in its
composition. It is conjectured that most venomous snakes have a high, but not
complete, immunity to their own venom, although this is a point of controversy,
and probably differs between species.
Venom is probably secreted even before birth, since one-day-old rattlers have
a large amount of it. Rudyard Kipling wrote a story called “The King’s Ankus”
about a snake outliving its venom supply. In the story, which features a white
Snakebite! 73

cobra, Mowgli “caught the snake behind the hood, forced the mouth open with
the blade of the knife, and showed the terrible poison-fangs of the upper jaw lying
black and withered in the gum. The White Cobra had outlived his poison, as a
snake will.” Do not be misled. Snakes do not outlive their venom.
It was not always apparent, either, that venom was the cause of a snake’s
deleterious effect upon its victims. Moyse Charas (1619–1698), a French Jewish
chemist, in his Royal Pharmacopoea, Galenical and Chumical, According to the
Practice of the Most Eminent and Learned Physitians of France, suggested that
it was the beast’s “enraged spirits” that brought death. (He got into some trouble
with the Inquisition over the origins of venom and made a hasty conversion to
Catholicism just in time.) It is true that angry snakes probably deliver more venom
than calmer ones. And big snakes, logically enough, produce more venom than
small snakes. The actual amount of venom produced also seems temperature
dependent. Snakes living in temperate zones produce the most venom during the
warmer months and almost none during hibernation. Even in torrid zones, the
hotter it gets, the more venom seems to be produced.
It was once supposed, too, that vipers emitted cold and “irritated spirits” when
they bit their victims. In fact, the venom was so cold that it coagulated the blood.
This seems like an odd conclusion, not only because viper venom usually does
exactly the opposite but also because it is almost universally described as feel-
ing “hot” to the victims when first injected. It took the brilliant medical doctor
Francesco Redi (about 1670) to discover that the cause of death from venomous
snakes was venom, not spirits of any kind. He was unable to pinpoint the source of
the venom, however, and believed it came from the membrane covering the fangs
of vipers.
It is produced in glands located near where the upper and lower portions of
the jaw join. In fact, the structure of the venom glands differs slightly between
vipers and elapids. Elapid venom glands are divided into two parts: the rear main
gland and the anterior mucous gland, which has a secretory duct. The venom is
produced in the main gland, then stored in a saclike structure called the lumen.
Viper venom glands are divided into four parts: the main gland, an accessory
gland, a primary duct, and a secondary duct. Leave it to vipers to make things more
complicated.
Snake venom is the most complex of all poisons, containing some mightily
charged-up enzymes that play an important part in hemorrhaging, blood clotting,
and shock. Snake venom is not an alkaloid, as was first thought. It is a mixture of
enzymatic and nonenzymatic compounds, as well as other nontoxic proteins, car-
bohydrates, and metals. At least twenty-six different enzymes have been isolated
so far in snake venom, ten of which are shared by all venomous snakes. Some
of the most common are phospholipases A2, B, C, and D and hydrolases, phos-
phatases (both acid and alkaline), proteases, esterases, collagenase (in pit vipers),
acetylcholinesterase, transaminase, hyaluronidase, phosphodiesterase, nucleoti-
dase, ATPase, and nucleosidases. (These are all enzymes; you can spot an enzyme
every time because its chemical name ends in -ase.) The yellow color of venom is
74 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

due to the enzyme L-amino acid oxidase, whose other name is ophio-amino-acid
oxidase, to honor its snakey origin
Proteolysins, a hemotoxic ingredient found in vipers and pit vipers, spread the
venom by breaking down cell walls, destroying body tissues, and causing local
cell death. This can lead to necrosis and massive secondary infection. In fact, this
is one of the most common causes of death in snakebite patients. Hemorrhagins,
present in true viper, pit viper, and King Cobra venom, break open blood ves-
sels and cause internal bleeding. In other words, protoeolysins and hemorrhagins
serve to start digesting the meal before it is even killed. Thromboses (present in
vipers) have the opposite effect; they coagulate blood and foster clots. Hemolysins
(elapids, vipers, and pit vipers) destroy red blood cells. Cardiotoxins (elapids and
vipers) destroy the nerves and muscles of the heart. Cytolysins (vipers and pit
vipers) break down white blood cells. Hyaluronidase, contained in most snake
venoms, promotes rapid diffusion of venom. (In a more benign usage, this sub-
stance is employed in medicine to promote the better uptake of other drugs.) Some
South American Rattlesnakes (namely Crotalus durissus terrificus) have an ad-
ditional ingredient called convulsin that causes seizures. Quite a menu to choose
from.
Traditionally, snake venom has been divided into hemotoxic (acting primarily
on the blood) and neurotoxic (blocking transmission of nerve impulses). How-
ever, now we know that most venom contains both kinds in varying proportions,
although often one type predominates and masks the symptoms of the other.
Snakes with mostly hemotoxic venom include rattlesnakes, copperheads, and
cottonmouths. The Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) is one of the very
few pit vipers that have chosen to use primarily neurotoxic venom. This snake has
a limited range; otherwise it would certainly be credited with more bites and even
fatalities. Venom composition also appears to differ in type consistency between
land and sea snakes. It is hypothesized that since terrestrial snakes devour a diverse
array of prey, they need a wide range of toxins in their venom. Sea snakes however,
tend to feed only on fish or eels and tend to have a less diverse venom than do land
snakes. However, they have enough to do the job.
Hemotoxic venom may affect the clotting mechanism in blood; some kinds
of venom prevent clotting, while other types magnify the clotting mechanism.
Some have no effect on clotting at all. Anticoagulant and hemorrhagic venom
produces hemorrhaging all around the bite site. Envemonation also causes swelling
because the capillary permeability is increased, leading to blood leaking into the
extravascular space. This accumulation of fluid is responsible for edema. In some
cases the hemorrhaging is so severe that it compromises circulation and brings
on shock. The venom may also have neurotoxic effects leading to paralysis and
respiratory arrest, cardiotoxic action effecting cardiac arrest, as well as effects
on the kidneys. There are also necrotic agents that destroy tissues; victims who
survive may lose a limb because of the massive tissue damage. During the 24
hours following the bite, a whole arm or leg may turn black. The heart rate speeds
up and the victim may develop gastrointestinal bleeding. The bite of the South
Snakebite! 75

American Rattlesnake (Crotalus durissus terrificus) causes permanent blindness

in about 60% of its surviving victims. This is surely the most dangerous of all
rattlers due to both his large size and the amount of venom it produces.
Snakes with largely neurotoxic venom include cobras, mambas, sea snakes,
kraits, tropical and Mojave Rattlesnakes, and coral snakes. Neurotoxic venoms in-
terfere with or block the transmission of nerve impulses in the central or peripheral
nervous system, causing paralysis of skeletal muscles, including the diaphragmatic
muscle groups. These bites are less painful but just as deadly. The victim often
feels drunk or very tired. Other types may produce a general excitation of cardiac
muscles leading to cardiac arrhythmia, often leading to heart or lung failure. Cobra
bites can also result in tissue destruction.
In short, snakebite envemonation is not a pleasant experience. While symptoms
can differ markedly depending on the type of venom, what is described next is a
pretty normal sequence: The first reaction is usually terror, which has the added
benefit (for the snake) of enhancing the spread of poison throughout the system.
Fear also produces symptoms such as sweating, nausea, and vomiting which may
have nothing to with the actual snakebite. On the other hand, some venoms do
produce just these effects as well as others. Most snakebite fatalities occur 18
to 32 hours after envenomation. However, death can occur within an hour; on
the other hand, it may take several days. Cobra venom works the fastest, often
within 5 minutes. Viper venom takes a little longer, about 20 minutes, but in both
cases the first systemic symptoms may take hours to develop. Cobra venom is
fifteen–forty times more potent than tubocurarine (the stuff anesthesiologists use
to paralyze people undergoing anesthesia). And it does not help that some people
are actually allergic to snake venom and suffer anaphylaxis in addition to the
run-of-the-mill poisoning effects. These symptoms take effect within seconds of
the bite.
In viper bites, the victim experiences immediate and severe pain, while some
cobra bites are nearly painless. The area around the wound, especially in viper
bites, may grow painful, deadened, or just “creepy.” The world may look yellow
to the victim, probably because of liver damage. Lymphatic vessels are destroyed,
and the blood pools in the tissue spaces, causing exquisite pain. Blood may pour
continuously and profusely from the wound due to the anticoagulants in some ven-
oms. Hemotoxins, contained in many snake venoms, especially vipers’, seriously
disrupt the blood chemistry, with various types having various effects. And any
particular effect, such as hemorrhaging, can be caused by one or more mechanisms
in the various types of venom. Some kinds, such as that of the particularly nasty
Russell’s Viper (Daboia russelii), cause intravascular coagulation, followed by
kidney failure. Other sorts produce massive bleeding from multiple sites, includ-
ing the gums and urinary tract. Some victims develop a cerebral hemorrhage; this
can occur as late as a week after the actual bite.
As the heart races (up to twice its normal tempo) and circulation speeds up,
the venom circulates faster and faster. The heart may also be affected, with vic-
tims suffering tachycardia, dangerously low blood pressure, and similar ominous
76 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

changes in heart activity. About a quarter of the people bitten by vipers actually
have heart attacks.
Pain is usually immediate, followed by redness and tenderness within a few
minutes. Then the swelling begins, which increases the normal size of a limb many
times. A Puff Adder (Bitis areitans) bite can make the entire body swell. Along
with the swelling comes the blistering, which in some cases involves the whole
body. In most snakebite survivors, the swelling usually disappears within a week
or two, although in some cases it may last up to 3 months. In a few people, it never
goes away and the muscles may twitch continuously.
As necrosis sets in, tissue damage becomes apparent. Eastern Diamondbacks,
Cottonmouths, the African Puff Adders, and the Urutu Pit Vipers (genus Bothrops)
of South America are particularly known for the necrotizing effect of their venom.
In 2004 a forty-four-year-old Ohio woman named Alexandria Hall was killed
by her “pet” South American Urutu. She was illegally keeping it and ten other
venomous snakes in her home. She had some alligators running around loose as
well.
Cobra bites can be almost painless, unlike viper bites. Carl F. Kauffield, director
of the Staten Island Zoo from 1936 to 1973, reported after being bitten by a cobra,
“I was sinking into a state that could not be called unconsciousness, but one in
which I was no longer aware of what was going on about me. . . . I felt no anxiety;
I felt no pain; it did not even strike me as strange that the darkness was closing in
on the light. . . . I only felt a complete and utter lassitude in which nothing seemed
to matter.” In 2007, the Zoo named part of its exhibit the Karl Kauffield Wing in
his honor.
The victim’s tongue may feel numb or tingly, almost like after an electrical
shock. Elapid bites generally produce a wet, rapid onset of gangrene; vipers a
slower onset of “dry” gangrene. The gangrene may occur in a limb other than the
one bitten, an interesting if disconcerting phenomenon. Tetanus can also occur.
In cobra bites, the first symptoms are often drooping eyelids, followed by
weakness or paralysis in the muscles that control eye movement. Paralysis then
proceeds to the muscles controlling the jaw, tongue, larynx, and swallowing, not
always in that order. There may be repeated vomiting, blurred vision, dizziness,
and headache. Almost all species of venomous snake can cause renal failure. Chest
and diaphragm muscles are the last to succumb, but when they do, the victim stops
breathing. The victim’s reflexive ability remains until complete paralysis and coma
set in. This may come within 2 hours after the bite.
Sea snakes and some Australian species have a myotoxic venom, attacking
nerves and muscles, causing headache, thirst, chill, and progressive paralysis.
Venom researcher Bryan Fry was bitten on the finger by a Horned Sea Snake
(Acalyptophis peronii) and not only spent several anxious hours in the ER but also
suffered agonizing muscle pain for months afterwards.
Edward Topsell, in his bestiary previously mentioned, has his own description
of what it was like to be bitten, much of which indeed accords with the symptoms of
cobra envenomation: “After a man has been bitten by an asp, his eyes straightway
Snakebite! 77

grow dark and heavy, and a manifold pain arises all over his body, yet such as is
mixed with some sense of pleasure. His color is all changed and appears greenish
like grass. His face or forehead is bent continually with frowning, and his eyes
or eyelids move up and down in drowsiness without sense.” He also mentions the
stupor and “heaviness” that the afflicted feel.
It used to be thought that venom was a more recent (evolutionarily speaking)
invention than it turns out to be. The latest research, done by Bryan Fry, discov-
ered that snake venom developed only once in evolution, about 60 million years
ago, millions of years earlier than previously thought, and well before modern
“nonvenomous” snakes appeared. The basic criteria for a venomous bite, power-
ful enzymes, were already present. According to Fry’s Web site, Venomdoc.com,
“[t]he first venomous snakes evolved from the heavy-bodied swamp monsters
similar to the anacondas of today. These snakes traded in their heavy muscle for
speed and agility. Venom rather than muscle became the tool necessary for these
snakes to capture their prey.” He also remarks:

It has become recently evident that the evolution of the toxins in the advanced
snakes (Colubroidea) predated the evolution of the advanced, front-fanged deliv-
ery mechanisms . . . Isolation and characterisation by us of a potent postsynaptic
three finger (3FTx) neurotoxin (alpha-colubritoxin) from Coelognathus radia-
tus (radiated ratsnake), an archetypal “non-venomous” snake species, forced
a fundamental rethink of venom evolution. The toxin is homologous with the
3FTx previously thought unique to elapids and supports the role of venom as a
key evolutionary innovation in the diversification of advanced snakes. LC/MS
(liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry) was used by us to analyse a large
number of venoms from a wide array of species representing the major advanced
snake clades. The results demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected diversity of tox-
ins in all lineages, having implications ranging from clinical management of
envenomings to venom evolution to the use of isolated toxins as leads for drug
design and development.

Thus it turns out that some commonly kept “nonvenomous” snakes actually
possess venoms as complex as that of cobras, vipers, and taipans. They don’t have
as much, and they don’t have as efficient a delivery system, but it is present. It may
account for the numerous nasty wounds people receive even from “nonvenomous”
snakebites, which have previously been attributed to infection. (Pythons and boa
constrictors are completely devoid of venom, however, if that’s any comfort.)
During his research, Fry traveled the world, milking the venom from over 2,000
snakes a year for evidence. “It was extreme science, but I had a complete blast
doing it,” he says cheerfully. To each his own. Fry’s findings appeared in the
journals Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, The Journal of Molecular
Evolution, and Molecular Biology and Evolution.
While snake venom can be extremely powerful, its effects are just as often
overrated—as in the case of the “Asian Two-Step Viper,” which is said to be so
78 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

deadly that a person can take only two steps after being bitten before succumbing.
No snake kills a person that fast—unless the victim dies of a heart attack, in which
case the “Asian Two-Step Viper” could be any tiny, harmless variety of snake. In
cases such as these, fear is more deadly than fangs. Most experts identify the “Asian
Two-Step Viper,” which is always said to be small, as a Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis
sp.) or Snorkel Viper (Deinagkistrodon acutus). Both these snakes are also known
more moderately by locals as “Hundred Pacers” or “Fifty Pacers,” again referring
to the number of steps the victim can take before keeling over. And, in truth, these
are both small but dangerous snakes. Edward Topsell has his own version of a
Two-Step Viper, identified only as an “asp.” “So great is the effect of the poison
of asps that it is worthily accounted the greatest venom,” he writes somberly. “In
Alexandria, when they would put a man to sudden death, they would set an asp to
his bosom or breast, and then, after the wound or biting, bid the party walk up and
down, and so immediately within two or three turns, he would fall down dead.”
Still not everyone buys the idea that snake venom is such a big deal. Take the
case of thirty-year-old snake catcher Dijen Laishram from Manipur. His theory,
reported in the Calcutta Times (January 28, 2008), is that snake venom won’t kill
you if you just have enough faith it won’t. “When I was a child, my parents used
to say that I would die if bitten by insects. They told me not to touch them. But I
did not believe insects could kill us. So to prove that insects are harmless I started
catching them,” he said in an interview. It wasn’t long before he progressed to
snakes. “I tried keeping the snakes at home for my zoo, but I had to release them
because my parents would not allow me to keep them,” he complained. He also
enjoys guzzling snake venom. “Once I caught a cobra and ate its venom. I felt
sick for about one week, but nothing happened,” he said. This is probably what
would happen to anyone, however. The truth is that snake venom taken internally is
almost harmless, as the poet Roman Lucan, in his Pharsalia, recognized thousands
of years ago:

Mixt with the blood, the serpent’s poison kills.

The bite conveyes it; death lurks in the teeth.
Swallowed it works no harm.

In 2004, Laishram let a medium-sized cobra chomp down on his thumb, re-
porting, “The cobra did not leave my thumb for about eight minutes. I again fell
sick and recovered after taking some painkilling tablets. You will die if you think
you will. But nothing will happen if you believe that nothing will happen.” For
more on this ridiculous assumption, see Chapter 6.

THE DEADLIEST
Which snake is the deadliest? This is a question that requires so much hemming
and hawing that a true answer is not possible. Some snakes have run-of-the-mill
venom but inject so much of the stuff that their victims are in a great deal of
Snakebite! 79

danger. Some very deadly snakes are usually too lazy to attack human beings.
The Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica), for example, is not inclined to bite, but its
2-inch fangs can inject a lot of nasty venom very deep when it gets the urge; its
venom attacks the central nervous system as well as everything else. Gaboon Viper
victims usually die if untreated. The Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textile)
of Australia is regarded as two-and-a-half times more venomous than the Coastal
Taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus), but the latter may inject thirty times more venom,
making it much more dangerous.
Other snakes have highly potent venoms but are disinclined to bite or stay well
away from people. The venom of King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) is no worse
than that of any other cobra, but this huge snake injects a lot of poison. However,
it tends to be shy and unaggressive. Sea snakes are very venomous but not apt to
swim up to divers and bite them. The same is true of many Australian snakes who
are deadly but live in the outback where they encounter no one and are shy when
they do.
And the Russell’s Viper (Daboia russellii) is fond of civilization and hangs
around dwellings, killing more people than any other kind of snake, about 20,000
a year in India alone, mostly agricultural workers. The Black Mamba is highly
excitable and highly aggressive, a bad combination. So my vote goes to these
two—the Black Mamba and the Russell’s Viper—with a nod to the Gaboon Viper
for Miss Congeniality. Partisans of New World venomous snakes should take
heart, though. We have plenty of nasty snakes in this hemisphere as well. Most of
them have rattles attached.
For scientific purposes, the toxicity of any particular kind of venom is denoted
by a number called LD50. This is the “lethal dose” at which 50% of the experimen-
tal victims (usually mice) die within 24 hours. Obviously there’s a big difference
between mice and humans. A famous example is the venom of the Sydney Fun-
nelweb Spider (Atrax robustus); mouse tissue is about fifty times less responsive
to it than is human tissue. If we had only mice to go by, no one would worry about
this creature. Human beings, though, by some sort of evolutionary quirk, are very
sensitive to it and can die if not treated promptly.
Another factor to take into account when determining the LD50 is the route of
injection: subcutaneous, intramuscular, intravenous, or intraperitoneal. Different
venoms act in different ways, depending on how they are introduced. While the
pure lethality of any particular venom might be best discovered by injecting it
intravenously, that would be a lucky hit for a snake. Most snakebites are subcu-
taneous, with a few big vipers managing an intramuscular shot. Very few snakes
manage an intraperitoneal hit. In almost every case the subcutaneous route is
the least lethal and the intravenous one the most. However, the ratio of lethality
between the various routes of injection is not constant.
Besides, even a bite from the deadliest of snakes is not always fatal and can
sometimes produce no consequences at all. Sometimes the snake may deliver what
is known as a “dry bite,” in other words, without injecting any venom. The snake
may either decide to save its venom for a prospective dinner, or perhaps it is about
80 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

to shed its fangs. In that case the venom apparatus is connected to the emerging
fangs, not the soon-to-be-discarded ones. Dry bites occur with enough frequency
to ensure the success of many a folk remedy for snakebite.
Other factors come into play as well: the size of the snake, how deeply the bite
penetrates the body, the condition of the fangs, the amount of venom injected,
the number of strikes involved, where the bite occurs, and the victim’s size, age,
calmness, and overall health. The number of microorganisms in the snake’s mouth
is not an inconsiderable factor either, as infection alone can be quite serious.
Venomous snakes are sometimes categorized according to their fang arrange-
ment rather than their venom type. Among the earliest of truly venomous snakes
are the rear-fanged (opisthoglyph) serpents. These snakes have large fangs embed-
ded in the upper jawbone. In this dental arrangement, the venom comes into play
only after the prey is seized and somewhat under control, but the poison itself is
sufficiently potent to kill whatever needs to be killed. The rear-fanged snakes most
dangerous to people are Boomslangs (Dispholidus typus), Twig Snakes (Thelo-
tornis capensis), and Mangrove Snakes (Boiga dendrophila). Rear-fanged snakes
that may occur in the United States include the Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon bis-
cutatus), the Texas Cat-Eyed Snake (genus Boiga), and the Mexican Vine Snake
(Oxybelis aeneus). Their fangs have deep grooves along which runs the venom.
Only the rear-fanged venomous snakes have grooved rather than hollow teeth.
Other venomous snakes have hollow teeth.
Using a different and probably more advanced strategy, the so-called protero-
glyphs, including today’s cobras, kraits, and sea snakes, moved their fangs to the
front end of maxillary bones. They can stab as well as grab. Why not be ver-
satile? Instead of using venom just to subdue and digest, why not use it to kill
the prey before eating? So much safer and less trouble. These snakes then made
the grooves deeper and closed, so that they formed a syringe. However, there
is no clear demarcation between a regular tooth and a venom-delivering, poison
duct fang. All sorts of gradations occur, but elapid fangs tend to be small and
rigid.
The most “advanced” group (although not in every case the deadliest) is the
solenoglyphs, whose name means “moveable fangs.” This group includes true
vipers like the Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) and pit vipers like rattlesnakes and
Copperheads. These snakes have hollow fangs that are much longer than those
of their fellow poisoners, and they can hence inject poison very deeply into the
victim. They are also moveable and can click into place like switchblades. When
the snake’s mouth is politely closed, the fangs fold neatly back, sheathed in a
protective tissue. When the snake opens its mouth to strike, the fangs automatically
click into striking position. These fangs can actually extend out 180 degrees, so
that the victim may sometimes truly be said to have been stabbed rather than
bitten. It appears that vipers can use either a biting or a stabbing motion as it suits
them. When the snake strikes, its jaw muscles squeeze out the venom into ducts
that lead to the base of the fangs; the operation is very much like a hypodermic
syringe.
Snakebite! 81

Like all snake teeth, these fangs are completely replaceable. It is estimated
that they last 6–10 weeks before they are replaced. The superannuated fangs are
apparently simply swallowed, as they turn up occasionally in serpent tummies.
Pliny and other ancient commentators declared that snake fangs are barbed like
bee stingers and are lost during a bite. This is not generally true, although it
can happen sometimes. Viper bites produce painful swelling and discoloration at
the site of injury; these bites can be agonizing from the instant they occur. The
swelling and darkening of the skin is usually due to hemorrhaging of the blood
vessels and may become very large.
The survival value of venom is inestimable. A venomous 4-foot rattlesnake,
for instance, can subdue and eat a much larger prey than a Black Snake of the
same length. It has the additional value of terrifying or even killing would-be
attackers. Indeed, some of the world’s most wide-ranging snakes, such as Asian
and Egyptian cobras (Naja naja and Naja haje), sea snakes, European Vipers, the
Puff Adder, and the tropical rattlesnakes are venomous.
In the United States between 7,000 and 8,000 people are bitten every year
by venomous snakes, but only about fifteen of those bites prove fatal. Most of
the “victims” are people who are playing one of a number of “stupid snake
tricks”: picking them up, petting them, and otherwise harassing them. The usual
perpetrators are Copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) and rattlesnakes, but even
the tiny Coral Snake nabs about twenty-five people a year in this country. (There
are other species of Coral Snakes that are more dangerous.) Most Coral Snake
bites are due to rough or careless handling. Unmolested, Coral Snakes are of a
mild disposition. More than 50% of all reported snakebites in the United States are
due to people trying to capture a wild snake or from “accidents” while handling
a captive one. In the United States more people are killed by lightning than by
snakebite. (The Navajo people warned that if a person killed a snake, it shouldn’t
be left in the open—because if lightning struck it, it would be brought back to
life.) However, in rural India, you’re better off in a thunderstorm. More snakes
bite than lightning strikes. Between 2,000 and 5,000 people every year die from
snakebite in Latin America, the chief culprits being tropical Coral Snakes and the
Fer-de-lance.
Australia is loaded with snakes, especially poisonous ones. In fact, it is the
only country on the planet in which venomous varieties outnumber their harm-
less counterparts. All Australia’s venomous snakes belong to the elapid family,
however, and the country is viper free, for what that is worth, which is not much.
However, because the most poisonous varieties generally live far from people, and
because Australia is very up to date on antivenin, only five to ten people die from
snakebites every year. As is the case worldwide, many of Australia’s snakes are
threatened, particularly those who rely on ambush techniques to get dinner. These
snakes need heavy leaf litter or brush to hide in, and this is being systemically de-
stroyed by the onslaught of civilization. They seem less able to adapt to changing
terrain conditions than snakes who hunt more actively. Another group of snakes in
danger are those species that have a male–male mating combat. In these species,
82 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

females tend to be larger and more impressive. This makes females more likely to
be both killed and seized for collections. Indeed, it has been found that museum
collections of the threatened snake species have about 15% more females than
males.
In Europe, about 1,000 people are bitten every year, usually by the European
Viper (Vipera berus), but few if any deaths result. There are also a few bites from
the Sand Viper (Vipera ammodytes), and these are more likely to prove fatal, as it
has the strongest venom of all European vipers. Luckily for most Europeans, the
Sand Viper only lives in the southeastern corner of the continent. It is also rather
lethargic. Unlike the European Viper, it does well in captivity, and its venom is
milked and made into an antivenin for bites of the European Viper.
In Africa, at least 1,000 people die every year from snakebite, and some put the
number much higher, up to 20,000. The most likely culprits are cobras, mambas,
and vipers (Puff Adders and Saw-Scaled Vipers). Agricultural workers make up
85% of the victims, especially in plantations; a recent study in the Ivory Coast has
shown that snakebites are five to ten times more frequent in the banana plantations
than in the surrounding bush.
In Asia thousands of people annually suffer fatal bites from the Russell’s Viper
(Daboia russellii), which hangs out around dwellings and is fiercely aggressive.
Its venom is both neurotoxic and hemotoxic. Cobras also take a toll on human lives
but not as many as you might think. All over the world, children, particularly boys,
are the most common victims, just as they are the ones most likely to be bitten
by dogs and for the same reason: they were pestering the animal or recklessly
exploring the areas where snakes are known to live.
People have spent a great deal of effort trying to devise quick and preferably
distance-based methods of distinguishing venomous from nonvenomous snakes.
None of them are foolproof. Even the memory-aiding jingle “Red touch yellow /
Kill a fellow / Red touch black / Venom lack” only works to distinguish U.S.-
style Coral Snakes (Micrurus fulvius) from King Snakes. King Snakes will eat
rattlers and Coral Snakes when they can get them and are pretty much immune to
their venom. Rattlesnakes seem to recognize this fact and instead of trying to bite
their attackers, actually sort of throw their bodies at them in coils in an attempt
to defend themselves. Besides, by the time you’ve managed to remember it and
check it against the subject, the snake will have probably escaped or bitten you.
Another myth concedes that while the bite of a King Snake won’t kill you, it will
make you sick. Not so—as they have no true venom.
Other methods of attempting to identify venomous snakes by some simple
formula don’t work at all. It is widely believed, for instance, that venomous snakes
have heavy, triangular heads and nonvenomous snakes don’t. (Chinese folklore
says that snakes with triangular heads are female, an obvious connection with the
delta of Venus.) While it is true that many vipers do have big heads (the better
to hold the poison sacs), other extremely venomous snakes like cobras and kraits
do not have particularly scary heads. And the harmless Hognose Snakes (genus
Heterodon) do. It is true that on the average vipers tend to have much smaller,
Snakebite! 83

narrower tails than some other kinds of snakes. However, “on the average” is not
good enough odds to stake one’s life. There is a myth that poisonous snakes have
a red tongue and harmless ones a black tongue; the harmless Garter Snake (genus
Thamnophis) has a red and black tongue.
It is sometimes said that you can tell a venomous snake from a nonvenomous one
simply by observing the way it lies: harmless snakes lie straight, and venomous
ones lie coiled up. While venomous snakes do tend to lie coiled more than do
nonvenomous ones, it’s important to know that any snake can lie coiled or straight.
They strike by suddenly straightening out the fore portion of their bodies from
the typical S curve and do not need to be coiled to do so, although many seem to
prefer that stance. The speed of a snake strike has been clocked at about 22 miles
per hour. That may not seem very fast, but it gets the job done. As the late Steve
Irwin once reportedly said, “You know, you can touch a stick of dynamite, but if
you touch a venomous snake it’ll turn around and bite you and kill you so fast it’s
not even funny.”
Some people maintain that pupil shape is an indicator of venom capacity:
narrow, catlike pupils belong to poisonous snakes and round ones to harmless
snakes. Actually the shape of the pupil merely indicates nocturnal or diurnal
feeding habits, not venom. Deadly snakes have both kinds of pupils. Besides, who
wants to get close enough to look a snake in the eye?
The appearance of hoods (or lack of them) is not surefire, either. While cobras
have a noticeable hood, so does the Hognose Snake (Heterodon platyrhinos). And
the Hognose Snake itself is nothing to sneer at. Although it is extremely unlikely
to bite (most bites being induced by the handler for experimental purposes) it can
make a nasty wound and is close to being truly venomous. It is sometimes called
a “puff adder” or “blowing adder” and is rumored to have a poisonous breath
that can kill someone 20 feet away. However, hognose snakes are not dangerously
venomous, and they don’t blow on people. It does have enlarged rear fangs and
a saliva that is paralytic and toad toxic; however, this saliva is only “mildly”
toxic to people. The rear fangs are reminiscent of those of venomous rear-fanged
snakes and even have traces of grooves, which allow for the flowing of venom.
They actually prefer to eat frogs and noxious toads, one of the few animals who
will regularly dine upon these critters. It appears to be immune to the noxious
chemicals that toads exude from their skins. It is not true, by the way, that the
Hognose Snake uses its fangs to “pop” toads that have swollen up in self-defense.
Snakes who have been made to regurgitate their toady meals have vomited up
unpunctured toads. Some authorities guess that the rear fangs enable the snake to
handle large, squirmy amphibians with ease, although they have to partly swallow
them before they can poison them.
These snakes will, however, hiss and swell up when threatened, creating a cobra-
like hood. They also roll over and play dead, mouths open, tongues dragging on
the ground, when attacked. They do have a lovely upturned snout that gives them
their name and enables them to dig up toads. But they almost never bite. While
these snakes are rather popular as pets, the fact that many of them will eat nothing
84 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

but toads poses a problem for their keepers, as toads are not particularly easy to
come by.
The degree of hoodedness can also vary among venomous snakes. The Indian
Cobra (Naja naja) and Cape Cobra (Naja nivea) have wide dramatic hoods, but
that of the Egyptian Cobra (Naja hage) is much narrower and less impressive. And
plenty of very deadly snakes, including all the vipers, are hoodless.
Even location is not a perfect guide. While you might think you are safe from
cobras and the like in an American city, guess again. People are forever dumping
their illegal pets in city parks. A herpetologist told me that he’d seen everything
in the Washington, D.C., Rock Creek Park—krait, cobra, you name it, all released
by their malicious or stupid owners. In 2007, for instance, a fifteen-month-old boy
was rushed to the hospital after being bitten by a ball python in a public park in
Charlotte, North Carolina. Why a ball python was in the park in the first place is
unclear.
Venomous snakes have two basic ways of administering their lethal cocktail,
depending upon the kind of prey involved. If the prey is pretty defenseless, such
as a bird or small lizard, the general tactic is to bite and hang on until the animal is
dead or at least unconscious. However, worthier opponents like big rodents (with
big teeth) are often bitten and released. This gives the snake time to back away
and wait for the victim to weaken. If the victim manages to remove itself some
distance from the site of the attack, the snake can track it by its scent until its
corpse is recovered.
One group of African snakes, the spitting cobras, has a safer way of adminis-
tering poison, at least safer for them. They simply spit in their victim’s eyes. This
saves them the trouble and danger of being bitten or stepped on. However, this spit-
ting is defensive only. When a spitting cobra is after dinner, it bites like any other
cobra. (The Omaha people tell of a rattlesnake that can spit poison for over 100
feet, but this is of course mythical. Rattlesnakes are unable to spit venom at all.)

SNAKEBITE REMEDIES
Treating snakebite is a subject as myth ridden as snakes themselves. Proposed
methods have included folksy remedies like killing a chicken, cutting it open, and
laying the carcass across the open wound—with the chicken corpse supposed to
“draw out” the poison. Some maintained the chicken should be black. When the
chicken turned green (or its feathers fell out) you knew it worked. Sometimes
more than one chicken might be needed.
In other instances the skin of a newly killed black cat or skunk or a poultice
of melted cheese applied to the wound would work. Powdered crawfish, mud,
vinegar, turpentine, olive oil, iodine, potassium permanganate, indigo, salt, hog
lard, eggs, turkey buzzard crops, lemon juice mixed with tamarind and drunk from
a rhino’s horn, and freshly chewed tobacco (or various combinations thereof) have
all had their supporters. In the 1700s a black slave named Caesar developed a cure,
for which he won his freedom, based on plantain roots, horehound, and a tobacco
Snakebite! 85

leaf moistened with rum. A more recent idea is applying an electric shock to the
bite site.
Another popular treatment was giving the victim lots of whiskey to drink.
This had the dual effect of relieving his suffering and killing him quicker, as the
whiskey speeds up the blood flow. W.C. Fields once suggested, “Always carry
a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small
snake.” In folklore, however, it was said that no matter how much whiskey was
drunk by a snakebite victim, he would not become intoxicated until the alcohol had
“neutralized” the venom. One early writer, a medical doctor, suggested 1/2 pint of
bourbon every 5 minutes. Teetotalers suggested drinking milk might be beneficial,
perhaps drawing on that old snake–milk connection. If that didn’t work, a milk
poultice might help or drinking snakeweed boiled in milk. In regard to the last, the
Puritan minister Francis Higginson (1588–1630) wrote in his 1929 New-Englands
Plantatation:

Yea there are some Serpents called Rattle Snakes that have Rattles in their
Tayles, that will not flye from a man as others will, but will flye upon him and
sting him so morally that hee will dye within a quarter of an houre after, except
the parte stinged have about him some of the roots of an Herbe called Snakeweed
to bite on, and then he shall receive no harm.

Ammonia was a popular cure for a while, well into the 1980s, in fact. So were
“mummy” substances extracted first from Egyptian mummies and then from any
dead body. Ground-up mummy was also considered to be excellent for coughs,
ulcers, epilepsy, and indeed any kind of poison. King Francis I of France was said
to carry around ground-up mummy in a pouch around his waist at all times, just
in case.
Mummy not being readily available to the masses, other remedies were tried.
You might also mash up an onion or a bit of garlic and rub it on the bite. If you
have the opportunity, you can drink the blood of the offending snake or see if you
can get a toad to urinate on the wound. If toad pee is in short supply, just stick
the bitten body part in a bucket of kerosene. (Kerosene was a popular remedy for
all sorts of things.) English clergyman and naturalist Gilbert White (1720–1793)
offered his own remedy for snakebite, “common salad oil.” However, he gave no
particulars as to its use.
Then there is “snakestone,” a “mineral” of magical properties, which when held
to the wound will self-adhere and drain all the poison out of the wound. Although
always called a stone, it is sometimes a bit of animal (usually cattle) bone. In other
cases, the snakestone was said to have formed in the heads of certain snakes. An
alternate tactic was to immerse the bitten part into hot water or sour milk and
then throw in the stone, which would remove all poison from the wound. The
Chinese have their own variety of snakestones but used them to cure children’s
convulsions. According to the legend, certain snakes before hibernation swallow
some yellow earth and then cast it out again in the spring. While the outside of the
86 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

earthen ball remains yellow, the interior is black. If the stone was picked up during
the second phase of the moon and made into an infusion, it would be curative.
One of my favorite recipes is provided by Edward Topsell in his Histories of
Beasts. First, he says, it is necessary “that the wounded part be cut off by some
skilful surgeon, or else that the flesh round about the wound, with the wound itself,
be circumcised and cut with a sharp razor. Then let the hottest things be applied,
even the searing iron, to the very bone. Also, before the ejection, the wound must
be drawn with a cupping glass or a reed or with the naked rump of a ringdove or
cock.” “I mean,” he insists firmly, “that the very hole of the bird . . . must be set
upon the bitten place.” After giving a few more directions in the same vein, he
suggests applying a plaster of “century [centaury], myrrh, and opium or sorrel.”
(Curiously, the Nisenan tribe of California believed that the wood dove is the niece
of Rattlesnake and that if you harm a dove, a rattlesnake will bite you.)
The Romanians have their own cure for snakebite. First you have to kill a snake
with a hazelnut stick. Keep the stick around for future emergencies. If someone is
bitten, soak the stick in water, and then pour the water on the bite. Then chant this
prayer: “Skin to one / Bone to flesh / The flesh has been bitten / Bitten by a snake.
/ God send the cure. / Holy mother, overshadow him.”
The Comanche tried poultices of such plants as snakeroot, alder bark, and
peyote, as well as applying a piece of the biting snake to the snakebite. This didn’t
work either. One recipe from India calls for a “curry porridge” to be given to the
victim (presumably as a dietary item, not a poultice) if one has been “stung by a
snake.” The lack of information about how snake venom is delivered suggests the
proposed remedy is also worthless. For the Maidu Indians, the best chance for a
bitten person was to go into seclusion for a month with another person who had
been bitten and survived. During this time, his helper must feed him, and he is
subject to various taboos. The notion that those bitten must follow a strict diet, at
least for a while, is a common one.
The Atharva-Veda (Book 6, Spell 13), a sacred text of Hinduism, also provides
a powerful cure for snake envenomation:

With mighty charms do I dissolve thy poison . . . As a brook in the desert thy
poison has dried up . . . With my eye do I slay thy eye, with poison do I slay
thy poison. O serpent, die, do not live; back upon thee shall thy poison turn!
O kairâta, speckled one, upatrinya [grass-dweller], brown one, listen to me; ye
black repulsive reptiles, listen to me! Do not stand upon the ground of my friend;
cease with your poison . . . I release [thee] from the fury of the black serpent, the
taimâta, the brown serpent, the poison that is not fluid, the all-conquering, as the
bowstring is loosened from the bow. . . . The prickly porcupine, tripping down
from the mountain, did declare this: “Whatsoever serpents, living in ditches, are
here, their poison is most deficient in force.”

Science later came to the rescue of folk remedies by telling people to open the
wound further with a razor blade and suck out the venom, applying a tourniquet if
Snakebite! 87

possible. This method doesn’t have any more real value than toad pee, however,
and is probably more dangerous, as people trying to open a wound have sometimes
managed to open an artery or cut a tendon instead. Even a small cut can prove
dangerous, as many snake venoms have strong anticoagulant properties, and the
sufferer could end up bleeding to death. And of course, any snakebite may lead
to a serious infection. As far as the technique of sucking out the venom goes, it
doesn’t work, even if it is safe for both parties. One bit of folklore from Illinois
maintains that sucking on the wound through a silk handkerchief makes the venom
safe. However, silk handkerchiefs are not as easy to come by as they once were,
perhaps.
Another technique sometimes used was cauterization by using black powder,
branding irons, silver nitrate, nitric acid, potassium hydrate, and carbolic acid.
None of these are of any use, and most do more harm than good. Tourniquets and
constriction bands are somewhat effective if (and this is a big if) used correctly.
Otherwise, they too can be useless or positively dangerous. The “pressure bandage”
is popular in Australia, but not particularly so in the rest of the New World.
I recently attended a seminar on rattlesnakes, hosted by Timber Rattlesnake
expert W.H. “Marty” Martin. When someone in the audience asked what to do if
bitten by a rattlesnake, he replied, “Get to the hospital.” But what if there were no
hospital nearby, the questioner wondered. A short pause. “Well, get to the hospital
as soon as you can,” he suggested.
The only real cure for snakebite is antivenin, although binding the wound tightly
with a crepe bandage may slow venom transport in the lymph. The victim should
lie flat and move as little as possible. Snakebite victims who are not given antivenin
spend, on average, twice as much time in the hospital as treated victims. There are
two basic types of antivenin: monovalent (species specific) and polyvalent (which
provides protection against several species). Each species of snake has its own
ideal antivenin, but as a practical matter, venoms from different local species are
used to create a polyvalent antivenin, supposedly good for several kinds of snake
venom. In many cases, after all, people have no idea what kind of snake bit them.
The first antivenin was produced in 1895 at the Pasteur Institute in Paris to
counteract cobra venom. The idea caught on, and antivenin was soon being made
against various venomous snakes all over the world. Antivenin is created by
“milking” the snake of its venom. This is done by pressing the snake’s head down
and forcing the fangs to bite through a membrane that covers a glass container.
Extremely dangerous snakes may sometimes be chilled or anesthetized before
handling. Milking a snake will usually yield a good deal of venom; more can
be collected by gently squeezing the venom glands. However, this procedure is a
good deal easier when dealing with long-fanged snakes like vipers. Short-fanged
and rear-fanged snakes are more difficult to deal with. In a few cases, it may
be necessary to dissect out the venom gland and extract the venom with saline
solution. Very large snakes can produce about 5 cubic centimeters of venom.
Elapids don’t generally produce as much as vipers, and their venom tends to be
lighter in color.
88 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

When a sufficient amount has been collected, it is purified and injected in tiny
amounts (between one-tenth and one-hundredth of a lethal dose) into a test animal,
usually a horse. The horse makes antibodies against the venom as it becomes more
and more resistant to it. This process takes about 3 months. When the horse has
developed enough antibodies to protect itself against a lethal dose, some blood is
withdrawn from his veins. The blood serum is purified and labeled “antivenin.”
Antivenin works by activating the immune response in the body, similar to the
way a vaccination works. Here the offending toxin is actually “wrapped up” in a
layer of antibodies called into action by the injection of the proper antivenin.
Here in the United States, crotalus antivenin is used for most rattlesnake bites,
while in India, a polyvalent vaccine that works against the Asian Cobra and
Russell’s Viper is available. While antivenin is undoubtedly effective, it is also ex-
pensive. The last time I checked it was $349.50 per 10-milliliter vial; many victims
require twenty vials. It is also dangerous, with some people being dangerously
allergic to horse serum antivenin, which triggers a severe immunological reaction,
called serum sickness, in up to 75% of recipients. Common symptoms include
fever, rashes, nausea, and muscle weakness. Some people are affected with in-
flammation of the nerves or even permanent muscle atrophy. Very rarely, patients
can suffer anaphylactic shock. Antivenins made from chicken egg yolks or sheep’s
blood are under development and seem to be more promising. Some researchers
are also working with camel and llama blood. Camel serum seems to cause fewer
allergies than horse serum and is also more stable in a hot environment.
Very recently, a new snakebite antivenin has been developed. What is mirac-
ulous about this preparation is that it contains no snake venom at all. Simon
Wagstaff and his colleagues at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the
United Kingdom took the DNA of the Carpet Viper (genus Echis) and looked for
the genes that are active when the snake is refilling its venom sacs. A dozen of
these genes code for metalloprotease, which causes hemorrhaging by destroying
blood vessels. From these genes the researchers created a “consensus” sequence
that resembles as closely as possible all the different genes. This new antivenin
works better than the traditional stuff, even when it is unclear exactly what species
of snake has bitten the victim.
Currently no actual vaccination against snakebite exists. There are several
reasons: the rarity of the occurrence makes it totally unnecessary for most people;
the fact that many regions of the world sport many different flavors of snake (and
presumably a separate vaccine needed for many of them); the speed at which
snake venom goes to work would necessitate a high level of antibodies in the
victim; and so on. So far, a few experiments, notably against the Habu Viper
(genus Trimeresurus), have proved inconclusive even as to their effectiveness.
The researchers rather unbelievably got over 34,000 people willing to be injected
with Habu Venom.
It should not be assumed that all hospitals are on a par when it comes to
treating snakebite, either, especially when the bite is from an exotic species.
Micah Stancil, a herpetologist, was bitten on his thumb by his African Sedge
Snakebite! 89

Viper (Atheris nitschei). He raced to the hospital with all the pertinent information
about the snake: its common and scientific names, photographs of the species, and
who to contact in case of envenomation. The physician was uninterested in any of
the information, although he thought the snake was “pretty.” He simply hooked
the victim up to an EKG and blood pressure monitors. As Stancil’s condition
worsened, the doctor suggested that some antivenin might do the trick. Stancil
hastened to assure him that no antivenin existed for this species and that using
rattlesnake antivenin wouldn’t work. “Yes, it will,” the doctor asserted. “It works
for all snakebites.” Then he thought he might as well suck the poison out of the
wound—an outmoded “treatment” that never worked very well in the first place.
(Even if it did it was far too late for this kind of intervention—as the venom had
spread through the body.) Stancil was given the antivenin anyway, and he continued
to get sicker. He started to hemorrhage but eventually managed to escape with his
life—not much thanks to his “treatment,” for which he was billed $25,000.
Snake venom does have valid medical uses, however. From ancient times it was
extracted and mixed up with other stuff to make a “treacle.” Puritan clergyman
Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) wrote, in an interpretation from the book of Acts, “We
kill the viper and make treacle of him.”
Today, cobra venom is used to make the painkiller drugs cobroxin and nyloxin.
Many beta blockers, designed to fight high blood pressure, were developed from
the venoms of the Malayan Pit Viper (genus Calloselasma) and King Cobra. Some
kinds of snake venom are also used as coagulants for people with hemophilia. Saw-
scaled Viper (Echis carinatus) venom produces group I prothrombin activators
such as ecarin, which can be used to analyze blood from patients with liver
diseases. Its venom is also the active ingredient in Aggrastat, an anticlotting
drug. Water Moccasin venom is the basis for protac, a drug that treats vascular
thrombosis. The Terciopelo (genus Bothrops) is the source of propanolol, a drug
used to combat memory loss. The Central American Pit Viper Bothrops moojeni
produces a serine protease, batroxobin, that can form clots even in the presence of
heparin, which allows a patient’s plasma to be monitored for levels of fibrinogen
even while undergoing heparin therapy. (Venom is also used in homeopathic
remedies. Rattlesnake venom, for instance, is said to cure alcoholism, meningitis,
some kinds of deafness, laryngitis, gangrene, cholera, asthma, yellow fever, plague,
epilepsy, and rabies. It probably works against rabies about as well as anything else
does.)
However, “medical grade” venom has a more sinister use. In 2007 five harness
track workers at the Saratoga Gaming and Raceway were charged in a plot to
fix harness races by doping horses with snake venom and other performance-
enhancing drugs. A monthlong investigations revealed that pacers and trotters
were pumped full of painkilling cobra toxin, which is imperceptible to monitors,
along with Epogen, a drug used to treat anemia.
People have also sought to protect themselves from snakebite in the first place,
under the motto that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Various
stories claim that you can protect yourself from snakes by encircling yourself with
90 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

a hemp or horsehair rope, onions, garlic, lead beads, snake bones, old shoes, soil
from snakeless Ireland, a line of burned gunpowder, or a chalkline. All these are
supposed to act as foolproof barriers against our legless friends. One interesting
variation suggests that the rope should be colored black and white like a King
Snake to ward off rattlers.
However, snakes never learned these folktales and can move over hemp, chalk,
and horsehair quite agilely. (It is equally a myth that if you decide to shoot a
rattlesnake, it will conveniently line up his head with the barrel of the gun.) The
Moroccans had two antisnake charms. In one, it was sufficient to say, “I am
protected from you by God and religious law.” In case that didn’t work, it was
suggested that people plagued by snakes on their property could burn a goat’s horn
beneath the rafters: that would drive them away. St. Patrick, by the way, wasn’t the
only one who could drive snakes from an island. According to a story related by
Aelian, the Greek beauty Helen was exiled onto the island of Pharos to keep her
out of trouble, while her husband Menelaus was out exploring. She had a quantity
of herbs with her (alas, we know not what kind) and planted them. They quickly
bloomed over the entire island, and the snakes fled away in disgust. She may be
regarded as an early version of St. Patrick.
Some old sources suggested that people venturing into snake country should
carry the heart of a vulture with them, or wrap themselves up in the leaves of an
ash tree. Neither of these is tremendously practical, and many people prefer to
take their chances. Some people of the Kaibab American Indians tied lovage to
their horses’ hooves in the belief this would ward off snakebite. The Atsugewi
used angelica root on their legs, and women attached turtleheads to their skirts.
The Muskito people of Central America believed that chewing guaco leaves would
prevent snakebite. Tobacco was popular among many tribes. The Greek physician
Dioscorides recommended viper’s bugloss.
According to a story told by Aelian and repeated by Pliny, there is yet another
way to kill off a snake—using your own spit, which, wouldn’t you know, is
poisonous to serpents. All you need to do is catch a viper, open its mouth and then
expectorate down its gullet. Pretty soon the snake will not only die, but also rot
away forthwith. A similar story from New Mexico maintains that if you are bitten,
just grab the snake by the head and tail and bite back right in the middle of its
body. That will kill the snake and cure your snakebite at the same time. Nothing
like multitasking. Several traditions maintain that the only way to preserve your
own life after have been bitten by a snake is to kill the offending animal to stop
the poison from spreading. In a modern day Texan legend, if you are bitten by a
venomous snake you won’t suffer any ill effects if you just bite off the head of the
offending animal.
It’s only fair to say that snakes, or at least parts of snakes, are said to ward off
other evils. According to Albanian folklore, for example, a snakehead is just the
thing to protect oneself against witchcraft. Kill a snake and cut off its head with
silver. (Using the edge of a silver coin works well for this purpose.) Then dry the
head carefully, and wrap it up along with a silver medal of St. George. (You could
Snakebite! 91

even use this medal to do the head cutting if you want.) Have the medal blessed
by a priest, and you’re all set against witchcraft.
The Genesis snake reappears in the biblical book of Numbers, this time as
an antisnakebite remedy. The book records how the wandering Israelites kept
complaining about their miserable desert diet. God decided to teach them a lesson
(Numbers 21:6) by sending forth venomous snakes (or “fiery serpents”) among
them. Then it was thrust upon to Moses to cure his bitten tribesmen. After siccing
the snakes on the people, God agreed to help cure them by teaching Moses how to
create a Nehushtan, a sacred bronze snake carried on a pole. According to 2 Kings
the pole was destroyed by Hezekiah, again with God’s approval. The biblical god’s
wishes are sometimes rather hard to discern. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ
himself is compared to this same serpent: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, in order that everyone who has
faith in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15). The snake’s connection between
mortal life and eternal life is complete.
In Africa, it was a custom of the Zulu people to make a cut in their hand and rub
in a little snake venom to inoculate themselves against a surprise serpent attack. It
is believed snakes will not attack anyone so prepared. However, there’s downside
to the procedure. If the shadow of a protected man crosses the path of a person
not so treated, the latter will die. Such shenanigans are not limited to Zulus. In
September 2001, thirty-three-year-old Tim Friede set up a video camera in his
basement and allowed two cobras to bite his arm. He was checking to see if his
yearlong venom injection project would protect him from snakebite. He spent the
next several hours paralyzed and unable to talk to his doctors, who administered
sufficient antivenin to counteract the effects of the bites, admittedly less than would
ordinarily be needed. He was able to return home 2 days later. His supportive wife,
Beth, announced to newspaper reporters, “I am so confident in what he’s doing. I
know it would kill him inside if I told him he had to stop.” He was almost killed
on the inside and the outside anyway.
In Mexico, certain people “inoculated” themselves with snake venom by prick-
ing themselves in the arm or even tongue with the fang of the snake. Supposedly
this not only immunized them but also gave them power over the snakes to make
the snakes do their bidding.
There is evidence to suggest that venom inoculation or indeed being bitten
repeatedly by snakes confers some sort of immunity against that particular species,
at least temporarily. It’s not something necessary or advisable for the general
public, however.
The ancient Indians hit upon the always-popular plan of trying to bribe the
snake with gifts. In the Shamkhayana Grihya-Sutra, for instance, worshippers are
directed to honor the sacred snake Takshaka Vaishaleya by giving him water to
wash with, combs for his nonexistent hair, clothes, and even some glamorous eye
makeup. Apparently, however, the writer of the work is not confident enough of
the value of his offerings to assure the worshipper they will be fully protective
against snakebite. He also advises the reader to climb up to the highest bed possible
92 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

before going to sleep. Beds aren’t as snake-proof as they might be, however. In
1991 a Pennsylvania couple was said to have sued a manufacturer for $20,000
after declaring that they kept feeling strange movements in their bed. They tried
changing mattresses, but they kept feeling the same weird motions. After taking
the second mattress to a lab, they claimed the remains of a 26-inch Eastern Ribbon
Snake (Thamnophis sauritis) were found. It is not explained how a ribbon snake
took up a 4-month residence in their bed, even exchanging one mattress for
another. The matter is even more curious when one considers that Ribbon Snakes
are generally considered semiaquatic.
More recently, science has taken on the snake repellent problem. Back in 1949
a researcher named M. Flattery tried out chlorine gas, coal gas, cyanogas, DDT,
rotenone, arsenic, chlordane, and nicotine sulfate. He reported his findings in “An
Effective Way to Control Snakes” (Pest Control 17 no. 2). He discovered that
the last named substance would kill snakes, but neither that nor any of the other
materials tried worked to repel them. Old shoes and garlic would have been a
lot safer for all concerned. In 1953 the North Carolina State Museum sent out an
“information circular,” which claimed that the odors of creosote and naphtha flakes
might do the trick. The researchers Cowles and Phelan reported 5 years later that
mercaptan would trigger a “fear reaction” in snakes. Later investigators Whitmore
and Stout (1965) reported that mercaptan only worked against “nonpoisonous”
snakes; venomous ones were apparently unmoved.
Between 1981 and 1983, scientists made a more systematic and controlled
effort to see what substances if any repelled the Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta).
They used a special test chamber designed to see what might prevent a snake from
crossing the test area. Materials tried were gourd vines, mothballs, sulfur, cedar
oil, lime, cayenne pepper spray, bird Tanglefoot, sisal rope (an old favorite), coal
tar, creosote, liquid smoke, artificial skunk scent (mercaptan), and musk of the
Eastern Chain King Snake (Lampropeltis getulus). As you might expect, nothing
worked. The researchers somberly concluded in Second Eastern Wildlife Damage
Control Conference (1985), “We feel that the only way to reduce the number of
snakes found in and around houses is to remove or reduce their habitat.”

SNAKES FIGHT BACK

Clifford Pope, a mid–twentieth century herpetologist, is given credit for de-
scribing the standard operating procedure of serpentine defense: “First, they are
cowards. Next, they are bluffers. Then, they are warriors.”
Indeed, most snakes prefer to hide than to attack and are rarely seen far from
cover. In Morocco it is said that if a snake appears while people are pitching their
tents, the serpent becomes the master of the place and must be given respect. And
if a snake approaches a person, it is the spirit of a saint, since ordinary snake flee
at the sight of human beings. The Ibo people of southern Nigeria, however, claim
that when a snake approaches a woman, it is a sure sign that she has conceived.
Snakebite! 93

Many snakes practice effective camouflage, doing their best to convince both
would-be prey and predators that they are merely part of the tree or a line of
speckled earth. The blotches and spots break up the snake’s outline, so that it
can do this effectively. A few snakes, however, try the opposite tack. Poisonous
Coral Snakes, for instance, like to advertise their presence with clearly marked
distinctive bands, the so-called warning coloration. This warns away would-be
predators. Some nonvenomous species have copied this idea, using the same
colored bands to psych out the predators (and hoping they don’t know the poem
“Red touch black, venom lack”). For some reason, although the mimics got the
colors right, they can’t seem to get them in the right order. As mentioned earlier,
snakes are not the brightest of beings. Or perhaps they have an innate sense of fair
play, which is often more than we can say for ourselves.
In addition to their protective coloration, the snake’s famous shape is well
designed to ward off enemies. The snake can curl up into a tiny area, stretch out
along a narrow passage, or weave in and out of branches. This expertise at hiding
means that there are probably more snakes around than you will ever see. It’s a
disquieting thought. One rear-fanged snake, the fish-eating Erpeton tentaculatum,
a native of Indonesia, defends itself by merely straightening out its body and
stiffening up “like a board,” which is what its native name means. It does not
attempt to bite its captors, even though it is venomous.
Even the rattlesnake’s famous rattle was perhaps originally devised as a warning
signal against bison and other big clumsy critters that shared its primeval demesne.
Early European colonists called it a “bell.” Nonrattlers of the colubrid family also
shake their tails ferociously against leaves to produce a warning sound. The Saw-
Scaled Viper (Echis carinatus) runs its keeled scales together to make a loud,
harsh hissing noise.
Cobras and cobra copiers expand their neck muscles to form a threatening
hood. Cobras probably originally tried this just to make themselves look larger
(as a hissing cat does), but other snakes may have decided to use the same tactic
to make themselves look like cobras. Even a small cobra is pretty scary. Other
snakes simply puff up their necks. It is not true, however, that snakes can “raise
their hackles” when alarmed, as is sometimes alleged.
The Ball Python, Royal Python (Python regius), and a few other snakes coil
themselves into an impossible knot with the head tucked inside and hope that is
good enough to foil the enemy. (These snakes can actually be rolled for many
feet while balled up.) A variety of this tactic is to leave the tail (which is blunt in
species who try this) waggling in the air to look like a vicious snakehead ready to
attack. The Sri Lankan Blotched Pipe Snake (Cylindrophus maculatus) raises its
brightly colored tail when threatened: the tail looks exactly like the head of a cobra!
This indeed gives would-be predators pause. A few species can actually discard
part of their tails the way some lizards can. The nonvenomous South American
False Coral Snakes (Pliocercus elapoides and Scaphiodontophis venustissimus)
have fracture planes across the tail than enable them to break easily. A couple of
94 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

African species of Psammophis and Natriciteres can twist their bodies so quickly
that the tail comes off if it is grabbed.
Many snakes gape widely at their intimidators. The Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon
piscivorous) has a ghastly death-white mouth that he is not averse to showing to
anyone who comes too close. (At the same time the unwelcome visitor may get
a good look at his fangs.) The Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) does the
same—although in this case the interior of the mouth is coal-black, an equally
unnerving sight. The harmless Parrot Snake (Leptophis ahetulla) opens its mouth
very wide to reveal a brightly colored mouth that contrasts vividly with its scale
coloring. The Red-Bellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata) curls its upper lip
and pushes out its teeth in a gruesome grin.
Most snakes flee when endangered, although some, like rattlesnakes and cot-
tonmouths (who can back up their threat), will not retreat. Nor is it true that
rattlesnakes always rattle before striking. And nearly all snakes, if cornered, will
fight, although snakes don’t appear to exhibit marked territoriality.
Despite the folktales, most snakes are not in the habit of chasing people,
although certain aggressive species will do so if truly annoyed. In Chinese folklore,
it is actually considered auspicious to dream about being chased by a snake.
They are not very speedy, either—although a Black Mamba can zip along at
a lightning 10 miles or so per hour. Most snakes churn up to about half that
but usually give the impression of moving a lot faster. It’s the spooky lateral
undulation.
Another defensive tactic used by some water snakes (genus Nerodia), rat snakes,
and Garter Snakes is to disgust their captors by emptying the contents of their two
anal sacs upon their tormentors. This yellowish stuff is called musk and is not
feces, as many people suppose. It’s worse. However there are degrees of badness.
Garter Snake and water snake musk is only so-so awful, but that of the Texas Rat
Snake (Elaphe obsoleta lindheimeri) can be beyond nasty. It reeks to high heaven
and has an extremely greasy composition. (Rat snakes use their tails to spread it
around even more.) It has been compared to the smell of burnt tires, which may
be an understatement. It is also hard to wash off. The Rat Snake should also be
avoided for another reason. It bites when cornered or picked up, and although
its teeth are so tiny that they may not be about to pierce a flannel shirt, they
have no trouble biting through skin. Herpetologist Michael Smith reported in the
Cold Blooded News, June 2003, “Once, years ago, I uncovered a Texas Rat Snake
in the field and picked it up, and it promptly bit my thumb. It began to chew,
and as I did not struggle (pulling away makes it worse) the snake transitioned
from defensive biting to swallowing, and swallowed my thumb up to the hand.”
Although he does not say so, one presumes Smith recovered the digit intact and
attached.
Perhaps the worst-smelling snake, however, is the Chinese King Rat Snake
(Elaphe carinata), charmingly nicknamed “the stinking goddess,” due to its very
large musk glands. In a personal correspondence with me, snake owner Jessica
Shea commented about her snake Cho:
Snakebite! 95

This snake, however, was unlike any other in its strength and quality of stink. It
is, indeed, the Goddess of Stinking. Or, in my King’s case, the God of Stinking
(he’s a male; he was shipped to my friend with a female as part of a potential
breeding pair, but he ate her, and this is why you keep potentially ophiophagus
[snake-eating] snakes singly, especially when young). The odor is something
along the lines of rotting meat, combined with burning cabbage, with a hint of
freshly cut grass, the latter of which does not, strangely enough, improve the
smell, but instead serves as an awful reminder of just how bad the rest of it is.
You pick up the grassy smell first, thinking, Hmm, maybe it’s not so bad,” but
before you can finish that thought, the rest of it hits your olfactory senses like
a creeping miasma from a sewer in a town full of people with rotting colons
and only cabbage to eat. And then, when you try to wash it off, it doesn’t go.
It penetrates and sticks to your skin like a dye pack from a bank robbery. I
scrubbed, scrubbed some more, and used stronger and stronger soaps. I finally
lucked out by using my brand new Scrubbie from Mama V soap—it exfoliated
the stink out, and replaced it with the Scrubbie’s coconut/cocoa butter scent. But
oh, dear GOD did I want to cut my hands off at first.

Some Copperheads and rattlers have been accused of smelling like cucumbers
when they are ready to attack, but this isn’t true either. They can emit a foul smell
like many other snakes, but it’s a stretch to call the smell cucumber-like. Timber
Rattlesnake expert W.H. “Marty” Martin says a rattlesnake smells like a “gray
fox,” which is helpful to those who know what a gray fox smells like. And in
Snakes and Snake Hunting Carl Kauffeld wrote of his favorite: “The scents vary
very widely and are intended as a ‘discourager’ much like the skunk’s, but to me
the Diamondback musk is one of the sweetest perfumes on earth!”
First prize for creative defense, however, goes to the genus Tropidophis, a group
of New World serpents who, when threatened, may eject a stream of blood from
their mouth and eyes, disconcerting, disgusting, and demoralizing the attacker.
Biting is usually the last defense. It is well to remember that most snakes
can strike out for about one-third of their body length, although some like the
Jumping Viper can manage a good deal farther. Venomous snakes often prefer
not to waste their poison on attackers (as after all they have only so much) and
frequently deliver what is called a “dry bite.” This may account for up to one-third
of defensive bites (and maybe more) and is probably the reason that so many
home-concocted cures “work” against venomous bites—as there was no poison
injected in the first place. Most snakes have (apparently) conscious control as to
whether or not to inject venom and, if so, how much. Rear-fanged snakes and baby
snakes do not have this control option, however. They always deliver a full bite,
which may be the truth behind the myth that newly hatched venomous snakes are
more lethal than the adults. They are not. They just have less self-control.
Just how dangerous a rear-fanged snake can be is illustrated by the sorry deaths
of two famous herpetologists. An exceptionally dangerous rear-fanged snake is
the large arboreal African Boomslang (Dispholidus typus), native to equatorial
96 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

and southern Africa; the name is Afrikaans for “tree snake.” It comes in more
color varieties than almost any other snake, which doesn’t make it any easier for
the novice to identify. It also has a fair approximation of binocular vision, as do
many other arboreal species. Normally, as its name suggests, this snake takes up
residence in trees, often with its head hanging down free. It can stay so still and
so long in this position that birds will actually perch on it. Fortunately for them,
Boomslangs prefer to eat lizards—usually.
The Boomslang’s fangs are slightly moveable, which means that it has some
stabbing capability; this in conjunction with the large amount of nasty hemorrhagic
venom it can produce and its unnervingly wide gape makes it a very dangerous
snake to humans. However, it only bites when cornered. Karl Patterson Schmidt
(1890–1957), a well-known American herpetologist, was killed by a baby Boom-
slang. The snake was sent to him at the Field Museum in Chicago by Marlin
Perkins (of Wild Kingdom fame) for examination. Unfortunately for Schmidt, he
underestimated the seriousness of the bite, refused any medical intervention, and
thus met his end 28 hours later of brain hemorrhage and respiratory collapse. One
should not play Boomslangs cheap. Always the scientist, Schmidt made note of
his symptoms right up to the very end. Only 2 hours before his death, Schmidt felt
well enough to call into work to tell his staff to expect him at work the following
day. His colleague Clifford Pope concluded somberly, “A total lack of experience
with Boomslang venom is largely to blame for the tragic events of September 25
and 26.” When not killing people, the Boomslang likes to hide in birds’ nests after
eating the original inhabitants. It also has a penchant for chameleons.
Another rear-fanged snake killed the eminent Russian-German herpetologist
Professor Robert Mertens (1894–1975). The culprit was his “pet” Savannah Twig
Snake (Theotornis kirklandii), another African snake, which bit him while he was
feeding it. Mertens, who was no kid at the time, died after 3 weeks of suffering.
His last words were reported to be “What a fitting death for a herpetologist.” This
species is also responsible for the death of a Tanzanian game warden, who thought
the bite wasn’t serious enough to bother with.
While some serpents, like Hognose Snakes, roll over and play dead (letisimu-
lation) when under siege, this is not something you can count on. The Hognose
also tries some other tactics first, such as making a hood. The terrified human
who encounters this display hardly has time to think, “Wait a second. There are
no cobras living in Virginia,” before the snake has made good his escape. The
African Spitting Cobra also does the “playing dead” trick. In addition, it emits a
distinctly rotting odor. But be careful. Approach too closely, and it might jump up
and spit in your eye. The result would not be pleasant.
Spitting Cobras like the nocturnal Naja nigricollis (literally the “black-necked”
cobra) and Hemachatus haemachatus or Ringhals, which lives in the south of
Africa, also have the option of spraying venom in an attacker’s face. (Their ac-
tions are much closer to squirting than to spitting, really.) In January 2008, Amy
Schoeman, a well-known Namibian writer and photographer, was actually bitten
in the face (while asleep in her bed) by a Ringhals, sometimes known as “zebra
Snakebite! 97

snakes.” According to John Grobler’s story in The Free Press of Namibia, she said
it felt as though she had been “hit with the sharp end of a hammer.” The snake
was coiled behind her headboard, having apparently entered the room through an
open window. Very curiously, she had just finished writing an article about this
species and knew that no antivenin for it was available. However, a hospital doctor,
Tommy van Wyk, an expert on snakebite, immediately began treating her with
cortisone to limit tissue damage. She recovered.
At one time the Bushmen of Namaqualand in southwest Africa used Rhinghals
venom as part of a poisonous weapon. First they extracted a resin from the bulb
of Boophone disticha. Then they placed the resin on a stone which they forced
into the mouth of the cobra, removing it when the cobra ejected its venom onto
the resin. Then the tribesmen coated their spears and arrows with the gunk. The
Pomo Indians did away with their enemies in a more magical way. The idea was
to take the blood of four rattlesnakes, mix it with mashed up spiders, scorpions,
and bees, coat an arrow with it, and then shoot the arrow over the house of the foe.
In like fashion, tribesmen in Bengal used to coat their arrows with cobra venom.
But they understood the stuff worked better if it ended up embedded in the flesh of
the foe rather than just flying over his house. The Carthaginian general, Hannibal,
is said to have gone right to the source and actually thrown earthenware jars full
of venomous snakes right at the Roman ships. The snakes bit the sailors who then
jumped into the sea. Snake bombs have a way of striking fear into people that
simple poisoned arrows do not have.
The Spitting Cobra can spit from any position. The orifice on the fang is
grooved like the rifling on a gun and is accurate up to 8 feet. It is used strictly
as a defensive mechanism and may have been first employed against predatory
birds. When on the prowl for food they attack and bite like any other snake. But
when attacked themselves, they have found that spitting in someone’s face (which
is both temporarily blinding and excruciatingly painful) offers them an excellent
chance to make good their escape. They are not interested in eating you. There is a
belief that the snake will spit at anything “shiny,” but the fact is that it recognizes
eyes when it sees them and aims for those eyes.
Spitting Cobra venom is neurotoxic, causing paralysis and heart and lung
failure. However it causes no damage to unbroken skin; indeed it is harmless even
if swallowed, although according to Stephen Spawls in his Sun, Sand and Snakes,
it has a “nasty taste, rather like copper sulfate,” whatever that tastes like. However,
it is when the venom gets into the eye that the real trouble starts. It is agonizing
and blinding. The venom is quickly absorbed by the small blood vessels close
to the surface; it then paralyzes the optic nerve. Luckily the blindness is usually
temporary, especially if the eye is well washed out as soon as possible. However,
some permanent loss of sight may occur if the eye is not treated. (There is a
folktale that such spitting snakes also exist in India; however, this is untrue. They
are purely African.)
Spitting cobras made big snake news in 2007, when a new giant species was
formally identified: the Naja ashei after its discoverer James Ashe, who founded
98 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

a snake farm on Kenya’s coast. Ashe first began collecting the big spitters in the
1960s and suggested they were a previously unidentified species, but the scientific
world moved with its usual glacial slowness to agree with him. Naja ashei can
stretch to 9 feet in length and deliver enough venom to kill fifteen grown men. Not
that they are in the habit of doing anything like this, as they are rather cautious
by nature. Just in case, though, researchers are busy developing a species specific
antivenin.
Aesop has his own story about spitting snakes. An eagle swooped down upon
the Serpent, seizing it in his talons to carry it off and devour it. The Serpent was
too quick for the eagle and coiled around him in a moment; then a life and death
struggle ensued between the two. Witnessing the event, a countryman came to the
assistance of the eagle and freed him from the Serpent, allowing him to escape.
As revenge, the Serpent spat some of his poison into the man’s drinking horn.
The man was quite thirsty after his exertions and ready to slake his thirst with a
draught from the horn when the eagle knocked it right out of his hand, spilling
its contents upon the ground. The moral: one good turn deserves another. Cicero
reports this event having happened to Deiotarus (d. 40 b.c.e.), a Galatian monarch
and ally of the Romans. A similar legend is attributed to the prophet Mohammad
by the Persian poet Rumi.

VENOMOUS SNAKES AS “PETS”

Keeping pet snakes has been a hobby of people since ancient times. Even the
Romans were fond of keeping household snakes, although Pliny remarked, “We
destroy their eggs, else they would multiply too fast.” These pets probably did
serviceable duty as rat catchers. However, as might be apparent already, snakes
make remarkably poor pets. Captive snakes may make an interesting study for
the amateur herpetologist and, if properly cared for and given enough space, may
provide enjoyment to the keeper or even his friends. However, we should not
confuse this hobby with pet keeping. A pet is a domesticated animal which
presumably receives and gives benefit from human contact. They are indeed
“pettable.” Dogs and cats are pets. Even rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, and ponies
can be pets. Snakes are not pets. They are not capable of giving affection, and
there is no evidence whatever that they enjoy being petted, although some of them
may find it convenient to crawl along your arm. It’s not really the same thing.
Despite this obvious truth, however, people do frequently refer to their captive
serpents as “pets.” The South African poet Roy Campbell (1901–1957) even
directed some verses (“To a Pet Cobra”) in which he claims to love the feel of the
snake’s “chilly and incisive kiss” on his bare arm. However, it is not certain if this
was indeed a real snake or only a poetic one. Campbell makes some comments
about the “folded slumber” of the creature’s fangs, possibly confusing the cobra’s
fixed fangs with the fold-up arrangement of viper apparatus. This makes me
wonder if he knew very much about cobras after all, and if he did not, he certainly
shouldn’t have been keeping one.
Snakebite! 99

Actor Nicholas Cage also kept a pair of pet cobras, named Molly and Sheba.
He had to give them up in January 2008 when his neighbors threatened to sue
him. He claimed he had them in his house in Hollywood for about 3 years. “I had
to keep the antidote to their poison as well because if one of those guys bit you
then you had 15 minutes before the curtains closed,” he claimed to reporters. “I
loved them. I’d watch them for hours. I had to get rid of my pet cobras because
my neighbors threatened to sue me. I could see their point. I resolved the issue by
giving the snakes to a zoo.” Cage also collects dead bats.
Cobras are especially problematic when they escape confinement. In 2004,
two “pet” Monocellate Cobras (Naja naja kaouthia) escaped from their enclosure
and were wandering around the condominium in Dallas. They could have caused
death within an hour of biting someone. There was no cobra antivenin around,
either. One was finally caught: the owner had a whole passel of other venomous
snakes—including three Gaboon Vipers, a Rhinoceros Viper, a Bush Viper, a Tim-
ber Rattlesnake, a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, an Eastern Diamondback
Rattlesnake, a South American rattlesnake, a Spitting Cobra, and a python so big
(15 feet) it took two men to move it. Officials took the snakes away but allowed
the owner to keep his Emperor Scorpions. Officials believe someone else has the
missing cobra.
In 1999, a Los Angeles Zoo volunteer named Anita Finch was fatally bitten by
one of the ten venomous snakes she kept as pets in her home. When her body was
found, there was a note clutched in her bite-swollen hand: “Northridge Hospital—
Ask for ICU.” The chief suspect was the Hognosed Sand Viper. She trusted her
snake friends so much that she let them loose while she cleaned their cages.
In Bucyrus, Ohio, a man was bitten by his Rhinoceros Viper (Bitis nasicornis)
in 2005. However, he received antivenin and survived the attack. During the
same year, a thirty-eight-year old Bronx man was bitten by his illegally owned
rattlesnake, when he tried to move it from one tank to another. Also in 2005, in
Fenton, Michigan, a woman was bitten on the hand by her friend’s pet rattlesnake.
In 2004, in North College Hill, Ohio, a woman died after being bitten by one of
her ten venomous snake pets. Even people who you’d think would know better
get bitten. In 2004 a Porter, Indiana, veterinarian was nearly killed by his pet
rattlesnake. Antivenin was administered at literally the last minute. The vet had
had 35 years’ experience handling venomous snakes but apparently not enough to
know that rattlesnakes aren’t good pets. A couple of other men were hospitalized
after one of their two “pet” rattlesnakes bit them both.
An albino “pet” cobra, wonderfully named Eve, bit her Canadian owner, Jason
Hansen, on the finger in December 2007. It is unclear as to how much venom
was injected. It was first claimed that the bite was “dry” (that is, without venom),
although according to a CBS news report “the neurotoxins in the snake’s saliva
caused serious tissue damage.” Actually, the “neurotoxins in the snake’s saliva”
are venom, and there is no way around that. Speaking of cobras, there is a football
team called the Carolina Cobras. The team was filming a commercial with their
mascot when it escaped. Luckily it was found again.
100 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Even more weirdly a seventeen-year old boy from Pequea, Pennsylvania, was
bitten by his “pet” West African Bush Viper in 2004. It is unclear how he obtained
the animal. They aren’t a dime a dozen. It is highly venomous, and there is no
antivenin available, at least not in this country. I could go on with more stories
like this, but I suspect you have had enough of them.
It is possible to possess “devenomed” snakes—usually ones that have had the
duct leading from the venom sac to the fang severed. In this case the snake is
still producing venom but has no good delivery system. In other cases the sac
is completely removed with a laser. These surgical procedures negatively impact
the snake’s digestive process, especially vipers’, most of whom refuse to eat
afterwards and consequently die. Vipers in general are hard to keep in captivity:
they just don’t handle stress. Devenomed elapids do much better, especially if they
are accustomed to eating a diet of prekilled prey.
It is also well to remember that while venom sacs can be permanently removed,
fangs cannot. They regrow continually, so the keeper is still subject to a very nasty
bite. There have been documented cases of “devenomed” snakes who miraculously
managed to regrow their glands or develop new ones.
Despite all this and for unfathomable reasons people do keep cobras, Copper-
heads, rattlesnakes, Gaboon Vipers, and Eyelash Vipers in their homes. A posting
on Kingsnake.com by Mercedes Denton on February 9, 2000, reveals the mindset
of many venomous snake keepers:

I’ve kept venomous snakes for most of my life (I’m 38) and have never been
bitten. Most of my friends who have kept them have never been bitten. One has
died of a cobra bite. I liken keeping venomous snakes to skydiving. If you do it
right you won’t get hurt. If you do it wrong you will die or be horribly injured
but most likely no one else will be injured or killed. I think the state should let
people do what makes them happy as long as they do it responsibly. If they die
while keeping venomous snakes then they died happy.

To each his own. However, it should be noted that most people who have died
from a venomous snakebite did not give much evidence of dying happily. Rather
the opposite.
CHAPTER FOUR

Mortal Coils: The Big Constrictors

These are the big, tropical snakes, whose disquieting presence probably gave our
most remote ancestors the concept of the cosmic, earth-girding serpent. Constric-
tors are considered to be quite ancient, even primeval, snakes and show vestigial
pelvic and hind limbs within their bodies; tiny claws protrude from the end of
the “limbs.” These claws seem nonfunctional in females but are used by the male
during mating to scratch or stimulate the female. As mentioned, boids tend to
move by rectilinear creeping. Those which are able to climb have a remarkably
prehensile tail as well. Pythons also have an extra pair of bones called supraorbitals
in the roof of skull; however, most people neither know nor care about this detail.
Pythons, boas, and anacondas together are known as the boids. These species
are similar in many respects, although pythons lay eggs, while boas and anacondas
give birth to live young. The python mother incubates her eggs with care, leaving
them only when she goes to drink water. Once the young are hatched, however,
she seems to forget about them, as is the way of snakes all over the world.
Today, pythons are found throughout the sub-Saharan African continent, India,
southern China, Indonesia, New Guinea and even Australia. And whenever they
are found, they engender powerful myths. Boas are mostly New World snakes,
and anacondas are found only in South America and surrounding islands.
While evolutionary herpetologists always make a point of remarking how these
snakes are “primitive,” it has not escaped anyone’s notice that they manage to get
the job done. Every once in a while the extremely primitive python manages to
polish off the highly evolved herpetologist. Nature has her own way of keeping
score.
The boids are primary among the constrictors, although a few other snakes, in-
cluding ordinary Rat Snakes (genus Elaphe), may also employ this killing method.
Since they are not big enough to constrict people, little attention is paid to them.
However, it should be noted that this snake (and the Black Racer) is sometimes
called the “Pilot Snake” because of its supposed habit of “piloting” venomous
102 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

snakes like Copperheads and rattlesnakes to find prey (which the rattler then
shares with the other snake) or to safe dens during the winter. It is true that they
may share such dens with other species. It is not true that they guide them there.
They are also called “cowsucker” snakes because they are rumored to steal milk
from cows. (The same story is told of the Milk Snake.) Not true either. As for
“sharing,” forget it. Snakes aren’t sharers, and even if they were, they couldn’t, as
they swallow their prey whole.
Cobras and other elapids sometimes throw their coils around their prey to hold
it in place while their venom does its work, but they don’t constrict. (There is a
myth that a Rat Snake will mate with a cobra. But it won’t; they don’t live near
enough to each other, for one thing.
Constrictors hold the records for the biggest snakes: the Reticulated Python
(Python reticulatus), a member of this clan, can attain a length of 33 feet, the
world championship. This is as long as a three-story house is high, something
worth thinking about. The heaviest snake, however, is the foul-tempered Green
Anaconda (Eunectes murinus), which can grow nearly as long and is much bulkier.
A 25 footer can weigh over 500 pounds of solid muscle. At least none of them is
venomous.
As big as constrictors get, however, human beings have managed to stretch
them out even further in our myths. The ancients were convinced that much bigger
snakes prowled the hinterlands.
However, measuring a snake is not as easy as it seems. Many snakes have skin
that can stretch as much as 35% when shed, so the only reliable method is to
measure a live snake “in the round.” That’s not an easy task. Dead snakes can be
laid out end to end, but it doesn’t seem fair to kill a snake just to gain an accurate
idea of its length. And while big snakes understandably get most of our attention,
most snakes are rather small—under 3 feet in length.
One word for snake found in the ancient Rig-Veda is ahi, a word that may be
related to am. h, which means to “strangle,” referring undoubtedly to the strangling
family of snakes known as pythons. As today’s pythons are among the world’s
most primitive snakes, myths concerning them are also among the earliest we have.
One of the most famous snake strangulations was that of Laocoön, a priest at Troy.
He tried to warn the Trojans against accepting the Trojan Horse from the Greeks.
No one listened, but the gods on the side of the Greeks punished him anyway
by sending out sea serpents to strangle him and his two sons, Antiphantes and
Thymbraeus. In the real world sea snakes aren’t constrictors, but this is another
case where poetic license must be granted.

THE ENDLESS SERPENT

Cultures delight in tales of bigger monsters than any real snake can provide
and with stranger abilities. For instance, the Cherokee tell of a giant serpent, the
Ustu’tli, which once dwelled in the Cohutta Mountains of Georgia. If ever a giant
snake were to live anywhere, perhaps it is here, among the oldest mountains on
Mortal Coils 103

earth. The Ustu’tli differed from other snakes in that it boasted feet at each end of
its body and so could propel itself in jerks like a giant inchworm. In this way it
could even cross rivers and ravines. However, it had a real problem hiking along
ridges: its massively swinging head would tend to throw its body laterally and
break its grip on the earth.
Naturally everyone was afraid of this beast, which ate people and deer with
equal appetite. Only one brave hunter dared to face the snake. However, a single
look at the creature convinced him that retreat was the better part of valor. He
started running but was losing the race when he recalled the Ustu’tli’s difficulty in
handling narrow ridges, so he headed for one. The snake just couldn’t keep up, as
it kept slipping down the side of the ridge. Meanwhile, the hunter raced down the
mountain and lit a brushfire. Then it was the fire versus the monster. The snake
tried to keep away from the fire by inching itself up to a bare rock, but the intense
heat cracked his scales. Then he attempted to leap across the fire but was choked
by the smoke, lost his grip, and fell into the fire itself. Thus ended his reign of
terror. The idea of snakes being destroyed by fire is a worldwide motif, harking
back to Vedic times.
The most terrifying of cosmic snakes is the giant Egyptian snake Apophis, the
huge coiled serpent who represents Chaos. His Egyptian name, Apep, means “He
was spat out”; his mother, Neith, was an archer goddess who spat him out into
the primeval water. Her first child however was the glorious sun god Ra, but the
godling was blinded by his own brilliance and couldn’t see his mother. He cried
out in despair and his tears became human beings. Yet, the world cannot exist only
in sunlight and love; the sun god needed a dark, evil counterpart. So, to keep things
in balance, Apophis, the prince of darkness, was created at the same time. Ra and
Apophis are mortal enemies, and their eternal combat is depicted on countless
funerary papyri and tomb walls.
Apophis lurks forever in the Duat (the underworld or state of preexistence).
He winds across the universe, in an undulant path that slides above and below the
ecliptic. Every day at dusk he tries to catch the sun by swallowing Ra’s “ship of
life.” Like the majority of real-life constrictors, Apophis is most active at dusk.
(Across the ocean the Yurok people believed that an eclipse was caused when a
rattlesnake swallowed the sun.) To no avail, since Ra chops Apophis to pieces every
night. It is an endless battle; every morning and every night the sky is drenched
with the Cosmic Serpent’s blood. As the famed Egyptologist E. Wallis Budge
noted in his Gods of the Egyptians, Ra “enters the snake in the form of the old
Sun god, and he comes forth not only alive, but made young again.” The generally
good-hearted Egyptians had no love for Apophis. During religious processions
and lunar feasts, images of Apophis were created from papyrus and wax and then
subjected to various mutilations, a procedure that was supposed to represent the
triumph of Ra and order over chaos.
Yet Apophis can never be finally destroyed, although he can be temporarily
defeated, for he can always reunite, a concept repeated in the serpent legends of
almost every culture. Strangely, the sun itself is destined to become a serpent when
104 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

the world ends, so perhaps the final victory goes to Chaos after all. Apophis also
tried to kill Hathor, the cow-headed goddess, once while she was sleeping, but the
wise god Thoth woke her up just in time. In another myth Hathor was credited
with nursing the cobra god, one of countless instances drawn between milk, the
mother of life, and serpents apparently representing the father.
While the evil Apep is the most notorious of Egyptian snakes, people from
Heliopolis honored the more benign and usually invisible snake Atoum who
“gave the day” to the gods. In the Book of the Dead, the kind Atoum says, “When
I am transformed again into a snake, which men cannot see, I shall stay beside
Osiris [a god who is sometimes represented as a serpent]. I have performed many
beautiful acts for Osiris, more than for any other God.” In Theban myth, however,
the god Amun was considered the sole creator; for this task he took on the form
of a giant serpent: Amun-Kamutef.
However, although snakes were honored, the ancient Egyptians conceived it to
be the greatest of misfortunes to die from snakebite. The body of the envenomed
victim was considered irretrievably profaned, and the pure immortal spirit would
refuse to enter it. The mummies of people who died in a more natural way were
supplied with amulets to keep them from being bitten in the afterworld. A spell
(Number 33) is provided in the Book of the Dead: “Oh snake, take yourself off,
for Geb protects me; get up, for you have eaten a mouse, which Ra detests, and
you have chewed the bones of a putrid cat.”
According to the Greek writer Aelian (175–235), in his On the Nature of
Animals, for example, Ethiopia “is the dwelling place of the very largest serpents.
They attain a length of nearly 200 feet, and the people who live there swear
that these serpents can kill elephants, and that they live for many, many years.”
Scientists snicker.
And yet, what are we to make of the giant fossil snake Gigantophis garstini, a
creature we know for a fact attained a length of more than 50 feet, twice the length
of today’s “giant snakes” but was related to them. It lived in Egypt, perhaps 40
million years ago. Could some ancient premammalian memory have resurrected
him in the form of the mythical Egyptian Apophis, the immense Cosmic Serpent
of myth? Snake fossils are rare—and who knows what monster, dead or alive, may
turn up in time to come?
While recognized as dangerous and even lethal, many cultures agreed that
a primal serpent was responsible for all creation. The very ancient Sumerian
creation myth epic, Enuma Elish, mentions Tiamat, the great serpent mother, who
represents the bitter salt water of the sea and who gave birth to all life. For all that,
she is an evil demon and must be destroyed.
And the Greeks tell the story of the great goddess Eurynome and her husband,
Ophion. These are very ancient deities, older than Zeus and the Olympians, even
older than the Titans. Eurynome emerged dancing from the waves of the sea, from
the primordial Chaos. The tremendous serpent of this chaotic sea was Ophion, who
fell in love with the dancing goddess and seized her in passion, coiling himself
seven times around her body. She then took the form of a beautiful gray dove
Mortal Coils 105

and laid a great egg, around which Ophion curled his tail and squeezed until it
cracked and gave birth to all the creatures of the earth. Their first child was Eros,
the young god of love. (There are alternate legends about Eros’ birth, but we don’t
need to bother about them now.) For a time, the two were very happy and went
to live on Olympus. But after a while Ophion got to be a bit of a bore, bragging
left and right about how he had fathered a universe. Eurynome kicked him in the
head, knocking out his teeth, in the same way God had promised Eve, another
All-Mother, that her heel would bruise the head of the serpent. Eurynome told her
husband to get lost and sent him down to the dark chthonic regions of the earth.
Although Ophion was the All-Father, he, like Tiamat, must be done away with.
Creators are dangerous beings.
A similar tale is told of the giant Norse serpent Jörmungandr, the Midgard
Serpent. Jörmungandr is the child of Loki the trickster god and Angur-Boda, a
giant, whom the father of the gods, Odin, cast into the sea. He was a massive snake
which wrapped itself around the entire earth and grasped its tail in its mouth.
(Since cultures all around the world tell a similar story of the world-encompassing
snake, there may be something to it after all.) As Jörmungandr writhed around, he
set off storms. He also had a habit of attacking humans and ships. We will meet
him once more at the very end of this book.

THE HUG OF DEATH: DEMISE BY CONSTRICTION

Constrictors ambush their prey and seize it using a quick strike-bite. They
grab their victim with their many back-curved teeth and quickly wrap their coils
around it in a constricting move. The snake may keep its original hold or quickly
reposition its jaws, but a constrictor basically keeps a bite-hold on their prey at
all times. The constriction deflates the lungs, compresses the heart, and restricts
circulation of the prey, causing organ death. Every time the victim exhales, the
snake squeezes tighter, until it is no longer able to inhale. In some cases small
bones are also broken. (Technically constrictors are not “suffocating” their victim,
but it really amounts to the same thing in the end.) The snake does not uncoil until
its victim is quite dead. At that point, the snake proceeds to swallow it head first,
“walking over its prey.” Once the prey is engulfed, the peristaltic movement of
the esophagus starts pushing it down the digestive tract. One species, the Woma
Python (Aspitides ramsayi), catches its prey in burrows and tries to crush them
against the earth wall of burrow, since it doesn’t have enough room to throw its
coils around its victim. It has been noticed that the Woma Python is often covered
with scars from counterattacks by its sharp-toothed prey. Apparently, its killing
method is a little inefficient.
There are no large constrictors native to the United States. However, many
snake-induced deaths, especially in this country and particularly of cats and dogs,
can be laid at the door of “pet” giant constrictors, such as the Burmese Python
(Python molurus), a number of which have been released into the Florida Ever-
glades, where they are intent on destroying the wildlife. People should probably
106 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

not be fooling around with these things in the first place, but apparently there is a
fascination about them. In any case, here is a basic rule of thumb for handling big
snakes: one person per 5 feet of snake. Nearly all of the people who have gotten
themselves killed violated that simple rule. Or else they have forgotten another
dictum: “Keep your snake locked up.” Instead they have allowed the animal to
rampage around the house, in which case the animal may bite and kill anything it
finds.
Various species of boids are found in southern Asia, Africa, and South America.
The boids who live in New Guinea and other South Pacific islands are imports from
the west coast of South America. It is assumed they arrived there via vegetable
rafts. Since these animals are well known to last for months without dinner, it’s
a reasonable assumption. They haven’t stopped traveling, by the way. In 2007
a huge number of anacondas were observed coming ashore on Trinidad’s south
coast—clinging to floating mats of vegetation drifting from the South American
mainland, about 10 miles away at the closest point. They were spotted by terrified
swimmers who quickly took to their heels and vacated the beach. One man was
bitten and required medical attention. One mother, Keisha Archargee, who had
taken her children to the beach, said in confusion, “I can’t believe this is happening.
We know about jellyfish but not snakes.”
Still, not everyone views pythons with fear. They have their champions, espe-
cially in India. The People for Animals in Agra reported that in January 2002, it
received a frantic call from the Air Force Base at Agra. A huge python had been
sighted opposite the Base’s nursery school, which was due to open the following
day after vacation. They responded at once. The snake proved to be a mere 6 feet
long but still long enough to pose a risk to preschoolers. It was in considerable
shock, as it had been pelted with rocks. Unable to interest a professional snake
catcher in the project, the rescuers went to work on their own using a “huge and
very old” tarpaulin. One of them later remarked, “One of our members climbed a
wall and with the aid of two long branches we gently prodded the snake towards
the direction of the tarpaulin . . . The snake very kindly obliged; it slowly slithered
towards the tarpaulin. The minute it entered it, we quickly wrapped it round the
snake taking utmost care not to hurt it or smother it.” The rescuer then released
the animal at a place called Python Point. “We had to take the snake to a spot
where it would not be harassed, would be away from human habitation plus in
an environment suiting it. . . . We took it there and released it with a prayer for its
safety.”
In 2008 the People for Animals also intercepted a crime ring in New Delhi,
whose central product seemed to be toothpaste made from crushed snake bones.
Three persons were arrested under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. It
is not clear who the presumed customers of snake bone toothpaste would be or
what virtues the snakes bones were supposed to impart to one’s teeth.
Pythons probably receive the most honor among the people of Africa, who
consider them their ancestors. The South African Bantu call the snake chikonembo,
the ancestor reborn. In a similar vein, the Swazi people call him emadloi, the
Mortal Coils 107

messenger between the dead and the living. The African Coke (Chiokwe) people
of Kasai say that a pregnant woman has a snake in her belly (really an ancestral
spirit) that helps nurture the fetus. However, in Luanda, a snake with darker intent
may take possession of someone and make him writhe upon the ground. (This of
course may be an explanation for epilepsy.)
Pythons are believed to bring messages from the dear departed, and in Nige-
ria, people still consult these “serpent ancestors.” Any offense against a snake is
counted as an offense against the ancestor. In parts of Nigeria if a woman inad-
vertently kills a venomous snake while farming, the body must be taken to the
snake priest, along with the offending farming implement and an offering of an
oxhide and two strings of cowries. The snake is then ceremonially wrapped in the
hide and buried. The priest purifies the village with a mixture of earth, water, and
leopard guts. The snake killer must dip her hoe into the mixture and spin it around
vigorously so that the liquid flies off. This appeases the snake’s ancestors and the
village is safe, at least temporarily, from snake molestation.
The Nigerian Ijaw people believed that pythons contained the spirits of the
sons of Adamu, who was himself a python and chief of the water spirits. Women
were not allowed to mention his name or approach his place of worship, although
certain priestesses took sacred snakes as “husbands.” The Nigerians also tell the
story of a python who conveniently stiffens his body so that his human warrior
friends can cross a river—but when the tribe’s enemies attempt the crossing, the
snake relaxes his body and they all drown.
The people on the banks of Lake Tanganyika have a cult of giant snakes (insato).
Each snake has its own priest and takes spirit possession of him on occasion. The
Dahomey people of Africa believed that the python opened the eyes of the first
man and first woman, a story eerily reminiscent of the Garden of Eden tale.
While most pythons and anacondas don’t actually eat people, they are the only
snakes large enough to do it. However, their propensity in this regard is frequently
exaggerated, as in this tale from the Ngulugwongga people of Australia: Three
turtle fishermen were out in their canoe when a monstrous, gaping snake arose from
the depths. “Uh-oh,” thought the men. “This doesn’t look good.” In a desperate
effort to save their skins they tossed out all their equipment to the snake, which
he promptly ate. And waited for more. “How about giving him the canoe?” urged
one of the men. “We can just float back to shore if we need to.”
“I don’t want your rotten canoe, fools! I want you!” said the snake and promptly
swallowed the lot of them, canoe and all. The local villagers waited and waited
for the men, in vain. Meanwhile the snake swam up a creek where he heard the
crying of child. “Yum,” thought the snake. “Nice and tender, the way I like ’em.”
The luckless parents of the child heard the snake slithering around and killed the
baby to silence him and preserve their own hides. Of course that did no good. The
snake simply ate the kid, plus a few more living ones, and eventually gobbled up
the entire village. (This snake had a serious case of the munchies.) He was so full
he vomited up the fishermen’s canoe, which wasn’t as digestible as it might be.
The fishing equipment came up next. But he was still so full he couldn’t move.
108 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

The people from the fishing village found him and slit him open, so that his large
meal was disgorged and everyone came out alive—except the dead baby and the
unfortunate fishermen, who were too far gone.

PYTHONS
The world’s first known religious artifact is a snakehead. It is 70,000 years old.
This makes it 30,000 years older than European artifacts previously believed to
be the world’s most ancient. Found in the remote hills of the Kalahari Desert,
this stone python, ground out of the bedrock, is as tall as a human being—and
20 feet long. The python has eyes, a mouth, and 300–400 indentations that look
like scales when the sunlight or firelight plays upon them. Surrounding the head
are ritually grouped colorful spearheads, brought from hundreds of miles away.
These spearheads were unaccompanied by ordinary tools or any other evidence
that people ever lived there. This was—and is—holy ground.
The hills where the image was found —the only upraised ground for miles—has
long been held sacred by the native San peoples. They call them the “Mountains
of the Gods” and the “Rock That Whispers.” In San myth, the python is the father
of all human beings; he also created the streambeds that surround the hills. It is
said that he made them in his ceaseless search for water.
Behind the site where the python was discovered is a secret chamber that
archeologists believe was occupied by the shaman, who perhaps spoke “through”
the statue of the python god, somewhat like the Wizard of Oz. Inside the chamber
are two paintings—one of a giraffe and the other of an elephant, the other two
sacred animals of this tribe.
Today, the San people of the Kalahari Desert tell how the python fell into a
hole and was unable to escape until it was saved by a giraffe. This story bears
a startling similarity to a snake story from Surinam recounted elsewhere in this
book—a story that almost certainly hails from African slaves. The legend might
be 70,000 years old, too. Scientists declared themselves shocked at the idea that
such primitive people were capable of such a high level of abstract thinking, but
the idea that world’s first known god was a snake does not seem surprising at all
to me.
The idea of a psychic python is rather widespread; it extended even to the
Greeks, who had no pythons per se. Apollo, the Greek sun god, was a killer of
serpents, in this case the snake-dragon known as Pythos, from whose name, of
course, is derived our word “python.” Pythos lived inside Mount Parnassus, where
he was the guardian of the sacred Delphic springs. He got so attached to his job
that pretty soon he was even killing the gods who tried to get in—so eventually
Zeus had to send in Apollo to knock off the beast. It was not an easy task; Apollo
had to use up a thousand of his silver arrows. Silver arrows are not as effective as
they are cracked up to be. In some versions of this story Apollo is even killed by
Pythos but is revived. In any case, Apollo, like Indra before him, had to pay the
price for killing this great snake and suffered severely for 9 years.
Mortal Coils 109

It was on that very spot that the Delphic Oracle was eventually established,
and its priestess became known as Pythia. It is also said that the teacher of
Asclepius, the father of Greek medicine, was probably his grandmother, Pythos,
who imparted to him the secrets of medicine. Interestingly, the supposedly dead
Pythos continued to speak through the Delphic Oracle, directly from the omphalos,
the “navel of the world.” (The healing power of snakes is a worldwide myth. Across
the ocean, the Navajo tell of Glispa, a girl who lived for 2 years among the Snake
People by the Lake of Emergence and then returned with a wealth of healing
knowledge.)
Perhaps the most famous snake priestesses are associated with the Minoan
culture (about 1600 b.c.e.), who are frequently depicted holding a wiggling snake
in each hand. This snake cult may ultimately be of Egyptian derivation. Snakes
are also often associated with Aphrodite, as they are both symbols of fertility. She
is sometimes depicted with serpents around her arm, ankle, and thigh.
Near Africa’s Lualaba River (the headstream of the Congo) is a pool where a
huge snake named Kabwe lives. It sometimes speaks to people through a medium,
just as did the ancient Pythoness of the Greeks. In the Congo it was believed that
the oil from a python (mafuta ya nguma) would make the possessor rich, and the
sperm of python (mani ya nguma) would make a man irresistible to women—and
very fertile besides.
It is said that once upon a time the king of Zululand had a wife who, after
a long and excruciating labor, gave birth to an enormous python. The king and
the rest of the village abandoned the woman and her hideous offspring. However,
some months later, when the creature began to shed, ten human children (five of
each sex) were revealed. These children flourished and rebuilt the village; the old
inhabitants, including the king, returned and prospered.
Pythons also make an appearance in Islamic folklore. There is a tradition in
Islam that people who are stingy will find themselves at the gates of Paradise with
a large python, mouth agape, wrapped tightly around them, and the python would
hiss, “Here is all your wealth and treasure.” The lesson is obviously that one’s
overly protected riches will end up swallowing their owner in the end, an idea we
have run across before.
Still, despite their reputation of being able to swallow almost anything, even
pythons can get ahead of themselves. In 2006, a 12-foot long 60-pound Burmese
Python (Python molurus) living in Idaho ate an entire queen-size electric blanket,
including the electrical cord and control box, which had been placed in her case
to help keep her warm. The snake, ominously named Houdini, probably thought
the blanket was the sauce for her usual rabbit dinner. Radiographs revealed the
wiring of the blanket extending through about 8 feet of the animal’s digestive tract.
The offending material was removed after 2 hours of surgery. The operating vets
had never done surgery on a snake before but consulted with specialists before
attempting the procedure, which was a complete success. In a related incident,
in 1997 a boa constrictor in Klamath Falls, Oregon, ate a mere heating pad. The
veterinarian who surgically removed it remarked, “This heating pad apparently
110 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

satisfied all the criteria for food as far as this snake was concerned. It was warm and
fuzzy and had some hard objects inside that must have felt something like bones.”
Even more weirdly, in a famous incident, in October 2005 a 13-foot Burmese
python tried to eat a 6-foot alligator and burst in the process. The alligator didn’t
survive either.
Of course what people really worry about is a snake gobbling up a person, never
mind alligators and electric blankets. A thousand myths raise the specter, all the
more frighteningly, because we know it could happen. A Burmese folktale tells of
how a woman married a snake to please her mother, only to find out that the snake
was really a handsome prince. This is an old story but has an unhappy ending. She
was so happy with her husband that her older sister begged their mother to find a
snake for her to marry as well. The mother was reluctant at first, but the daughter
kept insisting until the woman went out and found a huge python sleeping near a
tree. The python didn’t seem very interested in the proposition; in fact he acted
just like any snake. However, the woman left her daughter with the creature and
headed for home, hopeful that things would work out somehow. Alas, no. The
snake awoke from his nap and found, to his delight, dinner waiting. He began to
swallow the girl starting with the feet. (This is not normal snake procedure, but
some literary license must be allowed.) “Help!” yelled the distressed girl. “He’s
got my feet.”
Her mother called back, “I’m sure he is just teasing you, sweetheart.”
“No, really! Now he’s up to my knees!” And so on until the girl was completely
engulfed.
“Do something,” hissed the mother to her other snake son-in-law, who was now
a prince. “You’re the man in the family.”
“Sorry,” he said, “you have no idea what would happen to me if . . . ”
“I don’t care!” screamed the mother. “You bag of ribs! Save your sister-in-law!”
The Snake Prince knew the jig was up. Gloomily he approached the python and
slit it open in time to retrieve his sister-in-law. However, a drop of python blood
splashed on his wrist, and he resumed his own earlier snake form. He glided sadly
away into the forest, and though his wife waited for him for many years, he never
returned.
There was a story circulating on the Internet a while back to this effect. A
woman has a pet python that stopped eating. She took it to her vet who found
nothing wrong with it. He told her just to keep an eye on it and report any unusual
behavior. A week later she called to report to the vet that she awoke in the night
and found the snake lying in bed with her—not coiled up, but straight. “Oh, dear,”
said the vet, “I’m afraid he’ll have to be put down.”
“But why?” cried the distraught owner.
“You see,” intoned the vet solemnly, “It’s as I feared. He’s been starving himself
in preparation for a large meal; that night in your bed, he was measuring you.”
When I first heard this story, I thought it was just a joke. But it is apparently
taken as truth by people who are unaware that snaked are incapable of measuring
(although they probably eyeball potential prey for meal size feasibility) and that
Mortal Coils 111

they don’t “plan” for large meals. This story has everything—big pythons, snakes
in your bed, and fears of being swallowed alive.
Pythons even pop up unexpectedly in lands foreign to them. In 2007 a woman in
Brooklyn, New York, actually found a 7-foot long python in her toilet. Courageous
plumbers were called into dismantle several pipes to retrieve the animal, which
was later given away to the woman’s friend as a “pet.”
Not all attacks upon humans by pythons are the result of the ill-advised practice
of keeping giant snakes. In 1999, a seven-year-old Australian boy, Gerard O’Hare,
who was camping with his family, was seized by a 10-foot python that crept into
his tent while he slept, coiling itself around his neck and biting him in the face.
Gerard’s father, Neil, wrestled the snake away, tossing it from the tent. The child
suffered about twenty bite wounds but recovered without incident.

AFRICAN ROCK PYTHON (PYTHON SEBAE)

This animal inhabits all southern and tropical Africa and is undoubtedly the
inspiration for the very ancient python holy place in the Kalahari named earlier.
It can grow to a length of 21 or more feet, making it the largest African snake.
Only the Anaconda of South America and Reticulated Python of south Asia are
bigger. It is generally found more in open grasslands than in the deep jungle,
but it turns up there occasionally as well, although it is becoming increasingly
rare. It is most active in the morning and evening and prefers to dine on a wide
variety of mammals. These snakes like water and are often found near rivers and
pools. Perhaps this is why the ancient African tribes believed that the Rock Python
was a god, as it has an almost supernatural knowledge of where water could be
found. Unmarried women even performed a fertility “python dance” by linking
arms, shuffling and weaving like the snake itself. Indeed many villages kept Rock
Pythons (or sometimes Ball Pythons) for various rites. Injuring the sacred snake
was punishable by death. Other groups holding snake dances include the Hopi,
Cherokee, Creek, Yuchi, Seminole, Iroquois, Winnebago, Sauk, and Fox peoples.
In old-time Tanzania, the Nyamwezi people addressed any python they en-
countered with deepest respect, even calling it a king and kneeling in front of it.
If a python entered a home, libations of oil and water were made, and sometimes
a goat was sacrificed to the serpent. Dead snakes were to be buried like human
beings, and if a python was killed, its spirit would take revenge upon the whole
family. (The same belief was held about rattlesnakes by the Tuscarora Indians of
North Carolina and others.) It was considered very auspicious if a python blows
in one’s direction—a sign of great riches to come. Unfortunately for the truth of
the tale, pythons do not blow on people.
Still, they are dangerous animals. Like all pythons, they have very long, recurved
teeth which can cause severe lacerations. They also pack a powerful “punch,”
almost like a boxer’s blow, when they strike. Not only that, but the teeth are also
brittle and tend to break off in the wound, which can lead to blood poisoning.
And of course, they can kill people and even eat them if the object of their hunger
112 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

is small enough. In 1999, in Centralia, Illinois, a 7.5-foot African Rock Python

suffocated a three-year-old boy. The boy had compression marks around his chest
and bite marks on his neck and ears. He was sleeping with an aunt and uncle near
the snake’s terrarium at the time. No evidence of struggle was apparent.
In August 2006, a man discovered an African Rock Python in the middle of the
street in Lynn Township, Michigan. Presumably it was an escaped pet. Luckily it
was caught before it killed anybody. As for killing, the Rock Python is normally a
strangler, but naturalist Stephen Spawls recalls one instance where a captive snake
tried to dispatch her keeper by simply pressing him against a wall. Fortunately,
there were enough people around to pull the creature away. And like other snakes,
its last defense is to expel the contents of its cloaca upon the would-be capturer.
Spawls recounts that when he and his sister Cathy attempted to nab one, “[h]e
wound his tail around Cathy’s neck and with a great gush emptied a couple of
gallons of liquid excrement all over her.”
In 2005 a heavily pregnant (and huge) Rock Python was brought to Pure Venom
Snake Park in Africa. She laid forty eggs, and all hatched successfully. (In ideal
conditions this snake may lay over a hundred eggs.) Twenty of the babies were
then released into the wild, along with two adults. They were electronically tagged,
so their progress could be monitored. The snakes are in desperate straits along
the south coast near Oribi Gorge. The python’s habitat is being destroyed and
they are also hunted. Probably only about 3 or 4% of the animals survive into
maturity.

THE RETICULATED PYTHON (PYTHON RETICULATUS)

The “Retic” as it is familiarly known, is the world’s longest snake, which, as
mentioned, can reach a length of 33 feet. Like many large snakes, it has been
known to lay over a hundred eggs in a single clutch. The young can be 2 feet long
at the moment of hatching. It is not in the least shy of people or of anything else.
In the wild, the nocturnal Reticulated Python is found all over southeastern Asia,
including the Philippines and other islands. (It is an excellent swimmer.) Although
it is a native of rain forests, it has proved itself to be surprisingly adaptable to life
on farms and even in the city. It will hunt by both night and day but in populated
areas venture out only at night. It is a good climber and can often be found in trees,
not an encouraging thought. Like all giant snakes it can devour very large and
dangerous game. One 18 footer is on record as having killed and eaten a leopard
and another as having killed and swallowed a fourteen-year-old Malay boy.
The longest snake in captivity is a fifteen-year-old Reticulated Python named
Fluffy. She went on the David Letterman show with Jack Hanna. It took seven
men to carry her. She eats one or two frozen rabbits a week. Her owner, Bob Clark,
from Oklahoma City, is a python breeder; he leased the snake to the Columbus
Zoo for 7 months, but it’s strictly a lease. He says he won’t sell her for any amount
of money. Clark is also a regular snake dealer. He will sell a “Children’s Python”
(Antaresia Childreni or Liasis childreni) for $85. This tiny nocturnal Australian
Mortal Coils 113

python maxes out at about 2–2.5 feet. The only python that is smaller is the Anthill
Python (A. Perthensis). When I first heard about this snake, I thought, “What? A
python for children? What the . . . ” But I soon learned the truth. Despite the fact
that the name indicates it’s a good snake for small, young beginning snake keepers
(and it is), the name actually honors John George Children, who was a curator of
the zoological collection at the British Museum in the nineteenth century.
The Retic kills people, and it eats them afterward, usually at dusk, its regular
hunting hour. It doesn’t do so on a regular basis, but it happens once in a while.
It seems to happen most often to zookeepers and amateur herpetologists who do
not take sufficient precautions in handling them. In 1982, for instance, an escaped
“pet” Reticulated Python attacked and asphyxiated a twenty-one-month old baby
boy in Reno, Nevada. It did not, however, swallow the child but was found quietly
curled up on a shelf nearby.
In 1993 a man in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, got into in a fatal altercation
with his “pet” Reticulated Python, Ebenezer. The snake didn’t constrict the man,
who suffered hypertension and died of a heart attack. However, the owner was
covered with snakebites, and the snake suffered several stab wounds. The case
ended more happily for the snake than for his owner, for the former was treated
by a veterinarian and sent off to live in a zoo, where he was properly cared for.

BURMESE OR INDIAN PYTHON (PYTHON MOLURUS)

While not as large as the reticulated python, the Burmese Python (a subspecies
of the Indian Python), a handsome creature that breeds readily in captivity, can
get pretty big too—up to 20 feet in length. They are active both day and night.
This is the most popular of the giant serpents for the pet trade, for its presumably
placid nature. Normally it feeds on birds and mammals. It does not fear people,
even in the wild, and is frequently found near human habitations. It’s also a pretty
good climber and has a prehensile tail. Despite these advantages, however, this
python, hunted for its skin and use in the pet trade, is largely extinct in its former
wild habitat. Although it is protected in India, poachers take their toll. It has some-
what made up for its decline in Asia by moving to the New World, with the help
of American pet owners who have grown tired or frightened of their charges and
released them “into the wild.” It has successfully established itself in the Florida
Everglades, where the beasts have set up shop and are causing widespread eco-
logical havoc by destroying the native wildlife, including, the endangered Florida
panther, whose body parts have been found in the bellies of captured snakes.
It’s not great for the tourist trade, either. In 2003, biologists removed twenty-
three pythons from the park. In 2005, they removed ninety-five snakes. This trend
is not encouraging.
No one has the slightest notion what to do about this inundation of snakes,
although a beagle named Python Pete was trained in the unenviable task to sniffing
them out and reporting their whereabouts. Another tactic was attempted in 2006
when wildlife managers implanted a radio transmitter into a python and let it
114 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

loose, hoping that it would lead investigators to other snakes. It is not clear why
this should be, but perhaps it will work.
Despite their obvious danger to the environment, pythons remain popular pets.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5,968 Burmese pythons were
imported as “pets” through the Port of Miami in the last 3 years, alone. Why this
remains legal is beyond me.
The Burmese Python is quite capable of killing its handler and does so with
remarkable readiness. The fatal accident usually occurs because this species (which
is preternaturally greedy) mistakes the keeper for a dietary item. Perhaps the keeper
has just been handling rabbits, mice, or some other delicacy. Bam! The snake grabs
the guy’s hand (and yes, it is pretty certain that the soon-to-be deceased keeper is
male) and bites down—hard. Then it constricts him.
This is still another reason why constrictors should be offered dead prey animals
via tongs, not live prey animal via bare hands. The very motion of reaching into
a cage is regarded as a threatening or aggressive act by many snakes. Some
owners think that if they starve their little pet, it won’t get so big and thus will be
easier to handle, but this cruel tactic only serves to make the snake hungrier and
more aggressive. Supposedly you can stave off an attack by rubbing alcohol on the
snake’s nose and eyes, but alcohol never seems to be around when you need it most.
Snakes don’t have to reach their full size to do their work. In 1993, an 11-foot
“pet” Burmese Python, named Sally of all things, killed a fifteen-year-old boy in
his bed in Commerce City, Colorado. Apparently, the snake bit the teenager on
the right foot first. The boy had tooth-punctured fingers which suggest that he was
trying to unwind the python from his foot. He was not successful and the snake
suffocated him. The boy outweighed the snake 43 to 24 kg but was no match for
the animal. These snakes are terrifically powerful and can sometimes push their
way out of locked cages.
In 1996, a 13-foot Burmese Python killed his nineteen-year-old owner in the
Bronx, New York. A neighbor found him dead in a hallway outside his apartment
with the snake wrapped tightly around him. Less lethally, in 2004, a Burmese
Python bit its owner’s wrist and wrapped around her body for more than 20
minutes before the police arrived to release the woman. In August, 2001, a 10-foot
Burmese Python strangled an eight-year-old girl in Irwin, Pennsylvania. She fell
into a coma and was declared brain-dead two days later.
In 2005, a fisherman in Stuart, Florida, managed to snag an 11-foot Burmese
Python.
In 2006, in Tarpon Springs, a 14-foot Burmese Python named Chloe bit her
eighteen-year-old handler, Alison Cobianchi, during a snake show. Police had to
use stun guns to force the snake to release the girl. However, Cobianchi was back
to work in 3 weeks, with the tooth marks still visible. “It was a long ten minutes,”
the college freshman confessed to reporters, “but I just knew she wouldn’t kill
me.” Thanks to the taser.
My vet told me that one of his clients insisted that his “pet” Burmese Python
not only “loved” him but would also protect him and his children if they were
attacked. I don’t doubt that if a burglar were to encounter a large Burmese Python
Mortal Coils 115

roaming free around the house, it might deter him. However, whether this can be
defined as the snake protecting its owner is open to doubt.
Florida, as you might expect, is loaded with python stories. In 2005, in Miami-
Dade County, an escaped python swallowed a turkey and then was too fat to get
through a fence. Back on August 7, 1930, The Washington Post headlined a story
entitled “Thirty Thirsty Snakes Die for Attacking Turkeys.” The turkeys were
residents of a turkey farm, and it was suggested the mass attack occurred because
the animals were crazed from thirst; it happened during the prolonged drought of
the Great Depression, and the farmers opined the reptiles were “out for blood.”
But who knows?
In February 2005, a 13-foot python was found on the streets of Englewood,
and a 16 footer showed up on the streets of Vero Beach. In the same year a
15-foot python was captured in a residential neighborhood in Holly Hill. A 16
footer escaped from its owner’s mobile home twice in 2 years. Another one ate an
18-pound Siamese cat, somewhere else in Florida.
But Florida is not alone, nor do pythons have to be massive to cause trouble.
A 14-foot python crushed its owner to death in Lanesville, Indiana, in 2006.
A mere 5 footer bit a young girl during an “educational presentation” called
“Experience Western” at Missouri Western State College. Someone forgot to
inform the promoters of the exhibit that pythons are not native to any part of
Missouri. A much larger specimen, about 17 feet, escaped from its enclosure in
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and roamed loose for 4 days before it was captured.
Probably because Burmese Pythons and other giant snakes have had such
well-deserved bad press as pets, the American Federation of Herpetoculturists
(or reptile keepers) created a guideline for prospective big snake owners. It was
actually moved to say, “The AFH does not recommend the ownership of the
above mention [sic] giant constrictors [Green Anaconda, Indian and Burmese
Pythons, African Rock Python, Reticulated Python, and Amethystine Python]
as well as other large (adult size over 7 feet) boid snakes by minors without
parental consent to assume responsibility for proper housing, maintenance, and
supervision while handling.” Why any parent would consent to a minor keeping
giant constrictors remains a mystery, at least to me. At any rate, the guidelines
conclude hopefully and inaccurately, “With a minimum of common sense and
by adopting the recommendations made by herpetological organizations such as
the AFH, any problems associated with the ownership of large snakes can be
addressed in a responsible manner without perpetuating bias and misinformation
and without threatening the rights of herpetoculturists to practice their avocation.”
Unfortunately for the AFH, the right of hobbyists to keep deadly snakes is not one
guaranteed by the Constitution, so they will have an uphill battle.

GIANT ANACONDAS CRYING IN THE NIGHT

There are several species of anacondas living in South America and the is-
land of Trinidad: the Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus), the Yellow Anaconda
116 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

(Eunectes notaeus), and the Deschauenseei’s or Northeastern Anaconda (Eunectes

deschauenseei). As is common in the world of herpetology, there is some disagree-
ment about how many species actually exist.
It’s the green ones that get really big. In fact, it’s the only one most people
know. Indeed, while all snakes are impressive, the bigger they are the more press
they get. They can live longer than 20 years, a rather long time in the snake
world. Green Anacondas are indeed mostly green but have beautiful dappling that
camouflages them perfectly in the water. Anacondas are sometimes called water
boas (with their nostrils on the top of their snouts, so they can breathe while lying
submerged), but they lie on riverbanks as well, basking in the sun, and lying in wait
for animals who come down to the river. Their fare includes waterfowl, rodents,
and even peccaries. Dogs are in danger as well. Sometimes these snakes even
get in trees. They are somewhat less dangerous on land, as the weight of larger
specimens is not as well supported. However, “somewhat” is a relative term.
Adult anacondas have no enemies other than human beings, and they are not
shy about attacking prey wherever they happen to be if the mood strikes them.
Indians of the Amazon basin still tell stories of the sucuriju gigante, a giant beast
billed to be an anaconda. However, many Indian tales also report that the beast
has horns, which Anacondas most assuredly do not possess.
The South American Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus) is a giant in its own
right. As long ago as 1846, George Gardner insisted he measured a dead “boa,” as
he called it, at 30 feet. A 30-foot anaconda skin does exist, but as we have noted,
skins stretch as they are being shed.
Still, much of the stretching is done by travelers, including the intrepid explorer
Percy H. Fawcett (1867–?), an officer of the Royal Engineers. In 1907, Fawcett
was working for the Royal Geographical Society to survey the Abuna and Acre
Rivers. He was rafting down the Rio Negro, when, says he in his Lost Trails, Lost
Cities: An Explorer’s Narrative:

[A]lmost under the bow of the igarit’e [boat] there appeared a triangular head
and several feet of undulating body. It was a giant anaconda. I sprang for my
rifle as the creature began to make its way up the bank, and hardly waiting to
aim, smashed a .44 soft-nosed bullet into its spine, ten feet below the wicked
head.

The body attached to the “wicked head” measured, he claimed in his journal, 62
feet (17 feet actually in the boat) and the rest out. Its reported diameter was only
12 inches, although Percy had no measuring device with him (an odd omission
for the head of a surveying team), and his understandable panic seems to have
encouraged exaggeration. To cement Fawcett’s habit of stretching the truth (almost
literally in this case) we should remark that he also heard anacondas “crying in the
night.” Snakes, however, are essentially voiceless, so he must have been listening
to something else. Twenty years later, Fawcett simply vanished into the jungle,
perhaps swallowed by one of the very anacondas he wrote about. Stories of
Mortal Coils 117

Fawcett’s adventures were collected by his son Brian and published in Lost Trails,
Lost Cities.
Still, Fawcett was not alone in his estimation of the length of these giants.
On May 22, 1922, Father Victor Heinz reported seeing a monstrous snake he
estimated to be 80 feet long near the town of Obidos, on the shores of the Amazon.
He must have been more panicked than Fawcett. Both Heinz and other early
Amazon explorers insisted that the beast had luminous blue eyes that shone in
the dark, a feature also recounted by others who encountered it. In 1933, the
Brazil-Colombia Boundary Commission claimed that an anaconda some 90 feet
long was killed on the banks of the Rio Negro (the same river where Fawcett saw
his anaconda). A photograph was also supplied. Yet another photograph surfaced
in 1948, supposedly of an anaconda 100 feet long and killed at Fort Tabatinga,
on the Rio Oiapoc. However, the photographs have no real point of reference to
actually measure the snake against.
Then there is Bernard Heuvelmans (1916–2001), the “father of cryptozoology,”
who is most famous for his On the Track of Unknown Animals, which has sold over
a million copies. Heuvelmans claimed to have seen (and killed) a giant anaconda
while exploring in Brazil. The animal was peaceably asleep in a bunch of grass,
but that didn’t deter the courageous Heuvelmans: “We immediately opened fire
upon it. It tried to make off, all in convulsions but we caught up with it and finished
it off. Only then did we realize how enormous it was. When we walked around
the whole length of its body it seemed like it would never end. What struck me
was its enormous head, a triangle about 24 inches by 20. We had no instruments
to measure the beast, but we took an arms length of string and measured it about
one meter by placing it on a man’s shoulder and extending it to his fingertips. We
measured the snake several times and each time we got a length of 25 strings. The
creature was well over 23 meters (75 feet) long.”
In 1948, one Paul Tarvalho saw a snake he pegged at 150 feet, perhaps trying
for a record. Most people, however, will not agree that anacondas reach a length
of even 60 feet, much less 80 or 150.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, starring the inimitable Marlin Perkins and
the indomitable Jim Fowler, once featured an anaconda adventure that looked
nearly fatal. In it, Perkins is standing on the riverbank while a giant anaconda
meandered menacingly towards Fowler, who has dumbly waded into the river.
“Careful, Jim,” warns Perkins, almost casually. Too late. The snake grabs him.
Perkins says unnecessarily, “Looks like Jim is in a bit of trouble. The anaconda
has him.” GASP! The snake throws Fowler around some more. “You can do this,”
urges Perkins calmly. More choking. “And now just a brief message from Mutual
of Omaha . . . ” In Guyana, Marlin Perkins and another enabler, Stan Brock, try
to land a giant anaconda. The snake wraps its tail around Brock’s neck and its
whole body around Perkins’s torso. A massive struggle ensues. “And now a brief
message . . . ” At least that’s how I remember them.
The anaconda is found over much of northern South America but especially
in the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers. They are huge, and they are
118 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

aggressive and will devour mammals, fish, and reptiles with almost equal zest. In
ancient times, in Central and South America, the serpent was considered to be a
prime source of supernatural power (along with the jaguar). In the mythology of
the Desana people (a Tucanoan tribe of the upper Amazon region) the sun created
people in the underworld, but they were conducted to the surface in an anaconda
canoe.
The chief of the water spirits was sometimes imagined as an anaconda and
master of all fishes. This godling possessed a daughter in human shape which he
used to entice fishermen to their deaths. Basically the same story occurs in Indian
lore about the Nagas.
The Kariña people believed that the anaconda could rise into the sky to take
the form of a rainbow. In this mythology, however, the rainbow does not have a
pleasant connotation: anyone who looks at it gets sick.
In some Indian myths a white Anaconda menaces menstruating women. In one
story, a menstruating girl comes to the river, strikes a gourd to call the Anaconda,
and copulates with him. Her suitors cut the snake to pieces, saving her life. They are
also rumored to be dangerous to women for four days after childbirth. Apparently
the idea behind this is that they are drawn to blood.
The Chorote people of eastern Paraguay say the caracara (a kind of scavenging
hawk) stole fish from the anaconda, which made them eternal enemies. It is true
that the bird will feast upon baby anacondas whenever possible.
Anacondas also made a name for themselves in recent warfare. When the U.S.
Army invaded Afghanistan in 2002 in search of Osama bin Laden, they named the
foray Operation Anaconda in tribute to the snake’s presumed power and stealth.
However, as everyone knows, bin Laden eluded his would-be captors, although
they also used Cobra helicopters and “Viper” teams.

BOAS
Of the boas, which are native to the New World, the most widely kept is the
Boa Constrictor (Boa constrictor), which is considered to be at risk in the wild
due to habitat destruction and collection for the pet trade. It is native to Mexico,
south to Paraguay, and northern Argentina, with most of the biggest ones in Central
America. While once thought to be entirely a jungle species, we now know that it is
very adaptable as far as habitat goes, with some animals even living in semideserts.
It is equally at home on land and trees but becomes increasingly terrestrial with
size. In fact it has one of the widest ranges of any vertebrate. It likes to eat rats best
but has occasionally been known to nab an ocelot. The largest of them can attain
a length of nearly 20 feet, but this is unusual. Few exceed half that length. Few
people know that one of the boa’s great accomplishments is its hissing ability. It
can hiss so loudly that it can be heard from 100 feet away.
CHAPTER FIVE

Real Charmers: Cobras and Their Kin

Cobras are among the most iconic of snakes. Their characteristic hood, sensuous
grace, and emotionless but hypnotic gaze have extracted shudders from humans
since the dawn of time—or at least of history. They belong to a larger group, the
elapids, comprising sixty genera and more than 300 species. All are venomous,
and many are lethal. They represent about 10% of extant snake species and more
than half of venomous snakes. Slim and agile, it seems impossible at first glance
to believe that they can be as dangerous as the evil-looking, long-fanged vipers.
Actually, they can be considerably worse. The longest venomous snakes and the
deadliest terrestrial snakes belong to this far-flung clan.

THE HOLY NAGAS OF INDIA

In India, which is home to all living families of serpents, cobras are considered
the most ancient lords. Early representations of snakes on pottery tablets from
the Indus Valley culture show them in a pretty positive light, probably divine and
possibly protective. They are both culture heroes and dastardly villains, and the
Indian attitude towards them has always been one of the deepest ambivalence.
They are often referred to by the Sanskrit word naga (Hindi nag), used to denote
Indian or Spectacled Cobras as well as mythically powerful or divine snakes.
Naga is a word with favorable connotations, usually reserved in Sanskrit for
divine snakes, as opposed to the more neutral sarpa, which more often refers to
run-of-the-mill snakes. Naga is a word of such power, in fact, that it was sometimes
used to signify elephants as well as divine snakes.
The sacred Hindu book of hymns, the Rig-Veda, whose origins extend back for
millennia, records the doings of snake-folk, stories that persisted throughout Vedic
times and wound their way into Buddhist literature. The Aryans, who composed
the Rig-Veda, were cattle herders hailing from the comparatively snakeless regions
near Russia. They were in all probability terrified and threatened on psychological
120 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

as well as religiopolitical grounds by the indigenous practice of snake worship.

The Aryans’ first encounter with these truly powerful and lethal reptiles was un-
doubtedly enough to cast them in a villainous role; they had no interest whatever in
peaceful coexistence with a cadre of cobras, sacred or otherwise. Unlike the native
people of India, the Aryans had not learned to accommodate to their serpentine
friends.
However, when Vedic and aboriginal traditions were amalgamated, snakes
began to reassume their divine (not merely demonic) status and began to be
seen again in a more positive light. Even the words denoting them reflect this
change. The ancient Aryans referred to snakes as ahi, a negative term. Later, the
more neutral sarpa was employed, and still later naga or divinely supernatural
being was used. Most often, it was venomous snakes, notably cobras with their
spectacular hoods, rather than constrictors, who were honored, although India is
well supplied with both types.
“The first Nagas” say the scriptures, were “beings wiser than Serpents, the
children of Will and Yoga,” who were born even before the sexes were separated.
The ancient Nagas inhabited Patala, one of the “hells” of Hindu legend, from
which they have to answer only to Yama, the god of death and to Shiva, the lord of
destruction. Even today, the cobra is the symbol of Shiva. Their ancient worship
was so frightening to orthodox Hindu, and later Buddhist, writers that the ancient
folkways are excoriated in scripture. “Wise men of old,” proclaimed the Buddhist
Jataka texts, “forsook the fortunes of the Naga and abide by the Uposatha vows
[the sacred precepts of Buddhism].” The worship of the snakes remained, dark
and hidden, despite the wishes of the reformers. As time went on, however, the
ancient snake gods became increasingly anthropomorphized, with just a sly hint
of a tail or cobra hood. Still, the Nagas, in whatever guise they choose to take,
are very important; they guard springs and keep volcanoes in check. They also
produce precious gems by blowing on gold deep in the bowels of the earth. When
they are angry, however, their breath blows malaria over the land. Indeed, malaria
is sometimes called the “snake-wind disease,” even though it’s mosquitoes who
are to blame.
Nagas are closely related to the python-like Anantas but, unlike them, are often
pictured with human faces. In many stories they have beautiful daughters who
are often mistaken for goddesses. For generations, powerful royal houses of India
traced their ancestry to a divine serpent. The Nagpur rulers, like the Egyptian
pharaohs before them, adopted a crest in their turbans that featured a coiled cobra.
As is the case almost everywhere else, cobras represent fertility. In some parts
of India it was common for a woman wishing children to suspend a stone cobra
(nagakal) in a well for 6 months. If she conceived during that time, a shrine was
set up; as an added bonus, earth from this shrine was once used to cure leprosy.
In Buddhist myth, a cobra is depicted with his hood open, protecting the Buddha
from a thunderstorm—over which the snake lords originally had power. In some
depictions, the Naga has as many as five hoods! In many Buddhist tales, the Nagas
are depicted wearing jewels on their hoods or on their heads. They may also possess
Real Charmers 121

magical weapons, exquisite articles of clothing, musical instruments, thrones, or

other items of great power that they may on occasion bestow upon human beings.
In some stories, the Naga king is none other than the Buddha himself.
In remembrance of this event, many Buddhist temples in southeast Asia are
protected by images of Naga (cobra) guardians, one on each side of the door.
Indeed, in Buddhism, the Buddha’s boundless wisdom is symbolized by an endless
knot, which originated from an ancient symbol of two entwined snakes.
Buddhists are not the only people who have experimented with using cobra
guards. Recently Harrods of London employed the services of two live Egyptian
Cobras to guard a pair of $120,000 diamond-studded Rene Caovilla shoes. Har-
rods’ spokesperson said it was all just a publicity stunt, but no one told the snakes
that.
The deadliness of the cobra is also the reason for its worship. In most Buddhist
texts, however, the Buddha is depicted as saving animals or human beings from evil
serpents. In many Pali texts, snakes are represented as being lords of fire, whom
the Buddha successfully squelches. However, Buddhism, which is a strongly
nonviolent tradition, has the Buddha dispatch the serpent with no harm done to
anyone. It was a puzzler, though. As the Buddha says, “How shall I overcome
this lordly serpent without injuring his skin, hide, flesh, ligaments, bone marrow
or bone?” In one story, the problem is solved when the snake is unable to stand
his own anger and blazes up out of its own accord, and so does the Buddha.
Somehow, the snake ends up in the alms bowl, but the point of the story is that
the snake is physically unharmed, although he is humbled. It might be suggested
that the snake switches from the masculine, powerful, and violent phase to the
feminine, mild-mannered, and beneficent phase, at least in the eyes of Buddhists.
Only the Hindus, it seems, had the power to easily envision the serpent in all
its manifestations without undergoing a psychotic breakdown. The truth is that
snakes are very beneficial to humans, as they destroy rodents and other pests. On
the other hand, they can also be very lethal to people as well. Ambiguity is the
shaky bedrock of our relationship with them.
Laurie Cozad believes these mighty Nagas represent the central figures of
Buddhism’s great rival, Hinduism. In one story the Nagas take umbrage against
some birds who venture to poop in the snake’s pool, which would irritate anyone.
The birds may be representative of the Garuda, the powerful antiserpent bird in
Hindu stories, discussed later. Interestingly, while Hindu texts mention various
kinds of serpents, Buddhist texts refer only to the cobra, which they obviously
regarded as the centerpiece of Hindu worship.
Here is another tale connecting Buddha and Nagas. According to the basic
Vinaya or Buddhist monastic rule, no animal can become a monk. Yet once upon
a time, a Naga was so desperate to enter the order that he assumed human form in
order to be ordained. Yet while he was asleep in his hut, his true snake shape was
revealed. The Lord Buddha summoned the Naga and told him sorrowfully he could
not be permitted to become a monk. The snake was overcome with sorrow and
began to weep piteously. The compassionate Buddha then imparted to the Naga
122 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

the Five Solemn Precepts (rules of conduct), so that he could return as a human
being in his next life. The Buddha further ordered that from that time forward all
candidates for the monkhood should be called “Naga.” And so it is. As a result, in
Buddhist iconography, the Naga is depicted either coiled around the outer walls
of the temple or along the stairs leading to the temple’s entrance.
One important Hindu snake ritual is the Sarpanama, or snake-naming mantras,
which recognizes the ubiquity of the animals: “Let us honor the snakes on the
earth and those in the atmosphere and those in the heavens! Honor to those
snakes! Honor to those snakes who are the arrows of demons [the biters], honor
to those who live in trees and lie in holes! Honor to those in the shining sky, the
rays of the sun, or the water! Honor to all those snakes!” Snakes were considered
so powerful and so eternally wise that they could control the motion of the world.
Snakes didn’t always receive such consideration, however. At one times, snakes
were thrown into fires rather than worshipped.
The sarpasattra or snake sacrifice was a prominent part of Brahmin practice
and originally intended to be enacted only by priests. As a result they would obtain
cattle, sons, wealth, and protection from snakebite. And tradition says that the very
first snake sacrifices were offered up by the snakes themselves and were the means
by which they became “potent” biters (damśuka) and thus virile (virya). Today,
snake rituals (which do not include killing snakes) are conducted not only by the
priestly class but also by ordinary people for a variety of purposes—everything
from putting in a new foundation to petitioning the gods against snakebite itself.
However, later epic tradition explains the sacrifice differently and that it was
intended to show that all snakes were meant to be destroyed. Even the creator god
Brahma hated them for a number of reasons: they were said to be quarrelsome,
capriciously aggressive, and a nuisance. Plus, there were simply too many of them
altogether.
According to one legend, the snake sacrifice “so frightful to the snakes, and
begetting such sorrow in them,” as legend says, was authorized by King Janame-
jaya. The sacrifice was in fulfillment of a curse that the woman Kadru laid upon
her 1,000 snake children because they at first refused her command to go turn the
tail of a white horse black. (They did it eventually, entwining themselves in the
hairs of the white tail.) It’s a long story, but it should be noted that some of Kadru’s
children turned to religion and gave up their former evil ways, instead studying
the sacred texts, meditating, and embarking upon a course of self-improvement.
Yet another legend from India tells us that the golden-plumed sun-bird Garuda,
upon whom rides the god Vishnu, destroyed all venomous snakes. He had acquired
this dislike from his mother, Vinata, who had been held captive and guarded by
them. (They were the children of his mother’s rival, Kadru, a rival wife.)
According to the Adi Parvan (part of the massive Hindu epic, the Mahabharata):

[w]hen the Ritwiks in that snake-sacrifice began to pour clarified butter into
the fire, terrible snakes, striking fear into every creature, began to fall into it.
And the fat and the marrow of the snakes thus falling into the fire began to
Real Charmers 123

flow in rivers. And the atmosphere was filled with an insufferable stench owing
to the incessant burning of the snakes. And incessant also were the cries of
the snakes fallen into the fire and those in the air about to fall into it . . . White,
black, blue, old and young, screeching horrible screams, they fell into the radiant
flames. Hundreds of thousands and millions and tens of millions of snakes were
destroyed completely against their own will.

At least one snake escaped, however. This was Takshaka, a “vile” creature who
remained attached to the nuisancy ways of his ancestors. Takshaka had once
stolen some earrings from the great sage Utanka. This was a particularly senseless
crime, considering that Takshaka had no ears. He couldn’t even wear the things.
Janamejaya really had it in for Takshaka, since the latter had vowed to kill his
father, Parikshit. And that was because Parikshit had a curse of his own laid on
him by an ascetic. Parikshit had humiliated the ascetic by draping a snake corpse
around his shoulders. Parikshit was mad at the ascetic because the latter didn’t feel
like chatting him up; he was trying to meditate. What goes around comes around.
At any rate, as soon as Takshaka heard that King Janamejaya was engaged in
the sacrifice, he lit out to Indra’s palace for protection. And Indra, gratified, told
Takshaka, who had repented his own evil deeds, “O prince of snakes, O Takshaka,
here thou hast no fear from that snake-sacrifice.”
However, Janamejaya was so enraged that Indra was protecting the snake that
he wanted to kill Indra as well, saying, “Priests! If Takshaka is in Indra’s keeping,
then hurl him into the fire with Indra himself!” However, they both (and the
remaining snakes) were saved by a certain Astika, a Hindu sage and son of the
serpent goddess, Manasa, the same one who rules the earth while Vishnu sleeps.
His actions brought the persecution of snakes to an end.
Snake sacrifices were not limited to the East. Another kind of snake sacrifice
was practiced by the Menominee Indians of North America. The sacrificial victim
was sprinkled with tobacco powder, seized by the neck and tail and jerked violently
until every vertebral joint was broken. The fangs were removed and the body cut
into pieces. It was then distributed among the rest of the Indians to carry about
in their medicine bags. Other groups of Indians, such as the Yakuts and Tarasco,
however, believed the snake should never be touched and certainly not killed. The
Druids, too, were no friends of snakes. Every Midsummer Eve they held a huge
snake sacrifice, throwing as many as they could catch into wicker baskets and then
burning the poor creatures alive. This practice occurred in continental Europe as
well as on the British Isles.
The snake, however, changed character as snake worship (technically ophid-
iodolatry) came to be identified as an enemy of “reformed religion,” as Laurie
Cozad in her Sacred Snakes: Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship makes
clear: “[T]he redactors of certain orthodox texts found . . . snake worship to be
threatening to their ideological agenda, and as a result . . . portray[ed] the snake
and its associated ritual tradition in a very negative fashion. Snakes of course are
utterly chthonic, and terribly dangerous, for snakes and the powers they represent
124 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

are beyond the ability of mere humans to control or predict or legislate. The power
of the serpent had to be re-channeled into a more acceptable vessel, one a little
easier to handle.”
The importance of snakes is made plain not only in the most holy works but also
in the popular epics called the Puranas. Main cobra characters portrayed in Indian
epics include Anant, Vasuki, Shesh, Padma, Kanwal, Karkotak, Kalia, Aswatar,
Takshaka, Sankhpal, Dhritarashtra, and Pingal. These may also be the names of
regional kings.
Naturally, concern about the power of venomous snakes has always loomed
large in Indian culture. Book 6 of the Atharva-Veda contains a powerful spell
to be said against malicious snakes: “May the snake not kill us, our children,
or our people. If its jaws are shut, let them not open. If they are open, let them
not shut.” Terrifyingly it adds, “I clap thy teeth upon thy teeth, and also thy jaw
upon thy jaw; I press thy tongue against thy tongue, and close up, O serpent,
thy mouth.” This maneuver requires a good deal of faith in the gods, much like
that possessed by modern snake-handling cults and probably with equal effect.
Another way to get rid of snakes, according to the Yajur-Veda, was to employ the
services of a longhaired man. At the time, only women were supposed to have
long hair, so a man with long hair was neither man nor woman, and thus in a good
position to confront the anomaly of nature, also sexually ambiguous, known as a
snake. The long hair also marks the classic Indian yogi, who is androgynous and
spiritually enlightened. The text refers somewhat mysteriously to a “red metal”
that is “neither iron nor gold” which the snake fighter is to place in his mouth.
The Indian Jain tradition also celebrates the value of nonviolence, even to
dangerous animals like snakes. It centers on the hero, Parshwanath, whose early
life bears a striking resemblance to that of the Buddha. In this case an ascetic
named Kamath was conducting a fire sacrifice. When Parshwanath learned of it, he
intuited that living creatures were being killed, albeit by accident. He attempted to
dissuade Kamath from the sacrifice. At first he had no luck, but finally Parshwanath
asked his servants to remove the wood from the fire and to shear it carefully before
setting it alight. This procedure revealed a half-burned snake which soon died
of his wounds. Parshwanath recited the Navakar Mantra for benevolence for the
dying snake, which died and was reborn as Dharanendra Dev, who protected him
thereafter. Parshwanath became the twenty-third Tirthankar, one of the founders
of the totally nonviolent Jain religious tradition.
To this very day, the annual Nag Pañchami, the festival of supernatural snakes, is
celebrated throughout India every Shravan (July/August). This is the rainy season,
a time which snakes are apt to emerge from their waterlogged holes, so they won’t
drown, and reside on the ground, where they can pose considerable danger to their
human neighbors. This is the period when most snakebites occur and so also the
period when offerings should be made to them.
How old the Indian Snake Festival is remains unknown, but history records
that when Alexander the Great showed up on the sub-continent in the fourth
century before the Common Era, he encountered a sacred snake kept in a cave and
Real Charmers 125

worshipped it devotedly. Perhaps he came by this feeling naturally. Alexander’s

own mother, Olympias, was fond of keeping pet snakes; her husband, Philip,
found her in bed with one once, after which he terminated marital relations with
her. There was a related rumor that Alexander’s own father was really Ammon,
who took the form of a large snake. It’s hard to say to this date what really
happened.
One story behind the Hindu snake festival is that a woman asked her brother
to get her some beautiful yellow kedige (Pandanus odoratissimus) flowers, whose
sweet scent (a little like roses but fruitier) was favored by the snake god, so she
could worship him. However, the brother was bitten and died. The sister, however,
managed to bring him back to life with a prayer to the snake god. As a result, on
this holiday, it is traditional for brothers to visit their married sisters, who prepare
them sweets made with this flower. The sister then applies clarified butter and milk
to his back and navel (which symbolizes their shared life in the womb). They also
pray for a long life for their brothers.
Another story about this same festival concerns the god Krishna who is said
to have conquered the evil river serpent Kaliya and thus saved his people from
drinking the waters that the snake had poisoned. Even though Kaliya had a thou-
sand heads, Krishna merely climbed up on them and began to dance. The pressure
of the great god’s feet crushed the pride of the serpent, and he began to vomit
blood. He doubtless would have died, but his wives came forth from the waters
and begged the good Krishna to spare him. Krishna, full of mercy, agreed, on the
condition that Kaliya leave the lake and go back to his original home on the island
of Ramanaka. This was done, and ever afterward Kaliya and his brood bear the
imprint of the god’s dancing lotus feet.
On this day, too, thousands of people enter the sacred snake pool which is
believed to be the gateway to the Nagaloka, the underground kingdom of serpents.
Worshippers hope to gain fertility, immortality, and, paradoxically, protection from
snakebite. The feast largely belongs to women, who decorate snake statues with
fresh flowers or sprinkle holy water upon them. In some cases, snakes are bathed
with milk and offered a ritual meal (which is never accepted) of milk and rice (or
sometimes milk and meat). Haldi kumkum (dried turmeric) is sprinkled on their
heads. The snakes are released into the jungle following the ceremony.
In parts of Bengal, Assam, and Orissa, worshippers seek the blessings of Mansa,
the queen of snakes. They often invoke the aid of snake charmers to do so. As
they play their flutes, the charmers may call out, “Nagoba-la dudh de Mayi [Give
milk to the Cobra, oh Mother].” Actually snakes have long been associated with
milk and with the mother goddess who provides it. Frying anything on this day
is forbidden by tradition, possibly in remembrance of the mythical time when the
snakes were burned in the fire.
In the Punjab region, this same festival is called “Guga-Navami.” All the local
households contribute some butter and flour, and a huge snake is shaped from
it. The dough-snake is then placed on a winnowing basket and taken round the
village in a celebratory procession. When the procession reaches the main square,
126 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

religious rites are performed to invoke the blessings of the snake god. The dough
snake is then ceremoniously buried and curds offered on the gravesite. Failure to
carry out the ritual properly will result in sour milk and fever.
India is of course famous for its snake charmers, who are of ancient tradition.
They don’t exist only in India. Egypt has its share of charmers, and the ancient
Akkadian word for “priest” was the same as for snake charmer. While perhaps not
so widely known as their Indian brethren, Egypt has its share of snake charmers.
The most famous of them was undoubtedly Sheikh Moussa, active in early part
of the twentieth century. Moussa claimed he could literally smell out venomous
snakes and scorpions. He claimed to come from an almost infinite line of snake
charmers and that his skills were bred into his very blood and bone. Perhaps,
although it’s worth mentioning that his grandfather, father, two brothers, and son
all died from snakebite, something Moussa always denied, allowing only the death
of his grandfather, who, he averred, had gotten a little careless in his old age. We
shall never know the truth of it, especially since Moussa himself was bitten to
death in 1937. Careless, perhaps.
Thankfully, the hunting or keeping of snakes has been technically illegal in
India since the passage of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The law was
widely ignored until very recently, when the government began a crackdown.
The erstwhile charmers have now been forced to diversify, doing weddings and
birthday parties, for instance, without their pets or, in some cases, taken on jobs as
naturalists discussing cobra lifestyles or even presenting lectures on the mystical
connection between snakes and ancient Indian lore.
But a few of the ancient and honorable profession are still to be found in
India. Would-be snake charmers study as apprentices for many years before they
finally venture out on their own. Most of them capture their own snakes. The
charmers only “borrow” the snakes for a few weeks, since after a while, the
animals grow used to their keepers and will not “hood,” which destroys the power
of the moment. Most horrible is a widely disseminated videotape which shows a
one-year-old child being forced to “fight” a cobra during a snake charming “rite
of passage” in Andhra Pradesh, India. The cobra has its mouth stitched up, but it
still attempts to strike the child. The cruelty of this rite to both snakes and children
was protested fiercely by people all over the world.
While all cobras hood up when alarmed, it’s the Indian species that make the
most dramatic show. Most of them are pretty large snakes, between 4 and 8 feet
long—with the king cobra getting to be truly immense, sometimes reaching 18
feet.
Although the snake appears to be moving in time to the music played by
the charmer, in actuality it is only watching him. Snakes probably cannot hear
music. The serpent is merely watching his handler, who sways while he is playing.
Cobras are much more attuned to visual cues than most snakes and so make a
good show swaying to the movement of the flute. Since snakes need to move their
whole head to follow movement, it appears that the animal is engrossed in the
music.
Real Charmers 127

Most charmers play it very safe and stay outside the cobra’s strike range. Cobras
are pretty slow strikers, all things considering. (Not many charmers play with a
viper, no matter how handsome they are.) Those who venture closer keep their
arms and hands in constant motion, which prevents the snake from getting a good
lock on the target. Some will offer an open palm in front of the snake, but this is
safer than it looks, since the cobra can’t open its mouth wide enough to get in a
good bite. It is only fair to add that a number of charmers have had their careers
cut short by a fatal bite anyway, even though it is rumored that during the three
days of Nag Pañchami cobra venom has no effect. Snakes who die from the stress
of the whole experience are given a formal burial.
The spectacled Indian Cobra (Naja naja), a beautiful and dramatic animal, is
the obvious choice for most Indian snake charmers. Its spectacles have a beautiful
myth attached to them. It is said that once when the handsome young god Krishna
came to earth in human form, he fell asleep, and a large cobra shielded him from
the blazing sun with his hood. When Krishna awoke, he thanked the beast by
placing his two fingers in blessing on the animal’s back. The beautiful Spectacled
Cobra bears that mark to this day. Some members of this clan, notably those from
Assam, have only one spectacle (a “monocle”) while others, those from India,
Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, have two. There is also the Monocled Cobra (Naja naja
kaouthia), which always has but one dramatic spot and is another favorite with
snake charmers. (Some types from west India have bars rather than spectacles.)
The species is generally fairly mild-mannered but, like many snakes, apt to be
more aggressive at night. However, like all cobras, it strikes simply by falling
forward: a person is usually safe enough if he wears high boots and refrains from
sticking his face near the snake. Cobras can’t strike upwards, and unlike vipers,
they strike quite slowly.
In some places, the charmers use the massive King Cobra (Ophiophagus han-
nah), also beautifully known as the hamadryad, which makes up in size for what
it lacks in dramatic coloring.
The King Cobra is the world’s largest venomous snake and is found throughout
tropical Asia, especially near water. While not especially plentiful anywhere, they
do have a habit of showing up in rice paddies. This is a truly terrifying animal.
Two teaspoons of its neurotoxic venom can kill twenty adults. One bite can kill
an elephant. It can raise one-third of its body off the ground and keep moving in
that position; luckily, it’s rather shy and usually moves away from people rather
than towards them.
For additional excitement, the King Cobra can actually growl, by means of
vibrating membranes in throat. (This is a highly specialized form of hissing.) The
rat snake, its main prey, does likewise. A growling snake adds a great deal to the
snake charmers’ shows.
A most dramatic touch is sometimes given by adding a cobra kisser, always a
young woman who approaches the animal from behind and ritually kisses it three
times. Again, this is not as dangerous as it seems. The kisser approaches the snake
from behind while it is distracted from the front. And cobras are not able to strike
128 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

directly upwards; instead they attack by raising their body as high as they can
and then “fall” forward. Another reason this works is that this behavior is also
part of the King Cobra’s own mating behavior. In the wild, in order to establish
dominance over each other, rival males rear up and try to touch each other on the
top of their heads. When one succeeds, the other drops down and crawls away in
dejection. So reaching from behind and tapping the snake on the head would have
an equally good outcome. The kisser is theoretically safe, as long as she doesn’t
try this stunt with a viper, who is a part of a different social system.
In Borneo too, King Cobras are used in some village snake shows. In this case
ladies of the “King Cobra Club” place the snakes in their mouths and dance. It is
similar to the Hopi snake dance ritual, except no matter how religious its origins,
it seems to be performed now mainly for the benefit of tourists.
It is all very sad, for the K.C. is nothing to fool around with. In 1992, an Indian
man gathering wood reportedly cut off his own nose after being bitten by a 15-foot
long cobra to keep himself from dying. Symptoms of cobra envenomation include
pain and swelling at the bite site, neurological problems, weakness, tightness in the
chest, low blood pressure, abdominal pain, salivation, and the inability to swallow.
Respiratory arrest can occur within minutes, especially when the biter is a King
Cobra, due to the large amount of venom injected.
King Cobras are cannibalistic and feed primarily upon other snakes; this fact
of nature caused no end of problems for reptile curator Raymond Ditmars (1876–
1942) at the Bronx Zoological Park. According to a report in the New York Times
(August 11, 1901):

Once a week a five- or six-foot blacksnake is procured, and after being subjected
to a peculiar process is fed to the cobra. The cobra will eat only large snakes,
AND the larger they are, the better she likes them. No blacksnake large enough
to suit the appetite of her imperial highness has ever been found. If she had her
own way about things, every snake in the house, including several of the boa
constrictors, would long ago have wandered down the throat of this tremendous
snake. Already her appetite has made black snakes scarce in the park . . . [S]o
fastidious is the appetite of the cobra that if the black snake is not to her liking,
as far as size is concerned, she will not touch it. It is here where the peculiar
process referred to takes place. This consists in making the snake think that she
is getting more than she really is. After the blacksnake intended for her meal is
killed, a dozen or more frogs are killed and stuffed down the dead snake so as to
make it bulge out in all directions and appear large. In this state the blacksnake
looks as if it were a huge stuffed stocking, and is of a girth which seems as
if it were several times the diameter of the throat of the reptile for whom it is
intended. . . . Every conceivable trick has been tried by curator Ditmars to tempt
the cobra to eat things other than blacksnakes, but so far without success. Once
a pair of dead rats were tied to the tail of a frog-stuffed blacksnake to see if it
would not be possible to swindle a little variety down into the cobra, but the
snake discovered the deception and bit off the string which fastened the rats to
her meal.
Real Charmers 129

EGYPT, ASPS, AND CLEOPATRA

While some of the most famous cobras, such as the King Cobra, hail from
India, in point of fact, most cobras live in Africa. Egypt, for example, is loaded
with snakes (mostly in the Delta region) and with snake myths (everywhere).
In Egyptian myth, generally, snakes represented chaos and evil; amulets were
commonly worn to protect people against them. Still, venomous snakes were
greatly honored. Interestingly, the Egyptian hieroglyphic for various deities is
identical to the one for serpent.
Mythic celebration of cobra power has existed in Egypt from time immemorial.
While cobras were feared throughout Egypt, there were also positive images of
them. The cobra’s early name (Renenutet) means “nourishing snake.” She was the
goddess of good fortune, easy childbirth, and a good harvest. Sometimes she was
seen as having the earth (Geb) for a husband, at other times Sobek, the Nile River
god. The Pharaohs wore on their crowns the uraeus, the protective Egyptian Cobra
(Naja haje), symbolizing the ancient serpent mother, Uatchet (Wadjit), goddess
of lower Egypt, who protected the king by spitting fire at his enemies. Uatchet
represented the endless cycle of birth and death. When the two kingdoms united,
Uatchet merged with Ma’at, the goddess of justice, and Isis, the goddess of life.
Uatchet and Renenutet were also later conflated in Egyptian myth, and soon no
one knew what anybody was talking about.
In addition, four of the Ogdoad, the pantheon of the eight chief gods of He-
liopolis, were represented as snakes—the four female deities. The males were
represented as frogs, which may tell you something. These snake and frog deities
paired up to create the major division of the universe: Naunet and Nu (primor-
dial waters); Amunet and Amun (invisible air); Kauket and Kuk (darkness), and
Hauhet and Huh (eternity).
According to the Elizabethan writer Edward Topsell (in the previously men-
tioned Bestiary), “the Egyptians lived familiarly with asps and with continued
kindness won them to be tame. They worshipped asps even as household gods, by
means whereof the subtle serpents grew to a sensible conceit of their own honor
and freedom and would go up and down and play with their children, doing no
harm unless they were wronged. They would come and lick food from the table
when they were called . . . [T]hey licked the prepared food with great temperance,
little by little, without any ravening.” In his Histories of Beasts, he also mentions
a “holy” kind of asp called a thermusis which was fed in the Temple of Isis with
ox fat: “They say this kind is not an enemy to men, except to such as are very evil.
It is death to kill one of them willingly.”
Even more interesting is the moral nature of the creature. “The domestical asps
understand right and wrong,” Topsell assures his readers. “There is the story of
such an asp, which was female and had young ones. In her absence, one of her
young ones killed a child in the house. When the old came again, according to her
custom, to seek her food, the killed child was laid forth, and so she understood the
harm. Then went she and killed that young one and never more appeared in the
house.”
130 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

While one usually thinks of cobras as belonging in Asia or Africa, the wonders
of modern transport have carried them worldwide. Here in Maryland, twenty-five-
year-old Brian Leslie West, who lived the next county over from me in Emmitsburg,
was killed by a cobra in 1992. The Associated Press report identified it as a “King
Indian Cobra,” an animal that does not exist. It was later determined to be an
Indian Cobra. The snake was in the process of laying its eggs and seemed to be
in distress. According to the victim’s father, “She was lying listlessly on the floor,
and he was just gently stroking her back. Then he stood up and just took his eyes
off her for a little bit. She spun around and bit him on the toe.” West was not
wearing shoes. He died from cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. (Although
West kept an antidote on hand, there was insufficient time for him to start the IV
transfusions.) West was previously noted for instructing local paramedics on how
to treat snakes bites. There seem to be many instructive lessons stemming from
this incident, most of which cluster around wearing proper footgear and treating
expectant mothers with the fear and respect they all deserve.
In October 2004 in Leoben, Austria (yes, Austria, of all places), a forty-year-old
man wrapped himself up in two cobras and then threatened police with them. The
police had been summoned to his home after the man text messaged his girlfriend
that he was going to kill himself, apparently à la Cleopatra. An officer shot him
instead, and the man was hospitalized in critical condition for cobra bites and
gunshot wounds. He had sixty more venomous snakes in his apartment.
In 2007 an Egyptian Cobra escaped from its cage in a Toronto rooming house.
For 3 months experts tried to track it down—with no success. The building was
cordoned off and residents not allowed to return. (That was the easy part.) The
heat had been turned off in the house and the temperatures dipped well below zero.
The snake was finally “declared dead” even though no one ever found the body,
and the rooming house was renovated. The owner of the snake, Helder Claro, was
sentenced to 2 months in jail. His other two venomous snakes were removed from
the house.
In February 2007, in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, a pit bull terrier named
Chief lost his life saving his two owners from a deadly cobra. The beneficiaries
of Chief’s courage were eighty-seven-year-old Liberata la Victoria and her grand-
daughter, Maria Victoria Fronteras. The cobra crept into the family’s kitchen and
struck twice at the women. Chief, however, rushed at the snake, shielding the
women. He then grabbed the cobra by the neck and repeatedly slammed it on
the floor until it died. However, the snake managed to bite the dog’s jaw, and the
animal died in minutes, after giving his masters a farewell gaze. The Fronterases
and members of the pit bull owners’ group gave the dog a “hero’s burial” the same
day he died. He deserved it.
The most famous snakebite death in history was probably Cleopatra’s suicide.
The story goes that she was looking for a painless and genteel way to cross over
to the next world and experimented by having slaves murdered in various ways to
see which was the least objectionable. Eventually, she decided that snakebite was
the way to go and clutched an asp to her arm (or breast, as later myth has it) and
died forthwith. What an asp!
Real Charmers 131

According to nineteenth century English poet and critic, Algernon Charles

Swinburne, as reported by Lucy Hughes-Hallet in Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams,
and Distortions, “The subtle and sublime idea which transforms her death by the
aspic’s bite into a meeting of serpents which recognize and embrace, an encounter
between the woman and the worm of the Nile, almost as though this match for
death were a monstrous love-match . . . so closely do the snake and the queen of
snakes caress and cling.” But we all know what Swinburne was like. He also wrote
a forgettable poem about the occasion.
Alas, there is no species of snake simply identified as an asp, so a coterie of those
interested in such things have been scrambling to name the culprit. Some have
fingered the nasty Saw-Scaled Viper as the villain; however, like most members
of its clan, this viper delivers a powerfully painful punch. It is more the likely
that the killer was the Egyptian Cobra (Naja haje), whose neurotoxic venom
is relatively painless. It is also deadly. In August 1992, Larry Moor of Langley,
British Columbia, died after being bitten by one. Moor was no newbie to the world
of snakes. As founder of the British Columbia Association of Reptile Owners, he
had dedicated his life to correcting children’s misconceptions about snakes and
to teach how to handle them properly. Alas, he could have used a few lessons
himself. Just because the Egyptian Cobra usually eats toads doesn’t mean it won’t
bite people.
As an added bonus, in Cleopatra’s case, the Egyptian cobra is the snake that
symbolized Pharaonic privilege and royalty and appeared on the crown or uraeus
of the Pharaohs. The cobra was also the symbol of Isis, and Cleopatra felt that
she was indeed the reincarnation of the goddess. Isis was always guarded by her
sacred serpent.
But did this celebrated event even happen? Actually, the death of Cleopatra
is a murky business at best. Here is what Plutarch, in his Life of Antony, said
about it:

Cleopatra sent to Caesar a letter which she had written and sealed; and, putting
everybody out of the monument but her two women, she shut the doors. Caesar,
opening her letter, and finding pathetic prayers and entreaties that she might be
buried in the same tomb with Antony, soon guessed what was doing. At first he
was going himself in all haste, but, changing his mind, he sent others to see.
The thing had been quickly done. The messengers came at full speed, and found
the guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors, they saw her
stone-dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her royal ornaments. Iras, one
of her women, lay dying at her feet, and Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able
to hold up her head, was adjusting her mistress’s diadem. And when one that
came in said angrily, “Was this well done of your lady, Charmion?” “Extremely
well,” she answered, “and as became the descendant of so many kings”; and as
she said this, she fell down dead by the bedside.

No mention of snakes, and, in addition, two dead maids. Poison, obviously, but
how? Cassius Dio, in his eighty-volume history of Rome, says that the only marks
132 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

on her body were slight pricks on the arm, and some assumed that the snake was
hidden in either a basket of figs or a water jar. However, no one reported seeing any
snakes slithering around. Others suggest that the poison was applied to a pin used
to fasten her hair or hidden in a hollow comb. Octavian (soon to be Augustus) liked
the snake version, though, and that became canonical. In his triumphal procession,
he showed an “asp” clinging to her image. Some (like Shakespeare) insist that two
snakes were involved and that at least one bite was on the breast, as opposed to an
arm bite. In any case, it would have been a pretty quick death for a cobra bite, and
I for one am not buying it.

MAMBAS: AN AFRICAN SPECIALTY

Mambas are related to cobras but are noted for their arboreal habits, their
speed, and their lethal bite. There are four species of mambas, one “black” and
three “green.” The black ones aren’t really black, but the green ones are really
green. The Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) gets its name not from its body
color, which is gray, but from the black lining of its mouth, which has been likened
(with some but not much exaggeration) to the dark and yawning pit of hell. It likes
living in termite mounds whenever possible. They prefer eating rodents but will
nab birds if they flutter too close.
Apparently, even the sound of it is threatening. Peter Hathaway Capstick, in a
1979 article in The American Hunter entitled “Mamba Means Death,” wrote:

With a hiss like some weird, ice-cold version of a steam boiler rupturing, a
sound I’ll hear in sweat soaked dreams for many years to come, first one, then a
second dull, gunmetal length of murder appeared, as if by witchcraft, four feet
in front of my face.

There is something about mambas that tempt one to overwrite, apparently.

Mambas usually range between 5 and 7 feet long, although the Black Mamba
(Dendroaspis polylepis), the largest of the bunch, can manage to stretch out to
14 feet. After the King Cobra, it is the world’s longest venomous snake, and one
of the most toxic. The Mamba has long, slender fangs and no other teeth in the
maxillary bone. The fangs lie extremely far forward—almost under the tip of the
nose, which makes it particularly dangerous. Its venom is incredibly neurotoxic:
two drops can kill a person, and a mamba can inject over 20 drops per bite. The
Black Mamba bite mortality rate of 30–40 years ago was nearly 100%; nowadays,
with better care available, the Black Mamba averages only twelve killings per
year. Still, not everyone bitten and untreated succumbs. Survival can be due to a
number of factors. Stephen Spawls says that a friend of his survived because the
biting Mamba had its mouth full of mud at the time. In another case, however, the
victim died in 20 minutes. Mud isn’t always around when you need it.
Apparently several Black Mambas manifested themselves during the filming
of the Leonardo DiCaprio film Blood Diamond. According to DiCaprio, “It was
Real Charmers 133

a tough shoot and we’d literally be in the middle of a take and they’d say, ‘Cut,’
and I’d go, ‘OK, what happened? Did I mess up my line?’ ‘No, Black Mamba,
Black Mamba.’ A guy would run out with a stick, capture the black mamba and
they’d go, ‘All right, rolling.’ These are like snakes that could kill you within, like,
a minute . . . It’s like the most highly venomous, aggressive snake in the world.”
DiCaprio was exaggerating. It would take several minutes for one to kill him.
Most of the news stories about the shoot ran headlines such as “DiCaprio Almost
Killed by Black Mambas!” although he was never actually bitten.
However, twenty-four-year-old Paul Flynn, a Northern Irish soldier serving in
Kenya, was bitten on the arm by a Black Mamba, in the November 2007. He
received immediate antivenin treatment from a medic and was then rushed more
than 300 miles by ambulance and helicopter to a hospital in Nairobi and was able
to make a complete recovery. His next tour of duty is Afghanistan.
The Black Mamba is less likely to be found in trees than the other mambas,
although Stephen Spawls recounts his adventures with a 9 footer who had taken
refuge in a beehive. It was a tricky capture, and Spawls’s companions showed
their confidence in him by preparing the antivenin serum while he was in the tree.
Spawls claimed the mamba defecated on him (although perhaps it was musk) and
mentioned that the product smelled like curry.
The Black Mamba is also highly excitable. When angered it can lift about 40%
of its body off the ground and lunge forward. (A typical snake can manage only
25–30%.) His bite usually consists of multiple stabbings with those forward lying
fangs. The Black Mamba is one of the fastest snakes, zipping along at 12 miles an
hour, according to the most enthusiastic reports. It can move so fast because its
musculature is such that it makes fewer bends when it moves. However, it cannot
catch a galloping zebra, as some legends maintain. In Zulu lore, a king may
reappear after his death as a Mamba. Colonial legends tell of Mambas dropping
through chimneys to wipe out entire families.
The so-called Common Mamba (D. austiceps), the most common green variety,
is smaller and more arboreal (with a prehensile tail) than the Black Mamba, seldom
coming to the ground. It is a little less deadly and much less aggressive than the
Black Mamba, but it’s still no fun to be bitten by one. Its venom can cause death
within hours.
The ancient myth of the feathered serpent also appears in relation to mambas
although in a somewhat different guise than usual. In this case, the snake has a
rooster head, sometimes including wattles and comb. It has a terrible smell (curry
perhaps?) and can kill merely by looking at its victims, à la Medusa. Spawls
explains the comb by stating that old mambas, after many sheds, sometimes build
up a matted residue of half-sloughed skin that bears a resemblance to a comb.

CORAL SNAKES
There are about sixty or so species of Coral Snakes (genus Micrurus) in the
Americas and some in the Old World also. All of them are tropical or subtropical,
134 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

and they are the only relatives of the cobra present in the New World. Most are
medium-sized, about 2–4 feet, nocturnal snakes with small heads, fixed front
fangs, and bright, ringed bodies. Coral Snakes are secretive and elusive creatures,
feeding mostly on other snakes. While their teeth are not viper-sized, it is not true
that they can bite only on the finger or toe. Their mouths are bigger than they look,
and if they can sink their little fangs into you they can kill you. However, they are
shy and rather docile, preferring not to bite people. This is a good thing—as their
venom is highly toxic, although the American version of the Coral Snake doesn’t
deliver a lot of it at one bite, being so small. There are exceptions. The Eastern
Coral Snake (Micurus f. fulvius) is credited with causing the very first death of
the Civil War. No Coral Snake fatalities have been reported in the United States,
however, since the 1960s due to effective antivenin. Before that time, the fatality
rate for these snakes was about 10%. In fact, almost no one is bitten by a Coral
Snake, unless he is intentionally handling one. One of the problems associated
with a coral snake bite is that it is distinctly not painful the way a viper bite is
painful, and the bitee may believe his attacker was a harmless species.
South American Coral Snakes are considerably more dangerous. If you recall,
some of these species Micurus dumerilii and M. bocourti, for example, have red
bands touching black, boldly defying the “Red touch black / Venom lack” verse.
Some have only pink and blue banding, and a few have no banding at all.
Former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt ran afoul of one of these serpents
while exploring an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, then known as the “River
of Doubt” in 1914. The men were making camp, and in doing so apparently drove
the snake from his hiding place. This variety of coral snake was considered so
deadly (with no antivenin for it at the time) that its victims were routinely given
up for dead, with no treatment even attempted. One of the explorers swung wildly
at it with his axe, which had the effect of driving the snake toward Roosevelt, who
attempted to step on its head; his heavy foot landed on the snake’s body instead.
The snake hauled back and bit the former president on the foot. Everyone watched
aghast as the venom rolled down the side of his hobnailed boots. Luckily, the
Coral Snake’s short fangs were unable to penetrate to the flesh and Roosevelt was
saved. Had the snake been a viper, the former president may well not have been
so lucky.
One of the most interesting natural facts about Coral Snakes is that they can
fart. It’s a defense mechanism created by building up pressure in the cloaca and
then releasing it with a sharp snapping sound.

VENOM DOWN UNDER

Some of the most famously dangerous venomous snakes on earth live in Aus-
tralia. All Australian venomous snakes are elapids (not vipers) except the Boiga
irregularis and B. fusca, which are imports.
The initiatory rites of desert tribesmen into shamanship include guiding a
postulant to a water hole, where two medicine men cover his eyes and throw him
Real Charmers 135

“into the jaws of the Serpent” which swallows him. The postulant must remain in
the “Serpent’s belly” for an indefinite period of time. At some point, the medicine
men bring kangaroo rats as offerings to the “Serpent” whereupon the serpent ejects
the postulant by throwing him high into the air.
The King Brown Snake (Pseudechis australis) is Australia’s most venomous
snake, if you judge by the amount of venom yielded in a bite. However, it is
responsible for very few fatalities.
More dangerous are the Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja spp.), which, however,
should not be confused with the Brown Tree Snakes that plague Guam or with
the King Brown Snake. They are common, irascible, and lightning quick, and
when they strike they will often bite over and over. This is the only Australian
elapid to produce living young rather than lay eggs. Brown Snakes are believed to
be involved in about twenty-four of the past forty Australian deaths attributed to
snakebite. In January 2007, a sixteen-year-old boy died in a Sydney hospital after
being bitten on the hand by a Brown Snake. He stumbled from the bush into the
middle of a suburban cricket game, where he collapsed and died.
In one celebrated 1988 incident, a certain Gordon Lyons, driving from Man-
dorah to Darwin, spied one and decided it was just thing for the Mandorah Pub’s
fish tank. He caught the snake with one hand (his other hand being occupied with
holding a beer can) and was promptly bitten. Undeterred, he shoved it in a plastic
bag and then stuck his hand in the bag and was bitten several more times. Luckily
he was not alone. His companion, equally inebriated, applied first aid by pouring
beer over the victim face and slapping him several times across the face (or, in
another version, by hitting him over the head with a bottle). Despite this excellent
treatment, the victim relapsed into a coma for 6 weeks. The case consumed the
entire antivenin supply in the Northern Territories, with more having to be flown
in from other parts of the country. His left arm had to be amputated, and he lost
the use of his legs. Luckily for him his drinking arm was uninjured.
In all probability it was also a Brown Snake that bit a cricket-playing twenty-
two-year-old New Zealand tourist Cedric Suifa on December 26, 2007. He leaped
up and began to yell that something bit him but apparently thought it was a bull
ant. He kept on playing for about 45 minutes, despite some worrisome looking
marks on his toe. But when he started feeling a lot sicker, he was transported to the
Gold Coast Hospital and given twelve vials of antivenin. No one actually saw the
snake, but the victim’s vomiting and shortness of breath were typical symptoms
of that snake’s venom.
The Red-Bellied Black Snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus), native to eastern
Australia and a venomous snake in its own right, is said to keep away the deadlier
brown snakes. It won’t. It prefers to eat frogs. This snake, like the Death Adder
(genus Acanthophis), is being threatened by cane toads.
Tiger Snakes (Notechis scutatus), which live in eastern and southern Australia,
can pose a serious threat to people. In 2007, a seventy-one-year-old retiree was
bitten while gardening. The quick-thinking Des McLean not only was pretty sure
he recognized the species but also took a picture of it for official identification
136 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

purposes. This snake’s venom inhibits blood clotting, and the bite almost cost
McLean his life.
The Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), whose scientific name means
“small-scaled and sharp-tailed,” has drop-for-drop the most potent venom of any
terrestrial snake (with the possible exception of its fellow Australian, the Tiger
Snake). At least that is the case if you are just considering its effect on mice.
And you might as well, since that is what it lives on—mice and rats in the
Australian outback. It is a tropical snake living in northern and northeastern
Australia.
Taipan venom also separates the blood from the plasma and clots it. According
to the Mungkjian people, Taipan was once a human being and a doctor. For
example, if someone became ill from swallowing a bone, Tapian would squeeze
and squeeze the person until the bone was spat out. He could then use that same
bone to point at other people to kill them. In addition to his other talents, Taipan
created thunder and lightning. The Taipan is called the “fierce snake,” although it
is anything but fierce. Indeed it is shy around people; despite its deadly poison,
there are few recorded deaths from its bite. However, one bite contains enough
venom to kill 250,000 mice—enough for all his friends. The same bite could kill
a hundred people, and for this reason it is sometimes called the world’s most
venomous land snake. The average venom yield is 44 mg, and the record is 110
mg. This snake is fifty times more venomous than the Indian Cobra (Naja naja)
and 650–850 times more venomous than a Diamondback Rattler. The venom is
largely neurotoxic, causing complete paralysis. To be fair about this, it should be
noted it prefers not to live anywhere near people anyway. The late naturalist Steve
Irwin (the crocodile hunter) once filmed a program in which he was seen lying
down outside the Inland Taipan’s den. The snake emerged, flicked at Irwin with
its tongue and then glided away.
A young man named Chris Peberdy, the official snake catcher of Darwin,
Australia, in a December 31, 2006 interview with Chris Haslam, remarked, “Steve
Irwin was a great man—really loved his snakes—but he taught a generation of
Aussies a lot of bad habits.” Peberdy’s own former partner was bitten in the chest
by a Taipan, narrowly escaping death. At the time, says Peberdy, he had a bottle
of Jim Beam in one hand and the snake around his neck. “The mad bastard went
off and joined the Foreign Legion after the bite,” says Chris. “He thought it’d be
safer. Mate, wrapping a Taipan around your neck is like putting your nuts in a
blender and flicking the switch on the off-chance you won’t get nailed. Mess with
snakes and it’s not a matter of if you’re going to get bitten, it’s simply a matter of
when.”
The other Taipan is the Common Taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus), the longest
Australian elapid and perhaps the second-longest venomous snake, tying with the
Black Mamba, after the King Cobra. Both species of Taipans are diurnal and lay
eggs rather than give live birth.
Australia’s Death Adder (Acanthophis antarcticus) is in a class by itself. Despite
the name “adder,” it is an elapid, although it possesses a hemotoxic venom like a
Real Charmers 137

viper. It has semimobile, viper-like fangs, too. It also looks like a viper (hence its
name) with his heavy, wide body and even behaves like one. Its hunting strategy
is unique; it uses its colorful tail tip to lure its prey close and then it strikes.
Presumably the prey thinks the tail tip is an enticing worm. These snakes are
in danger from the exotic cane toads, which eat death adder babies. And if an
adult snake returns the favor by trying to eat the cane toad, it will die of toad
poisoning. Evolutionary biologists believe that it developed to fill a niche and that
it is another case of convergent evolution. Despite its scientific name this creature
does not live in Antarctica, and despite its common name it causes few if any
deaths among humans. That’s because there is good antivenin available. Without
treatment, about half the bites prove fatal.
One of them did nab its keeper through a newspaper under which it had been
hiding. The man subsequently almost died from an allergic reaction to antivenin,
but everything came out all right in the end. The bite occurred during filming for a
Discovery Channel documentary; alas, the cameraman hadn’t unpacked his gear
yet, and the biting episode was missed.
Even Australia’s “nonvenomous” snakes are not much of a bargain, apparently.
In April 2007, a thirty-seven-year-old reptile enthusiast named Ron Siggins died
after being bitten on the finger by a presumably harmless Whip Snake, about 100
miles northwest of Melbourne. Many snake experts confessed their shock that a
man who knew snakes so well had been killed by a species generally regarded
as harmless. He bandaged his finger with his handkerchief, then became woozy,
and collapsed while his friend called an ambulance. It was too late however, for
by the time the medics arrived, Siggins was dead. Doctors suggested that the man
died of complications as a result of medication he was taking for neck and spinal
injuries.
Even lesser known elapids can give one quite a turn. On his Web site, Dr. Fry
recalls his adventures with trying to collect venom from a Stephen’s Banded Snake
(Hoplocephalus stephensi). He writes, “It promptly bit me the first time I attempted
to milk it. I looked up the clinical effects but not much was known as there were
no well-documented cases of such a snakebite. As far as anyone knew, Stephen’s
Banded Snakes were not considered dangerous. I clearly discounted this as my
body hit the ground seconds after the bite. I regained consciousness quickly, got a
pressure bandage on and took off for the hospital. Upon arrival 15 minutes after the
bite, my blood was completely unable to clot, my blood pressure was 87/36 and my
heart rate was 42. Despite this, I was completely conscious. Twelve hours after the
bite, my blood pressure and heart rate were unchanged and my blood still wouldn’t
clot. This was despite the administration of many vials of tiger snake antivenin (the
closest match because there was not and still is not a specific antivenin for Hoplo-
cephalus envenomations). This had all of us quite worried. Eighteen hours after the
bite, however, the symptoms finally began to reverse.” Everything for science. His
misadventure led to his discovery that Australian elapid venom includes a blood
pressure regulating hormone that is almost identical to one that is used in the human
body.
138 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

GREAT KRAITS
Kraits are oviparous snakes native to southern Asia and consist of about a
dozen species. All kraits are nocturnal, and most are small, only 3 feet or so,
with beautiful glossy scales. They are shy, nonaggressive animals that coil up and
hide their heads when approached. However, it’s fair to say that there have been
numerous instances in which snakes bit sleeping persons. (They are reputed to
be more aggressive at night, a behavior pattern noted for many species.) Kraits
feed almost solely on cold-blooded prey, so the bites are probably in response to
a quick movement on the part of the sleeper. Certainly the kraits didn’t intend to
eat them.
The strangest thing about their appearance is the colorless iris—which makes
them look as if they have very large pupils. The Banded Krait (Bungarus fasciatus)
has a high, ridgelike backbone that gives it a strange, triangular appearance.
Another krait, the Bungarus caeruleus, which lives in India, has a venom that is
many times more potent than that of the Indian Cobra, but it is so timid that it
seldom bites anyone and is generally considered harmless. All krait bites, however,
should be considered life-threatening. Indeed in 2002, herpetologist Joe Slowinski
was bitten by a juvenile krait (B. multicinctus) while doing field research in Burma.
He was unable to obtain medical help and subsequently died from the effects of
the bite.
Kraits are also popular in fiction, appearing in Rudyard Kipling’s immortal
short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Roald Dahl’s short story “Poison,” and Frederick
Forsythe’s tale “There Are No Snakes in Ireland.” Many people suggest that the
snake in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Speckled Band” was also a krait, but who
knows? In the story it was labeled an “Indian Swamp Adder,” whatever that is.

SEA SNAKES (HYDROPHIDAE)

The serpent, writes mythographer Joseph Campbell in Masks of God, volume
three, is “the lord of waters. Dwelling in the earth, among the roots of trees,
frequenting springs, marshes, and watercourses, it glides with a motion of waves.”
Sea snakes are nothing new in the world, although they apparently evolved from
land-dwelling snakes, who may or may not have originally been sea creatures.
Like so much else about snakes, they have a circular history.
The earliest known sea snake, Simoliphis, entered the fossil record 100–150
million years ago. This was a widely distributed creature whose remains have even
been found in parts of both Europe and North Africa that were once underwater.
Today sea snakes come in seventeen genera and about sixty-two different species.
Most are about 4–5 feet in length, although the largest, Hydrophis spiralis, can
attain a length of about 10 feet. Sadly, none get to be as long as the fabulous
sea monsters of legend. They are found among coral reefs all over the world.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, for example, hosts about twenty-two species of
them. They also shed their skins more frequently than terrestrial snakes, every 2
to 6 weeks.
Real Charmers 139

Sea snakes are the most completely aquatic of all water-dwelling reptiles, but
they are not fish. They have no gills and must come up to the surface regularly
to breathe. Still, at least some species are apparently about to “breathe” through
their skin, which provides about 20% of their oxygen needs and allows for long
dives. Their so-called valvular nostrils can close up to be watertight when the
snake submerges. Some sea snakes are able to dive to a depth of 100 meters.
Sea snakes also have the most powerful venom of all snakes and pretty long
fangs for elapids. They have need of a quick-acting venom, as they need to kill
their prey (usually eels, although a few dine on crustaceans) fast before it swims
away. Eels keel over in seconds. When a sea snake bites a person, however, the
venom doesn’t work with the same speed, although it can be just as deadly. The
bite usually looks innocuous and often produces no symptoms for up to 8 hours;
eventually, however, it takes effect with a vengeance. The venom attacks the
muscles, and the victim becomes so weak that he can barely lift a finger. Death
usually comes between 12 hours and several days after the bite.
While more advanced sea snakes are completely helpless on land, Sea Kraits,
considered the most “primitive,” with functional ventral scales, do spend time
on land and, as mentioned earlier, lay eggs on land rather than give live birth.
Other sea snakes are live-bearers. Sea Kraits (genus Laticauda) are very similar to
Banded Kraits in appearance, except for the oarlike tail. They are less completely
adapted for marine life than true sea snakes. They are reputed to be sweet-tempered
during the day but demons at night. There is a common myth that Sea Kraits have
mouths that are too small to bite people. This is untrue.
Sea snakes can only inhabit tropical regions; otherwise they would find it too
difficult to maintain their body temperatures. As their name suggests, sea snakes
live in saltwater and prey upon marine creatures. This diet creates an imbalance
in the salt–water ratio inside their own bodies, but sea snakes solve the problem
by using a special gland situated on the floor of their mouths. This gland collects
highly concentrated saltwater and transfers it to a sheath that surrounds the tongue,
which flicks out the solution into the ocean, keeping the bodily salt and water within
survivable limits.
Sea snake temperaments vary widely. Many are curious and completely unafraid
of divers, which means they often swim close up to investigate people. The
U.S. Navy, which has investigated them in turn, deems them mild-mannered and
generally nonthreatening. But there are exceptions. Snakes that use their venom
mostly in defense, such as the Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake (Pelamis platarus),
seem quicker to bite than those who use venom to immobilize their prey, such
as members of the Laticauda genus, the Sea Kraits. Fishermen have been known
to handle these snakes with impunity. The species that have been reported as
aggressive include the Olive or Golden Sea Snake (Aipysurus laevis), Stokes’s
Sea Snake (Astrotia stokesii), the Beaked or Common Sea Snake (Enhydrina
schistosa), and the Ornate Reef Sea Snake (Hydrophis ornatus). They have been
known to gather in great numbers; in 1933 literally millions of Stokes’s Sea
Snakes were spotted en masse in the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of Sumatra.
140 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

The Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake (Pelamis platurus) is found in abundance off the
western coast of Costa Rica but is responsible for very few human fatalities. They
are attracted to light, and in fact this is the way the fishermen collect them for use
in the food trade; they are considered a delicacy in parts of the East.
The most widely known of sea snakes is the Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake, which
is seen further from shore than any other snake. Sea snakes don’t occur in the
Atlantic, although there is some speculation that if the planet keeps heating up and
the ocean currents get warmer, they may swim over. Nothing physical is stopping
them. Sea snakes are not found in the highly saline Red Sea either; however, some
swim up rivers and have been reported as much as a 100 miles from the ocean.
Two sea snakes have actually adapted to freshwater life. One is the Black and
White Lake Taal Sea Snake (Hydrophis semperi). Lake Taal had an outlet to the
ocean, which has since disappeared. Presumably for the same reasons, Lake Taal,
about 60 km southeast of Manila and the third-largest lake in the Philippines, is
home to the world’s only freshwater sardine, the overharvested Sardinella tawilis.
Bull Sharks used to live there as well, but the locals exterminated them during
the 1930s. Lake Taal is interesting because it has a volcano in the middle of it,
which in turn has its own “crater lake”; however, no fish or snakes live in it, since
its “water” is a dilute solution of sulfuric acid. Supposedly you can swim in it,
although the tourists aren’t lining up. The other landlocked species is Crocker’s
Sea Snake (Laticauda crockeri) a species endemic to the Solomon Islands.
One Javanese story tells the tale of Nyai Lolo Kidul (queen of either the
Southern or Indian Ocean), often depicted as a type of mermaid, who had a habit
of killing each of her eight husbands on their respective wedding nights. The
ninth husband, a holy man who had the good sense to stay away chanting prayer
instead of engaging in any marital nonsense, observed that a cobra emerged from
the body of the sleeping queen. When he stabbed the snake, it turned into a kris
(a wavy dagger). From that time forth warriors would wash their knives in cobra
blood to empower them.
CHAPTER SIX

Generation of Vipers

Vipers are generally considered to be the most recently evolved and thus the most
advanced snakes. However, Dr. Bryan Fry has a different view. He claims vipers
are the most ancient split-off from the original snake family tree, even earlier than
the colubrids. This is contrary to what was earlier believed, but Fry has found that
vipers lack the 3FTx toxins present in some other venomous snakes, indicating
that this “toxin recruitment” event came subsequent to the division of species.
Luckily, we need not delve into this rather arcane discussion here.
The viper clan is traditionally divided into two groups, the so-called true vipers
(genus Vipera), like the European Viper, and pit vipers (genus Crotalidae). Tax-
onomists are still fighting about how much of a division there really is between
the groups, so we’ll just continue on, picking our way carefully through the viper
morass. The main difference between the two is the heat-sensing pit of the latter
group. Pit vipers may have originated in southeast Asia and then migrated to North
America. They are most famous for their very large venom glands, which account
for the large, triangular heads seen in many species.
Vipers are found through most of the world, with the notable exception of
Australia. There are about equal numbers of species of vipers and elapids. True
vipers come in several genera, the most well-known of which are the well-named
Bitis (including the Gaboon Viper and the Puff Adder); Vipera (including the
small vipers of Europe); and Cerastes (the Horned Viper or Horned Asp). The
Horned Viper is one of the only vipers employed by snake charmers, who prize
their “horns” (which probably actually serve to protect the eyes). Some charmers
have been known to create horns on other snakes by driving hedgehog quills
through the upper jaw so that they emerge above the eye like a real horn. This
will eventually kill the poor animal, but that does not seem to be important
to some.
While vipers get a terrible rap in the modern imagination, it was not always so.
Many ancient notables respected and honored the fearsome beast. Such an attitude
142 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

was revealed by Chief Nkolele of the Tsonga people of southern Africa. In 1895
he told Henri Junod (1863–1934), Swiss Protestant missionary and ethnographer,
that as the chief priest of his traditional religion it was his obligation to offer a
sacrifice for the tribal god Mombo wa Ndhlopfu (Elephantface). Once, when he
was preparing the sacrifice of rooster, the god came to him in the form of a very
long viper. While most of the participants of the sacrifice fled, Nkolele and the
elders stood firm. The viper crept quietly up to them, blessed them, and thanked
them for the offering (which included fruit as well as chicken). The priest replied
rather sadly, “Here I am, the last of my lineage. If I had not come who would have
offered you anything?”
However, snakes had their own reasons to distrust most humans, as Aesop
explained in the Tale of the Snake and the Farmer: In the house of a certain farmer
there lived a snake who regularly came to the table and was fed on scraps of food.
Not long afterwards the farmer grew rich, but then he became angry at the snake
and injured him with an axe. The farmer subsequently lost his wealth and then
realized that he had prospered because of the good luck he had received from the
snake before he wounded him. The farmer begged the snake to forgive him for his
evil deed, and the snake answered, “You regret your action, but you cannot expect
me to be your faithful friend until this scar heals. I cannot forgive you until all
thought of that treacherous axe has left my mind.” Moral: the person who injures
anyone at any time must be treated with suspicion, which is a serious obstacle
to the restoration of affection among friends. This tale brings back the old notion
that serpents were somehow lucky, and it was exceedingly unlucky to hurt one.
An Indian version of the same basic fable occurs in Book 3 of the Panchatantra:
when a man’s son realizes that the snake is able to bestow wealth, he becomes
greedy and decides to kill the snake in order to take all the snake’s treasure, but
instead the snake kills him. The Indian fondness for serpents lets the snake off
very easily.
A more ambivalent attitude is revealed by this Surinam story derived from
African slaves: A huge fire destroyed all the trees and most of the animals in the
forest. To get away from the heat the Snake crawled into a deep hole. When the fire
finally was put out the Snake found himself unable to get out of the hole, and no
one would help him—no matter how faithfully he promised not to bite his savior.
At last, a hunter wandered by and took pity on the poor animal. As soon as the
snake was free, however, he turned to bite his captor. So far the story resembles
hundreds of other “You should have known” tales, but this one turns out a little
differently. “Wait a second,” the hunter interposed. “You can’t bite me.”
“Why not?” asked the surprised serpent. “It’s what I do.”
“Because,” the hunter explained, “you shouldn’t harm the ones who have been
kind to you.”
“Hmm,” said the snake, puzzled. “Are you quite sure this is the way everyone
acts?”
“Let’s present the case to a judge,” suggested the hunter.
“Okay,” agreed the amicable snake.
Generation of Vipers 143

Along the way, they came upon a horse who, when hearing the case, said, “All
I can tell you is despite the good services I have done for people I just get beaten
for it.”
“Me too,” put in a gloomy donkey, who had also wandered by.
“You think that’s bad,” said the cow. “They end up killing me the second my
milk runs dry.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” said the snake. “Roll up your sleeve, Hunter, I am
going to bite the crap out of you. Humans are no good.”
“Wait, wait,” protested the hunter. “Let’s ask Anansi, the wisest one of all.”
Reluctantly the snake agreed. Anansi happened to be at home, and when pre-
sented the case, he shook his head. “Dear friends,” he announced, “I really can’t
decide until I see with my own eyes exactly what transpired.” All three then re-
turned to the hole, and the snake (rather gullibly, one feels) slid back in to reenact
the scene. The Hunter was about to reenact his kindness, when Anansi said, “Let
him stew in his own juices for a while so that he really understands the value of the
kindness you showed him before.” At last, after many tries, the snake managed to
struggle out of his hole, chastened.
Some time later, the Hunter was caught poaching in the king’s forest and thrown
into jail. This time it was the snake’s turn to help. He slithered up to the king’s
palace and bit the king a good one. Then he slid into the Hunter’s cell and told
him how he had avenged him. “However,” he whispered, “I can do more than
this. For my bite has a cure known only to me. I shall tell you the secret, and you
may send word to the king that you can cure him of the bite in return for your
freedom.” The overjoyed hunter then obtained the remedy, which was made from
three different kinds of leaves, and sent the King a message that he would cure
him only in return for his freedom and the hand of his daughter in marriage. The
sick king was forced to agree, the wedding took place, and they lived happily ever
after.
According to the Bible (Acts 28: 3–6), the apostle Paul was bitten by a snake,
while he was preaching in Malta. The animal had been concealed in some firewood
that Paul had been gathering. Apparently he started the blaze, and the snake,
driven out by the heat, leaped up and bit him on the hand and wouldn’t let go. (It
was a rather accidental ministry in the first place, since Paul was shipwrecked.)
Everyone expected Paul to “swell up or suddenly drop down dead” but the doughty
saint merely shook off the serpent into the fire and went on as if nothing has
happened. This convinced the natives that Paul was a “god.” Undoubtedly, Paul
had received a “dry bite.” Or perhaps it wasn’t a viper in the first place. There
are certainly no vipers, or any other venomous snakes, in Malta these days. Or
there’s always the possibility that it was not Malta, after all, upon which Paul was
shipwrecked. (These biblical arguments get rather convoluted.) At any rate, the
viper is sometimes identified as the European Asp, although it is beyond me how
anyone could possibly know.
St. Dominic de Guzman, who founded the order named after him (the Domini-
cans, not the Guzmanites) was preaching to the Albigenses in Cucullo, Italy, in
144 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

1215—and was bitten by a viper. However, he recovered. This snake is usually

identified as the European Asp—which is after all only mildly toxic. To this day,
early in May, during the Feast of the Serpents, a selected cadre of worshippers
parade around town his plaster statue, literally covered with writhing snakes—not
vipers though, just harmless Asclepian (Aesculapian) Snakes and Four-Lined Rat
Snakes marked on the head with a dollop of dye. Following them are the snake
catchers. They use the arboreal species because they have the handy habit of
climbing to the top of the statue and staying there throughout the whole ceremony.
The whole idea is to render everyone who participates in the festival immune from
snakebite. In the old days, they used to ritually kill and bury these snakes; now they
release them or sell them to tourists. There’s a picnic and fireworks afterwards.
Pliny reported entire groups of people immune to snakebite: the Psylli in Asia
Minor (or perhaps north Africa), the Marsi in central Italy, and the Ophiogenes in
the Hellespont region. Not only were these people supposedly immune but could
also cure snakebite in others by touching or spitting on them. Apparently they also
had a strange odor about them that was so repugnant to snakes that the serpents
stayed away from them. According to Pliny, “[t]hese men had naturally in their
bodies that which like a deadly bane and poison would kill all serpents, for the
very air and scent that breathed from them was able to stupefy and strike them
stark dead.” It is rumored that the Psylli got the secret snake-killing word from
Ra and used it successfully, until they converted to Islam and started chanting
from the Quran instead. The Psylli are extinct now. They were buried alive by the
desert wind when they went out to fight it. They apparently had better luck against
snakes.
Italy’s Asclepian Snake is actually the Italian Rat Snake or Zamenis longis-
simus, formerly Elaphe longissima, and it has an interesting history in its own
right. Asclepius was the Greek god of healing (whose symbol was the twining
serpents), and the Romans took over the god and his cult.

VIPERS IN EUROPE!
The European Viper (Vipera berus) is the most common viper in Europe and has
entered the mythology of even the most northerly lands. These animals are rather
short-tempered and strongly object to being handled or even touched. Perhaps
their ill temper comes from their being forced to live in such a cold, unfriendly
climate.
In modern literature, the beautiful poem simply entitled “Snake” by D.H.
Lawrence (1885–1930) captures a terrible and pitiable moment when the poet
encountered a golden viper lapping up water from a trough on a blazing hot day
near his home in Italy. Recognizing the animal as venomous, Lawrence threw a
stick at it, which effectively removed the animal as it hove off “in undignified
haste.” Immediately thereafter, however, the poet felt terribly ashamed of his
encounter, writing sadly, “And so I missed my chance with one of the lords /
Of life.” Lawrence experts have determined the encounter was probably real,
Generation of Vipers 145

and herpetologists have even identified the unnamed species: the Vipera aspis
hugyi, which indeed is found in Italy and which can be, but is not normally,
lethal.
The related European Viper plays a part in Scandinavian legends. There is the
story of the hero Gunnar, who found a treasure of great worth. The evil villain Atli
had him thrown in a pit of venomous snakes. However, his sister, Gudrun, threw
him a harp. While this might not seem the most apropos of presents, it worked.
Even though he was bound and chained, Gunnar was such a good harp player that
he could play one with his toes. His lullabies made all the snakes fall asleep, except
for one. The one that stayed awake killed him. Whether or not this was in response
to his harp playing is hard to say. Perhaps he should have stayed quiet. (In Norse
legend, by the way, hell is an ice-encrusted hall lined with snakeheads, whose jaws
constantly drip a river of cold venom in which the damned must struggle forever.)
These creatures are among the several species of snakes accused of forming a
hoop and rolling along away. They do not.
In Greek myth, the beautiful Eurydice, bride of Orpheus, was killed by a viper on
her wedding day as she walked through a meadow; she ended up in Hades, from
which Orpheus attempted unsuccessfully to release her. (While the responsible
species is not further indicated, we can assume it is the common European Viper.)
This simple story spawned a boatload of modern urban myths about brides being
killed on their wedding days. (It’s always the bride, by the way. Grooms seem to
be safe from serpents.) The mythical wedding usually takes place in a botanical
garden, and the vicious serpent is lurking in the bushes waiting to strike. In the
New World the culprit is usually said to be a rattlesnake, but occasionally an
escaped python gets the blame. There is no record of this event actually occurring,
although it is certainly conceivable. But not in Canada, where it was first reported.
In 1983, The Gazette (Montreal) reported that brides were actually afraid to get
married in the supposedly viper-infested Montreal Botanical Gardens. This is just
another remnant, I suppose, of the old Garden of Eden tale, at least the part that
indicates snakes live in gardens. The Greek mystery religions themselves, some
of which centered on the unlucky Orpheus, made much of snakes. According to
Clement of Alexandria, in one rite sacred to the Phrygian father god Sabazios, a
golden snake (or the image of one) was “let down in the bosom of the candidate
and was taken away again from the lower parts.” Sabazios would also appear in
the form of a snake.

GABOON VIPERS (BITIS GABONICUS)

My favorite genus among the true vipers is the charmingly named Bitis. And
my favorite member of the Bitis clan is the nocturnal Gaboon Viper, which lives
throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It boasts the largest fangs of any snake anywhere,
measuring over 2 inches. It is also the world’s largest viper and produces the largest
amount of venom per bite. Its head is nearly as broad as it is wide, which tells
you something. When upset, it puffs up and hisses like its close relative, the Puff
146 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Adder. Gaboon Vipers are night hunters and feed mostly on small mammals or
birds. (Another viper, the arboreal and beyond beautiful Eyelash Viper, can actually
catch birds on the wing. It’s that fast.) The gaboon’s preferred prey animals are
usually rodent-sized, although one was found with a fully grown royal antelope
inside it. As you might expect, it has no natural enemies. This is a truly beautiful,
but terrifying, snake, with a stunning symmetrical design of yellow quadrangles
over a base of rich brown or purple. Its eyes are an unearthly gray, touched by
silver. While normally of a placid temperament, it camouflages well among the
leaf litter of tropical forest floors. Thus it has a disconcerting habit of getting
stepped upon, often with unfortunate results. Not always, though. Gabbies, as I
like to call them, are of a tolerant, sweet, and forgiving nature. They don’t bite
people nearly as often as you might think, even when stepped on. Scientists say
they are just sluggish.
When they do decide to bite, however, it means trouble. Famous zookeeper
Marlin Perkins was one of the few people to survive the experience. On New
Year’s Eve, 1928, Perkins was carefully removing parasites from the back of a
Gaboon Viper, when the snake decided it had had enough of this beauty treatment.
It bit Perkins on the index finger. Following the protocol of the day, Perkins slashed
open the finger, while an aide attempted to draw out the poison. It was no go, and
in 2 minutes his arm was turning black and swollen to twice its normal size.
Once at the hospital he was treated with antivenin serum and strychnine injections
(fortunately, an outdated treatment), but his condition deteriorated, and he fell
unconscious. However, after another series of injections and a blood transfusion,
he pulled through in spite of the strychnine treatment and left the hospital 3 weeks
later.
Another lucky victim was twenty-four-year-old snake handler Robert McDon-
ald, who was employed by the Long Island Reptile Expo. In 1997 he was giving
one some water and was bitten on the right hand. He was choppered to a local
hospital and survived the bite. Another survivor was a sixteen-year-old juvenile
delinquent who stole two of them from the National Zoo in Washington in 1983.
But he almost died.

PUFF ADDERS (BITIS ARIETANS)

Puff Adders, which are widespread over Africa (with the exception of desert
and rainforest areas) and Arabia, are very dangerous, too, but they do their best
to keep enemies away by swelling up like a tubular balloon. Then they hiss. If
that doesn’t work they bite the crap out of their enemies. Its venom is potent and
delivered in huge amounts. In fact, the Puff Adder may account for more bites
in Africa than any other snake. In his charming autobiography Sun, Sand, and
Snakes, Stephen Spawls tells of the time when a wild Puff Adder got one fang
into his finger. The result was a long stay in a Nairobi hospital and a procedure
that entailed attaching his hand to his stomach for 4 weeks. The result was that his
finger was amputated anyway.
Generation of Vipers 147

According to a certain George Wilson (and reported in Harry Johnston’s The

Uganda Protectorate), the Banyoro in the Sudan regions use Puff Adders as
slaughterhouse employees. According to this story they catch a Puff Adder and
then nail it alive by the tip of its tail to a pole in the middle of a buffalo track, so
that when an animal comes along, the snake strikes at it. Supposedly as many as
ten buffaloes have been killed in a day by one puff adder. The body of the first
buffalo is regarded as poisoned and not eaten, but all the rest are devoured. You
may take this story for what it is worth.

SAW-SCALED VIPERS (ECHIS CARINATUS)

Another nasty piece of work is the Saw-Scaled Viper, or Carpet Viper, whose
range extends from India and Sri Lanka westward to the United Arab Emirates
and Africa. Echis is the Latin word for the letter “X” and refers to the cross-
shaped mark the Saw-Scaled Viper bears upon its head. This snake is well adapted
to hot regions and can endure the direct heat of the desert sun better than al-
most any other snake. It is slender for a viper; perhaps that helps. It is small
(about 20 inches) but mighty, and when angry (which is often) it coils up and
rubs its scales together in a particularly fearsome manner (hence its name). It
is not just bluff, either. The Saw-Scaled Viper has the most powerful venom of
any viper and is responsible for about two-thirds of the venomous snakebites
in India, as it is widespread, deadly, and aggressive, a rather bad combination.
Those more kindly disposed to the Saw-Scaled Viper refer to it as “nervous”
rather than aggressive, but the result is just the same. Untreated, its hemo-
toxic bite has a mortality rate of about 75%. Its victims often bleed to death
internally.

RUSSELL’S VIPER (DABOIA RUSSELII)

The Russell’s Viper was named after Dr. Patrick Russell (1726–1805) who
first described it and did pioneering work on snake venom around the turn of the
nineteenth century.
It is the only member of its genus (although there are two subspecies), and its
genus name is Daboia, which comes from its ominous Hindi word that means
“the lurker.” Its strike is quick and often deadly. The Russell’s Viper lives among
decaying coconut trees in grasslands and rice fields, throughout southeast Asia.
Since many of these paddies are in isolated rural areas, medical help can be 5
hours or more away—too late for many of the victims. This snake, with its 1-inch
fangs, kills more people in Asia than any other snake and is responsible for about
one-quarter of venomous bites in India. In Sri Lanka, the Russell’s viper is even
more productive, accounting for about 40% of bites. It surpasses itself in Burma,
however, by inflicting a full 70% of venomous bites. It should be acknowledged,
however, that many times people have not a clue as to what actually bit them.
They either don’t know or it is too dark to tell. The Russell’s Viper can deliver up
148 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

to 112 mg of hemolytic venom (about half a teaspoon), which acts on the blood
clotting mechanism and can destroy the kidneys.

FER-DE-LANCE (GENUS BOTHROPS)

Once we arrive in the New World, pit vipers come into their own. No true
vipers exist in the Western Hemisphere. Among the pit vipers, the most notorious
is probably the dreaded Fer-de-lance, whose name means “spearhead” (literally
“iron of the lance”).
However, proper names aside, the name Fer-de-lance or lancehead, is most
commonly applied to Bothrops asper and/or Bothrops atrox. (The correct relation-
ships are currently being sorted out to determine whether these are two different
species or not.) The Fer-de-lance has the classical pit viper head—triangular with
powerful jaw muscles. It is brown or olive in color. Other common names in-
clude the Common Lancehead, barba amarilla (“yellow beard”), mapepire balsain
(Trindad and Tobago), labaria (Guyana), mapana (Colombia), jergón (Peru and
Ecuador), and equis (Ecuador). The term “yellow beard” is particularly signifi-
cant. In Mayan myth, the “Cosmic Serpent” is frequently characterized by a beard
that links him with the yellow-bearded Fer-de-lance. (One Mesoamerican myth
recounts the story of a man who died when he attempted to pull a “whisker” off
an otherwise unidentified snake.)
It is a very common nocturnal snake and resides in the tropical lowlands of
northern South America, east of the Andes. (There is also a variety on Martinique,
the so-called Martinique Lancehead, Bothrops lanceolatus.) No one knows why
this creature thrives in Martinique, but it is almost unknown on other Caribbean
islands. This snake is actually depicted on the “unofficial” flag of Martinique.
Charles Darwin had an encounter with some sort of South American snake,
probably of the Bothops genus, of which he wrote unflatteringly in The Voyage of
the Beagle, “I do not think I ever saw any thing more ugly, excepting, perhaps,
some of the vampire bats.” However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In parts
of South America, its native name, terciopelo, means “velvet” and refers to its
soft, beautiful appearance. Its disposition is otherwise.
This unpredictable snake, which can attain a length of 8 feet, is the most
venomous snake in South America. It causes more human fatalities than any
other American reptile. The fatal dose is only 50–62 mg for humans, and the
average amount delivered is 124 mg, with a big bite delivering as much as 342 mg.
However, if the victim receives fast medical attention, he can usually be saved.
In recent years, the ready availability of antivenin has reduced the annual fatality
rate to five or six people per year. The Fer-de-lance bears fifty–eighty live young,
all of which are fully fanged and deadly from the moment of birth. It has a life
span of over 20 years.
Harry Greene, in his Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, recounts
the words (written in 1931) of Clodomiro Picado, Costa Rica’s first academic
biologist, on the effects of a Fer-de-lance bite:
Generation of Vipers 149

Moments after being bitten, the man feels a live fire germinating in the wound,
as if red-hot tongs contorted his flesh; that which was mortified enlarges to
monstrosity, and lividness invades him. The unfortunate victim witnesses his
body becoming a corpse piece by piece; a chill of death invades all his being,
and soon bloody threads fall from his gums; and his eyes, without intending to,
will also cry blood, until, beaten by suffering and anguish, he loses the sense of
reality. If we then ask the unlucky man something, he may still see us through
blurred eyes, but we get no response; and perhaps a final sweat of red pearls or
a mouthful of blackish blood warns of impending death.

Recovery can be a long, dangerous affair. Fer-de-lance venom is not only

fast acting but also enormously painful. Primarily hemotoxic and hemorrhagic, it
causes massive tissue destruction and profuse internal bleeding. Internal swelling
can be so bad that doctors must often cut open the skin to relieve the pressure. On
New Year’s Eve, 2007, a fourteen-year-old American tourist named Lee Gatchell
was bitten by a Fer-de-lance in Costa Rica. Less than 2 hours later, he was at
the local clinic, getting pumped full of antivenin. Although the antivenin removed
most of the lethal effects of the venom, the leg was still swelling; the foot was
cold, purple, hard, and numb. It was decided to continue the treatment at a rural
hospital in Golfito, which entailed a boat trip. More antivenin was pumped in, but
Gatchell’s blood coagulation time was still a long and deadly 2 minutes. At that
point the family decided to charter a plane to San Jose. The blood coagulation
time decreased to 32 seconds, still far too long, but surgery on the leg was needed
anyway if it was going to be saved. The doctors sliced open the boy’s inner leg
from ankle to knee to relieve the pressure. About half the calf muscles were black
from the effect of the venom. The fatty tissue was just a brown fluid that poured
out of the leg like water. The leg had to remain open to keep down the pressure,
while doctors watched warily for any secret pockets of venom to be released and
recirculate through the system. Lee underwent four more surgeries before the
wounds could be closed; it took 130 staples. After a couple of weeks of physical
therapy, he was able to return home to Montana, where all the rattlesnakes were
thankfully in hibernation.
As with most venoms, though, Fer-de-lance killer juice has medical uses.
An enzyme derived from it, appropriately called repilase, is used in labs to
measure fibrinogen levels and blood coagulation capability. The test is used in-
stead of the more common agents because it is unaffected by heparin, which is
widely used as an anticoagulant and is often added to blood samples to prevent
clotting.
The snake seems to like lounging around coffee and banana plantations and is
thus extremely dangerous to the workers. It has a nervous temperament and bites
quickly from a characteristic S position. It eats what it can get—frogs, lizards,
and small mammals. This truly remarkable creature can detect heat differences as
small as five thousandth of a degree. While mainly nocturnal and terrestrial, the
Fer-de-lance also hunts by day, swims easily, and climbs trees. After it delivers its
150 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

venom, it retreats and just waits for the prey to die. It doesn’t usually have to wait
long. It then follows the scent trail to pick up its prize.
The Fer-de-lance has made its way into modern culture. Fer-de-Lance (Teresa
Vasquez) is a super villain and member of the Serpent Society in the Marvel
Comics. She is a personal assassin for “the Viper.” Her allies are Puff Adder,
Copperhead, and Black Racer, but she doesn’t bite her victims, and simply goes
after them with retractable claws, making her more like a cat than a snake. She
first appeared in Captain America #337 (January 1988).
On a slightly higher literary note, Fer-de-Lance is the title of the first of Rex
Stout’s famous Nero Wolfe detective novels, published in 1934. (The story was
abridged and called Point of Death for American audiences.) In the book, a Fer-
de-lance is given as a present to Wolfe. The novel was also turned into the 1936
movie Meet Nero Wolfe.
Fer-de-lance is also the title of a 1974 movie starring David Jansen. It’s about
a submarine trapped by rocks deep below the sea. Naturally the sub is terrorized
by a large number of lethal snakes. They don’t come from the ocean, however,
but from South America. As one might expect, a crew member secretly brought
along a container full of deadly snakes (who doesn’t?) which escaped and chased
people around the vessel, while they were trying to get dislodged from the ocean
floor.

THE BUSHMASTER (GENUS LACHESIS)

The Bushmaster is the longest venomous snake in the Western Hemisphere and
the world’s largest viper, with a recorded length of 14 feet, although it’s a little
more slender than most vipers. Three species are currently recognized: the Central
American Bushmaster (Lachesis stenophrys), South American Bushmaster (L.
muta), the Black-Headed Bushmaster (L. melanocephala), and perhaps the Darien
Bushmaster. All species are forest dwellers.
The Bushmaster is a thick-bodied nocturnal snake that lives in the jungle
throughout Central and South America. Described in Time magazine (November
20, 1933) as “[s]tudded like a pineapple,” adding that “its waxy, glistening scales
are pale reddish yellow crossed with diamond-shaped black patches on the back”;
it has a prominent upturned snout. It can attack aggressively and has long fangs and
hemotoxic venom. Originally considered part of the rattlesnake clan (albeit with
no rattle), the Bushmaster was given his own genus by a French herpetologist,
François-Marie Daudin, around the turn of the nineteenth century. It may be
closely affiliated with the stock from which the rattlesnakes arose but is not a
direct ancestor. In addition to having no true rattle, the Bushmaster is egg-bearing
and, in fact, the only egg-laying viper in the New World. (The tail does have a horny
spine at the end of it, making it yet another of those famous “horned snakes.”)
On one of Percy Fawcett’s adventures to South America, a 7-foot bushmaster
attacked a member of the party—a Texan named Ross. Ross yanked out his gun,
shot the animal, and then looked down. The snake’s fangs had sunk deeply into
his tobacco pouch and only grazed his skin.
Generation of Vipers 151

He is the silent death bringer, and its genus name appropriately refers to one of
the Three Fates in Greek mythology: goddesses who determined the length of the
thread of life. Despite his great size, the average wild Bushmaster eats only six
to ten rats a year. It is also a much more secretive snake than the Fer-de-lance—
seldom seen and usually unnoticed.
The Brazilians call him surucucú and claim that he can put out fires. People in
Costa Rica call him, rather ominously, matabuey or oxkiller. A rare version from
the Pacific side of Costa Rica with a dark head is called plato negro or “black plate”
after a rice and beans dish popular in the area. Folklore claims that it can suckle
milk from cows and even sleeping women, a claim made with odd frequency about
various snake species around the world. (In some parts of the world it is claimed
that not only do snakes drink milk but they also vomit it up later. If a person with
tuberculosis eats this snake vomit, he will be cured. It doesn’t sound likely but has
probably never been properly researched.)
One of the most famous episodes concerning a bushmaster occurred in 1934
with Raymond L. Ditmars of New York’s Zoological Park, who received a truly
massive specimen from a Trinidad cocoa plantation. Ditmars had been search-
ing for this species for years; in fact Time magazine (September 17, 1934) re-
ported, “New Yorkers [have] been accustomed to seeing each summer begin
with some such headline as DITMARS SAILS TO HUNT BUSHMASTER,
[and] end with DITMARS BACK; NO BUSHMASTER.” He ended up chas-
ing the snake around the house with a broom, as it seemed disinclined to enter its
case.
The Bushmaster was the name taken by the 158th Infantry Regiment, Arizona’s
First Volunteer Infantry (later organized into the 45th Division after World War I).
These troops were trained in jungle warfare in the Panama Canal Zone. General
MacArthur personally selected the Bushmaster Regiment to be sent to his com-
mand in the Southwest Pacific theatre. They fought the Japanese 6th Tiger Marine
Division from May 17 to June 12, 1944, losing seventy-seven officers and men in
comparison to 3,000 of the enemy. They were under orders to proceed to Japan
in what was certain to have been a suicide mission, but the Japanese capitulated.
The unit’s emblem was a Bushmaster encircling a sword.
On a “medical” note, Lachesis mutus (Bushmaster venom) is a homeopathic
remedy prescribed for inflammations and hemorrhages of the skin and mucosa,
menopausal complaints, glandular diseases, infectious diseases and blood poi-
soning, phlebitis, angina pectoris, cardiac and circulatory insufficiency, neuralgia,
rheumatism, spasmodic conditions, paralysis, behavioral disorders, and conges-
tive and hormonal headaches. It sounds dangerous, but since it’s homeopathic it’s
harmless; it is so diluted that it can have no toxic effect.

OKINAWA AND THE HABU (TRI MERESURUS FLAVOVIRIDIS)

The people of Okinawa have the distinction of having the highest percentage
of snakebites in the world. The culprit is the Habu, a pit viper that is said to bite
about 0.2% of the population every year. Some sources call this snake “small”
152 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

and others “large.” I suppose it all depends on how big you think 5 feet is;
it is at any rate the largest of the Asian vipers. It has an irritable nature and
likes living around houses, which contributes to his biting predilection. It played
havoc with U.S. troops during the Second World War, biting them frequently.
Fortunately, the Habu is not especially toxic, and very few deaths occur as a
result. They don’t really mean to bite people, but that’s where the rats are—near
people.

TEMPLE PIT VIPERS (TROPIDOLAEMUS WAGLERI)

While there are few pit vipers in the Old World, some have received a good
deal of attention. The Buddhist temple on the island of Penang in Malaysia (the
Temple of the Azure Cloud) houses a great many Wagler’s Pit Vipers rather than
the cobras who are the usual denizens of such temples. These vipers are permitted
to roam freely and are fed on eggs. Considered sacred, they are known as Temple
Pit Vipers and are said to be the servants of departed Buddhist priests. They are
never pestered, and they seldom bite, although they will defend themselves if
provoked. And they have long fangs and hemotoxic venom.

COPPERHEADS AND WATER MOCCASINS (GENUS AGKISTRODON)

The United States enjoys the company of two species of pit vipers that are not
rattlesnakes. American Copperheads (A. contortrix) belong to the most primitive
variety of pit vipers and are the most common venomous snakes in the United
States. Although their bite is very painful, American Copperheads today are rec-
ognized as perhaps the least dangerous of U.S. venomous species. However, this
generous opinion was not always held. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, gentle-
man farmer, remarked in 1782 in Letters from an American Farmer, “The most
dangerous one is the pilot, or copperhead; for the poison of which no remedy
has yet been discovered. It bears the first name because it always precedes the
rattlesnake; that is, quits its state of torpidity in the spring always a week before
the other.”
De Crèvecoeur may be confusing the Copperhead with the so-called Pilot Snake
or Black Racer, but in any case, he fears the snake as no other:

It lurks in rocks near the water, and is extremely active and dangerous. Let man
beware of it! I have heard only of one person who was stung by a copperhead
in this country. The poor wretch instantly swelled in a most dreadful manner;
a multitude of spots of different hues alternately appeared and vanished, on
different parts of his body; his eyes were filled with madness and rage, he cast
them on all present with the most vindictive looks: he thrust out his tongue as the
snakes do; he hissed through his teeth with inconceivable strength, and became
an object of terror to all bystanders. To the lividness of a corpse he united the
desperate force of a maniac.
Generation of Vipers 153

De Crèvecoeur, although wrong about many things, was quite right in identi-
fying the Copperhead as living near water. Even today few people know that this
snake is semiaquatic and enjoys a good swim now and again.
Alben Barkley (1877–1956), who was the last U.S. vice president born in a log
cabin, crawled under the said cabin in search of a chicken at the age of six. His
budding political career was nearly cut short when he was bitten by a Copperhead
and almost died. Beside being vice president and bitten by a Copperhead, he laid
claim to being one of the best hog callers in the state of Kentucky. This was not
the first time, of course, Copperheads entered politics. During the Civil War era a
group of Northern Democrats who opposed the war were given this name by their
Republican opponents. They accused the Democrats of striking without warning,
as opposed to the more gentlemanly rattlesnakes, to which they perhaps compared
themselves.
In May 2007, a Copperhead apparently came up behind a woman who was
fishing for trout and bit her on the leg, right through her waders. “It felt like a hot
poker,” Connie Owsley told reporters KMBC news. Rather than allow the snake
to escape, she grabbed it by the tail, carried it to her car, and drove to the park
ranger’s office with the snake dangling out the window. The astounded park ranger
gave her credit for nerve but said it wasn’t necessary to bring in the snake. She
was given pain medication and sent home from the hospital. Apparently it was
mating season, and this was supposed to account for the snake’s behavior.
The other nonrattling pit viper is the Cottonmouth or Water Moccasin (Agk-
istrodon piscivorus). There is rumor that the water moccasin cannot bite under-
water. This is a precious lot of nonsense; they live on fish—commonly found
underwater. The species name piscivorus literally means “fish eater.” Snakes have
the ability to close the epiglottis to avoid drowning; it closes as a reflex action
immediately when fluid enters the mouth. Not only water mocs but all snakes
can bite underwater. It is a rather sluggish snake and almost always gapes its
cotton-white mouth in warning before actually striking.
However, the main myth about these animals is that they seem to inhabit every
known lake and river in North America. In actual fact, they are Southern creatures
ranging from the southern tip of Virginia to the Florida Keys and westward to Texas
and Oklahoma. In other words, they do not live in Michigan, New Hampshire,
Ohio, Nebraska, or other places where they are periodically spotted. In the minds
of many, any snake in the water must be a water moccasin.
Perhaps it all speaks to the fact that there is something even more threatening
about a venomous snake in the water than on land, particularly one as ill-tempered
and apt to strike as a water moccasin. Unlike many snakes, it will definitely stand
its ground when threatened. A variety of “urban legends” celebrate the Water
Moccasin: for example, the one about the water skier who fell off his skis into
a nest of Cottonmouths. In many cases, the victim mistakes the snake fangs for
barbed wire, even as he dies from the bites. While this is not true (as Cottonmouths
don’t have nests) large numbers of these snakes are sometimes seen within a small
area, and in late fall as many as fifty individuals have been spotted migrating
154 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

across water from barrier island swamps to the mainland. It is not a pretty sight.
However, late fall is not the time when most people are water-skiing. At any rate,
no documented case of this nature has ever shown up, although it’s rather popular
in literature, appearing in North Toward Home by Willie Morris and Kinflicks by
Lisa Alther, among others. Even Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove featured an
underwater nest of the critters.
Water Moccasins do have a characteristic musky odor which, especially in the
heat, is fairly noticeable. If you can smell it, you are too close. Cottonmouths
almost never cause a human fatality, but their bites are excessively painful. They
are rather slow moving on land and easily caught.
In June 2007, four men outside a bar and restaurant in Sumter, South Carolina,
“menaced” a man in a car with a Water Moccasin. “It’s a very poisonous snake.
Probably the most venomous snake that’s out there,” said Sumter’s nonherpetol-
ogist police chief, Patty Patterson, inaccurately but dramatically. The intended
victim escaped unhurt, but the snake bit its handler and escaped. The thug, Tim-
othy Farmer, ended up in the hospital, not only with a snakebite but also with a
charge of “second degree lynching.”

RATTLED!
The most potent, both naturally and mythologically, of all North American
snakes are the rattlesnakes. In many places they are among the most common of
snakes; indeed in some localities they are more common than all other varieties
of snake combined. Very often, different species of rattlesnakes live in close
proximity and in apparent harmony with each other.
Rattlesnakes are not as dangerous as they look, unless one goes about trying
to pick them up or kissing them on the head. Most people aren’t willing to
do this, for they are truly terrifying in appearance. American zoologist John
Edwards Holbrook (1794–1871) spoke for many when he remarked in his five-
volume American Herpetology, or a Description of Reptiles inhabiting the United
States, “[A] more disgusting and terrific animal can not be imagined than this;
its dusky colour, bloated body, and sinister eyes of sparkling gray and yellow,
with the projecting orbital plates, combine to form an expression of sullen ferocity
unsurpassed in the brute creation.”
The rattlesnake is unique to the New World. As a rule they are stout, heavy
snakes with broad (and usually described as ugly) heads. And, unlike all other
snakes, they possess rattles, loosely interlocking hornlike rings found at the end
of their tails. Research by Laurence Klauber, research associate at the San Diego
Zoo, has shown that the rattle evolved with the rattlesnake. More primitive species
have proportionately smaller and less defined rattles. At present (and this is always
subject to change), taxonomists list about thirty-one species and seventy subspecies
of rattlesnakes—up from a mere forty-six in 1965. This is not because we keep
discovering new rattlesnakes but because they are splitting the ones we know about
into new species, a kind of shell game.
Generation of Vipers 155

Rattlesnakes probably developed in the Mexican plateau, with species dif-

ferentiation occurring as the snakes spread northward. They now live in all the
contiguous states except Maine, Rhode Island, and Delaware. They were exter-
minated in the first two of these states. Indeed Maine has no venomous snakes at
all, and there is no record of their ever having been in Delaware. Florida is home
to both the largest and smallest rattlesnakes: the Eastern Diamondback (Crotalus
adamanteus) and Pigmy Rattlesnake (Sistrurus miliarius barbouri) respectively.
The Pigmy Rattlesnake, in recent years, has found an excellent source of food
in the lucrative Florida plant nursery business. The plants are grown in partially
buried, moist containers that attract insects, which attract frogs and lizards, which
then attract Pigmy Rattlesnakes. The snakes curl up contentedly in the pots and
wait for dinner. They apparently do this in large numbers. When the pots are dug
up and removed for retail sale, the snake goes along for the ride. More than one
consumer has been bitten while checking out a plant for his garden. (These little
guys are pretty aggressive.) This is one version of the Burlington Coat Factory
snake story that really turns out to be true.
The first mention of rattles in English was Captain John Smith’s account of
Virginia in 1612. He notes only their ornamental use by humans. Wearing a string
of snake rattles around one’s neck was supposed to bring good luck and ward
off arthritis, sunstroke, and smallpox. The rattles are also said to have fertility-
enhancing or aphrodisiac qualities and were once given to small children to soothe
and protect them. (On the other hand, some folklore contends that “rattle dust,”
whatever that may be, is poisonous.) Rattles are the rattlesnakes’ only unusual
skin feature. Rattlers never have hair or feathers, even when they grown very old,
although this notion is frequently mentioned throughout the hemisphere, from
Brazil to the Ozarks.
Different groups of Native Americans had different beliefs about rattlesnakes.
In some cases they were honored as gods or creatures/messengers of the gods; in
others they were feared or despised. For the Algonquin Indians, the rattlesnake
and lightning were the embodiments of each other, and they called the serpent
“Grandfather” to show their respect and awe of it. The Yuki Indians also used
this title for rattlesnakes, but it was mostly a bribe. They really didn’t like them
at all. The Cherokee performed some tribal dances that they believed were anath-
ema to rattlesnakes. (Perhaps the snakes had no aesthetic sense.) The Cherokee
courteously waited until the snakes went into hibernation, so that they would
not be bothered by the noise. They also believed that seeing a snake of any
species at the beginning of a journey was a harbinger of death. For the Pima
folk, coming upon two rattlesnakes close together when they were looking for
something was very unlucky. To the Micmac, thunder was created by seven
flying rattlesnakes who cry out to each other and shake their rattles as they
crash along the firmament. This is a notion repeated in Indian legends across the
continent.
Whether this serpent was considered holy or cursed, however, the same fate
often resulted for those who ventured to touch or kill it; the offender was exiled
156 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

from the tribe for a certain period of purification. In a very few tribes, the snakes
were simply killed as pests.

THE RATTLE ITSELF

The secret of the rattle lies in the shedding process. In most snakes, the old skin
is shed right down to the tip of the tail. But in rattlers, part of the old skin remains
attached near the end of the tail and becomes a new segment of the rattle. The
rattle is simply a series of interlocking, dry old pieces of skin that clatter together
in a creepy way when the snake shakes them. Just because one hears a rattle from
the bushes doesn’t necessarily mean that a rattler is lurking in there. Many snakes
vibrate their tails against leaves to imitate the terrifying rattle sound. This works
pretty well against most people. According to a Cherokee myth, the Rattlesnake
mistakenly bit the Sun’s daughter through impatience; he was then given a rattle,
so that others are warned of his intentions. Unfortunately, perhaps, snakes cannot
hear their own rattle. They have no ears.
It is not possible to tell the age of the rattlesnake by the number of rattles,
which are formed with every shed, not every year. (The conquistador Francisco
Hernandez is the first European to come up with that story and, more to his credit,
the first European to have published a picture of the snake.) These snakes can
shed several times a year, and end rattles can be broken off or dislodged. In 1648,
Willem Piso (1611–1678), a Dutch scientist who lived and studied in Brazil, came
out with the theory that the rattle was actually more dangerous that the snake’s bite
or venom. Laurence Klauber, who has made an extensive study of rattlesnakes,
reports that a string of six to eight rattles is the most effective for making noise. A
shorter string “produces too few contacts for full stridency,” while an excessively
long string interferes with a full vibration. In most rattlesnakes the peak frequency
of a rattle sound is about 9,000 hertz, although there is considerable variation.
The bigger the snake, the lower pitched the sound. At about a meter away, its
loudness is 60 to 80 decibels, which is similar to the loudness of a baby rattle.
But somehow it gives a different impression. Snakes also seem to be able to rattle
most effectively when the ambient temperature is most ideal for their survival.
About the longest a rattle can get appears to be about sixteen segments, although
folktales are full of stories or even drawings of snakes with seventy or eighty
segments. Fake strings are often produced in support of these claims—and they
all turn out to be strung together from a number of different individuals. Some
Indian people believed that the number of rattles on a snake indicated the number
of people the beast had killed.
Zora Neale Hurston recounts an old African-American folktale that explains
the powerful connection between defense and offense with regard to rattlesnakes.
According to the story, God made the snake as a decoration for the ground.
However, humans kept stepping on the defenseless creature, so God gave the
snake venom to protect itself. He also provided the snake a set of rattles to warn
humans of his presence. Only when people do not heed the call of the rattle will
Generation of Vipers 157

the snake strike. In truth, the purpose of the rattle seems to be to warn away
molesters—designed to protect the snake, not as a favor to the rest of us. It
generally rattles and hisses at the same time, to make its intention all the clearer.
(One experiment involved a rattlesnake and a weasel. When the rattles were left
intact and rattling, the weasel left the snake alone; however, when the rattles were
removed, the weasel did not hesitate to attack.) It has been reliably reported that
an irritated rattler can keep up the rattling for hours. The angrier it is, the faster
it rattles. Folklore claims that a rattle cut off from a snake’s tail will continue to
rattle for 3 hours in the hand.
Rattlesnakes occur in two genera: Crotalus and Sistrurus. Most rattlers are
members of Crotalus; the Massasauga (swamp rattler) and Pigmy Rattlesnakes,
which have only tiny rattles, are placed into the genus Sistrurus. Crotalus has big
scales on the crown arranged in regular order, and Sistrurus has small irregular
scales, although there is a big scale right above each eye. The word crotalus
is derived from the Greek krotalon meaning “rattle” or “little bell.” Sistrurusis
derives from the Lain sistrum and Greek seistron, referring to a tiny rattle, and
from the Greek oura, meaning “tail.”
Only one true rattlesnake lives in South America proper. That is the Neotrop-
ical Ratlesnake (Crotalus durissus), which lives in dry areas like grasslands and
savannahs. It is apparently not well adapted to the steaming jungles of the Amazon
basin, where other pit vipers have made their homes. This snake has the reputation
of being able to break a person’s neck with its venom. This belief is due to a spe-
cial component—crotamine—in the venom of at least some of these specimens,
which relaxes the muscles of the neck, so that the head lolls around. Crotamine
seems present only in snakes from certain parts of its range, mostly in Argentina.
Crotamine does not occur in Mexican and U.S. rattlesnakes.
All species but the sidewinder and the massasaugas bear the name “rattlesnake.”
The Massasauga (genus Sistrurus) is said to derive its name from the Mississauga
Indians of Ontario. Rattlesnakes also exist in several subspecies, a term that is
defined differently by different zoologists. Abstruse questions of lineage, geo-
graphical distribution, size, and pattern or color variations are brought to bear.
Fortunately, the complexities of the matter are beyond the scope of this book.
Whether or not certain groups should be considered just part of the regular species,
be named a subspecies, or get its own species name is best left to those who are
passionate in such matters. There are more of those than you might think. Rat-
tlesnake species also occasionally hybridize, even in the wild. This just adds to
the confusion, but no one is brave enough to tell them to stop.
While you might think a rattlesnake is easy enough to spot, apparently this
is not the case. Early settlers were of the opinion that rattlesnakes had no rattles
until they were 3 years old or that, as they had been assured by Native Americans,
only males possessed rattles. This resulted of course in the destruction of many
harmless snakes who were thought be young or female rattlers waiting to strike.
It has been averred that a tortured or restrained rattlesnake will bite itself and die
from its own venom. This is not true; most have the sense to bite their tormentors
158 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

if possible. It is claimed that before a rattlesnake drinks, it takes out its venom
glands and leaves them neatly on a rock so as not to poison the water.
The rattlesnake has been called “the snake without a friend.” In Pima Indian
myth, it was the Rattlesnake who brought death into the world. His first victim
was a rabbit, and according to some traditions, the blood of a jackrabbit actually
contains rattlesnake venom in memory of this long-ago event. The rabbit truly
deserved to die, however, as he kept scratching the snake and wouldn’t quit no
matter how many times he was warned. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin, complaining
about the British practice of sending convicted felons to the colonies, suggested
that we return the favor by sending rattlesnakes to England.
However, the beasts are not without their supporters. The North American Brule
Sioux people tell a story in which three brothers were changed into rattlesnakes,
and thereafter helped and guided their people. Similarly, the Pomo people tell the
story of a woman who married a rattlesnake prince and then gave birth to four
snake children, who were able to live in both worlds.
The early French-American farmer/diarist Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
(1735–1813) seemed rather fond of them. After claiming that he knew of sev-
eral antidotes for relief of their bite (but not bothering to tell the reader what they
were), he continued in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782):

They are extremely inactive, and if not touched, are perfectly inoffensive . . . I
once saw a tamed one, as gentle as you can possibly conceive a reptile to be; it
took to the water and swam whenever it pleased; and when the boys to whom
it belonged called it back, their summons was readily obeyed . . . they often
stroked it with a soft brush, and this friction seemed to cause the most pleasing
sensations, for it would turn on its back to enjoy it, as a cat does before a fire.

This snake was supposed to be deprived of its fangs by giving it a piece of leather
to bite, which was then yanked out “with great force” until the fangs were torn out.
Apparently this was supposed to make a friend of the snake. This is not typical
snake behavior, so De Crèvecoeur was either lying or grossly misinformed: it’s
hard to say which. However, there is a legend that a rattlesnake is such a gentleman
that it will not bite a child under the age of seven.

PATRIOTIC SNAKES
Snake imagery, especially that of the native rattler, appeared quite early in our
nascent republic. The first known political cartoon (1754) was drawn by Benjamin
Franklin—a figure of a snake cut into eight pieces, curved so as to resemble the
eastern seaboard. New England (one piece) was the head and South Carolina was
the tail. The slogan at the bottom read, “Join or Die.” The plea was for a unified
front, not against the British, as we might suppose, but to defend the colonies
during the French and Indian War. (Some early folklore asserted that a snake cut
Generation of Vipers 159

into pieces could be restored to life if put back together before sundown.) This
cartoon, or variations of it, appeared all over the colonies.
Rattlesnakes entered American political history with the famous “Gadsden”
flag, which features a coiled rattlesnake. The flag was named after Christopher
Gadsden, who led the Sons of Liberty in South Carolina. According to the South
Carolina congressional journals:

Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be

used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field,
with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of
going to strike, and these words underneath, “Don’t Tread on Me!”

Similar flags were flown through the Revolutionary War period, including the
flag first flown by the U.S. Navy. The Gadsden snake was even painted on the
drums of the very first marine units in 1775. The drums were painted yellow and
depicted ferocious looking, ready-to-strike Timber Rattlers, complete with thirteen
rattles. The famous motto, “Don’t tread on me,” was also included. Another snake
flag featured rattlesnakes stretched from corner to corner of the flag field.
In December 1775, an anonymous writer, now widely presumed to be Benjamin
Franklin, commenting on the rattlesnake drums, speculated in The Pennsylvania
Journal as to why this creature should be selected as an emblem of the new country.
Franklin can be counted another “friend of the Rattlesnake.” First, he suggested,
“the Rattle-Snake is found in no other quarter of the world besides America.” In
addition, he wrote that the keen vision of the snake (a figment of Franklin’s fertile
imagination), “may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.” Franklin also
touted the rattlesnake’s temperament:

She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is
therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. . . . she never wounds
‘till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him
against the danger of treading on her.

Franklin was also able to draw many inferences from the rattles depicted on
the image: “I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, ‘till I went
back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the
Colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the
Snake which increased in numbers.”
He then mused some more upon the symbolic value of the rattles:

Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other
the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as
never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly,
is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together, is sufficient
to alarm the boldest man living.
160 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

This early flag snake bears a resemblance to the so-called glass snake, which
supposedly has the power to crack up into pieces when threatened and then neatly
put itself back together again. There are several species of legless lizards (actually
called “glass lizards”) which can eject their tails when attacked—probably to
discombobulate the predator. The lost tail twitches away for a while and breaks
into bits. It can partially regrow, although the new tail is inferior to the old one.
Some of these creatures live in the southeastern part of the United States, and their
antics may have given rise to this myth. (American snakes haven’t learned this
trick.)
Innumerable urban myths are told about innocent shoppers (usually in discount
stores) being bitten by rattlers while bargain hunting. In September 2003, a Texas
man named Douglas Hatchett claimed he had been boot shopping in Wal-Mart
when he was attacked by a rattler concealed behind a shoebox. He proceeded to sue
Wal-Mart. Unfortunately for the success of his lawsuit, the hospital doctors said
they didn’t notice any rattlesnake bites on Hatchett, and investigators remarked
that the rattlesnake brought along as “proof” had been long dead, suggesting the
possibility that “someone” had simply deposited the remains in the store. Who
this “someone” could have been I have no idea.
Boots and rattlesnakes have a strong connection in other myths too. A famous
one is that a man steps on a rattlesnake, whose fang goes though his boot and kills
him. The man’s sons inherit all his possessions, including the fatal boots, and all
die after trying them on. One of the first of these tales is presented as truth by
our friend Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, who maintains a farmer trod upon a
rattlesnake and was bitten and died. “A few days after, the son put on his father’s
boots, and went to the meadow. At night he pulled them off, went to bed, and was
attacked with the same symptoms about the same time, and died in the morning.”
In a variation, a man kills a rattlesnake and buries it in his backyard. Years later
someone else digs up the snake by accident and gets pricked on the finger by the
fang and dies. A similar myth circulated in Europe was that a woman once bitten
by a snake while pregnant would transmit the venom to her baby when she nursed
it. One story from Louisiana claims that if a person drinks milk after being bitten
by a rattlesnake, he will die. These are more examples of snake–milk connections
that crop up a thousand times, possibly testifying to the snake’s connection with
fertility. Snake fangs aren’t always bad, though. The Cora people of northwestern
Mexico make a love charm out of a rattlesnake fang by wrapping it in an oak leaf
and carrying it about.
Large collections of vipers are also frequently said to attack children playing in
“ball pits” at Burger King (or sometimes McDonalds). Frequently the culprits are
said to be a “family of baby rattlesnakes.” Burger King corporate office reported
tersely on its Web site, “Burger King Corporation has learned of an e-mail being
circulated on the internet that FALSELY alleges the injury and death of a child
while playing in a playground ball pit resulting from a rattlesnake bite. To be
positively clear, the incident outlined in the e-mail has no basis in fact relative to
any Burger King restaurants.” There.
Generation of Vipers 161

There are numerous Cherokee tales which, modeled after Aesop’s version, tell
of either the perfidy of the rattlesnake and/or the gullibility of those who pick
them up. The point is made over and over again that a person succumbs to the wily
serpent—after taking it in from the cold and carrying it up and down a mountain
out of kindness or stupidity. The snake invariably bites the hand that helps it and
taunts the human with the words, “You knew what I was when you picked me
up.” While the stories are legends, they reflect the truth that hundred (perhaps
thousands) of people are bitten every year when they go out of their way to pick
up or torment snakes they know are venomous. Rattlesnakes and other pit vipers
bite about 8,000 people every year in the United States. Over half the bites occur
from someone actually picking up the snake, often while drunk. (The person, not
the snake. Snakes don’t drink.) There is, in addition, the hubristic ones who feel
they have a “special bond” with their pet rattler and that the snake would return
their affection. These people are the victims of (a) severe self-delusion and (b) a
very faulty knowledge of basic animal behavior. They are bitten with remarkable
frequency but, thanks to good medical care, almost never actually die. And so they
live to be bitten another day.
One myth says that the roadrunner, which lives on snakes, waits until a rattler
is asleep, then wraps it up in a thorn bush or cactus. When the enraged snake
awakes it bites itself in its fury. It dies, and then the bird eats it. Eating rattlesnake
flesh is safe enough—for those who enjoy that sort of thing; however, according
to American folk legend, if you grind up a rattlesnake into powder (a difficult task
in itself) and put the powder in your enemy’s coffee, your foe will be chock-full
of little rattlesnakes within 4 months.
Then there is the case of forty-eight-year old Doug Hiler. In September 2007,
Hiler came into contact with what he thought was a dead rattlesnake. It turned out
not to be dead and bit him on the left hand. “He was going to cut off the rattles, like
most of us would,” his brother-in-law, Dan Godfrey, told reporters for the White
County News (Georgia). Right. At any rate, the venom from the “dead” rattler did
serious damage to his kidneys and liver.
As long ago as 1615 it was reported that a rattlesnake head deprived of its body
could live for 10 days or more. This is not true, of course, although it is known
that dead snakes can bite reflexively for up to half an hour after the event. This is
testimony to the miracle of evolution, which so designed the bite mechanism as
to be essentially independent of the brain—thus allowing a lightning quick attack.
A pair of doctors in Arizona, Frank LoVecchio and Jeffrey Suchard, estimate in
The New England Journal of Medicine [340 (1999): 1930] that about 15% of
rattlesnake bites occurred after the snakes’ death. They noted one case in which a
man picked up a decapitated head, holding it at the back of the neck, so that the
fangs pointed away, but the dead head twisted around and injected venom, causing
the victim eventually to lose a finger.
The largest of the rattlesnake clan is the Eastern Diamondback (Crotalus
adamanteus), which has recorded lengths of 7 feet and anecdotal specimens of 8 or
9 feet. The Western Diamondback, Crotalus atrox (the English word “atrocious”
162 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

comes form the same Latin root atrox, which means fierce, dark, and evil), from
which we get the word “atrocious,” is second, measuring in at about 6 feet for the
largest specimens. It is smaller than its eastern cohort but somewhat more aggres-
sive and irascible. Its venom is also more powerful than that of its eastern cousin,
but because of its smaller size, it produces less of it. Because it is so common and
aggressive, it probably is responsible for more serious bites than all the other U.S.
rattlesnakes put together.
In 2006, near Tampa, Florida, twenty-eight-year-old police officer Brandon
Parker was on an afternoon hike with a friend at English Creek Environmental
Study Center when he was bitten on the calf by a 6-foot Eastern Diamondback.
Within minutes he began to lose control of his arms and legs. His friend, after
calling for help, tried to carry the 220-pound Parker but couldn’t. Help arrived via
an all-terrain vehicle, which transported the injured man to a clearing, from where
a helicopter carried him to the hospital. After 2 days in intensive care, he was able
to return home to his wife and daughter.
In November 2007 in Port St. Lucie, Florida, forty-four-year-old Ray Hunter,
affectionately known as “Cobraman,” received a near-fatal bite. And it wasn’t from
a cobra. According to the Port St. Lucie TCPalm, the biter was a 51/2-foot long
male Eastern Diamondback. Hunter reported it was his forty-fourth “significant”
venomous bite. (That averages to once a year.) He didn’t seem to be very careful.
After the bite (the usual cage cleaning mishap), Hunter spent time shutting down
his computers and changing his shirt before driving himself to the hospital. He
passed out in the parking lot. However, a passerby spotted him and reported the
unconscious Hunter to the proper people. Afterward Hunter said, “I thank God,
that God’s given me another chance to go on living. I know he’s got some plan for
me out there, I just don’t know what it is.” One can only hope it doesn’t involve
snakes.

SHIVER MY TIMBERS
One of the most admirable of the rattlesnakes is the Timber Rattler (Crotalus
horridus horridus), common in the eastern part of the United States. This snake
is probably the slowest to mature of all snakes, not reaching true adulthood until
the age of nine or so. As J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur said of the Timber
Rattlesnake, “[I]t is remarkable for nothing but its industry, agility, beauty, and
the art of enticing birds by the power of its eyes. I admire it much and never
kill it, though its formidable length and appearance often get the better of the
philosophy of some people, particularly of Europeans.” Once again, we note the
misunderstanding that snakes hypnotize their prey.
Its venom is a mix of neurotoxic and hemotoxic agents, with the former found
mostly in the southern parts of its range (where it is sometimes known as the
Canebrake Rattler). It is a very common animal, but because it is relatively mild-
tempered, it is not blamed for many bites. However, on occasion a completely
innocent person is bitten by an equally innocent snake. A friend of mine, whom I
Generation of Vipers 163

will call Elyse, was bitten by a Timber Rattler one summer dusk as she stepped out
of her truck onto her driveway. The snake had undoubtedly been trying to absorb
the lingering warmth of the asphalt and awoke rudely to the feel of being crushed.
He attacked in self-defense and took off. Meanwhile, Elyse, who is a tiny woman,
crumpled up on truck step. “It felt like two hypodermic needles,” she told me. She
realized she needed immediate help and staggered into the house. (This was in the
days before cell phones.) She knew dialing 911 would be useless, as she lived in
a cabin in the mountains that would be hard to find by daylight, let alone at night.
She dialed her neighbors, but by the time they got to the phone, she was swimming
in and out of consciousness. All she could manage was, “It’s Elyse. Help me . . . ”
The neighbors, of a kindly but of an always-be-prepared-for-the-worst men-
tality, took a few moments to gather their guns. They assumed, for no reason we
were ever able to fathom, that Elyse had been attacked by a human. They rushed
up to her cabin where they found her, her skin a mass of bruises from where the
blood was disintegrating. The neighbors called 911 and agreed to transport Elyse
to the main highway. “Who did this to you?” they demanded, beginning a search
of the premises. Unfortunately for Elyse, she was no longer able to speak at all. “I
could think the word snake very clearly,” she said. “I just couldn’t verbalize it. I
thought I was going to die—simply because I couldn’t say the word snake.” The
same scenario held true in the ambulance, with the EMTs demanding who had
“beaten” her and she unable to say “snake” (or indeed anything at all). However,
once in the hospital, the emergency room physician immediately spotted the fangs
marks on her leg and called for antivenin. There wasn’t enough in the hospital,
however, and the story ended by her being choppered to a much larger hospital in
Washington, DC. On the way her breathing stopped, and she need an emergency
tracheotomy, but she survived—without even a scar.
The Timber Rattlesnake was made the state reptile of West Virginia in 2008,
in response to a proposal by some fifth graders. Still, not all law makers, even
those who voted for the resolution are impressed. Senator Shirley Love, of Fayette,
emphasized the “official reptile” status in no way means the rattler enjoys protected
status. “If I see one in the woods, I’ll blow its head off,” he said.
In March 2008 a man from Arlington, Virginia, was unpacking his suitcase
when he was bitten by a stowaway juvenile Canebrake Rattlesnake hidden inside it.
He had the wherewithal to slam the lid down on the suitcase and called authorities.
The man was taken to the hospital, where he recovered without incident. Fire and
rescue workers took the less fortunate snake (and the suitcase) outside and blasted
it with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. This had the effect of freezing the snake
to death. (They had seen it done on TV.) How the snake got into the luggage
remained a mystery, but human intervention was considered likely.
The most famous Timber Rattlesnake of all time was the one who bit naturalist
Marlin Perkins, during a rehearsal of the Zoo Parade series. He was preparing
to show how to extract rattlesnake venom when he was bitten on the finger. He
immediately opened the wound to “suck out the poison” (standard procedure for
the time) and was escorted to the hospital, where he was treated and made an
164 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

uneventful recovery, although he was unable to work for 3 weeks. This incident
would have been unremarkable except that it gave birth to an urban legend of sorts.
That is, thousands of aging baby boomers, their memories perhaps befogged with
toxins from the 1960s, specifically recall having witnessed Perkins being bitten
right on the very show itself, which was broadcast live from the Lincoln Park
Zoo. However, they are mistaken. Later Perkins went on to the Himalayas with
Sir Edmund Hillary to find the Abominable Snowman, but they missed him.
In 2007 a Muncie, Indiana, man was caught disembarking a city bus with a box
full of baby Timber Rattlers; it is unclear what his plans for them were.

THE HOPI SNAKE CULT

The Hopi people, who live in northern Arizona and New Mexico, devised an
ancient snake cult. It is believed that the cult actually derives from Middle America,
relating to Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, and similar figures. Some have even
suggested that it ultimately comes from India. However, it should be firmly stated
that simply because two cultures have similar cults does not automatically prove
a direct connection. According to Hopi myth, snakes were not symbols of evil
but divine messengers who had the power to communicate to the all-important
snake gods. Because of the snake’s totemic power among the Hopi, it is absolutely
forbidden to eat snake meat, a prohibition most people probably have no trouble
obeying.
The Hopi tell a quest story about the origin of the Snake Cult and its famous
dance, involving a union of an Indian man and the Snake Woman and the resulting
snaky children who sometimes played with the Hopi children but sometimes bit
them, too, resulting in the exile of the parents to Walpi, where they assisted in
ceremonies. The woman then bore human children who founded the Snake Cult.
More ethereal explanation says the dance is a fertility celebration of the Snake
Youth (a Sky Spirit) and Snake Maiden (a chthonic spirit).
The 9-day rain-bringing Snake Ceremony is traditionally performed every other
August (or in some cases yearly) after the harvest. During the first four days of
the ceremony, the snakes are collected by members of the secret Antelope and
Snake Societies. Mostly these are nonvenomous bull snakes (genus Pituophis),
but occasionally rattlesnakes are also taken. There may be as many as hundred
individuals altogether. They are placed in sacred clay pots and stored in an under-
ground chamber called a kiva. Gary A. David has made an attempt to connect this
cult with the Nagas of India, drawing largely upon linguistic similarities of key
words. However, this hypothesis is not widely accepted. Snakes are such potent
symbols that it is much more likely the two civilizations independently developed
serpent cults.
The highlight of the ceremony occurs on the ninth day: at noon the snakes are
dipped into jars of water. In most ceremonies the snakes are treated gently and
with respect. The exception is the ceremony held at Walpi, where the snakes are
thrown against sand paintings that depict cloud-thunder-rain spirits. A snake dance
Generation of Vipers 165

follows at sundown. During the shuffling dance, Antelope tribe members carry
live snakes, sometimes in their mouths. After the dance the snakes are released,
although I imagine some of them are rather the worse for wear after being thrown
against the ground and then dancing all night. After the ceremony the snakes are
sprinkled with sacred white meal.
The ceremony which was once normally highly secret, was observed by J.
Walter Fewkes in 1898. (It took quite a bit of persuading on his part to get the
villagers to oblige, as it is a secret cult.) Today outsiders are not allowed to view
the ceremony, but some who have recaptured the serpent participants report that
the animals were defanged.
Anthropologists opine that the snake ceremony is intended to fulfill cultic needs
that vanished with the takeover of Indian lands by white people and the consequent
decline or prohibition of hunting in the area. The agricultural side of things was
controlled by women, leaving the men with little to do but devise ceremonies to
regain a sense of power. Their serpent clubhouses were built of stone and soon
took on military as well as religious overtones.
According to other American Indian traditions, powerful serpents are found in
all parts of the universe, including the sky, mountains, and the chthonic deep, and
most of them are related to the rattlesnake. A rattlesnake swastika appears on a
Mississippian Indian burial mound. (The snake even coils its way into the swastika,
a nearly universal sign honored by cultures the world round until the Nazis spoiled
it.) In its center is a solar cross, surrounded by four rattlesnakes in typical swastika
position. These are no ordinary snakes however, for they bear signs of wings
and strange doglike faces. Possibly they are connected with the feathered serpent
deities of Mexico and Middle America. There is a story that elderly rattlesnakes
grow feathers. This is untrue, of course, but the source of this legend may be very
old, reaching back to Aztec days and Quetzalcoatl. His story follows.

THE FEATHERED SERPENT AND THE CASCABEL

Worshipped first by the Toltecs, then by the Maya and Aztecs, this winged and
feathered rain god went by various names—Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Ce Acatl,
and Topilitzin, among others.
The ordinary snake appeared as the fifth day-sign of the Aztec calendar. Since
ordinary snakes were regarded as “poor” and “homeless,” it was considered to be
bad luck to be born under its sign. These people were expected to become peddlers
or warriors—two classes of people considered wanderers with no homes of their
own. (The snake makes its appearance upon the Chinese calendar just as it does
in the Aztec one. According to the Chinese system of astrology, the snake is the
most active, philosophical, sophisticated, and serene of all signs. Snake people
are admired for their wisdom and great physical beauty. They are regarded as
thinkers rather than doers.) In the world of the Aztecs, however, while ordinary
snakes were rather despised, honors were set forth for the divine plumed serpent,
Quetzalcoatl, as well as Coatlicue, the Goddess of the Skirt of Serpents, who
166 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

actually wears a dress of writhing snakes. She was the deity of both life and death
and gave birth to the moon and the stars. Quetzalcoatl represented the place where
bird and serpent meet—where the sky and earth, ground and spirit, commingle.
He is always garbed in feathers of brilliant green—the color of life and renewal, of
the young maize sprouting in the earth. The connection between birds and snakes
was deeply apparent to the ancient peoples of Central America.
The source for the feathered serpent may be the Cascabel (Crotalus durissus),
a large and dangerous rattlesnake common in Central America. The word cascabel
literally means “jingle bells.” (Some depictions of the god show him with rattles.)
A companion of Cortez, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, wrote in 1636 in his True History
of the Conquest of Mexico of the temple at Terraguco:

Moreover, in that accursed house they kept vipers and venomous snakes, who
had something at their tails which sounded like morris-bells, and are the worst
of the vipers. They were kept in cradles and barrels, and in earthen vessels, upon
feathers, and there they laid their eggs, and nursed up their snakelings, and they
were fed with the bodies of the sacrificed, and with dogs’ meat.

The famous pyramid temple at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatan features an immense
sculpture of the god running along the stairway. During the winter solstice, the
shadows from the steps fall on the steps in a diamond pattern—looking for all the
world like the pattern on the Cascabel.
Quetzalcoatl is one of the most significant deities in Aztec and Toltec cultures.
He is usually considered a creator god. He may be a representation of a rattlesnake,
but his aura is generally very positive, as he brought law and medicine to his people.
He helped the Toltecs find emeralds and grow prize vegetables. The Mexican
Aztecs later picked up his story and applied it to their own culture. Indeed, at the
center of the Aztec mythological world was Serpent Mountain, the very center
of Tenochitlan, their holy city. Serpent Mountain was no natural mountain but a
pyramid upon which were enacted the ritual sacrifices that gave life to the gods.
It was also the entrance to both the underworld and sacred heaven. Just north of
Tenochitlan was the pyramid platform of Tenayuca, surrounded by a coatepantli
or “serpent wall” of twisting, writhing stone snakes. (The Venezuelan people, the
Yaruro, also had a serpent creator god, Puana.)
According to Central American mythology, Quetzalcoatl was the child of Coatl-
cue, the mother goddess who has snake hands and two snake heads for her face.
Her child came to earth in the form of a pale and bearded man who taught the
ancient people how to plant maize, work metal, and build houses and temples.
He also taught them the secrets of time in the form of a complex and accurate
calendar. Indeed all wisdom and knowledge came from him, although he was so
terrifying to look at that he covered himself up with a sheet most of the time. He
was not only not human but also battered and even monstrous. Plus, he had a very
long and tangled beard, something totally alien to the Aztec people. However, he
was known to live a pure and holy life.
Generation of Vipers 167

According to one myth, it was Quetzalcoatl who was ultimately responsible for
the Aztec bloodletting culture. At one time the earth was peopleless after a great
flood, and the gods mourned the fact. Quetzalcoatl went down to the Dead Land
and spoke to the lord of the place. “I know you are keeping some bones down
here,” he said. “Let me have them.”
“Not on your life,” responded the Dead Lord. “I need them for myself.” How-
ever, Quetzalcoatl cajoled and begged, and finally the Dead Lord agreed to let
him have the bones. First, though, Quetzalcoatl had to blow a trumpet of the Dead
Lord’s that was not hollow, so he asked some worms to hollow it out for him. This
disgruntled the Dead Lord considerably, although he had sworn to let Quetzalcoatl
take away the bones. After a few misadventures, Quetzalcoatl managed to get the
bones back into the sky. However, they were in pretty bad shape by then. Many
of them, for example, had been nibbled on by some quail. “I don’t know what we
can do with these old things,” he told Snake Woman, who was renowned for her
healing wisdom. “They look shot to me.”
“Have faith,” she replied, “All is not lost.” Then Snake Woman ground the
bones to a powder and put them in a jade bowl. “Give blood from your own body,”
she commanded Quetzalcoatl, “and these bones will live again.” The feathered
serpent opened his veins and allowed some of his precious blood to cover the
bones. The other gods did likewise, and the bones indeed came to life.
“Huzza!” exclaimed the overjoyed deities. “Now we have humans again. As
we gave our blood for them, they must now give their blood for us.” And thus the
cycle of human sacrifice and bloodletting was born.
The Spanish conquistadors took advantage of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma’s
naı̈ve belief that Cortez was the reappearance of their beloved deity to destroy the
Aztec empire.

RATTLESNAKES ROUNDUPS IN THE UNITED STATES

One American custom that fortunately has no counterpart elsewhere on earth is
the despicable “rattlesnake roundups” held annually. The biggest one is in Sweet-
water, Texas, but others are held in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alabama,
Georgia, and Pennsylvania. The custom goes back all the way to colonial days,
the first being held in the 1740s in spring, right after the animals emerged from
hibernation.
As the local snake population dwindled, animals were hauled in from other
places, with prizes given out for the biggest or to the person who killed the most.
Snakes are chased from their dens by spraying gasoline on them—which gets into
the groundwater and pollutes it. Others are gassed, to expel them from their dens.
They are kept without food or water for weeks.
Even more ominous is the evidence that these roundups are making snakes more
dangerous. It is easier to catch wild rattlers who are giving off their distinctive
“rattle.” The roundup seems to have had the effect of removing most of the noisy
rattlers from the environment, leaving the more silent ones to reproduce. Thus the
168 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

public at large is deprived of the important warning signal that could save their
lives.
Today roundups are supposed to be family-friendly fundraisers, obviously
aimed at those families who enjoy watching creatures murdered. There is of-
ten a Queen of the Roundup, a lovely young charmer who is expected to be able
to milk a rattlesnake.
Thousand upon thousands are killed every year. The animals are beheaded,
deep-fried, and eaten, and their skins sold off to make trinkets, belts, hats, suits,
jackets, and watchbands. This senseless slaughter is both cruel and environmen-
tally disastrous. Handling the snakes also spreads salmonella among the human
population. While people engaged in the roundups say they are helping every-
body out by collecting venom to be used as antivenin, the fact is that these
roundups consume more antivenin than they help create, as bites are frequent.
Once in a while a human participant is also killed, but for the small and dedi-
cated opposition to this “sport” or “entertainment,” it’s not nearly often enough.
One man was bitten five times in the face while he attempted to bite off a rat-
tler’s head. This doesn’t happen often enough to stop this disgusting spectacle,
however.
Although Indian snake charming is a time-honored profession, it might still be
regarded as a version of “stupid snake tricks,” as charmers are not infrequently
bitten. However, the master of stupid snake tricks lives not in fabled India but in
Dublin, Texas. This is Jackie Bibby, “the Texas Snake Man.” In November 2007,
Bibby shattered his own world record by spending 45 minutes in a see-through
bathtub. (Thankfully Bibby was fully clothed.) He had company—eighty-seven
rattlesnakes. “They can go wherever they want, as long as they don’t start biting,”
said the Snake Man, as reported by the Associated Press. “The key to not biting is
for me to stay still. Rapid movement scares a rattlesnake. If you move real slow
and gentle, that doesn’t seem to bother them.” Not surprisingly, Bibby has been
bitten on several occasions.
Bibby also holds the world’s record for the most number of rattlesnakes he
can hold in his mouth by their tails, perhaps in imitation of the Hopis. It was
up to ten at the last count. Bibby also seems fond of climbing into sleeping
bags with rattlers—both head and feet first. Bibby is the Central Texas Arm
Wrestling champion, too, so you can’t say he doesn’t have diversified interests.
He might consider arm wrestling a snake, but luckily for snakes, they don’t have
arms.
An earlier “snake man,” Ross Allen, was the proprietor of a “Reptile Institute”
in Silver Springs, Florida. This was a gussied up name for a roadside exhibit in
which animals were kept in inhumane conditions. Allen was famous not only for
his reptile shows but also for allowing an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake to
bite his arm (as a stand-in for Gregory Peck) during the filming of The Year-
ling. Wisely, he milked the snake first (several times) and suffered only a minor
reaction.
Generation of Vipers 169

SHAKE, RATTLE, AND HOLY ROLLERS: SNAKE HANDLING CULTS

Snake handling, however, often takes a more religious tone, here as in India.
It seems a relict of our ancient urge to envision the snake as more than a simple
reptile. Almost invariably, people engaged in his behavior refer to it as “serpent”
rather than “snake” handling. Presumably serpent is a more biblical sounding
word, or one seemingly imbued with a more supernatural meaning and power.
However, a snake is snake no matter what you call it.
While in India snake handling has a rich folk background, in the United States,
it takes its source directly from the New Testament:

And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out
devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not
hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:
17–18)

These words were supposedly spoken by Jesus after the Resurrection; it is fair
to add that many commentators feel this is a late addition to the text. Certainly
there is nothing in the Gospels about Jesus picking up snakes or drinking poison.
American snake handling has its roots in Grasshopper Valley, Tennessee, in
1909. Practitioners are part of a larger movement called Pentecostalism, although
by no means are all Pentecostals snake handlers. Pentecostalism in turn sprang
from the Holiness movement, which emphasized Christian perfection after re-
demption. The idea that once redeemed one was somehow immune from death
by poison is false on its face, as the numerous deaths of believers has attested
time and time again. However, this makes no difference to members of the snake
handling sect, who continue their dangerous and cruel practices, always managing
to explain away “accidents.” It should be noted that while snake handling has been
treated with derision by the press, scholars who have studied the group firsthand
present a remarkably empathetic and generous view, views generally not shared
by members of the public. Judging from the number of sympathetic firsthand eye-
witness accounts presented, the services may have more scholars than believers.
On at least one occasion, the scholar himself (David Kimbrough) took a turn at
snake handling and lived to tell the tale.
Since the emergence of the practice in the early 1900s, it’s estimated that
between seventy and ninety people have died from snakebites suffered during a
church service. This is not counting those perishing from drinking strychnine, a
habit even more dangerous than snake handling.
The founder of the sect was George Went Hensley, who decided to test the
words of the gospel for himself by collecting a rattlesnake and taking it to religious
services. He also claimed he could drink poison, walk on water, and raise the dead.
(Later snake handlers, such as Sherman Lawson, were accredited with the same
170 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

feats on several occasions. However, it is not reliably recorded that anyone bitten
to death by a snake was revived.) Hensley is held almost as a saint by later snake
handlers, despite the fact that he was married four times.
Hensley’s church was eventually named the Church of God with Signs Fol-
lowing. The first casualty of the new practice was one Garland Defries, who was
bitten during one of the services and fell to the ground with the snake’s fangs
still embedded in his flesh. He eventually recovered, but the incident put snake
handling into a deep freeze for a while, although later it was claimed that De-
fries simply was weak in faith. Early accounts reported fanged rattlesnakes being
touched or handled by men, women, children, and even a baby. Male members of
the congregation started playing with fire, holding their hands in kerosene torches
and a miner’s acetylene lamp and remaining (apparently) unharmed.
More conventional behavior (at least in the context of Southern religious tradi-
tion) include talking in tongues, playing of musical instruments, hymn singing, and
hand clapping. Sometimes the participants fall on floor and writhe like serpents
themselves. Some writers, including Scott Schwartz, made a special study of the
role music has in the services and its effect on a person’s physiology. Thomas Bur-
ton and Michael Woodruff conducted an electroencephalographic examination
of Liston Pack, an experienced snake handler, during his “anointment experi-
ence.” They discovered a “sudden conversion from alpha to beta” brainwaves,
but whether this “sudden conversion” was anything like a religious conversion is
unclear, at least to me. Pack’s own brother Buford died after drinking strychnine.
Pack watched.
The new snake handling sect gained adherents and new locations as well as
some media and legal attention. In 1938 a farmer named John Day sued the three
members of the Pine Mountain Church, a snake handling congregation to which
his wife belonged. Day had no use for snakes and didn’t want his wife fooling
around with them. The congregants were actually arrested for “breach of peace”
but were all acquitted at a trial covered by the Associated Press.
In 1945, the first faith-based snake handler died. The victim was Lewis Ford of
the Dolley Pond Church; another man, Clint Jackson, died in 1946. These deaths
led to the official banning of snake handling in Tennessee in 1947. Ford’s wife
tried to collect double indemnity on his insurance policy, which was available
for those who had died “accidentally,” but the Tennessee Court of Appeals was
having none of it, ruling simply, “One voluntarily handling a poisonous serpent is
not accidentally injured when bitten by the snake. If you were picking blackberries
in a field and received a bite, then that might be different.” This opinion was not
universally held, however. In July 1951 a fifty-year-old woman named Ruth Craig
of New Hope, Alabama, announced she was going to handle a rattlesnake. (It was
a pretty big one—ten rattles.) She had brought it along to the church services
she was hosting in her own home. She unscrewed the lid and tried to remove
the snake, but the snake refused to come out, perhaps being publicity shy. Craig
then smashed the jar. The snake immediately tired to slither for cover, but Craig
pursued it and tried to grab it. At that point, the snake lost all patience and bit
Generation of Vipers 171

her several times before escaping through an open door. Craig sank into a coma
and died. The coroner ruled the death an “accident,” since snake handling was not
banned in Alabama.
In 1954, a snake handler name Reece Ramsay collapsed and died after handling
what was termed a “satinback” rattlesnake, a species unknown to science. It proved
real enough to kill him however, although the coroner listed the cause of death as
“unknown.” Those were simpler times.
Some early snake handlers also played around with poison of another sort. A
certain Ernest Davis consumed several gulps of a “salvation cocktail” made of
strychnine in 1947. He died 5 days later, not pleasantly. His wife is said to have
remarked, “Ernest just had too much faith.” It is difficult to know whether or not
she was being ironic.
Hensley himself, according to researcher David Kimbrough, at divers times
drank strychnine, battery acid, and other lethal liquids. However, it was an old
fashioned rattler who finally did him in in Florida, in 1955, when he was in his
seventies. He died vomiting blood and refusing aid. During his life he estimated
that he had been bitten over 400 times. But it’s always the last one that counts.
Another preacher, Lee Valentine, died after being bitten by a rattlesnake in Fort
Payne, Alabama. He was the fourteenth member (but not the last) of the sect to
die by rattlesnake bite. The police confiscated the snake, who was charmingly
named Alabama. A week later in Savannah, Tennessee, another woman died after
refusing medical aid, preferring the spiritual aid of her coreligionists. As late as
2004, Dwayne Long, a preacher in Rose Hill, Virginia, died while handling a
rattlesnake in his home during a Pentecostal Easter service. He refused medical
attention.
Then there is the Glenn Summerford story. Summerford was a snake handling
minister in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1991 he tried to kill his wife Darlene with the
snakes he handled in church. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her to put her
hand in a box of rattlesnakes. (He hit the box with a pipe first to make the snakes
mad.) She was bitten twice but survived. He got a 99-year sentence. (Much earlier
a man in California attempted murder by rattlesnake against his wife. However,
it didn’t work out as planned, and the wicked man ended up having to drown his
spouse instead. Another murder by rattlesnake was attempted in 1978 by Charles
“Chuck” Dederich, sixty-five, the founder of the religious group Synanon. He tried
to kill Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz by putting a rattlesnake in his mailbox.)
The snake handling tradition continues to the present day, with snakes being
dangled, gripped, draped, tossed about, and held against the face. Sometimes the
snakes bite their tormentors, but probably not often enough. More often they
seem to go limp from shock or despair and just give up. Despite the fact that it
is illegal in every state except West Virginia, it has been estimated that as many
as 2,000 people in forty churches practice this risky ritual in the United States,
mostly in hardscrabble Appalachian regions. Most of the practitioners are poor
and uneducated. It has proved equally fertile ground for folklorists, historians,
psychologists, and anthropologists. The frenzy displayed and ignited in these
172 Snakes in Myth, Magic, and History

Appalachian churches, however, down to its very details, is seen in other traditions.
The Sioux, for example, believed that if a young man in the trance of a sacred
dance was bitten by a rattlesnake, he would achieve union with the ultimate—that
is, if he didn’t die first. There’s always something.
Psychologically, of course, the ideas of the Indian charmers and the American
snake handlers flow from the same dark well—the almost irresistible urge to
tempt death and to control fate. One apparent difference is that while Indian
snake handlers worship the cobra as an incarnation of the divine, American snake
handlers see the snake as the incarnation of evil—true to the Christian idea that
the snake of Eden was Satan.
Religious snake handling cult members sometimes “cheat” by keeping their
charges at low temperatures which makes them lethargic, although other do in-
deed handle and taunt and mistreat active creatures. They are frequently bitten
and sometimes die, as they may refuse medical aid, waiting for God to heal them.
Although it might seem that God wouldn’t let them get bitten in the first place,
many snake handlers apparently brag about how many times they get bitten and
recover. However, most people bitten by rattlesnakes recover, and many snake
handlers are not averse to going to the hospital to aid their recovery. Many of
the researchers permitted to study and film snake handling services are extraordi-
narily empathetic to the practitioners, even while acknowledging the “apparent”
craziness of the whole endeavor. Thomas Burton, who has produced three doc-
umentaries and written extensively on the subject, writes in Serpent-Handling
Believers:

One can feel after a attending a service that it is completely irrational, wild—
people running around, falling down, quivering, uttering strange sounds; drink
deadly poisons; taking venomous serpents (giant and tiny ones, coiled, extended,
limp, knotted together, rattler, cottonmouths, copperheads, cobras) and staring
at them nose to nose, wrapping hem around their necks, wearing them over
their heads, pitching them, carrying armloads of them, shaking them, petting
them; displaying arms tattooed with snakes, hands atrophied by bites, fingers
missing, clothing embroidered and etched with snakes—or feel the same sense
of the bizarre after going into homes and seeing live deadly snakes in closets
and adjoining rooms, pictures framed on the wall of people with handfuls of
rattlers, photo albums of disfigured bodies from venom poisoning, or a huge
frozen rattlesnake taken out of a freezer by a relative of a person whom the
serpent killed during a funeral service for yet another snakebit [sic] victim. All
of this can seem as abnormal as an episode from The Twilight Zone.

Seem abnormal? “These people are not just religious fanatics; they’re not
strange people,” said Burton, during an interview with Laurence Hammack of
Roanoke.com after the Dwayne Long incident. “They’re members of the Holiness
Pentecostal faith, and they are religious fundamentalists who believe the Bible is
the inspired word of God that should be taken literally.”
Generation of Vipers 173

It seems a terrible shame that this glorious, powerful, and iconic animal should
come to this—a pawn in the human religious game: “charmed,” tossed, and oth-
erwise brutalized for the enlightenment of our own doomed species. But in a way,
that’s where we began our journey together, in the Garden, in the Dreamtime, in
the primeval darkness.
As snakes were here before the beginning of time, in the depths of the watery
Chaos, so will they be with us at the end. According to Norse myth, during the
time of the Twilight of the Gods, the great serpent of the sea, the lord of Chaos,
will rise from the depths. This is the Midgard Serpent, Jörjungandr, the child of
Loki, the trickster god, and Angur-Boda, a giant, whom Odin cast into the sea.
Thor will kill him with his thunderbolt, but during his last moments, the serpent
will spit forth the venom that destroys the great god himself. The sun, moon, and
stars will blink out. The tale is ended. Chaos will come again.
This page intentionally left blank
Afterword

Snakes. We mythologize them, worship them, loathe them, honor them, kill them,
capture them, dream them, and fear them. The snake has been our grandfather, our
victim, our enemy, our god. But he has never been our friend. He is too “other,”
too cold, too dangerous, too holy, too disgusting, even to touch. His teeth are too
terrible, his coils too creepy. His eyes flash fire, his tongue drips poison. Not just a
natural animal, he remains the most universal and potent symbol humankind has
ever devised. The theme of the serpent has wound itself into the very fabric of
human culture. The snake has been at the center of religious cults, the climax of
nightmare, the subject of art and literature, the psyche’s secret symbol.
As a species, we are obsessed with our terrible and beautiful cousin. But what
are we to him? In all honesty, he has probably never given us a moment’s thought.
This page intentionally left blank
Selected Bibliography

Beidermann, Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings behind
Them. Translated by James Hulbert. New York: Meridian, 1994.
Best, Michael R. and Frank H. Brightman, eds. The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus.
York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc, 1999.
Bierhorst, John. The Hungry Woman: Myths and Legends of the Aztecs. New York: Quill,
1984.
Bloomfield, Maurice, trans. Hymns of the Atharva Veda. Reprint edition. Kessinger, 2004.
Budge, E. A. Wallis. Gods of the Egyptians. Reprint edition. New York: Dover, 1969.
Burton, Thomas. The Serpent and the Spirit: Glenn Summerford’s Story. Knoxville, TN:
University of Tennessee Press, 2004.
———. Serpent-Handling Believers. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.
Campbell, Joseph. Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. New York: Penguin, 1964.
———. The Mythic Image. New York: MJF Books, 1974.
Coleman, Loren and Jerome Clark. Cryotozoology: A to Z. New York: Fireside, 1999.
Cozad, Laurie. Sacred Snakes: Orthodox Images of Indian Snake Worship. Aurora, CO:
Davies Group, 2004.
Eberhard, Wolfram. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols. Translated by G.L. Campbell. Lon-
don and New York: Routledge, 1986.
Flank, Lenny, Jr. Snakes: Their Care and Keeping. New York: Howell Book House, 1998.
Florescano, Enrique. The Myth of Quetzalcoatl. Translated by Lysa Hochroth. Baltimore,
MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Greene, Harry W. Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1997.
Heuvelmans, Bernard. On the Track of Unknown Animals. Third revised edition. London:
Kegan Paul, 1995.
Katz, Brian P. Deities and Demons of the Far East. New York: Friedman/Fairfax, 1995.
Kimbrough, David. Taking up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky. Macon, GA:
Mercer University Press, 2002.
Klauber, Lawrence M. Rattlesnakes: Their Habits, Life Histories, and Influence on
Mankind. Abridged edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982.
178 Selected Bibliography

Knappert, Jan. African Mythology. London: Diamond Books, 1995.

La Barre, Weston. They Shall Take up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snake-Handling
Cult. New York: Schocken Books, 1969.
Linzey, Donald W. and Michael J. Clifford. Snakes of Virginia. Charlottesville, VA: Uni-
versity Press of Virginia, 1981.
Mattison, Chris. Snake: The Essential Visual Guide to the Snakes of the World. London:
Dorling Kindersley, 1999.
McNamee, Gregory, ed. The Serpent’s Tale: Snakes in Folklore and Literature. Athens,
GA: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Menez, Andre. The Subtle Beast: Snakes, from Myth to Medicine. New York: Taylor and
Francis, 2003.
Minton, Sherman A., Jr., and Madge Rutherford Minton. Venomous Reptiles. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969.
Narby, Jeremy: The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. New York:
Tarcher/Putnam. 1998.
Rubio, Manny. Rattlesnake: Portrait of a Predator. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institu-
tion Press, 1998.
Schwartz, Scott. Faith, Serpents, and Fire: Images of Kentucky Holiness Believers. Jackson,
MI: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.
South, Malcom, ed. Topsell’s Histories of Beasts. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981.
Spawls, Stephen. Sun, Sand, and Snakes. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc,
1979.
Stidworthy, John. Snakes of the World. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.
Stutesman, Drake. Snake. London: Reaktion Books, 2005.
Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. New York:
Castle Books, 1988.
Zug, George R. and Carl H. Ernst. Snakes. Smithsonian Answer Book. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Books, 2004.
Index

Aaron, 33 Alaska, 37
Abastor erythrogrammus. See Rainbow Albanian, 49–50
Snake Albino, 99
Acanthophis antarcticus. See Death Adder Alder bark, 86
Accordion movement, 42 Alexander the Great, 127
Acrochordus javanicus. See Javan Wart Almuj, 18
Snake or Wart Snake Aipysurus laevis (Olive Sea Snake), 50
Acts, Book of, 143 Amelanistic, 35
Adam, 32–33, 63 America, xi, 7, 9, 18, 133
Adamu, 107 American Federation of Herpiculturists,
Adders, 6, 58 115
Adena culture, 4 Amish, 48
Adi Parvan, 122–23 Ammonia, 85
Adolfsson, Per Johan, 23 Amniote, 12
Aelian, 20, 90, 104 Amrita, 52
Aesculapian Snake, 52, 143 Amun-Kamutef, 104
Aesop, 3, 47, 98, 142, 161 Anacondas, 12, 28, 101, 107, 115–18
Africa, xi, 7, 28, 30, 37, 38, 40, 49, 67, 70, Ananta, 5–6, 120
84, 91, 96, 101, 106, 109, 112, 129, 130 Anasi, 142–43
African Egg Eater, 53, 68–69 Ancestors, 106–7
African Rock Python, 111–12 Anerythristic, 35
African Sedge Viper, 88–89 Antaresia Childreni. See Children’s Python
Agkistron contortrix. See Copperhead Anaresia perthensis. See Anthill Python
Agkistrodon genus, 21, 152 Antarctica, 1
Agkistrotrodon piscivorus. See Anthill python, 113
Cottonmouth Antivenin, 87–89
Aglyphous snakes, 14 Apep, 103–4
Agni, 5 Apollo, 52, 108–9
Ahaetulla genus, 49 Apophis, 103–4
Ahi, 102 Apparallactus, 29
180 Index

Arabian (painted) Saw-Scaled Viper, 23, Black Racer, 44, 152

55 Black Rat Snake
Arapaho tribe, 37 Black Snake, 81
Arboreal, 132 Blindness, 75
Arbuda, 5 Blind snakes, 11, 27, 28, 34, 35
Argentina, 12 Blood, 136
Aristotle, 51 Blood Diamond, 132
Arkansas, 23–24 Blotched Pipe Snake, 93
Arrow, 19 Blunthead, 42
Asclepius, 52, 109 Boas, 11, 28, 50, 60, 77, 101, 118. See also
Ash tree, 90 individual species
Asia, 28, 30, 31, 44, 49, 106, 121, 127, 130, Body design, 31–34, 46, 93
138 Boids, 13, 27, 28, 41, 50, 58, 101,
Asian Cobra, 70, 88 106
Asian Pit Viper, 21 Boiga dendrophila. See Mangrove Snake
Asita, 6 Boiga irregularis. See Brown Tree Snake
Asps, 129, 131 Book of the Dead, 104
Assam, 125 Boomslangs, 80, 95–96
Atharva-Veda, 5, 6, 86 Borneo, 44, 128
Atheris nitschei. See African Sedge Viper Bothrops asper. See Fer-de-Lance
Atractaspididae, 28, 72 Bothrops atrox. See Fer-de-Lance
Atoum, 104 Bothrops genus, 31, 76, 148
Australia, 4, 18, 29, 30, 36, 81, 101, Bothrops nummifer. See Jumping Viper
134–38, 141 Brahminy Blind snake, 28, 29
Austria, 4, 130 Brain, 56–57
Axanthic, 35 Brittany, 4
Ayurveda, 5 Brown Snake, 135
Aztecs, xi, 165–66, Brown Tree Snake, 29–30, 135
Brumation (hibernation), 47
“Balling,” 59 Buddha and Buddhists, 8, 120–122
Ball Python, 39, 93 Budge, E. Wallis, 103
Bangkok, 23 Bull Snakes, 58, 59
Barkley, Alben, 153 Burlington Coat Factory, 2
Bear Lake Monster, 17–18 Burmese Python, 25, 113–15
Bedouins, 55 Burrowing asps, 28
Beheading, 22 Burrowers, 13, 30, 35, 41, 49
Bengal, 97, 125 Bushmaster, 31, 150–51
Bestiary, 129 Bushmen, 97
Beverly, Robert, 10, 36 Byron, 10–11
Bible, 6, 19, 32–33, 143
Birds, 31 Caduceus, 52–53
Bitis arietans. See Puff Adder Cage, Nicholas, 99
Bitis gabonicus. See Gaboon Viper California, 50
Bitis genus, 145–46 Campbell, Joseph, 138
Bitis peringueyi. See Peringuey’s Death Camouflage, 93
Adder Canada, 37
Black Mamba, 23, 44, 79, 132–33 Cardiotoxin, 72
Black powder, 87 Carnac, 4
Index 181

Carpet Python, 3 Common Mamba, 133

Carpet Viper, 147 Common Taipan (Coastal Taipan), 136
Cascabel, 165–66 Concertina movement, 42
Cassandra, 52 Congo, 109
Cat, 84 Constriction, 28, 29
Catholics, 33 Constrictors, 101–18
Cauterization, 87 Copperheads, 31, 59, 74, 81, 95, 100, 102,
Centipedes, 29 152–54
Central America, 44, 118, 118, 150, 166 Corallus caninus, 23
Cerastes cerastes. See Desert Horned Viper Coral Snakes, 30, 37, 75, 81, 82, 133–34
Chaos, 103–4, 173 Corn Snakes, 29, 62
Chalk, 90 Cosmic Serpent, xi, 33
Charas, Moyse, 73 Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of
Cherokee, 161 Knowledge, 7
Chicken, 84 Costa Rica, 140
Children’s Python, 112–13 Cottonmouths (Water Moccasins), 17, 31,
China and Chinese, 7, 8–9, 24, 29, 40, 51, 74, 76, 94, 152
60, 67, 82, 101 Coyote, 15, 63–64
Chinese King Rat Snake, 94 Cozad, Laurie, 6, 121, 123
Chichén Itzá, 166 Crawfish, 84
Chondropython viridis. See Green Tree Crocodiles, 31
Python, 36 Crotalidae, 31, 141
Chorote people, 118 Crotalinae, 31
Christians, 33, 48 Crotalines, 31
Chunkhead, 42 Crotalus adamanteus, 161
Church of God with Signs Following, 170 Crotaus atrox, 21
Cicero, 98 Crotalus cerastes. See Sidewinder
Circle, 19 Rattlesnake
Clayton, John, 10 Crotalus durissus terrificus. See South
Cleopatra, 129, 130–32 American Rattlesnake
Clifford, Michael, 48 Crotalus horridus horridus. See Timber
Cloaca, 11, 58–59 Rattlesnake
Coachwhip Snake, 66 Crotalus genus, 27, 31, 157
Coastal Taipan, 79 Cuban Boa, 62
Cobras, 4, 14, 20–21, 23, 38, 60, 61, 72, 75, Cucumbers, 95
76, 80, 82, 89, 93, 99–100, 102, 119–31 “Curry porridge,” 86
Cobra goddess, 6 Cuvier, Georges, 66
Cobroxin, 89
Coils, 93, 103 Daboia russelii. See Russell’s Viper
Cold-Blooded, 46–47 Dahomey, 7
Coleridge, S.T., 41 Dahl, Roald, 138
Colorado, 25 Danh, 7
Coloration, 2, 35–37, 47, 82, 93 Darwin, Charles, 148
Coluber constrictor. See Black Racer Day, John, 170
Colubrids (Colubridae), 27, 28, 29, 30, 44, Death Adder, 4, 136–37
93 De Crèvecoeur, Hector, 48, 152–53,
Colubroidea, 13, 28, 77 158
Comanche, 86 Deer, 20
182 Index

Defense, 92–98 Eggs, 11, 61, 69, 101, 104

Delphic Oracle, 109 Egg Layers (viviparous), 60–61
Demeter, 44 Egypt and Egyptian, xi, 7, 11, 19, 39, 55,
Demons, 5, 7, 19 61, 71, 102–4, 129
Deinagkistrodon acutus. See Snorkel Viper Egyptian Cobra, 130–31,
Dendroaspis augusticeps, 23 Elapids and Elapidae, 28, 14, 27, 30, 55,
Dendroaspis polylepis, 23 72, 73, 76, 81, 102, 136–37
Dermis, 35 Elaphe carinata, 94
Deschauenseei’s Anaconda, 116 Elaphe genus, 29
Desert Black Snake, 55 Elaphe guttata. See Corn Snake
Desert Horned Viper, 43 Elaphe obsoleta. See Black Rat Snake;
Desert snakes, 43, 47, 55 Black Snake
Devenomed snakes, 100 Elapsoidea genus, 37
Devil, 32–33, 34, 50, 63 Elephant’s Trunk Snake, 41
Diaphragm, lack of, 1, 55 Emerald Tree Boa, 23, 54
DiCaprio, Leonardo, 132–33 End, George K., 25
Dickinson, Emily, 2 Enuma Elish, 104
Digestion, 62–65 Epicrates cenchria. See Rainbow Boa
Dinilysia Patagonia, 12 Epicrates angulifer. See Cuban Boa
Diodorus, 58 Epiglottis, 55
Dipsadidae, 69 Epic of Gilgamesh, 39
Dispholidus typus. See Boomslang Epidermis, 38
Ditmars, Raymond, 46, 128, 151 Erabu Sea Snake, 25
Dominic de Guzman, 143–44 Ethiopia, 104
Dominicans, 143 Eunectes deschauenseei. See
Dravidian, 5 Deschauenseei’s Anaconda
Dreams, 67–68 Eunectes notaeus. See Yellow Anaconda
Dreamtime paintings, 4 Eunectes murinus. See Green Anaconda
Drinking, 65 Euronome, 104–5
Dry Asp, 71 Europe, xi, 31, 67, 82
Duat, 103 European viper or adder, 31, 47, 60, 82,
“Dueling Water Snakes,” 57 141, 145
Duvernoy’s glands, 14 European asp, 48
Dwarf Boas, 36 Eurydice, 145
Eve, 32
Earless Monitor, 11 Evil, 19, 23, 32
Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, 76 Evolution 12–14
Eastern Tiger Snake, 49 Exodus, 33
Ecdysis, 38. See also Shedding Eyelash Vipers, 100, 146
Echidna, 21 Eyesight. See vision
Echis carinatus. See Saw Scaled Viper
Echis coloratus. See Arabian Saw-Scaled Facultative hibernators, 48
Viper False coral snakes, 27
Eagle, 98 Fangs, 13–15, 28, 96–97, 137
Eastern Brown Snake, 79 Farancia abacura. See Mud Snake
Eastern Diamondback, 161–62 Fasting, 4
Ectotherm, 46 Fawcett, Percy, 116–17, 150
Index 183

Feathered Serpent, 133, 165–67 Great Spirit, 19

Feminine symbol, 19–20 Greeks, 104, 108, 145
Fer-de-Lance, 31, 81, 148–50 Green Anaconda, 115
Fewkes, J. Walter, 165 Green, Harry, 148–49
Finch, Anita, 99 Green Mamba, 23, 133
Fire God, 5 Green Tree Python, 36, 54
“Fluffy,” 112 Green Snake (film), 60
Flying snakes, 1, 44 Green Whip Snake, 42
Flynn, Paul, 133 Growling, 127
Ford, Lewis, 170 Guam, 29–30, 135
Forest Cobra, 23 Guga-Navami, 125
Forsyth, Frederick, 138
Fossils, 12–13, 104, 138 Habu, 151–52
Fovea, 49 Haitians, 33
Flank, Lenny, 69 Hamadryad, 127
Florida, 113–15, 161 Hawaii, 2, 30
Francis I, 85 Hayden, Julian, 43
Franklin, Benjamin, 158–59 Hearing, 50–51
Freud, 7 Heart, 56
Frogs, 62 Heliopolis, 104, 129
Fry, Brian, 13, 77, 137, 141 Hemachatus haemachatus. See Ringhals
Fu His, 8 Hemipenes, 58
Hemotoxins, 74, 82, 136, 162
Gaboon Vipers, 79, 100, 145–46 Hemp, 90
Gadsden flag, 159 Hensley, Geroge, Went, 169–71
Gaia, 21 Hera, 21
Galla, 40–41 Heracles, 21
Gall bladder, 65 Heraclitus, 20
Ganesha, 7 Hermes, 52
Garden of Eden, xi, 32 Herodotus, 53
Garlic, 90 Hiler, Doug, 161
Garter snakes, 14, 28, 29, 36–37, 38–39, Hurston, Zora Neale, 156
47, 59, 60, 83, 94 Heterodon genus, 82
Garuda, 122 Heterodon platyrhinos. See Hognose Snake
Gee-chhe Manito-ah, 19 Heuvelmans, Bernard, 117
Genesis, 32–33, 91 Heway, 36
Germany, 40, 53 Hewitt, Alexander, 10
Gigantophis garstini, 104 Hiawatha, 17
Giraffe, 108 Hibernaculum, 47–48
Glass Snake, 160 Hibernation, 47–48, 59
Gloydius himalayanus. See Himalayan Himalayan Viper, 47
Viper Himalayas, 4
Gnostics, 33 Hindi, 147
Gods and goddesses, 7, 8, 19, 21, 44, 104, Hindu, 5, 11, 119, 124–25
151, 166 Hirundo, 71
Goethe, 8 Hitchiti tribe, 40
Gorgon, 22 Hodierna, Giovanni, 52
184 Index

Hognose Snake, 82, 96 Joggins Fossils Cliffs, 11

Holowaka, 41 Jörmungandr, 105
Hoods, 84 Josselyn, John, 56
Hood, 126 Jumping Viper, 44
Hoop snake, 7, 44–46
Hopewell culture, 4 Kabwe, 109
Hopi, 164 Kalihari Desert, 108, 111
Hopi Snake Cult, 164–65 Kaliya, 125
Horn Snake, 9–11, 17, 35 Kalseru, 18
Horus, 71 Kariña people, 118
Horsehair, 90 Karong, 41
Hudson, W.H., 22 Kauffield, Karl, 76
Hydra, 21 Keats, John, 19
Hydrophiids (sea snakes), 30, 72 Kedige flowers, 125
Hygeia, 52 Kekulé, Friedrich, 67
Hylonomus lyelli, 12 Kenya, 98
Hypnale, 71–72 Kerosene, 85
Kidneys, 64–65
Immortality, 32, 52 King Brown Snake, 135
India, xi, 5, 7, 17, 41, 47, 52, 67, 91, 101, King Cobra, 61, 74, 79, 127–28, 129
125–26, 147, 169 King Snakes, 18, 29, 30, 61–62, 82
Indian Cobra, 126–27 Kipling, Rudyard, 72–73, 138
Indian Python, 61 Kissing, 127–28,
Indiana, 115, 164 Korea, 51
Indonesia, 29, 101 Kraits, 14, 30, 42, 72, 75, 80, 138
Indra, 4–5 Krishna, 125
Inland Taipan, 30, 136 Kukulkan, 33
Inoculation, 91 Kundalini, xi, 20
Insato, 107 Kunin, Richard, 25
Iodine, 84 Kwakiutl tribe, 19
Ireland, 2–3
Iridophores, 36 Labrynthodonts, 11
Iris, 138 Lachesis genus, 31, 150–51
Isidore of Seville, 51 Lachesis muta. See Bushmaster
Islam, 109 Laishram, Digen, 78
Isis, 71 Lake Tanganyika, 107
Italy, 143 Lakota people, 17, 35
Lamia, 19
Jacobson’s organ, 53 Lampropeltis genus, 29
Jains, 126 Lampropeltis triangulum. See Milk
Janamejaya, 122–23 Snake
Japan, 21 Lancehead, 148
Java and Javanese, 140 Lanthanotus genus, 11
Javan Wart Snake, 41 Laticauda semifasciata, 25
Jaws, 68–69 Lampropeltis genus, 61
Jesus, 50, 56, 169 Larynx, 55
Jews, 33 Lateral undulation, 94
Index 185

La Venta, 4 Martin, W.H., 58, 87

Lawrence, D.H., 6, 144 Masculine symbol, 19–20
LD50, 79 Masks of God, 138
Lead beads, 90 Massasauga, 157
Legless lizards, 11 Masticophis flagellum flagellum. See
Legs, lack of, 1, 11, 12, 32, 33 Coachwhip Snake
Lenge, 16 Maticora genus, 7
Lens, 49 Maya, 18, 33, 165
Leptotphlops bilineatus, 26–27 Medusa, 19, 22
Letisimulation, 96 Melanin, 35
Leza, 38 Melanophores, 35
Liasis fuscus, 4 Mensa Bet-Abrahe, 36
Libya, 19 Mertens, Robert, 96
Lichinura trivirgata. See Rosy Boa Meru, 5
Liliuokanali, 2 Merudanda, 20
Linnaeus, 27 Mexican Horned Pit Viper, 9
Linga Purana, 11 Mexico, 37, 43, 44, 91, 155
Linzey, Michael, 48 Michigan, 112
Live-bearers (ovoviviparous), 60–61 Micrurus fulvius. See Coral Snakes
Liver, 65 Micrurus genus, 30
Loch Ness, 17 Middle East, 28
Locomotion, 41–46 Midgard Serpent, 105
Longfellow, 17 Milk, 66
Long-glanded snakes, 14 Milk Snakes, 29, 63
Long-Nosed Tree Snake, 49 Milky Way, 18
Lord of Waters, 138 Minoan culture, 109
Louisiana, 113 Minton, Sherman, 20–21
Lovage, 90 Minute Snakes, 28
Lualaba River, 109 Miocene, 29
Lucan, 78 Mississippi, 40
Lung and Breathing, 1, 54–55 Mole Vipers, 28, 72
Lyons, Gordon, 135 Mojave Rattlesnakes, 75
Lyre Snake, 80 Monocle Cobras, 23
Mongoose, 20–21
Macrelaps microledotus, 28–29 Morelia oenpelliensis. See Oenpelli Python
Madagascan Boa, 36 Morelia viridis. See Green Tree Python
Madagascar, 12 Morocco, 92
Mahabharata, 122–23 Mormons, 33
Malaysia, 30 Moses, 33
Malawi, 16 Mosquito, 63
Malta, 143 Mozambique 16
Mambas, 28, 30, 58, 72, 73, 82, 132–33 Mud Snake, 46
Manasa, 6 Muslims, 33
Mangrove Snake, 80 Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, 117
Mansa, 125 Myotoxin, 76
Manson, Charles, 22 Mud, 84
Martinique Thread Snake, 27–28 Mummy, 85
186 Index

Naga, 5, 119–25 Oklahoma, 57

Nagaloka, 125 Omaha people, 84
Nag Pañchami, 124 Onions, 90
Naja ashei, 97 Ophidiolatry, 123–24
Naja kaouthia, 23 Ophidiophobia, 2
Naja melanoleuca, 23 Ophioctonus, 21
Naja naja. See Asian Cobra; Indian Ophion, 104–5
Cobra Ophiophagus Hannah. See King Cobra
Naja nigricollis, 23 Opisthoglyph, 14, 80
Nandi, 5 Orpheus, 145
Narby, Jeremy, 7 Ophryacus sp., 9
Natal Black Snake, 28–29 Orissa, 125
Natrix stolata, 14 Ouroboros, 46, 67
Navajo, 15, 34, 44 Oviparous, 138
Neith, 19 Ovoviviparous, 60
Nepal, 47 Oxyuranus, 23
Nerodia genus, 94 Oxyuranus microlepidotus. See Inland
Neurotoxins, 74, 75, 82, 97, 162 Taipan
New Delhi, 106 Oxyuranus scutellatus. See Coastal Taipan;
New Guinea, 29, 30, 36, 101 Common
New Mexico, 90 Owen, Sir Richard, 1
Niaamwezi people, 111
Nidhogg, 33 Pachyrachis probematicus, 13
Nigeria, 16, 106 Pakistan, 47
Ningizzida, 52 Palestinian, 62
Noah, 34 Pancreas, 65
Nocturnal snakes, 49 Pangaea, 13
Norse, 33, 105 Paradise, xi, 63
North America, 30, 31, 66, 153, 154 Paraguay, 118
Northeastern Anaconda. See Paralysis, 76
Deschauenseei’s Anaconda Parenting, 31, 60–61
Notechis scutatus. See Eastern Tiger Snake Pasteur Institute, 89
or Tiger Snake Patrick, St., 2–3
Nova Scotia, 1 Paul, St. 143
Numbers, Book of, 911 Pearl, 9
Nyai Lolo Kidul, 140 Peberdy, Chris, 136
Nyloxin, 89 Pecos Bill, 17, 45
Pelamis laturus. See Yellow-Bellied Sea
Odor, 154 Snake
Ogdoad, 129 Pelvic girdle, 11
Ohio, 4, 99 Pennsylvania, 40, 46, 47, 92, 100
Okanagon, 36 People for Animals, 106
Olive oil, 84 Perder, Franz, 4
Olive Sea Snake, 50 Peringuey’s Death Adder, 43
Olmecs, 4 Perkins, Marlin, 146, 164–65
Oenpelli Python, 33 Peyote, 86
Okinawa, 151 Phallus, 19, 52
Index 187

Pharaohs, 131 Rainbow Snake, 46

Philippines, 120 Rain-bringing, 16, 18–19
Physiologus, 41, 48 Ramphotyphlops braminus. See Brahminy
Pigment, 35 Blind snake
Pilot Snake, 152 Ramsey, Reece, 171
Pima Indians, 42 Rat Snakes, 28, 29, 94
Pingala, 20 Rattle, 93, 156–59
Pit Bull Terrier, 130 Rattlesnakes, xi, 4, 25, 31, 42, 56, 58, 59,
Pits, 15, 54 63–64, 74, 75, 81, 82, 84, 87, 93, 94,
Pit vipers, 15, 28, 31, 54, 60, 72–74, 141, 100, 102, 154–72
148, 152 Rattlesnake Den, 48
Pliny the Elder, 35, 40, 90, 144 Rattlesnake roundups, 23, 167–68
Plumed Serpent, xi Rear-fanged snakes, 14, 29, 80, 95, 96
“Poison,” 138 Rectilinear movement, 43–44
Pomo Indians, 50 Red-Bellied Black Snake, 135
Pope, Clifford, 42, 92 Regina septemvittata. See Queen Snake
Prey, 105 Reptilia, 27, 31
Pridaku, 6 Reticulated Pythons, 36, 41, 102, 112–13
Proteolysins, 74 Revolutionary War, 158
Proteroglyphs, 80 Rich, Joseph, 17–18
Proverbs, 6 Rig-Veda, 4–5, 102, 119
Pseudechis australis. See King Brown “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” 138
Snake Ringhals, 96
Pseudechis porphyriacus. See Red-Bellied River snakes, 15
Black Snake Roadrunner, 20, 161
Pseudenaja spp. See Brown Snake Romanian and Romanians, 34, 56, 86
Pseudonaja textile. See Eastern Brown Romans, 52
Snake Roosevelt, Teddy, 134
Puff Adder, 35, 70, 76, 80, 82, 145–47 Rosy Boa, 43
Punjab, 125 Rough Green Snake, 42
Puranas, 124 Royal Python, 22, 35, 93
Pure Venom Snake Park, 112 Rum, 85
Pythons, 11, 12, 28, 50, 77, 101, 106–15. Russell, Patrick, 147
See also individual species Russell’s Viper, 70, 79, 82, 88, 147–48
Python molurus molurus. See Indian Russia, 16
Python
Python reticulatus. See Reticulated Python Sacred Snakes, 6
Python sebae. See African Rock Python St. George medal, 90–91
Python (stone), 108 Saliva, 14
San people, 108
Queen of Snakes, 125 Sand Viper, 82
Queen Snakes, 53 Sanzina genus, 36
Quetzalcoatl, 166–67 Sarpa, 41
Sarpanama (snake-naming mantras), 122
Ra, 70 Sarpasattra (snake sacrifice), 122
Rainbow Boas, 36 Sarpavidya, 5
Rainbow Serpent, 18 Savannah Twig Snake, 96
188 Index

Saw-Scaled Viper, 55, 76, 147 Snakebite remedies, 84–92

Sea Kraits, 139 Snake charming, 49, 126–28,
Scales, 11, 34–38 “Snake hair,” 35
Scandinavia, 21, 145 Snake-meat, 25
Schlosser, S.E., 46 Snake oil, 25
Schmidt, Karl Patterson, 46 Snake Prince, 110
Scotland, 35, 47 Snake repellant, 89–92
Scott, Michael, 35 Snake root, 86
Scutes, 34 Snakes as “pets,” 98–100, 113–15
Sea Serpents, 13 Snake priestesses, 109
Sea Snakes, 25, 27, 30, 42, 55, 61, 72, 75, Snake sacrifice, 122–23
76, 80, 138–40 Snake soup, 24
Semen, 5, 59 Snakestone, 85
Serpentes, 27 Snake worship, 123
Serpentine movement, 42 Snorkel Viper, 76
Sex and Reproduction, 58–62 Soft Child, 42
Sexuality, symbol, 32 Solenoglyphs, 80
Shedding, 38–41 South Africa, 23
Shesha, 6 South America, 31, 106, 115, 134, 138,
Shield-tailed snakes, 27 150, 157
Shinto, 21 South Carolina, 152
Shiva, 5 South American Rattlesnake, 74–75
Shoes, 90 Spain, 12
Shoshone, 18 Spawls, Stephen, 37, 133
Sidewinder movement, 43 “Speckled Band,” 63
Sidewinder, 43, 46, 157 Spectacled Cobra, 127
Sidewinders, 9 Spirit snakes, 16
Simoliphis, 138 Spit, 90
Sinusoidal movement, 42 Spitting Cobras, 23, 71, 84, 96–98
Sioux, 172 Squamata, 27, 31
Sistrurus genus, 157 Squamation, 11
Size, 47, 66, 81–82, 102, 107, 112–13, Sri Lanka, 41, 147
116–17, 132, 161 Stanceil, Micah, 88–89
Skin, 34–41 Sternum, 1
Skunk, 84 Stiletto snakes, 28, 72
Sku-qua-wel’hau, 37 “Stinking Goddess,” 94–95
Sky serpents, 18 Stomach, 64
Slavic, 33 Storm God, 21
Small-Scaled Taipan, 30 Stout, Rex, 150
Smell, sense of, 51–54 Summeford, Glenn, 171
Smuggling, 23 Sunbeam snakes, 27, 36
Smyth, J.F.D., 9, 45 Sun Dance Wheel, 37
Snails, 69 Sun god, 5
“Snake,” 144 Sun, Sand, and Snakes, 97
Snakebite, 66–100 Surinam, 142
Snake festival, 126–27 Surucucú, 151
Snake-handling cults, 169–73 Surya, 5
Index 189

Susano-o, 21 Tree snakes, 44, 96

Svaja, 6 Triassic Age, 13
Swallowing, 67, 109–10, 135 Trimersurus genus (Asiatic pit vipers), 31
Swimming, 42 Trimersurus spp., 21
Sydney Funnelweb Spider, 79 Trimorphodon bicutatus. See Lyre Snake
Trinidad, 115
Tails, 34, 42, 83 Tropidolaemus wagleri. See Temple Pit
Taipans, 23, 72, 136 Viper
Taiwan, 67 Tropidophis genus, 36, 95
Takshaka, 123 True vipers, 31, 72, 141
Talmud, 33 Turkey, 52
Taste, sense, 51–52 Turtles, 31
Teeth, 11, 14, 66–67 Twig Snake, 23, 80
Texas Blind snake, 28 Two-Step Viper, 77–78
Texas Cat-Eyed Snake, 80 Turpentine, 84
Texas Rat Snake, 94 Typhopidae (Blind snakes), 34
Tanzania, 111 Typhon, 21
Tarvallo, Paul, 117
Temperament, 139, 153 Uncegila, 35
Temple Pit Vipers, 152 Undulatory movement, 42
Thamnophis genus, 29, 36, 83 United States, 23, 28, 37, 42, 47, 70, 80,
Thelotornis genus, 23, 49 81, 88, 105
Thelotornis capensis. See Twig Snake Unktehi, 17
Theotornis kirklandii. See Savannah Twig Ureters, 65
Snake Urutu Pit Vipers, 76
“There Are No Snakes in Ireland,” 138 Ustu’tli, 103
Thread snakes, 27
Thunderbird, 36–37 Vaccination, 88
Thunderbolt, 19 Vagina dentate, 19
Tiamat, 104 Vasuki, 5
Tieholtsodi, 15 Vedas, 5
Tiger Snake, 30, 135 Venom, 13–14, 29, 70, 72–80, 136, 139,
Timber Rattlesnake, 27, 58, 87, 162–64 162
Tirashchiraji, 6 Vertebrae, 33–34
Tiresias, 59 Vietnam, 24
Tommygoff, 44 Vinata, 52
Toad, 84, 86 Vinegar, 84
Toltecs, 165–66 Vipera ammodytes. See Sand Viper
Tongue, 51, 53 Vipera aspis. See European asp
Topsell, Edward, 71–72, 76–77, 78, 86, 129 Vipera aspis hugyi, 145
Totonto, 130 Vipera berus. See European viper
Totonac, 18 Viperidae, 27, 28, 31, 72
Tourniquet, 86 Vipers and Viperids, 6, 14–15, 25, 27, 28,
Treacle, 89 30, 31, 34, 35, 41, 60, 73–74, 75, 81,
Tree-dwelling snakes, 42 137, 141–73, 160
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, 42 Viperinae, 31
Tree of Life, 33 Vision, 48–50
190 Index

Vishnu, 6, 122 West Virginia, 162

Vishnu Sharma, 39 White, Gilbert, 62
Viviparous, 60 Wildlife Protection Act, 126
Volos, 33 Wisdom, 19, 32, 36, 56
Vomeronasal organ, 53 Whiskey, 85
Vritra, 4–5 Worm snakes, 27
Vulture, 90
Xenopeltis unicolor. See Sunbeam Snakes
Wabende, 38
Wafipa, 38 Yamata-no-orochi
Wagstaff, Simon, 88 Yao, 16
Walterinnesia aegyptia. See Desert Black Yellow Anaconda, 115–16
Snake Yellow-Bellied Sea Snake, 47, 140
Warao, 8 Yggdrasil, 33
Warren, Robert Penn, 36 Yin and Yang, 19
Wart Snakes, 35 Yinglinga Saga, 21–22
Water, 4 Yucatan, 166
Water Moccasin. See Cottonmouth
Water Python, 4 Zamenis longissimus. See Aesculapian
Water snakes, 16–17, 57, 94, 139 Snake
Water spirits, 107, 118 Zeus, 21, 53
Welsh, 39 Zimba, 16
West African Bush Viper, 100 Zulu, 91
Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, 21 Zululand, 109
About the Author

DIANE MORGAN is Adjunct Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Wilson

College. Author of more than thirty books, she is a three-time winner of the
Maxwell Award for excellence in writing on pet care. She is the author of Fire and
Blood: Rubies in Myth, Magic, and History (Praeger, 2007), From Satan’s Crown
to the Holy Grail: Emeralds in Myth, Magic, and History (Praeger, 2007), and The
Buddhist Experience in America (Greenwood, 2004).