Drake Stutesman - Snake

Animal

Series editor: Jonathan Burt

Drake Stutesman

REAKTION BOOKS

To the beautiful S-line and F

Published by
REAKTION BOOKS LTD
33 Great Sutton Street
London EC1V 0DX, UK
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk

First published 2005
Copyright Drake Stutesman 2005

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers.

Page references in the Photo Acknowledgements and
Index match the printed edition of this book.

Printed and bound in China by C&C Offset Printing Co., Ltd

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Stutesman, Drake

Snake. (Animal)
1. Snakes 2. Animals and civilization
I. Title
597.96

eISBN: 9781861895011

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Do you hear a snakes hiss? If so, its likely that a sudden involuntary feeling rushes you because everyone has an opinion about snakes. Emily Dickinson may have admitted something for all when, in her poem about a harmless garter snake, she says:

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

Compare that to a young pet owners enthusiastic My snake makes me happy or the words of a contemporary Appalachian snake handler on the experience of holding one in church, its full of joy. I feel like Im walking in another world.

The snake is very much alive in todays cultures. Soothe yourself with a Chinese rheumatic snake remedy, spice your virility with a swig of snakes blood or boost your immune system with a snakes gall bladder. Show off a fanged serpent tattoo. Walk through the annual Texas Rattlesnake Roundup and see thousands of trapped rattlers killed and turned into souvenirs. Visit Indias Cobra Festival, in Jodhpur, the Naag Panchami, where, for three days, handlers believe cobra venom has no effect. Listen to Australian Aboriginal warnings of languid pools guarded by giant water snakes. See women dancing with boa constrictors or pythons on the Internet or television or in clubs in Berlin, Manila and Las Vegas. Go to an American Holiness Church of Signs Following and watch people praying with live copperheads in their hands, attend the Festival of Snakes in Italy where snakes are paraded in the name of Christ or watch Hopi priests hold rattlesnakes between their teeth and dance in a day-long rain ceremony.

These are all contemporary events, each with ancient roots, some obvious, some obscured. Its strange that snakes mean so much yet its easy to see why. They are exotic: their patterns are beautiful, their movement sexual, their shape muscular and primitive, their dexterity awesome, their toxicity oddly tantalizing. Their colours range from flaming reds, oranges and yellows to vibrant greens, stark whites and muddy browns interspersed with black. Their markings are mesmerizing watery-shaped geometries in sharply coloured patterns of diamonds, bands, stripes, gradations and dots. The snake is so deep in the human subconscious, it is the worlds most symbolized animal and, from the Ice Age to the present, can be found in every walk of human life. In psychology and art, the snake is erotic. In fairy stories and epics, its supernatural. In religion, its moral. In cinema, its monstrous. In folk tales, its odd. In the military, its magic. In clothing, its exciting. In cuisine, its provocative. This animal is still assigned a status found in names, tattoos, emblems, tales, mementos and cures. Equally, it is viewed with such fright that it endures intense persecution and, unlike other hunted animals, rarely enjoys protected rights.

Snakes evoke extremes of fear or admiration even among people who have never seen a real one. Their sinuous glide and dazzling patterns are wildly attractive, but their venomous fangs,surreptitious slither and unbreakable squeeze terrify. Why does the snake fascinate so? There are many reasons, both literal and psychological. As an animal, it is an evolutionary success. Ingeniously adaptable and enviably efficient, the snake could be said to be in tune with all the worlds elements. Its temperature is that of the climate. It moves with equal ease on liquid or solid surfaces. It inhabits every kind of terrain river, ocean, desert, forest, jungle, mountain living in branches, holes, rocks, sand and water. It coils with elegant agility around any shape. It can be smaller than a finger or as big as a tree. The tiniest can poison in seconds and the largest squeeze a cow to death or swallow a pig whole. Most are harmless and helpful, controlling populations of rodents, insects and other pests. Some are lethal, equipped with venom able to kill in under an hour and containing degenerative properties that corrupt flesh in ways horrifying to see.

The snakes primordial system, functioning for over one hundred million years, is a marvel of genetic engineering. The snake smells with its tongue and hears with its flesh. It sees through a lidless eye, covered by a transparent scale, and its retina acts as a zoom lens. It propels itself by a locomotion of rippling muscles. It sheds its skin. It breaks off its tail. It has one lung. It breathes under sand. It has infrared radar. Its mouth unhinges to surround a body many times its size. Its digestion can take months. It copulates for days with one snake or fifty at once. It lays eggs, gives birth live or self-clones. Its penis and its clitoris are forked. Its gender when in the womb is determined by heat. It mimics death if afraid or induces spontaneous bleeding.