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Snakes in
American Culture
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Snakes in
American Culture
A Hisstory
Jesse C. Donahue and
Conor Shaw-Draves
♾
2019 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lCCn 2018058333 | ISbn 9781476662657
(softcover : acid free paper)
Subjects: lCSh: Snakes—united States—history. |
human-animal relationships. | Animals and history.
Classification: lCC Ql666.o6 D5974 2019 | DDC 597.96—dc23
lC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018058333
v
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table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Preface: Dangerous Neighbors by Jesse C. Donahue 1
vii
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preface
Dangerous Neighbors
Jesse C. Donahue
1
2 Preface
Face of a western black rat snake found in New York State. They have a painful
bite and they are excellent tree climbers (courtesy commons.wikimedia.org;
https://snappygoat.com).
part of the world. like the new england walls, these rock piles had effec-
tively created snake condominiums. We saw the snakes sunning them-
selves on top of the rock mounds, trying to catch the sunlight filtering
through the redwood branches. this time, however, they were large,
almost emerald green, rattlesnakes. even in my state of sheer terror, I rec-
ognized that they were absolutely stunning. their vibrant color, size, and
inherent dangerousness gave them a kind of beauty that seemed almost
magical. on our four-day trip, we saw, and nearly stepped on, three of
them. the trip was supposed to last longer, but the sheer number of them
started to get worrisome, and we headed home early. As far as we knew,
we were prepared if a rattlesnake bit one of us. Although we were both
college educated, including one of us with a graduate degree, neither of
us came from a medical field and so we had not read the best and most
up-to-date literature on snakebites. Instead, like many Americans, we were
burdened with the advice of the past. According to hiking and recreational
wisdom, we were supposed to have a snakebite kit of some kind with us,
which we did. Inside the kit, we had a razor, a rubber tube for a ligature,
some antiseptic, and bandaids. If one of us got bitten, we understood that
we should tie a ligature around the bitten limb, slice open the bite area,
suck out the venom, and then head to the hospital. All of this was highly
unpleasant sounding to me. It sounded, in fact, worse than the bite itself,
and I suspected that the whole idea made little sense. I had seen a friend
try to pierce another person’s ears, and even that simple procedure had
not gone well. If I got bitten, I could imagine screaming in pain, tears,
perhaps a few curses, and then a struggle with my fiancé about who exactly
was going to make the cut on my arm. In short, we were typical Americans
in that we were the victims of poor medical advice from the past, coping
with one of the most interesting, and sometimes dangerous, animals
among us.
As readers shall see throughout this book, these encounters capture
several of the findings of this book that examines Americans’ complicated
relationship with snakes. first, and most obviously, I encountered several of
them near my home or during an outdoor recreational experience. there
was not just one memorable experience, but repeated ones. Second, whether
or not snakes are a problem depends upon one’s perspective. to someone
whose height is half the length of the snakes and who also climbed trees,
they were dangerous. to my white, east Coast parents who worked safely
inside buildings, snakes were an interesting and crucial part of nature. third,
the kinds of snakes one runs into depends upon where one lives. An obvious
point, but one, as we shall see, that was often lost on writers from the east
4 Preface
Coast in the 18th and 19th centuries. fourth, much of America still
remains rugged and remote, which leads to snake encounters, particularly
for the pioneers who work, live, or spend recreational time in these places.
the miners struggling in the California mountains in the past capture the
types of occupations that placed people into accidental contact with snakes
historically. fifth, the snakes entertained us when we watched the black
snake scale the tree, and although we did not use the animal for profit,
many other Americans have, as we shall see. but the snakes were also
opportunists, using the rebar in the tree, and the rocks on the miners’
mounds, to their benefit. Sixth, snakes are unmistakably fascinating. As
much as I feared the rattlesnakes in California, I couldn’t help but marvel
at their dangerous beauty. this fear and fascination is woven into the fiber
of our beings through systems of culture and faith. And finally, both types
of snake were life-threatening under the right circumstances. We consid-
ered their venom before we went into their environment, because getting
treated for a bite would be painful at best, and life threatening at worst,
even in the late 1980s. And the cure still recommended among lay people
at the time was itself a barbaric act. We would have had little choice, as
far as we knew, however, because snakes were all around us.
my coauthor, Conor, and I are not alone in writing about snakes. the
literature about snakes is voluminous, but overwhelmingly it is found in
fields outside of popular culture and the history of medicine. existing lit-
erature on snakes is largely found in the natural sciences. Its primary pur-
pose is to scientifically identify snakes and their habitats for amateur
collectors and amateur naturalists. We wish to make it abundantly clear,
however, that this is not one of those books. this is not a biological guide
to snakes in the united States. Another subgenre of the literature that
comes a little closer to the purpose of this book involves current collec-
tions of stories or field research experiences told either by amateurs or
professional herpetologists.1 there is also a single study about the strug-
gles over enforcing protection for snakes (and other reptiles) through the
Convention on the International trade of endangered Species.2 Another
subgenre are medical studies that focus broadly on the scientific nature
of snake venom, the demographics of snakebites, and sometimes some of
the treatment protocols that preceded antivenin. 3 the closest study to
this one is a more internationally focused one by Drake Stutesman, entitled
Snake, that examines some central aspects of the relationship between
humans and snakes throughout the world.4
unlike these books, our work examines snakes primarily in American
culture and history from the 1800s forward. It is at once a book that we
Dangerous Neighbors (Jesse C. Donahue) 5
united States and have had harmonious relationships with them. It is also
equally true that most snake encounters are nonviolent, and that both
sides leave one another alone and live together in harmony. newspaper
stories in the mid to late 1800s often covered the fact that parts of America
were inundated with snakes. rural pennsylvania and new york sometimes
found their hillsides swarming with black snakes or rattlesnakes. the
southwest was famous for its large numbers of particularly venomous rat-
tlesnakes, and the southeast and south had all of these snakes, plus a
healthy amount of cottonmouths as well. We are two species living among
one another constantly, and many times we can coexist.
however, many of the snake and human interactions did not end well.
And we begin by showing that self-appointed experts from the east Coast
perpetuated myths about human and rattlesnake interactions to make
themselves sound like reasonable, scientific, and fearless men. Contrary
to the facts, these authors made a variety of fictitious claims in newspapers
and other sources, including, for example, that rattlesnakes never bit peo-
ple. Americans who lived or worked outside of cities on farms, ranches,
railroads, the woods, and plantations, however, really struggled with ven-
omous snakes, particularly rattlesnakes, who bit them. poor people
encountered snakes during the day as they reached down to pick some-
thing up from the ground or to work the earth. And they met them at
night as both they and the snakes sought shelter in the slightly warmer
interiors of poorly constructed cabins or tents. these communities some-
times attracted more snakes than would have been present in the wild.
people brought grain for themselves and their livestock, the kernels
enticed rodents, and the snakes followed for the mice. later, in the early
1900s, when recreational hiking and outdoor wilderness sightseeing
became a trend, these kinds of Americans also learned about the sheer
number of snakes that surround us and they too attracted snakes to their
camps through food. 7 many of these interactions ended in bites that
caused dramatic pain and frequently death for humans and sometimes
the snakes as well. We review the many ways in which people were bitten
and the agonizing ways in which they died.
As a result of the frequent bites, many people needed medical treat-
ment for them, particularly from rattlesnakes and cottonmouth snakes.
In Chapter 2, we show that from the beginning, family healers, and later
doctors, in the united States had a variety of ways of approaching
snakebites, most of which were ineffective. early on, the treatment was
complicated by the fact that family medical providers, and later doctors,
were not herpetologists and sometimes struggled to know which snakes
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