Snakes, People, and Spirits, Volume One : Traditional Eastern Africa in Its Broader Context [1 ed.] 9781527542921, 9781527537675

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Snakes, People, and Spirits, Volume One

Snakes, People, and Spirits, Volume One: Traditional Eastern Africa in its Broader Context By

Robert Hazel

Snakes, People, and Spirits, Volume One: Traditional Eastern Africa in its Broader Context By Robert Hazel This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Robert Hazel All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book 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 copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-3767-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-3767-5

To Professor Jean-Claude Muller, recently deceased, whose commitment to African studies and comparative anthropology was outstanding. His ongoing support and encouragement enabled the author to undertake and carry out this wide-ranging research programme.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xii List of Illustrations ................................................................................... xiv Introduction ............................................................................................... xv Part I: Prolegomena Chapter 1.1 .................................................................................................. 2 A Brief Factual Profile of Snakes Chapter 1.2 .................................................................................................. 9 Dreaded but Fascinating Creatures Box 1. A Sudanese Act of Bravery Chapter 1.3 ................................................................................................ 16 Anchor Points for Ophidian Symbolism Box 2. The Good versus the Bad Serpent Chapter 1.4 ................................................................................................ 31 Psychoanalysis, Analytic Psychology, and the Snake Box 3. Case Studies from Amazonia Chapter 1.5 ................................................................................................ 44 Symbolisation, a Crucial Culture-Building Process Box 4. From Sticks to Spears and Snakes Concluding Note ........................................................................................ 68 Part II: The Snake through the Ages Chapter 2.1 ................................................................................................ 70 The Profile of the Snake in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia Box 5. Were Modern Egypt Snake-Charmers Immune to Snake Bites? Box 6. Moon-Gods, Vessels, Drinking Serpents, and Medicines

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Chapter 2.2 ................................................................................................ 85 Snakes, Gods, and Heroes in Ancient Greece Box 7. Zeus and the Gift of Immortality Box 8. The Snake in Roman Times Box 9. Serpents as Custodians of Life Symbols Chapter 2.3 .............................................................................................. 102 Gods, Snakes, and People from Ancient to Modern India Box 10. The Snake-Husband: Distant Echoes of Ancient Greece and Ancient India Box 11. Snake Charming in Contemporary India Box 12. Naga: A Buddhist Perspective Chapter 2.4 .............................................................................................. 127 Triumphant Monotheism and the Serpent in Ancient Palestine Box 13. The “Fiery” Serpents of the Book of Numbers Box 14. Dan and the Snake as the Justice Maker Box 15. Snakes, Divination, and Knowledge Box 16. The Serpent and Genesis as an Etiological Myth Box 17. Ancient Sumerian Legends Shed Light on Genesis Chapter 2.5 .............................................................................................. 160 The Snake in the Arabic World from Ancient Times to Islam Box 18. The Threat of Snakes in the Arabian Desert Box 19. The Prophet’s Attitude Toward Snakes Box 20. Of Jinn and Serpents Chapter 2.6 .............................................................................................. 178 The Amazing Persistence of the Good Serpent within the Christian World Concluding Note ...................................................................................... 195 Part III: Men, Animals, and Snakes in Traditional Sub-Saharan Africa Chapter 3.1 .............................................................................................. 200 Man-Animal Relationships and Animal Symbolism in Sub-Saharan Africa Box 21. The Notion of Identification Box 22. Ape-like, Hairy, and Caudated Human or Divine Specimens Box 23. Houses, Women, and Elephants in Cushitic Eastern Africa

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Chapter 3.2 .............................................................................................. 229 Ophidian Symbolism in Sub-Saharan Africa: A General Outline Chapter 3.3 .............................................................................................. 233 Illustrations from Western, Saharan, Central, and Southern Africa Box 24. The Compass of Ophidian Symbolism among the Hausa Box 25. Snakes and Ancestors in Southern Africa Concluding Note ...................................................................................... 254 Part IV: Snakes in the Cultural Setting of Eastern Africa Chapter 4.1 .............................................................................................. 257 Human Communities and Snakes in Eastern Africa Box 26. Snakes and Native Animal Classification Systems Box 27. Rulers and Snakes in the Lacustrine Kingdoms of Eastern and Central Africa Chapter 4.2 .............................................................................................. 267 Fabulous, Monstrous, Primeval Serpents Chapter 4.3 .............................................................................................. 276 Snakes, Holes, and Water Chapter 4.4 .............................................................................................. 294 Snakes and Perpetual Rejuvenation Box 28. The Ngonde Legend of Ngeketo Box 29. Sleep and Death Box 30. Snake Fooled by Tortoise: A Puzzling Story from Buganda Chapter 4.5 .............................................................................................. 324 Reptilian Intruders or “Visitors” Box 31. The Spirit Snakes of Musambwa Island (Uganda) Box 32. The Symbolic Attributes of Blackness in Eastern Africa Chapter 4.6 .............................................................................................. 348 Pythons, Chiefs, River Serpents, and Rainbow Box 33. Snake, Fire, and Dog Chapter 4.7 .............................................................................................. 360 Snakes, Omens, Divination, and Knowledge

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Chapter 4.8 .............................................................................................. 369 Snakes and Clans in Nilotic South Sudan Chapter 4.9 .............................................................................................. 379 Snakes as Tutelary Spirits and Familiars in Nilotic and Cushitic Kenya Box 34. The Power over Snakes among the Dassanech Chapter 4.10 ............................................................................................ 392 Maasai Snake-Related Priests and Prophets Box 35. Maasai and Nandi Ritual Leaders: Shifting Designations Chapter 4.11 ............................................................................................ 399 A Cultural Profile of Spittle Box 36. The Circumcised Penis as a Spitting Cobra Chapter 4.12 ............................................................................................ 416 Sorcerers, Snakes, and Healers Box 37. Bellies Harbouring Serpents or Encircled by a Snake Box 38. The Method of the Tourniquet: Recent or Traditional in Africa? Box 39. Medicinal Plants as a Cure for Snake Bites Chapter 4.13 ............................................................................................ 435 Snake-Charmers and Snake-Doctors in Central and Western Tanzania Box 40. Pricking Snakes and Stinging Porcupines, Northern Tanzania Box 41. Snake-Charming in Eastern Kenya and in Central Ethiopia Chapter 4.14 ............................................................................................ 460 Pre-colonial and Contemporary Snake Cults Box 42. Snake Cults and Resistance to Colonial Rule Box 43. Twinship and Snakehood Concluding Note ...................................................................................... 475 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 477 Index 1 ..................................................................................................... 543 Tribal Identities Index 2 ..................................................................................................... 550 Countries and Regions of Africa

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Index 3 ..................................................................................................... 553 Themes and Topics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Securing permissions to quote from an array of recent and non-recent publications, articles or books, not to mention a few websites, has proven to be a time-consuming and highly challenging experience. Most publishing houses and publishers of periodicals have freely granted permission to use extracts of their making. The author extends his gratitude to all of them, starting with those upon whose content he has drawn extensively: Wiley (US), Oxford University Press (UK), Yale University Press (US), Cambridge University Press (UK), W. Kohlhammer Verlag (Germany), Taylor & Francis Group (UK), E. J. Brill (The Netherlands), Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), Chicago University Press (US), International African Institute (UK), University of Khartoum (Sudan), College of Social Sciences (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), California University Press (US), Hurst Publishers (UK), and Orion Publishing Group (UK). In alphabetical order, the other collaborative publishers are the Anthropos Institute (Germany), Archiv für Orientsforschung (Austria), Asian Educational Services (India), Boydel & Brewer Ltd (US), Center for African Area Studies (Japan), Columbia University Press (US), Dietrich Reimer (Germany), East African Wildlife Society (Kenya), Éditions Dervy (France), Ethnology (US), Field Museum of Natural History (US), Geuthner (France), Global Development Institute (UK), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US), Indiana University Press (US), International Museum of Cultures (US), Islet Verlag (Germany), Journal of Anthropological Research (US), Journal of Religion in Africa (The Netherlands), KamlaRaj Enterprises (India), Koninklijke Brill NV (The Netherlands), Leon and Zarmig Surmelian Foundation (US), Lituanus (US), Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (US), Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale (Belgium), Octopus Publishing Group (UK), Paulines Publications Africa (Kenya), Penguin Books Ltd (UK), Penguin Random House (UK), Penguin Random House LLC (US), Princeton University Press (US), Royal African Institute (UK), Royal Geographical Society (UK), School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), Social Analysis (UK & US), Society of Biblical Literature (US), Springer (Germany), Stanford University Press

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(US), Steiner (Germany), Thames & Hudson (UK), and the University of Pennsylvania Press (US). The author also wishes to thank the following authors, scholars, and website administrators for granting free clearance to quote or supplying him with valuable unpublished information: James A. Banks (US), Fr. Anthony Barrett (Ireland), Roger Bench and Mike Brisco (Australia), Astrid Blystad (Norway), Kusamba Zacharie Chifundera (République Démocratique du Congo), Subhuti Dharmananda (ITM, US), Elliot Fratkin (US), John T. Hinnant (US), Marilyn Jacobs on behalf of the late Alan H, Jacobs (US), George Lakoff (US), Ben Knighton (UK), Ole Bjørn Rekdal (Norway), Boria Sax (US), Günther Schlee (Germany), Daniel Stiles (US Kenya), Ivo Strecker (Germany), and David Westerlund (Sweden). Four of them informed the author of publications he was not aware of. Special thanks to Astrid Blystad, K. Z. Chifundera, Elliot Fratkin, and Ole Bjørn Rekdal in that regard. Special thanks also to Francisco Vaz da Silva (Portugal) and Marlene de Wilde (Greece) for their valuable contributions. The author is also grateful to Chantal Ekoum and Michel Samson for their support and encouragements. Needless to say, he is solely responsible for any misrepresentation or misinterpretation of the ethnographic record. There are a few works for which attempts at tracing copyright-holders proved unsuccessful or inordinately complicated. In such cases, the author invokes the “quotation exception,” which allows a writer to copy extracts or quotes from works as long as the purpose is genuinely for quotation, the material used is available to the public, the work is properly referenced or attributed, and provided that the material used is limited to what is required to achieve the author’s purpose, and that his use of the quotation has no impact on the commercial viability of the original work.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Volume One: Illustration 1 ............................................................................................ 194 The Core Motif of the World Health Organization Emblem Illustration 2 ............................................................................................ 239 The Bamun Double-Headed Snake Volume Two: Illustration 3 .............................................................................................. 42 Map of the catchment area of the upper Jubba River

INTRODUCTION

The usual term for ophidians is “snake.” Borrowed from a non-Germanic source, either French or Latin, the word “serpent” tends to be used for more fearsome ophidian species such as highly venomous or very large snakes (Mundkur 1983: 2). As Bodson (1989: 525) points out, “the snake still generates reactions of a basically negative character among Europeans and other Westerners. Even in the case of an inoffensive grass-snake or of a simple slow worm, ‘a good snake is a dead snake’.” Morris et al. (1965: 27) emphasise more generally “the potency of the snake as a basic image.” Willis (1990a: 250) underscores the variety of “symbolic meanings” associated with snakes worldwide and throughout history. In his reckoning, “no other animal is so rich in meaning for the whole human species.” Many other writers have made a similar point, including the following: —. Deane (1833: 35) The serpent is the symbol which most generally enters into the mythology of the world.

—. Gerhard (1847)1

No animal symbol has such importance and such diverse, even contradictory, meanings than the serpent.

—. Robertson-Smith (1889: 122 fn.) The snake is an object of superstitions in all countries.

—. Hambly (1931: 69) There is no other animal which combines so wide a distribution with so many peculiarities, which must be very mysterious to minds not furnished with scientific explanation.

—. Lazenby (1947: 248) The snake played an important role in ancient life, art, and religion.

—. Mehra (1956: 132) No species of animal has impressed mankind to the same extent as the snake apparently has.

1

Gerhard was a German specialist of ancient Greek religion and mythology. Excerpt translated and quoted by Charlesworth (2010: 352).

Introduction

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—. Éliade (1964: 147)2 Ophidian symbolism is disconcerting. However, all of its features revolve around a single notion: it is immortal because it regenerates itself; therefore, it stands for a power that bestows fertility, knowledge (prophecy), and even immortality.

—. Parrinder (1967: 22) The snake has had a fascination for men in every land; it is mysterious, fearful, and immortal.

—. Pope (1969: 204) Serpent worship has existed so long and over so much of the earth that the snake must be rated as the most revered of creatures.

—. Chandra Sinha (1975: 15) No animal is so important and so widely spread as the serpent, which is either religiously worshiped or feared all over the world, except in certain cold countries where it is not found.

—. Pont-Humbert (1995: 378) The snake stands among all animals as the one whose symbolic profile displays the more striking contrasts.

—. Cazenave (1996: 622) The symbolic character of the snake is extremely ambiguous and often contradictory. It is so rich in meanings of all sorts that a full account cannot be attempted in a restricted number of pages.

—. Wilson (1996: 8) In all cultures, the serpents are prone to be mystically transfigured.

—. Becker (2000: 263) Among most peoples, the serpent plays an extraordinarily important and extremely diverse role as a symbolic animal.

—. Ferré (2003: 104) It is without doubt the animal most frequently involved in myths and whose symbolic attributes are the richest.

—. Retief et al. (2005: 189) Since time immemorial the snake, probably more than any other animal, has been associated with religion and magical powers.

—. Charlesworth (p. 37, 221) Serpent symbolism pervades human culture. (…) There is no basis to doubt that the snake, above all animals, has provided the human with the most varied and complex symbology.

The image of the snake has been scrutinised by most encyclopaedists while a few writers have devoted a whole book to the topic: Deane 2

Almost all quotations in French (as in this case), German, or Italian have been translated by the author. A few publications in English have been consulted in their French translation.

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(1833), Morris et al. (1965), Pope (1969), Joines (1974), Chandra Sinha (1975), Mundkur (1983), Wilson (2001), and more recently Charlesworth (2010). Some of these publications have a general scope; others, notably those of Wilson, Joines, and Charlesworth deal with ophidian symbolism in the ancient Middle East and/or the Bible. No major work on African snake symbolism has ever been published. D. Wagner’s thesis, entitled Die Schlange in Kult, Mythos und Vorstellung der Nordostafrikanischen Stämme (München, 1970), remains unpublished. The author became aware of it while he was completing the present publication’s conclusions. Entitled Quand le python se déroule, Roumeguère-Eberhardt’s book (1988) is an autobiography. Aside from a few articles dealing with snake bites, the publications focussing on ophidian symbolism or attempting to draw the cultural profile of snakes in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa or in the Horn of Africa are not that many: Roscoe (1909a), Hambly (1931), Portères (1949), Schnell (1949), Clamens (1952), Segy (1954), Eberhardt (1958), Hauenstein (1960, 1978), Villiers (1963), Pâques (1964), Merlo and Vidaud (1966a, 1966b), Willis (1974, one chapter; 1990a), Perret and Denais (1983), Shanklin (1990), Tubiana (1990), Wieck (1990), Jacobson-Widding (1992), Moges (1997), and Bustorf (2010). Some of these publications are short notes. A few of them focus on the python. Also worthy of mention is Weissenborn’s two-part paper (1906) on “animal-worship in Africa,” which devotes fifteen pages to snakes (p. 173-81; 269-76). ProbstBiraben’s short articles (1932, 1933, 1947), all of which relate to Muslim Northern Africa, are also to be noted. The author was unable to lay his hands on an unpublished note on the Fulani of West Africa, written in 1928 by G. Vieillard and entitled “Le génie insatiable. Le serpent inventeur du fer et de l’arc-en-ciel.” Needless to say, a large number of ethnographical or ethnological publications focussing on Sub-Saharan Africa refer to ophidians in more or less significant ways. ***** Parts One and Three of this publication take up the issue of snake symbolism respectively in general and in the African continent as a whole. The author suspected at the outset that much of the African representations about snakes were age-old and related somehow to ancient Egypt and the Middle East. He therefore embarked upon the task of exhibiting the various patterns of ophidian symbolism in ancient Egypt, in the Middle East (mostly Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Arabia), in

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ancient Greece, as well as in ancient India. He could hardly avoid studying the status of the snake in Christianity and Islam, given their historical impact, notably on the Horn. Such explorations have resulted in a portion of this publication, i.e. Part II, being more sizeable than originally planned. The readers will discover how illuminating the insights from those sources turn out to be. They will also realise that SubSaharan Africa has long been part and parcel of a larger “civilised” world. The African continent being so multifaceted, covering the whole ground would have proven overwhelming. Part IV (this volume) and Part V (Volume Two) will focus on the regions of Africa that the author knows best: Eastern Africa, including the Horn, as well as some peripheral areas. Few obstacles hampered the migration of individuals and groups across Eastern Africa during the last two or three millennia. Khoisan and Cushitic peoples were soon joined by Nilotes and Bantu-speakers. In Sub-Saharan Africa, supernatural powers were commonly attributed to snakes which thereby enjoyed a special status in local religions and cultural systems. Ethnologists working in Eastern Africa or in the Horn such as Haberland (1963: 566), Buxton (1973: 294), Fratkin (1974: 28), and Sperber (1975: 9) have respectively underscored the “religious significance” of snakes, their “religious associations,” their “mystical nature,” or their “almost supernatural” essence.3 In various portions of Eastern Africa and the Horn, some individuals or social groupings were intimately connected with snakes, including poisonous ones. People believed that certain individuals were capable of transforming themselves into snakes and that serpents could take a human shape. In the areas on which this study mostly focusses, snakes had a more or less equal footing in the animal world and in the spiritual realm. In some cases, people did not consider certain snakes reptilian at all but viewed them as supernatural entities originating from the netherworld and representing the ancestors, if not divinity itself. Taking advantage of the resources from university libraries in North America as well as of the growing number of publications partially or fully available on the Web, the author explored the English, German, 3 Haberland referred to the Oromo (southern Ethiopia), Buxton to the Mandari (southern South Sudan), Fratkin to the Samburu (south-western Kenya), and Sperber to the Dorze (south-western Ethiopia). In Haberland’s German phrasing: “Religiöse Bedeutung der Schlangen.” In Sperber’s French phrasing: “Le serpent est conçu comme un être quasi surnaturel (…).”

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French, and Italian ethnographic records rather intensively from 2008 to 2017 in search of evidence of snake beliefs and cults, and for mythical or behavioural illustrations of ophidian symbolism. All the evidence bears witness to the power of analogical thinking in shaping culture and in modelling human behaviour in religious life as well as in day-to-day social interaction. It has not been the author’s intention, leaving aside the process of symbolisation, to apply much of a theoretical framework onto the ethnographic record. This study makes its business to explore a large portion of that record, allowing it in some ways to speak for itself. A number of very general, if not universal, themes have been extricated from the diversity of beliefs and representations, for instance the connection of snakes with the ground, the netherworld or water, and the notion of perpetual regeneration. The ethnographic data will in fact be presented along such lines. Some themes were more or less restricted to particular regions, notably the part played by snakes in totemistic Nilotic South Sudan. The author’s ambition was to offer readers a bird’s-eye view of his subject matter: East African ophidian symbology4; and to dwell upon selected issues in order to get a deeper understanding of the inner workings of analogical thinking as applied to ophidians. Some of the issues are treated conveniently by way of boxes. It is hoped that a more or less clear and coherent picture of what snakes stood for in local cultures will emerge. Ophidian symbolism was clearly as pronounced and far-reaching in Eastern Africa as elsewhere in Africa and perhaps in past civilisations as well. The general conclusion of this book will notably delineate the specificities of East African snake symbolism compared with what applied to ancient Egypt, in the Mediterranean world, and in MiddleEastern civilisations. The author’s interest in ophidian symbolism goes back to the early 1980s while he was drafting his PhD dissertation on the age systems of Eastern Africa and the Horn. He then apprehended the significance of the snake in the shaping of the identity of elders and priestly figures. The present research has been a fascinating experience for him. Hopefully the 4

The notion of “ophidian symbology” refers to the constellation of meanings actually attributed to snakes in a given cultural context. That of “snake symbolism” merely emphasises that snakes are good to think about or that they are a fine raw material for the human imagination.

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Introduction

readerʊat times perhaps bewildered by the multiplicity of peoples and representationsʊwill likewise be captivated.

PART I PROLEGOMENA

Some preliminary steps are called for before taking on our subject: snake symbology in Eastern Africa. First, a general and matter-of-fact profile of snakes will be outlined. It will also be useful to characterise in general terms the human emotional attitude towards snakes. The opinions of a range of analysts, notably encyclopaedists, about what snakes have symbolised or stood for in human civilisation through the ages will be reviewed followed by an exploration of the Freudian and Jungian perspectives on snake symbolism. Part I of this study will show that ophidian symbology has been typically multifaceted and paradoxical. The final chapter of Part I will be devoted to the process of symbolisation and its crucial role in the shaping of human experience and culture. The steps outlined in the initial part of this study will lay the groundwork for the investigation of snake symbology in Eastern Africa, the Horn, and elsewhere.

CHAPTER 1.1 A BRIEF PROFILE OF SNAKES

That animals are “good to think about” would seem a gross understatement as far as snakes are concerned. Paying attention to what snakes are like and how they actually behave in nature helps considerably to understand why it has consistently been so. Charlesworth (p. 32) rightly observes that the understanding of “ophidian symbolism must be grounded by studying and holding snakes.” Snakes have been around for 100 to 130 or even 150 million years. The older ophidian fossils are not bigger than contemporary snakes, contrary to other reptiles, especially the saurians (Rage 2006: 29). The diversity in size, length, and colouring of snakes is truly amazing. They have adapted to various latitudes and biotopes. The extent of their diversity is considerable in the warmer parts of the planet but a few species thrive in northern latitudes, such as in Scandinavia. The number of existing species is estimated at some 2,700. In evolutionary terms, ophidians have therefore been very successful. This is obvious from the comparison of snakes to, for instance crocodilians (only 20 existing species) and turtles (260 existing species).1 Most lizards and all snakes belong to the scaly Squamata order of reptiles,2 with the snakes forming the “Serpentes” suborder of Squamata. This suborder comprises some 17 or 18 families of snakes, the more common of which are the colubrids (the largest family, non-venomous), the boids (pythons, boas, etc.), the elapids (cobras, mambas, etc., all highly venomous), the viperids (vipers, adders, etc., all venomous), and the sea snakes, many of which are venomous. Over 200 different ophidian species are represented in Africa. These belong to eight families and 30 genera. All these families are represented

1 2

The comparative statistics are provided by Rage (p. 26). The crocodilians and turtles are two other reptilian orders.

A Brief Profile of Snakes

3

for instance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,3 where 152 ophidian species have been identified (Chifundera 1990: 141-42). Of these, 79 species, belonging to five families and 28 genera, are venomous (p. 145). Judging from DRC evidence, native African snake taxonomy was approximate. Ophidians of differing species but similar in colouring, size, and behaviour were often given the same name; some species were given more than one name by the same ethnic community; and rarely seen or less noticeable species often lacked specific names (p. 153). ***** Though they are more often seen on the ground and have a liking for dark places such as holes in the ground or crevices in rocky areas, continental snakes can also be found in water, swimming in rivers and lakes, or climbing high up on trees. In other words snakes can be found almost anywhere.4 These cold-blooded vertebrates may be found in dry and hot conditions because their peculiar keratin-rich epidermis and the lack of sudoriferous glands protect them effectively from dehydration. Relative to their weight, snakes are characterised by an extensive body surface, which maximizes heat exchange with the environment, either to gain internal heat or to cool down their organs. Everywhere snakes may be seen catching the heat of the sun, lying on a rock or a sand bed. In warm environments such a scene will be observable in the morning after a cool night. The many species that have adapted to the temperate zone hibernate underground during the cold months. As Saint-Girons (2006: 84) notes, “Usually, once the internal temperature is at the desired level, the snake maintains this equilibrium by placing part of its body in the shade, or it limits its exposure by folding part of its body on itself.” When the temperature goes down, snakes tend to coil or retire in underground shelters. The body of snakes lacks limbs, resembling a headed-tail more than anything else: The vertebrate column of a snake is most wonderfully formed (…). Each vertebra is rather elongated and has at one end a ball joint, while at the 3

Henceforth, this country will be designated DRC. There is no such thing as a truly flying snake. But in creating dragons, human imagination filled the gap. Indeed, most snakes lay eggs, setting them in the same class as birds.

4

4

Chapter 1.1 other end is a corresponding socket into which the ball of the succeeding vertebra fits. This enables the creature to writhe and twist in all directions without danger of dislocating its spine. (Snook, 1973: xiii)

The number of vertebra varies from species to species. It may exceed 300 (Gasc 2006: 60), reaching close to 400 in the case of pythons (Bauchot 2006: 19). Snakes use more than one mode of reptation: lateral undulation, skidding, accordion, and/or sidewinding (Gasc, p. 63-66). Some thickbodied species move in straight progression when on a smooth surface (p. 67) whereas lateral undulation serves snakes well in water or on water surfaces (p. 70). Snakes have no mobile lips. They also lack external ears, thereby being deaf to airborne sounds. They are covered with scales, somewhat like fish. Also remarkable is the hissing sound coming out of the mouth of various species5 and the swift in-and-out movement of the tongue. Through the flicking of its tongue without opening its mouth, the snake feels its immediate environment. The slender forked organ carries the particles of matter it catches up to tiny cavities located in the roof of its mouth and connected to its sense of smell. With the exception of some desert species, which never drink, the tongue is also used at times by snakes to swallow drops of water one by one (Saint-Girons, p. 90).6 If it does not flick its bifid tongue once in a while, an ophidian is likely to be sleeping. Snakes are reported to have fair to good eyesight, leaving aside the burrowing species. They are among the few animals to lack movable eyelids. Instead, their eyes are covered with transparent scales, known as brille. That is why snakes are often reported to have a staring gaze. Some species can close their retina so that they can sleep in broad daylight. Other snakes sleep with their head buried among the folds of their body. Relative to their size, many snakes appear to have a large mouth. Basically designed to bite, their sharp teeth are usually poor chewing instruments. Therefore, snakes swallow their prey whole and sometimes not quite dead. 5

Notes Bauchot (p. 20), “In many species, Viperidae in particular, the epiglottis vibrates when air enters the trachea, and the snake then emits its characteristic hiss.” Most snakes that do not hiss will breathe loudly in a defensive posture (Saint-Girons, p. 169). 6 However, a cobra under observation during many years in captivity was never seen sipping water (Pitman 1974: 188). That may have been because the food given to it was sufficiently rich in water.

A Brief Profile of Snakes

5

Indeed, serpents are noticeable for the size of what they can ingurgitate. In some species the trachea juts out to prevent asphyxiation. The loose articulation of the jaw bones allows snakes to swallow animals much larger than their own normal diameter. The lack of sternum is also facilitating in this regard (Beauchot).7 Many snakes are experts at hiding under cover and are not easily discernible even at close range. When resting or sensing danger, snakes coil. In a fraction of a second, an almost motionless coiled snake will project the anterior portion of its body in a sudden attempt to bite or hit an intruder. On the move some snakes are surprisingly swift. Sexual dimorphism is not a prominent feature of ophidian biology. In a number of species, female specimens are reportedly larger than males. In a few cases, the colouring or skin designs of male and female snakes differ somewhat.8 It is difficult to identify the sex of individual reptiles since their reproductive organs are only visible at mating. The organ of male snakes—like that of some lizards—is divided into two lobes, known as hemipenes. The duration of the process of mating and copulation may be unusually long. Snakes are generally prolific, some of them laying soft-shelled eggs, unlike bird eggs, others giving live birth. Newly born snakes are highly vulnerable. Those of the venomous species, however, are dangerous. In most cases parents offer no protection to their offspring, which, if lucky enough, are able to take care of themselves from the moment of their birth. In the course of their physical growth, snakes shed the whole of their skin periodically. The frequency of this process, coined ecdysis,9 varies from species to species: once, twice, or thrice a year; more often in the case of pythons (Bauchot, p. 18). It also depends on age, a young snake moulting more often than an adult one (Ibid.). The life span of snakes varies in nature, from some 10 years to about 30 years, depending on the species. Larger snakes such as boas and pythons enjoy a longer life expectancy.

7

Some so-called “primitive” snakes have retained a vestigial pelvis (Rage, p. 30), which is an indication that their remote ancestor had posterior limbs. 8 This seems to occur more often between young and mature snakes of a given species, irrespective of sex (Bauchot, p. 15). 9 Ecdysis is a feature of all reptiles. In the case of snakes, it is the outer skin that is wholly discarded.

6

Chapter 1.1

Snakes are hunters and work individually. They move so silently that an encounter with one of them generally turns out to be an unwelcome surprise. Normally snakes avoid humans, who rate with some birds of prey as their chief enemies. Their elusiveness comes from a built-in warning system: they pick up ground vibrations from a distance. Once encountered, most snakes will disappear quickly. Like all reptilian species, snakes cannot display emotions through facial expression, not even fear. Nonetheless various ophidian species have very special patterns of behaviour. The cobra for instance is capable of raising the anterior part of its body and staring at its adversary’s eyes and some varieties of more or less harmless “house-snakes” are known to casually “visit” people in their dwellings, threading their way into houses through holes in walls or doors, in search of rats and other small animals. Like other reptiles, “snakes have a number of successive dentitions, with each tooth remaining functional for a few months only” (Bauchot, p. 34). Their teeth also lack roots, some even being mobile (Ibid.). That being said, most snake species are non-poisonous and kill by constriction, i.e. suffocating their prey by tightening around them. The bite of these species is usually harmless although the saliva of “some colubrids” has “some toxic properties” (Rage, p. 23). The number of poisonous species is estimated at 400 (Bon 2006: 200). Most of these show more or less prominent fangs, generally anterior teeth anchored in the maxillary. These teeth are either grooved or display an internal duct for the passage of venom (Rage, p. 22). According to Rage (p. 23), Venom’s primary function is obviously the capture of prey, but it also plays an important role in digestion, thanks to its constitutive enzymes.

As a defence mechanism, some species of cobra can project their venom a few metres forth, generally aiming directly at the eyes of their enemies: “The snake abruptly expels air from its lungs, while a muscular contraction makes the venom gush forth at the [tip] of the fangs” (SaintGirons, p. 168). Two jets of venom droplets are blown out, often causing severe eye irritation if not destruction of the cornea and blindness. “Over large stretches of Asia and Africa,” according to Wilson (1996: 22), “the known death rate from snakebite is 5 persons per 100,000 each year or higher.” A province in Burma reportedly holds the world record of 36.8 deaths per 100,000 a year (Ibid.). According to a more recent global evaluation referred to by Koh et al. (2006), “about 2.5 million people are

A Brief Profile of Snakes

7

bitten by snakes annually, more than 100,000 fatally.” It had been estimated that in the large and populous country of DRC, some 24,000 persons are bitten by snakes every year (Chifundera, p. 144). According to DRC hospital records, some 10% of the snake-bite victims die from envenomation (Ibid.). It is to be noted that in developing countries, most patients are not brought to hospital soon after envenomation, thereby significantly compromising their prospects for recovery. Importantly, most snakes do not seek to kill humans. They will generally abscond rather than confront people. Noxious to most living creatures, including humans but excluding some reptiles, snake venom is a highly modified form of saliva. It is a complex mix of toxins, enzymes, and other proteins (Bon, p. 194). The venom of some dangerous snakes, such as the African cobras and mambas, is neurotoxic, causing death through the partial or total stoppage of the heart or respiratory muscles; that of the Southern African boomslang is haemotoxic, causing the blood to ooze out of the mouth and bowels; other types of poisonous snake are not lethal but, as with puff adders, their bite entails a painful local necrosis of skin and muscle (Snook, p. 162). Most of those indications are corroborated by David (2006: 208-209) who, however, notes that a specific venom “always” has “multiple effects.” The bite for instance of a puff adder may cause “unstoppable bleeding from the fang holes” and even “hemorrhagic shock” (Ibid.). There are many exceptions to the theory that the lethal effect of elapids’ venom has to do with its neurotoxins’ paralysing action whereas that of Viperids’ venom is due to its action on the cardiovascular system and on blood cells (Bon, p. 195).10 Fevers, nausea, headaches, vomiting, sweating, etc., are common symptoms of snake bites. These may be caused by the toxins injected by venomous ophidians but they can also derive from the anxieties of the human victim (David, p. 209). A distinction has to be made between the noxiousness of a snake’s venom and the damage caused by venomous snakes to humans.11 The most 10

The Elapid family comprises notably the cobras whereas vipers and rattlesnakes are part of the Viperid family. As little as “0.3 micrograms of the neurotoxin from a naja is lethal” (Chalesworth, p. 195). Reportedly a single bite from a king cobra can kill an adult elephant. On the complex effects of the multiple enzymes present in snake venom, see also “Snake venom.” Accessed September 13, 2013. http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/stoneley/types.htm. 11 The present paragraph is wholly inspired from “Snakes and snake bites.” Accessed December 10, 2011. http://www.reptileexpert.co.uk/snakes-snakebites.html.

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Chapter 1.1

potentially lethal snake family would seem to be sea snakes. However, those snakes are even-tempered and rarely bite humans. They only inject their venom into creatures they usually prey upon. Humans are simply not part of that group. Some poisonous snakes that are not extremely harmful are much more dangerous to humans. The highly irritable puff adder is a good example. The actual impact of bites by harmful snakes of the same species may differ considerably “depending on a range of factors including how much venom the snake has injected, how old or fit the victim was, what was bitten and how quickly treatment began.” Moreover, the mental attitude of the victim also plays a significant part. It is reported that people can die from the bite of a harmless snake simply because they believe they have been attacked by a very poisonous one. Such cases are striking illustrations of the power of the human imagination. From a teratological standpoint, the most common anomaly in snakes is albinism (Matz 2006: 106) but the more spectacular anomaly is known as “axial duplication.” According to Mundkur (1983: 77), two-headed snakes are “surprisingly common” in some regions. Indeed, About 400 cases of bicephalic, or, even rarer, two-tailed, snakes have been inventoried. Most of the time the heads alone are duplicated, but there may also be two necks; in those cases, a longer part of the spine is forked. (Matz, p. 107)

As a rule such individuals are very short-lived but a few have been reported to survive for ten years or more (Ibid.). Except for albinism and lack of scales, most anomalies seem to be caused by unfavourable circumstances during foetal development, notably too low or too high temperatures. ***** Considering the overall picture outlined above, it is not at all surprising that few human societies have been insensitive to snakes. However, people have never been fully aware of the biological features of ophidians nor of all the ethological facts about them. The impact of snakes on communities depended partly on the recognition of some of these features and facts, and partly on biased perceptions and imaginary constructs. For instance, in the understanding of some peoples, notably the Macha Oromo of western Ethiopia, “all snakes are dangerous” (Bartels 1969: 407). As Wilson (1996: 28) reflects, the reptilian snake has been more or less universally transformed into “a more powerful creature, the serpent, surrounded by a mist of fear and wonderment.”

CHAPTER 1.2 DREADED BUT FASCINATING CREATURES

According to Freud (1973: 447), “most of us have a sense of repulsion if we meet a snake.”1 Likewise, an anthropologist underscores the “real loathing snakes inspire in people” (Drummond 1981: 657). This wholly negative perception reflects an old Western bias against snakes which will be dealt with in this book. The false but common belief that snakes are slimy may be a by-product of this bias. As for the emotions triggered by the unexpected presence of snakes, most writers and analysts stress fear and anxiety, on the one hand, and fascination on the other. Few people can differentiate for sure between the harmless species and the venomous ones whereas others believe that all or most species are or may be more or less poisonous. The fear of snakes is obviously related to the possibility of being attacked and bitten by a member of a venomous species. In the case of a large ophidian such as a python or boa, many fear being strangled to death by a powerful constrictor. As Charlesworth (p. 216) underscores, “No creature seems to strike fear in the heart of the human as much as the snake.” In his opinion snakes are feared primarily because they can inflict death, spewing or injecting their venom that attacks the blood and heart or the nervous system. (…) We also fear these animals because it is impossible to control or communicate with them, let alone tame them. We abhor snakes because they can appear 2 without warning in our homes. (p. 264)

The deep fear of snakes lends plausibility to a short story entitled “The man and the snake” written in 1891 by an American journalist and writer (Bierce 1952: 142-48). A man returning home after various travels around the world 1

Excerpt quoted by Royle (2003: 141). However, the contemporary negative perception of snakes is not a necessity. Charlesworth is keenly aware that the serpent can be a predominantly positive symbol, as will be seen below.

2

10

Chapter 1.2

is offered hospitality in San Francisco by his friend, a scientist who happens to be a snake specialist as well as a collector of live snakes, many of them venomous. One evening the visitor feels that he is not alone in his room. The pair of glaring eyes, which he locates under his bed, fills him with horror. He wants to walk out of the room but can’t, being almost completely paralysed by fear. He falls on the floor, hurting his face badly a short distance, he believes, from the reptile. He dies crying out of terror. The cause of his death was a stuffed snake whose eyes were shining buttons. For persons suffering from ophidiophobia, the mere sighting of a snake in the countryside, in a zoo, or even on television entails a certain level of anxiety and even panic in extreme cases. Doubtless, along with arachnophobia, which has been defined as “an abnormal and persistent fear of spiders,”3 snake-phobia is among the most common phobias in the Western world and perhaps beyond.4 An early Western student of Indian culture and religion suggested that the “mysterious fear” which was and still is associated with the snake in India and elsewhere is triggered by the following factors: the snake’s “stealthy habits, its sinuous motion, the cold fixity of its gaze, the protrusion of its forked tongue, and the suddenness and deadliness of its attacks” (Crooke 1896, II: 123). In his view fear was the “chief basis” of the many local snake-cults. The notion of fascination implies a mental attitude of a different nature than dread. To be fascinated is to be intrigued intellectually and emotionally amazed by some out-of-the-ordinary phenomenon: “What in the world is that?” In the course of his fieldwork among the Fipa in rural southern Tanzania, a British anthropologist came one day upon a rising and five-foot-long spitting cobra, nalwiiko in local parlance (Willis 1990a: 250-51). Fascinated by its compelling “beauty,” he followed the sliding ophidian regardless of the danger. He soon encountered it again, this time in a coiled position. His curiosity was stronger than any fear he should have experienced: Gazing with interest into the eyes of Nalwiiko, I saw no anger there, but yet a warning that said: Come no closer! Still I was close enough to sense 3

See “Medical definition of arachnophobia.” Accessed October 10, 2011. http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12194. 4 Freud (1973: 447) believed that ophidiophobia was “a universal characteristic,” as quoted again by Royle (Ibid.).

Dreaded but Fascinating Creatures

11

the snake saw no less clearly into my own mind, that it registered my passionate admiration and awe.

Highly interesting also are the adventures of a future biologist, then a foolhardy boy nicknamed “Snake,” who sighted an unusually large venomous water moccasin (Agkistrodon piscivorus) in the bush in Florida. Although not a strong boy he nonetheless attempted to capture it, applying his usual snake-handling method. The pit viper reacted in a surprising way, thus putting his life in danger: The snake began to turn its head far enough to clamp its jaws on my hand. (…) Without thinking I heaved the giant into the brush, and this time it thrashed frantically away until it was out of sight and we were rid of each other. (Wilson, 1996, p. 17-18)

He then sat down, trembling, wondering what there is in snakes “that makes them so repellent and fascinating?” The socio-biologist seems to hold that the human aversion to and fascination for snakes are two sides of the same coin since the two emotions are aroused by the same ophidian features: “their ability to remain hidden, the power in their sinuous limbless bodies, and the threat from venom injected hypodermically through sharp hollow teeth” (p. 18). Long ago a German analyst of religion characterised the Sacred or the Numinous as the “wholly other,” its mysteriousness generating fear, but also fascination (Otto 1923: 25). Of interest to us is the following excerpt (p. 27-28): (…) this feeling or consciousness of the ‘wholly other’ will attach itself to, or sometimes be indirectly aroused by means of, objects which are already puzzling upon the ‘natural’ plane, or are of surprising or astonishing character; such as extraordinary phenomena or astonishing occurrences or things in inanimate nature, in the animal world, or among them.

Snakes do qualify as natural objects capable of arousing an impression of radical otherness. They may therefore evoke to some extent the realm of the Sacred or Numinous. Austin (1990: 101) sees snakes as “profoundly alien.” In Wieck’s wording (p. 229), humans are “at a maximum distance from the snake in more ways than one”: it crawls, we walk, etc. On account of that distance, snakes side with the unknown. Being confronted by the unknown generates anxiety but, as any other remarkable natural phenomenon, snakes may also spur a curiosity, sometimes a morbid

12

Chapter 1.2

inquisitiveness, which may be as or even more compelling than fear, as in the encounters described above. ***** Mundkur (1983) states that monkeys, apes, and humans all fear snakes, including the many harmless species, and that all of them are more or less fascinated by ophidians. The biologist argues that ophidiophobia and serpent worshipʊin other words, “man’s pronounced sensitivity to the serpent” (p. 6)ʊis built into the genetic evolution of primates. In his understanding the fear of snakes is deeply rooted in the human biology and psyche, having a “proto-cultural” character (p. 262). Snake-phobia would arise from the “disdainful memories of this animal (even when the local fauna is deficient in it)” which human societies have “tenaciously” fostered for adaptive purposes and vented “in the most capricious ways through art and myth” (p. 272). According to Mundkur, who singles out the snake’s “tortuous locomotion” as its “most overt peculiarity” (p. 13), the phobic reactions the snake arouses among humans is generated by the “elementary fear of its venom” (p. 6) as well as by the “mere form of its body and undulant locomotionʊwhich are its unique instruments of fascination” (p. 39). In other words the exceptional sensitivity of humans to the serpent is “grounded in the combination of its physical characteristics and its venom” (p. 41). Mundkur (p. 275) believes that charismatic ritual leaders, whom he calls “hierophants,” were instrumental in bringing people to indulge in what was probably the first animal cult ever, namely, snake worship. His stand on the phylogenetically rooted fear of snakes implicitly leads the biologist to confer a somewhat, if not definite, instinctive character to snake-phobia. It also brings him to blur the difference between fear and fascination. He in fact holds the latter to be a modality of the former: “It is its capacity to fascinate, to terrify and ‘lay under a spell’, to hold ‘mute and frozen,’ that prompts man to adopt [the serpent] as a symbol” (p. 39). He argues that the serpent’s hold on human imagination owes little to its being “good to think about” (p. 39), playing down the fact that the snake’s very oddity in the realm of nature is liable to intrigue the human intellect and set the imagination in motion. Morris et al. (p. 215) also believe the human “dislike” for snakes to be “instinctive” while noting that familiarity with them may effectively reduce the uneasiness. A Jungian psychiatrist sees the fear of ophidians as

Dreaded but Fascinating Creatures

13

an innate feature as well as an adaptive asset, but his theory is more sophisticated than that of Mundkur: What is inherited is not an archetypal image of the snake per se, but an archetypal predisposition to perceive danger in a configuration of snakelike characteristics: something long, sinuous, and slithery, with fangs, and forked and flicking tongue. (Stevens 1998: 31)

Argues Wilson (1996: 18), it has been profitable in terms of survival to over-react “emotionally to the generalized image” of snakes and to go “beyond ordinary caution and fear.” In this he concurs with Mundkur, Stevens, and others. However he has reservations about the reportedly innate character of fearing ophidians inasmuch as young children are not universally frightened by snakes. Wilson does not disclose his sources but his assertion seems to be based on his own observations. Whatever the case may be, in his view the most that can be said in this regard is that human beings have “an innate propensity to learn such fear quickly and easily past the age of five” (p. 6).5 In the distant past as well as nowadays, it is more or less at that stage of their physical and mental development that children begin to explore the natural environment. Learning to be wary of ophidians at that age would definitely prove to be an asset in terms of survival. According to another credible source, it is not easy to tease apart what is inherentʊa primitive fear clinging on in the last primate remnants of our brainsʊand what is learned from parents who may be unwittingly influenced by generations of anti-snake teachings stemming from a distant (or perhaps not-so-distant) religious following.6

On the same web page we learn from research on non-human primates that “some species display instinctive fear from an early age whilst others appear to learn to fear snakes by observing family members.” Moreover, “some species fear all snakes, whilst others are concerned only by venomous species or large pythons capable of preying upon them.” Now, if some non-identified species of primates are not inherently, innately, or instinctively fearful of snakes, how then could we as humans have been 5

For a similar point of view, see “People aren’t born afraid of spiders and snakes: fear is quickly learned during infancy.” ScienceDaily, Jan. 24, 2011: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110124111144.htm. 6 “Snake sense: sharing knowledge – saving reptiles.” Accessed December 12, 2011. http://www.snakesense.com/snake-fear-explored.

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Chapter 1.2

genetically programmed to keep away from snakes? Supposing such an innate “programme” ever existed, it could only have been a weak one since it never stopped some individuals from being keenly interested in snakes and even from becoming somewhat familiar with them. Moreover, it never prevented whole communities from “respecting snakes,” i.e. not harming them, in an attempt to induce reciprocation, or even from worshipping snake-gods.

Box 1 A Sudanese Act of Bravery Negib Eff (1922: 201-02) described a scene among the Baggara Arabs of western Kordofan (Sudan) which illustrates that the fear of deadly serpents can be overcome when someone’s life is at risk or when the urge to demonstrate bravery is pressing. A party of nine young men were sitting at their leisure near the wells passing the time with story telling when there was a sudden alarm owing to the approach of an enormous poison snake. Adam, one of the young men whom I knew well, looked behind him without rising in order to measure the distance between himself and the snake so as to take steps to kill it. But to his horror, he found that it was quite close, leaving him no time for attack. So he collected all the nerve he possessed and sat quite still where he was, expecting death at the bite of the snake. He could have jumped up and tried to save himself but had he done so, he would have committed an act of cowardice, which would have disgraced him in the tribe. The snake crept up his back and lay on his shoulder with the head protruding, viewing the surroundings. It then crept downwards over his knees and crossed to his neighbour, who happened to be the brother of a girl Adam was courting, and insinuated itself under his shirt. Now if the snake had killed the boy, his sister as well as the rest of the tribe would have regarded Adam a coward for not attempting to save him. He therefore risked his life and, seizing the snake by the middle and pulling it away from the body of the boy, he threw it violently on the ground. Luckily, a brother of his (…) managed to kill the snake by a quick and lucky blow as soon as it touched the ground. Doubtless, strong nerve is required to enable a man to behave in this cool manner, which is regarded by the Baggara as the height of bravery and greatly applauded by the singing parties.

The scenario of an innate revulsion vis-à-vis snakes rests on theʊadmittedly falseʊpremise that the sighting of a snake can be reduced to a sensory event. In fact, perceptions are always and everywhere connoted throughout by sociocultural considerations. What we as human beings see out there in the world is filtered by our frame of mind, the basic

Dreaded but Fascinating Creatures

15

components of which are brought together during the first years of our existence as we learn to speak certain languages and as we assimilate the norms, beliefs, and symbols of a specific culture. Non-Western contemporary peoples see snakes very differently from Europeans, North-Americans, and others. For instance, while modern science tells us that birds and reptiles are close kin in evolutionary terms, the Daribi of New Guinea contrast “hairy” creatures such as human beings and birds to those that are hairless: insects, fish, and ophidians (Wagner 1986: 59). As Aubert (2008) recently observed in India, the people in Kerala and other parts of the country worship cobras primarily because these creatures, however lethal their venom may be, are set apart from all other snakes and credited with the power to protect people or enhance their fertility. What is true of contemporary India also pertains to ancient civilisations, as will be shown in upcoming chapters. Therefore, in accounting for the special status of snakes in human culture and history, stressing the adaptive fear of serpents is restrictive. The truth is that the dread of snakes, whether innate or not, has often been superseded by the obviously non-innate and typically human fascination these creatures, including the more dangerous species, have long exerted on individuals and communities.

CHAPTER 1.3 ANCHOR POINTS FOR OPHIDIAN SYMBOLISM

Many general accounts of ophidian symbolism have been published. Some are sketchy, others are more or less detailed, and a few are truly impressive.1 The starting point of many of these accounts is a more or less extensive review of the wide-ranging relevant literature: myths, stories, beliefs, and rituals featuring snakes. A few social scientists have approached the issue of snake symbolism the other way around. Knowing that natural phenomena are often the starting point for the process of symbolisation, they have highlighted the anatomical or ethological features of snakes that have proven more amenable to such a process. For instance the bifid tongue of snakes is commonly identified with “double talk.” In order to pin down the more critical aspects of ophidian symbolism, it is useful to review the work of a number of scholars, especially encyclopaedists. For our purpose it will be enough to outline the themes elicited by them without going into details. The results are interesting, but the overall picture of that remarkable creature appears somewhat bewildering. The first reason is that through the ages and across the world the perception of the snake has come to interfere with very diverse aspects of the human condition. The second is that snake symbolism, as with most if not all cultural symbols, is polysemic. In other words the snake as a major symbol is endowed all at once with a multiplicity of meanings. It may in fact be even more polysemic than most symbols. The second portion of this chapter will work out a short list of wideranging or crucial aspects of ophidian symbolism. ***** 1

For example, MacCulloch (1919: 399-411), Jobes (1962: 1418-20), Cirlot (1971: 285-90), Garai (1974: 83-84), Chevalier et al. (1982: 867-79), Pont-Humbert (p. 378-81), Cazenave (p. 622-29), Stevens (p. 341-45), Colin (2000: 494), Grossato (2000: 156-61), Ferré (p. 104-105), De Vries et al. (2004: 500-04), Lurker (2005: 8456-60), Fourcade (2006: 184-93), and Gardin et al. (2006: 573-75).

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A high profile student of folklore explained that snakes have almost universally attracted more attention than other reptiles for two basic reasons: their ability to “throw off their old skin” and “the dangerous qualities of the many poisonous snakes” (Krappe 1930: 256). These two features combined would have led to “the well-known prominence of snake cults and snake worship in India” (Ibid.). According to an Indian anthropologist, the Hindu veneration for the snake rests “above all” on “its habit of casting off its skin periodically” and of its “supposed immortality.” Other relevant traits emphasised by Mehra (p. 132) are the suddenness of its appearances and disappearances, its unusual gliding motion, the quickness of its bite and the tragic consequences thereof as well as the “amazing swiftness” of some of these reptiles. Here are the features underscored more recently by a specialist of ancient Europe. The mysterious dynamism of the snake, its extraordinary vitality and periodic rejuvenation must have provoked a powerful emotional response in the Neolithic agriculturalists, and the snake was consequently mythologized, attributed with a power that can move the entire cosmos. (Gimbutas 1974: 94)

MacCulloch (1919) was one of the first scholars to attempt a detailed and almost worldwide characterisation of the snake. His portrait emphasised the following general aspects: - The chthonic character of the snake and its connection with holes in the ground. - The serpent as an embodiment of the dead. - Its phallus-like shape and its connection with sexual reproduction and women. - Its involvement in magical rites, notably good magic, sorcery, healing, omens, and divination. - Its transformation into demoniacal serpents or mythical dragons. - Its association with earthquakes, water, rainbows, eclipses, immortality (sloughing of skin), magic stones, and its role as keeper of treasures. - Finally, its involvement in the origin of certain clans or tribes. Here is how Foerster depicts the image of the serpent in the Egyptian and Middle Eastern antiquity2:

2

See Foerster in Bromiley (1967: 566-71; 1985: 748). The first article was originally published in German in 1954.

Chapter 1.3

18

-

Appearing as a strange, cunning, malicious, and hostile animal, the snake has generated reactions of fear and aversion among various peoples. It has personified destructive forces and primeval chaos. It was also a symbol of rejuvenation and life, and of fertility on account of its phallic-like shape. It has been closely associated with the earth and the realm of the dead, and sometimes with the power of divination. The duality of its image “corresponds to that of nature, which gives life and also destroys life.”

Foerster sums up his views: “It is the serpent’s power to kill, its alien character, the total otherness of its appearance, its sinister quality, which gives it such a predominant role in the world of religions” (p. 571). The five outstanding features listed by Drummond (p. 644-45), an anthropologist interested in the native cultures of northern South America, are the following: - The snake’s apparent capability to fertilise itself; its undifferentiated sexual status. - Its chthonic character allowing it to “partake of the original random creative power of the earth itself.” - Its ability to shed its skin and apparently to outlive other creatures; its connivance with immortality. - Its capacity, if disturbed, to regurgitate food and to swallow it back, thereby establishing “a reversible bridge across the otherwise irreversible process, food–faeces.” - The crude or minimalist anatomic structure of snakes; their being “stripped of multiplex appendages and superfluous flesh.” The listing of characteristics provided by an analyst of European legends (Sax 1998: 58-61) is even more comprehensive: - Snakes spend hours copulating and females are prolific, thereby making the snake an apt symbol of fertility. - “As a pre-eminently tactile animal, the snake suggests sexuality.” - The shedding of its skin, suggesting rebirth. - The swiftness of its attacks, evoking lightning. - “The way the red tongues of many snakes flicker in and out of the mouth suggests flame.” - “The eyes of a serpent are very large and intense, yet their gaze is impossible to read, suggesting secret knowledge.”

Anchor Points for Ophidian Symbolism

-

19

The “absolute simplicity of its form,” evoking something primeval. Its fluid mode of locomotion, reminiscent of a flowing stream. The “seemingly androgynous character of snakes”; their ability to evoke virility (isomorphic similarity between snake and phallus) as well as womanhood (undulating motion, curvilinear anatomy, and absence of an external sexual organ).

According to Becker (p. 263), a German encyclopaedist whose work has been translated into English, “the primary characteristics that gave the serpent its symbolic significance” are: - “The special place it occupies in the animal kingdom: movement over the ground without legs, living in holes in the ground, yet slipping out of eggs like a bird.” - “Its cold, slick, and shiny exterior.” - “Its poisonous bite and its venom that can be used for medicinal purposes.” - The periodic shedding of its skin. Written in 1987, Lurker’s condensed article, entitled “Serpent,” can be consulted in the twelfth volume of the Encyclopedia of Religion (Jones 2005). The subtitles are quite representative of the short essays of the many encyclopaedists who have dealt with ophidian symbolism from the standpoint of world mythologies and belief systems: - “The serpent and origins” - “The serpent, ancestors, and souls” - “Protector of the house and bestower of happiness” - “Wisdom and power” - “Representatives of cosmic powers” - “Death and the underworld” - “Life and immortality” It will suffice to quote the subtitles taken from four other articles or sections featured in publications of an encyclopedic character. Chevalier et al. (1982) - “At the sources of life: Serpent, soul, and libido” - The “cosmic” serpent that supports or encircles the world - “The primeval god, the mythical ancestor” - “Life-giving and inspiration: The serpent as healer and diviner”

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Chapter 1.3

Stevens (1998) - “The cosmological primeval identity of the snake” - “Death and the underworld” - “Sex and fertility” (including regeneration and “phallic power”) - “Sickness and healing” Like Sax, Stevens (p. 34) sees the sinuousness of ophidians as a feminine trait. De Vries et al. (2004) - “Divine emanation” - “Evil” - “Life, healing” - “Eternity, fertility, regeneration” - “Earth, underworld” - “Water” - Guardian of treasures - Symbolic of “deceased souls” - “The most ancient phallic symbol” - “Associated with the Mother Goddess” Fourcade (2006) - Mighty snakes or dragons often feature in creation and destruction myths. - Snakes are often associated with the forces of evil. - Snakes are often pictured as guardians of treasures and secrets. - Snakes are often connected with the elements: sun and moon; water; and earth. Fourcade (p. 193) concludes her survey of ophidian mythology by pointing out that “the snake’s image is ambivalent rather than negative,” adding that “even in societies where it represents a destructive or evil power, the snake is given noble or beneficial roles, usually as guardian of a treasure or of vital elements” such as “water, earth, fertility, fecundity, health, knowledge.” Over and above the features and themes underscored by Krappe, Mehra, Foester, Drummond, Sax, Becker, Lurker, Chevalier et al., Stevens, De Vries et al., Fourcade and others, the fact is that snakes, being coldblooded, more or less voiceless, limbless, etc., have an “eerie quality” (Mehra, p. 132) or “an alien character” (Bromiley 1967: 571), and appear

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21

to be “utterly strange” to the human race (Douglas 1997: 276, quoting C. G. Jung), completely “unrelated” to or “radically different” from us (Mogenson 2003; Combe 2010: 458) or else “physiologically and definitely unlike humans” (Charlesworth, p. 52). In northern Thailand for instance, snakes were not only felt to be totally unrelatedʊas well as injuriousʊto humans but they were also set apart from all other animals. They could not be firmly associated with land or with water creatures since they are found in water as well as in fields and forests. Additionally, snakes sometimes encroach upon the domestic domain. In other words, the snake resisted all northern Thai attempts at classification. On account of its being both of-the-field and of-the-river, and of its being liable to show up unexpectedly in villages and even in houses, i.e. in unnatural places, the snakeʊalong with the toadʊhas been interpreted as the “supreme symbol of the unwanted and unclean outsider” by Tambiah (1969: 450). Accordingly, the people of northern Thailand would never consider eating a snake. The taboo on eating snakes in that part of Asia was just one aspect of the very special status of snakes in world cultures. After all, many other animal species were deemed inedible. On the opposite end of the equation, various communities used to relish snakes, whether ritually or casually. In southern China for instance, people are so fond of snake dish that various local species are currently facing extinction (De Planhol 2004: 952). Among the snake-eaters of Sub-Saharan Africa were the agricultural Amba of the western Uganda highlands (Winter 1956: 7) and the San hunter-gatherers—or “Bushmen” —of Southern Africa, for whom the python was a delicacy (Snook, p. 155). Over and above the perceived edibility or inedibility of snakes, the people of northern Thailand, the San, and others apparently agreed on one point: a snake is an animal or a natural being. Other groups did not quite view ophidians as a whole or some snake species as animals, thereby ruling out more or less the classificatory issue so problematical for the Thai people.

Box 2 The Good versus the Bad Serpent In a recent and remarkable publication on ophidian symbology in the Bible and in the old civilisations of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, Charlesworth (2010) finds sixteen negative meanings associated with the snake, many of which have become more prominent since the time of the

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New Testament: death-giver; destroyer (impure creature); chaos and darkness; bearer of corruptible knowledge; liar; duality (bifid tongue, along with the two lobes of the ophidian penis); self-made; tempter; friendless; battler (enemy); God’s antagonist; devil; evil; evil eye; fear; and symbol of corrupted sex (as phallic). However, the list of positively connoted meanings is even more impressive: phallus, procreation, fertility, and good sex; fruitfulness; energy and power; beauty; goodness; exemplary guardian; creation and light; cosmos; chronos; kingship; divinity; unity (oneness); ancestor worship; earth-lover; chthonic; magic; mystery, wonder, and awe; wisdom; God’s messenger (judgement and revelation); life; water; soul (and personal names); health and healing; purification (as burning fire); transcendence; rejuvenation; immortality, reincarnation, and resurrection; decorative use; riches and wealth. In Charlesworth’s view, the positive side was the more strongly marked in the Western world before the second or third century of the Christian era. The analyst additionally points out fifteen reasons explaining why the snake has become a positive symbol (p. 264-65): 1. Snakes can rejuvenate themselves, appearing with a new skin at least once a year, seemingly to live for ever. 2. They never appear tired, sick, or old. 3. They are astonishingly beautiful. 4. Their bodies are smooth and glisten. 5. They never give off a smell through lack of perspiration. 6. They do not need washing or cleansing. 7. They (in contrast to humans) seldom defecate, never urinate, and do not pollute the air (like dogs). 8. They may have a rare tick or other parasite but they are not bearers of pestilence or vermin (like mice). 9. They protect humans from rats and other pests. 10. They can go deep into the earth or the sea and humans cannot follow them. 11. They aerate and enrich our gardens. 12. They provide venom for healing. 13. They are admirably independent of us. 14. They taste good. 15. They provide attractive skins for accessories and shoes. *****

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23

According to Stevens (p. 33-34), some aspects of the ophidian “archetype” are “common to all human communities” while many others are culturebound. The universal aspects he emphasises are the following: the “chthonic” character of the snake, its “capacity to inspire awe, dread, and wariness,” and “its ability to shed its old skin and replace it with a new one” which entails notions of “resurrection, immortality, and the continuance of life.” In our view, the list of characteristics that have greatly impacted on human imagination and from which the core elements of snake symbolism have been worked out comprises seven or eight wide-ranging and prominent themes. As documented below, many of these characteristics have opened the way to a number of secondary and more restricted symbolic aspects. (1) The association of snakes with the ground, i.e. their basically chthonic character Snakes slide on the ground so that their bodily surface is maximally in direct contact with the soil. They usually hide in holes in the ground or in caves, which hints at the underworld. According to a contemporary analyst of myths and legends, the snake is the tellurian animal par excellence (Krappe 1938: 193). French essayist Bachelard (1948: 262) views the snake as “the most terrestrial of animals.” Foerster argues that the snake’s close connection with the ground is “the most important element in the whole symbolism” about it (in Bromiley, p. 569). The ground encompasses the underground, that is, the netherworld. For instance, in much of Sub-Saharan Africa the dead are buried and it was “commonly believed that the spirits of the dead, particularly those of chiefs, often return to the village in the form of snakes, njoka (…). In such contexts no harm is done to the snake, as they are looked upon as the concrete form of the spirits (mizimu) of the departed” (Morris 2000: 199). The snake’s chthonic character often brought about a notion of native-ness or aboriginal nature. Whenever invaders from afar took over a country and imposed their own gods on the conquered communities, the foreign gods, often associated with the sky, were confronted by local deities, often represented by mighty serpents. As pointed out by Austin (p. 99), “by the law of compensation, the higher Olympos [the high mountainous abode of the Greek sky-gods] reaches into the heavens, the more monstrous its serpent enemy grows.”

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According to Charlesworth (p. 140), “no other creature represents so pervasively the underworld.” Filled with darkness and unknown powers, the subterranean domain is the terminal abode of people whose corpses typically end up in caves or shallow trenches. From that follows the commonly held familiarity of snakes with souls and spirits. The underworld is also the place from which precious stones and metal, including gold and silver, are excavated. In combination with the fear of snakes, this association brings about a notion of the snake as a guardian of treasures. In northern regions, the identification of snakes with the underworld is especially marked in winter, a period during which snakes hibernate in their holes. The warmth of springtime chases them out of their hide-outs. This coincides with the rebirth of vegetation and the beginning of a new agricultural season. (2) The connection of snakes with water and therefore with life Water has always been a vital natural resource for human communities. Snakes are often found near water. It is not so much that they need to drink but places such as springs or ponds are excellent hunting grounds. Not all encyclopaedists and analysts have underscored the connection between snake and water. Writes Charlesworth (p. 251), “The snake can live in salt water and fresh water; it thrives in marshy land and in wetlands. It is clear why the serpent came to symbolize water, and why the hieroglyphic symbols for snake and water are so similar” in old Sumerian as well as Egyptian scriptures: zigzag-like patterns (p. 252). As Joines (1968: 250) observes, “the association of the serpent with water accentuates the intermingling of the serpent symbol with the fertility of the earth, for this reptile was often observed [in ancient Palestine] in or near water, the means of life for both animals and vegetation.” The connection between the terms for life and those for snake is or was visible, or at least detectable, in various ancient or contemporary languages spoken in the Middle East, such as Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, and Old Persian (Chevalier et al., p. 868; Canova 1990: 192; Wilson 2001: 97; Bohas 2008; Charlesworth, p. 250, 449). For example hayya and hayyah respectively mean “snake” and “life” in Arabic.3 Moreover, hawwƗh, “life,” possibly meant “snake” in ancient Hebrew (Charlesworth, p. 557, n. 368). The 3

In Egypt, according to Canova (1994: 190 fn.), the word hayya can denote the highly venomous horned viper.

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intimate relationship between snakes and water or life gave way to the notion that serpents have healing power. Another widely reported dimension of the water–snake connection is the analogy between the creeping motion of snakes and the flowing of water in streams. In the traditions for instance of the Malinké of West Africa, the mythical serpent Ni’nki-na’nkan is reported to have dug the bed of the Niger River (Hampâté Bâ 1994: 363). The western Fulani echoed this belief (Dieterlen 1965: 321). Similar representations have been reported from various parts of the world (Bachelard, p. 269; Chevalier et al., p. 869; Cazenave, p. 628; Wieck, p. 230; etc.), including Eastern Africa and the Horn. (3) Regeneration or rejuvenation The periodic sloughing of skin brings about the notion of a repeatedly renewed life. The belief that, if not killed, snakes may live for a very long time, if not for ever, has been widely reported in Africaʊas we shall seeʊand elsewhere.4 According to Canova (1992: 213 fn.), the natural replacement of a lost tail and the fact that a severed snake head keeps its reflex ability to bite for about an hour are additional ophidian features upholding the life force connection. No wonder snakes have commonly been credited with the power through some form of “contagion” to promote or restore life or health. The ability of snakes to rejuvenate and their association with life-giving water are mutually reinforcing features. (4) The power of snakes to inflict death by strangulation and, even more mysteriously, through injecting venom with their sharp fangs. In ancient Egypt, ancient Palestine, and Eastern Africa, the bite of a snake was experienced or described as a “burning” torment. Jellicoe (1978: 72) has the following observation about the Rimi of central Tanzania: “A group of men decided to bury a large cobra they had killed ‘because otherwise the women may take the poison and kill us all’.” Likewise in Morocco a snake head could be used for murderous purposes: “If it is dried in the sun and pounded and the powder is mixed with the food a person eats, he will die; hence when a snake is killed its head is cut off and buried so as to prevent people from making a bad use of it” (Westermark 4

Such a belief was held for example in Melanesia and Oceania: Krappe (1938: 289), Maranda (1977: 113), and Wagner (1986: 60-61).

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1926, I: 352-53). According to Opler (1945: 250) the “hypnotic gaze” of the snake has been in traditional Japan its “most destructive weapon,” overshadowing to a significant extent the fear of local species of venomous snakes. In Africa the act of killing through strangulation immediately brings to mind the python. In Nuerland for instance, an animal offered in sacrifice to a “python-spirit” was suffocated to death instead of being standardly speared (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 67). However, the encircling serpent sometimes had very different overtones. In various cosmologies, including some from Africa, the surface of the world is firmly held tight by a great primeval encircling serpent. Likewise, the snake-shaped rings and bracelets worn by women in ancient Greece and Rome were believed to protect the wearer (Charlesworth, p. 117). When applied to women, “being encircled” could evoke procreation in Eastern and Southern Africa.5 (5) The elementary and phallic shape of ophidians A snake amounts in anatomical terms to a head (with eyes, mouth, teeth, and tongue, but without ears and feathers or hair) and a comparatively long tapering tail-like body. It is often referred to or represented as a rope, a belt, a string, or as a line. An East African enigma went like this: “Which would you rather bind round your waist, a dry stick or a soft cord? A dry stick because a soft cord is a snake” (Hollis 1909: 138). The Oromo of Ethiopia have the following proverb: “The man who saw a snake during day-time runs from a strap in the dark” (Korram 1969: 73).6 According to 5

This theme will be taken up in Box 37. See also for instance Crooke (1896, II: 142-43), Vogel (1972: 12), Chevalier et al. (p. 867), Hampâté Bâ (p. 270, 325, 363), Boswell (1972: 16), Lindbloom (1920: 48), Williams (1946: 70), and Cory (1946: 165). The first two cases relate to India; the third to the Pygmies of southern Cameroon; the fourth to the Fulani of the western Sahel; the fifth to Ethiopia; the sixth to the Kamba of eastern Kenya; the seventh to the people of Ankole in Uganda; and the eight to the Sukuma of northern Tanzania. Some “Kaffir” sorcerers from South Africa sometimes gave to those who came to them a long root which soon turned into a snake that the beneficiaries used against their personal enemies (Schweiger 1917-18: 553). Additional instances from traditional Africa will be supplied in the course of this publication. Modern Egypt knows of magicians, sahhar, who were said to transform a rope into a snake (Canova 1994: 198). The Bedawin of Arabia “avoid uttering the word ‘snake’ by using ‘rope’, habul, instead” (Lestaric 2001, end-note 2). Bachelard (1948: 268) reports the nineteenth-century French poet and novelist Victor Hugo portraying a rope as a snake.

6

Anchor Points for Ophidian Symbolism

27

Vasquez Hoys (2002), the word “snake” connects with the root “to tie” in some Semitic languages such as ancient Akkadian. The anatomical simplicity of ophidians tends to imply a primordial nature as evidenced by the many ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Indian myths often referred to by encyclopaedists.7 The Arabic saying: Kâna el-insânu hayyatan fil-qidam, meaning “Man was originally a snake” (Grossato, p. 156), is highly relevant here. The same may be said of a Chinese myth mentioned by McNamee (2000: xii): a goddess came to earth and fashioned the rooster, the dog, the pig, the ram, the ox, and the horse in the first six days of creation; on the seventh day, she sat by a pond wondering what her next creation would be; gazing at her reflection she decided to make a creature with a beautiful face just like hers; her first attempt at the body was that of a snake; she was unhappy with the result and replaced the serpentine form with a human frame. The imaginary primordial nature of the snake is often fused with its aboriginal character alluded to above. According to Lurker (p. 8960), “snakes have phallic significance in the most varied of cultures.” The phallic-like shape of snakes, along with their intimate connection with water, which is a fundamental source of vitality, prop up once more the notion that snakes are promoters of life. (6) The eyes of the snake and knowledge As Sax points out (See above), the often large and prominent eyes of snakes and their “intense” gaze allude to “secret knowledge.” Henderson et al. (1963: 36) also suggest that the “wisdom of the serpent (…) is suggested by its watchful lidless eyes.” Basically referring to the ancient Middle East, Charlesworth (p. 443) corroborates this view: “Ophidian iconography (…) stresses the eyes of serpents.” He argues that “the clear eyes, which are prominent as in almost all serpent images, awaken in the observer thoughts about intelligence and wisdom” (p. 327). Perhaps the basic reason for the connection between snakes and knowledge is the fact that the eyes of ophidians appear to be constantly vigilant: since their

7

The theme of primitiveness comes to the fore in the numerous Indo-European myths that feature the slaying of a great snake-like or dragon-like monster by a god charged with ending the primeval chaos (Éliade 1976: 218-19). Grossato (p. 158, 160) supplies a similar mythical tradition from China.

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lidless eyes seemingly remain always on the watch, snakes are believed to “see” things much better than any other living creature.8 The ever-open eyes of the serpent are significant in another important respect in that they imply sleeplessness. Since the act of falling asleep is evocative of death, the ever-open eyes of snakes hint at immortality and at quasi-divinity. This representation reinforces the alleged immortality of snakes suggested by the shedding of old skins. (7) The serpent’s ambiguous and paradoxical nature In Leach’s understanding (1964: 42-4), snakes are, in respect of the major animal categories, highly anomalous creatures: “land animals with no legs which lay eggs.” In human imagination, as Bachelard (1948: 266) reflects, “nothing is colder than a corpse.” This is especially true under equatorial skies. In being cold-blooded creatures snakes clearly evoke death. They are often associated with the dead, as mentioned above. But, as we have also seen, these creatures are intimately connected with life. They are, in fact, credited with an exceptionally strong grip on a life force which, among mammals, is paradoxically signalled by a warm body. In other words, snakes are at the same time “full of life” and “full of death.” By a stretch of imagination they could be designated as “the living dead.” To add to the contradiction, the death-inflicting bites of the cold snakes are reported to have a “burning” effect.9 Snakes therefore combine two opposite powers: the ability to enhance life and the ability to destroy it. These are not the least of the antinomies that have given depth and potency to ophidian symbolism. Encyclopaedists (Cazenave, p. 622; Colin, p. 494) as well as analysts such as Wilson (2001: 212), Charlesworth (p. 39, 123-24), and Foester have pointed out the paradoxical profile of the serpent, the latter stressing the notion of “duality” (See above). If, as mentioned above, the snake has often been awarded phallic connotations, its imaginary status is by no means devoid of female attributes. As Sax, Stevens, and others have pointed out, ophidians may 8

However, as Spooner (1970: 315) notes for the Middle East, “the stare of certain animals, in particular the snake, is thought to carry the Evil Eye.” The Japanese fear of the snake’s “hypnotic gaze” has been referred to. 9 Some non-venomous species of snake also appear paradoxical in that they swallow up live prey, as if directly “absorbing” life (Charlesworth, p. 250).

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evoke womanhood on account of their sinuousness and curvilinear anatomy, not to mention the absence of overtly external sexual organs. Moreover, the ophidian motion of coiling around for instance a tree or a stick keeps residual female connotations through approximating the genital “envelopment” of a phallic-like object. Buonaventura (1998) entitled her book on female dancing in the Arab world Serpent of the Nile. In it (p. 42) one reads: The women’s dance of Spanish gypsies, performed at special private gatherings, uses very similar hip movements to those of Arabic dance. It is known as la danza serpiente (snake dance), a name which, interestingly enough, is also used by the Spanish to refer to the Arab dance of women.

A poem written by Charles Baudelaire in the nineteenth century and entitled Le serpent qui danse (The Dancing Serpent) uses the same motif: A te voir marcher en cadence, Belle d'abandon, On dirait un serpent qui danse Au bout d'un bâton.10

In the traditional poetry of the Afar of Ethiopia and Eritrea, a goodlooking long-necked maiden may be compared to a cobra (Morin 1997: 105). The feminine connotations of the snake have sometimes been extended from the physical to the moral ground as by the Ngulu males in Tanzania, who sometimes compared women to snakes on account of “the difficulty of catching a woman in her adulteries, of confining her to one man” (Beidelman 1964a: 375 fn.). The association of slipperiness and femininity occurred “often” among the Ngulu (Ibid.). (8) The elusive and stealthy snake It must be added that in many cultures snakes evoke deceit and treachery. Such a characterisation may follow from some of the ethological aspects mentioned in a foregoing section: the ability of snakes to hide, their furtive manners, and the unsuspected and sudden attacks of many venomous species. But the alleged wicked nature of snakes could very well be a

10

As translated by the author: “Looking at you, walking rhythmically / Beautiful in your expansive motion / One sees a dancing serpent / At the tip of a staff.” The excerpt is taken from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, initially published in 1857.

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carry-over into the realm of nature of the shortcomings people experience in social life. An additional feature is the range of vivid colours and of colour patterns displayed by various species of ophidians. This has made a strong impression on many human communities, notably the native groups of the Amazonian region of southern America. But these are wholly beyond the scope of the present essay. ***** The present chapter pinned down the features of the snake that have been used as anchor points to ophidian symbolism in various parts of the world and probably for a very long period of time. As we have noted above several times, many of the core features of snake symbolism are consistent and mutually reinforcing. This no doubt fuelled the exceptional potency of ophidian symbolism. The ideological status of the snake has been boosted by its bewildering or paradoxical identity. According to Bachelard (1942: 130, 133), the “combination” or “marriage of opposites”—such as in the present case life and death, maleness and femaleness—is the most powerful evocative construct of human imagination. The serpent has additionally been coined “a great barrier breaker” by Charlesworth (p. 203)ʊwho uses a notion crafted by Mary Douglas, a British anthropologistʊinasmuch as ophidians may be found anywhere: emerging from deep holes, sliding on the ground, swimming in a pool, resting on trees, i.e. almost in the sky, and even crawling their way into villages and houses, as in northern Thailand. This other perplexing peculiarity must have significantly contributed to raising the snake’s profile well above that of other earthly creatures, including human beings.

CHAPTER 1.4 PSYCHOANALYSIS, ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY, AND SNAKE SYMBOLISM

This chapter is justified considering the influence of Freud and Jung on the analysis of systems of representations. Its first section will present the Freudian and Jungian conceptions of symbolism, which are significantly different. This should broaden our understanding of symbolism. The second section will focus on what leading psychologists, Freud, Jung, and others have had to say about ophidian symbolism. We will then compare their findings to what others, notably the encyclopaedists, have written on the same subject matter. ***** Guttman (1955: 280) and Lakoff (2001a) highlight the same widely quoted excerpt pertaining to symbolism from Freud’s celebrated essay “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900): This symbolism is not peculiar to dreams but is characteristic of unconscious ideation (…) and it is to be found in folklore, and in popular myths, legends, linguistic idioms, proverbial wisdom and current jokes, to a more complete extent than in dreams.

The ethnopsychoanalyst Róheim (1973: 444) defines a symbol as “the outward representation of a latent repressed content.” The Freudian theory of symbolism endorsed by Róheim was articulated by Jones in 1918.1 Rycroft (1977: 133-34) sums up the major elements of this classic statement of the psychoanalytical position. There are two types of symbols: some are casual, such as emblems, badges, charms, and conventionalised gestures; more interesting from the standpoint of clinical psychology, others have to do with sexual impulses that have been repressed, notably at an early stage in life. The latter are given a symbolic 1

E. Jones, “The theory of symbolism” published in the British Journal of Psychology 9 (2): 181-229.

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representation because what they stand for cannot be contemplated or admitted overtly. At work is a process of “displacement”: a longrepressed desire manifests itself in an indirect and less disturbing form. What has been made unconscious is given expression while the person is safeguarded somewhat from emotional distress. This is what orthodox Freudians understand by symbolisation.2 A psychologist such as Bott (1972: 222-26) applies the Freudian perspective to ceremonial events: what is typically repressed in such contexts is hatred, envy, antagonism, rivalry, etc., and not sexual impulses as in dreams. Rituals are socially important because, through open and more or less simulated displays of unity and social harmony, they help divided communities manage internal conflicts. Jung’s approach to the human psyche is not only concerned with mental pathologies. His investigations cover world religions and mythologies, alchemy, parapsychological phenomena, etc. He agrees that memories of traumatic experiences may be repressed. As with all other memories, these become part of the “personal unconscious.” Importantly, Jung views the latter as secondary to the “collective” or “impersonal unconscious,” a pool of archetypes common to all of humanity, and which also harbours basic human instincts. In Jung’s understanding, symbols and myths stem from the unconscious and from imaginative thinking. The founder of analytic psychology makes a distinction between two types of symbols (Jung 1933: 21-23). A symbol of the first type is evocative of something definite. Symbols such as for instance a pipe, a sword, a gun, etc., are in his understanding “signs” of the male generative organ. He views the second type of symbolsʊwhich he terms “true symbols”ʊas “expressions of something not yet consciously recognized or conceptually formulated,” as “the announcement of something unknown, hard to recognize and not to be fully determined.” In Jung’s conception, “it is the indefinite content [our emphasis] that marks the symbol as against the sign or symptom.” Jung had already written in a paper published in 1917 and quoted by Juillerat (p. 90) that, rather than veiling something, a symbol attempts to represent what is not known or what is becoming. In a later publication, he maintains that symbols announce something not well 2

Modern psychoanalytically minded anthropologists such as Juillerat (2001: 30 fn.; 91 fn.) argue that symbolisation is a general human mental ability and can in no way be restricted to the processing of repressed affects.

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known or unknown (Jung 2009: 374).3 It is useful to quote from his discussion of the “so-called phallic symbols” of which the old civilisations and “primitive people” made “free use”: (…) it never occurs to them to confuse the phallus, as a ritualistic symbol, with the penis. They always take the phallus to mean the creative mana, the power of healing and fertility, “that which is unusually potent.” (Jung, 1933, p. 22)

That which, added Jung, “underlies the images” of the bull, the he-goat, the lightning, etc. is “an archetypal content that is hard to grasp.” Archetypes are more overarching than symbols in Jung’s theory of the human psyche. All are said to stem from the “collective unconscious” in that they are primordial, universal, and unlearned ideal types that frame our perceptions and which, according to Choisy (1948: 442), regulate and stimulate our imagination: The Great Mother, the Old Man, the Old Woman, the Father, the Child, the Hero, the Warrior, the Teacher, the Healer, etc. Some archetypes have a transcendent character, mostly Anima (or womanhood), Animus (or manhood), and the Self. All archetypes have positive as well as negative sides. According to a student of myth, the first archetype a baby is confronted with is the Mother: The infant becomes a scholar who studies to decode the signifiers of this subject with a devotion born of desire and necessity. (Austin, p. 57)

When the mother draws near, she is like a giant. When she moves away, she is more like a dwarf before disappearing completely. The colour of her dresses changes almost every day. Sometimes she attends to the needs of her baby in no time; sometimes she is not to be seen when it cries out for her. According to Jung, symbols relate to the archetypes of which they are partial and culturally determined representations. Geometric forms, stones, plants, and animals, including snakes and dragons, are among the more common symbols. The circle and the precious stone for instance are typical symbols of wholeness and perfection, which are basic attributes of

3

The high-profile analyst of Ndembu culture (north-western Zambia) finds himself more or less in agreement with Jung’s conception of symbols: “the best possible expression of a relatively unknown fact” (Turner 1967: 26).

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the Self. Contrary to Freud, the Jungian symbols are not for the most part sexually charged.4 The recent development of cognitive science has broadened our understanding of the human mind in its normal functioning. One of its key discoveries is that “most thought is unconscious—though not in the sense that Freud meant by the term” (Lakoff 2001a). The “cognitive unconscious” consists of “the most commonplace aspects of our conceptual system” while also being the locus of effortless and automatic mental operations and processes that sustain conscious talking and thinking, and that is also instrumental in the shaping of dreams.5 The Freudian notion of “repression” and the painstaking process of retrieving pathogenic memories into consciousness are foreign to the “cognitive unconscious,” which, not unlike Jung’s analytic psychology, is concerned with normal and everyday thinking. But as Lakoff points out, there are similarities between the Freudian concepts of symbolisation, displacement, condensation, etc. and “the mechanisms that cognitive scientists refer to as ‘conceptual metaphor,’ ‘conceptual metonymy,’ and ‘conceptual blending’.” But what Freud viewed as “irrational modes of primary-process thinking” are from the standpoint of cognitive scientists “indispensable parts” of ordinary and largely unconscious thought. Argues Lakoff (Ibid.), Freud and many of his followers were interested more in sexual symbolism—metaphors of a tabooed nature. But what we find through the study of everyday language is that unconscious symbolic thought is, for the most part, not sexual or tabooed. Tabooed thought only rarely shows up in ordinary everyday conventional language.

For cognitive science practitioners, whose research has mostly focussed on the post-industrial English-speaking community, unconscious symbolic thought is generally “non-tabooed,” and this holds true for a majority of dreamers.

4

Rycroft (p. 133) argues that Freud’s insistence on the sexual character of symbols was “an attempt to preserve the scientific purity of psychoanalysis from contamination by Jungian ideas about archetypes, which [Freud] regarded as mystical and irrational.” 5 The personal frustrations, desires, and hopes of dreamers also play their part in dreaming.

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Box 3 Case Studies from Amazonia In communities that basically rest upon the complementary opposition of genders, cultural symbolism is likely to be couched in a sexual idiom. This was the case with the Munducurú Indians of Central Brazil, as presented by Murphy (1959). Labour was segregated according to sex: men clear the land for gardens, fish, hunt, and engage in warfare; women plant, harvest, process food, and tend to the household chores. Although the Munducurú are patrilineal, men reside in their wives’ villages, which are made up of a few large houses, each of which is the dwelling of an extended family built around a group of women related in the female line. In a given village most of the adult males hail from other communities. At the community level, men are, at least to begin with, in a somewhat weaker social position than women. Murphy (p. 91) observes that “each sex is a self-consciously solidary unit as opposed to the other, and mutual antagonism is often displayed on ritual and other occasions.” The centre of male interaction is the village single men’s house. Prepubescent boys are also closely associated with that house, which is the centre of a secret male cult: Attached to each men’s house is a small, completely enclosed chamber that houses the village sacred musical instruments (karökö). These consist of a set of three hollow wooden cylinders, into the open ends of which are inserted reeds. When the reed is blown, the cylinder emits a deep vibrant sound. The instruments are completely taboo to the sight of women, and the doorway to the karökö chamber is arranged in the form of a baffle in order to prevent even a casual and inadvertent female glance. The instruments are believed to harbour spirits that protect the villagers from harm and aid in the maintenance and increase of the supply of game animals. In order to secure this benevolence, the supernaturals must be pleased by a daily offering of food and the frequent playing of the instruments. Through their control over the karökö, the men thus play a vital part in the promotion of animal fertility and social well-being. ʊ Ibid., p. 92

Murphy asserts that “the Munducurú men consciously believe their power and dominance to rest in their possession of the karökö” (p. 95). These sacred instruments are similar to the bull-roarers used by men of neighbouring native Amazonian communities. Significantly the karökö are

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Chapter 1.4

“more clearly phallic” in shape than bull-roarers (Ibid.). According to the anthropologist, the dealings of men with women are coloured by “the fantasy of the penis as a weapon and a source of power” (Ibid.). In Murphy’s understanding, the Munducurú case agrees with the Freudian theory that states that “the stuff of the unconscious tends to be expressed in cultural symbols” (p. 97) such as sacred instruments. However, the “unconscious” that Murphy refers to is not of the Freudian type, having little to do with a morally repressive super ego. The analogy between the karökö and the membrum virile is rather implicit or subconscious than truly unconscious. Both are evocative of the physical power and moral might deliberately cultivated by men. The Munducurú may be compared to the Bororo, another indigenous group from Central Brazil (Crocker 1977: 189). In the course of Bororo funerals and at male initiation ceremonies, some men representing a type of malevolent spirit terrorise women and children by making noise and throwing white mud on the houses where the latter have taken refuge. The mud has been picked up from the bank of a nearby river. Keeping the Munducurú sexual symbolism in mind, it is most likely that the muddy white balls thrown on houses that are intimately associated with females stand metaphorically for semen. ***** As mentioned in the foregoing chapter, a section of Chevalier et al.’s article is entitled “At the sources of life: Serpent, soul and libido” (p. 86768). Many other encyclopaedists or analysts have touched upon the issue of the sexual dimension of ophidian symbolism. In his paper on snake symbolism in African religious thought, Segy (p. 106) argues that “the serpent resembles the fertilizing organ, giving the snake symbol a clear phallic significance.” His aim is to establish the “generative significance of snake cults and the deep primitive and even unconscious sources of their symbolism” (p. 114). Likewise, Morris et al. (pp. 82, 26) stress the “obvious” and almost universal albeit “often unconscious symbolic equation of the snake with the phallus.” But, as suggested by the sacred musical instruments of the Munducurú, the imaginary ophidian status of the phallus or the imaginary phallic status of the snake is not necessarily “unconscious” in a Freudian sense. The influence of psychoanalysis is noticeable in Segy’s and Morris et al.’s perceptions. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud (1976: 464) coined

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snakes as the “most important symbols of the male organ.” A short essay written by him in 1922 and published posthumously features once again the snake as a phallic symbol.6 In orthodox Freudian terms, snake dreams typically set the stage for the imaginary and partial expression of morally unacceptableʊbecause typically incestuousʊand suppressed sexual desires. Freudian psychoanalysts have reasserted the phallic identity of snakes, notably Rank (1884-1939), Reik (1888-1969), and the ethnopsychanalyst Róheim (1891-1953). Rank is reported to have written that the phallic significance of the snake is “secondary” rather than “primary.”7 In The Trauma of Birth (1929: 15), he did underscore the phallic character of the reptile, noting that this feature “can undoubtedly be traced back to the ease with which it can completely enter and disappear into a hole (in the earth).” This observation may be correlated with the phobia mostly experienced by women of creeping insects and small animals such as mice, frogs, and snakes. These are feared basically because “they might creep into one’s own body” (p. 13-14). It seems “obvious” to Theodor Reik that “the shape of the serpent was thought too similar to that of the erected penis.” Moreover, “defloration led to bleeding and menstrual blood and was supposed to be produced by a similar wounding by a snake.”8 Reik also states that all psychoanalysts “know that in dreams and fantasies snakes and lizards are symbolic representations of the penis.”9 According to the first Freudian practitioner to apply the psychoanalytical approach to anthropological field studies, the serpent is a “well-known personification of the phallic principle” (Róheim 1972: 300). In his view, the snake is “eminently suitable” to become a phallic symbol on account of “(a) its shape; (b) the fact that it is dangerous; and (c) its power of rejuvenation” (Róheim 1973: 22). The ethnopsychoanalyst admits that snake symbols are not necessarily phallic in meaning. In fact, in an earlier publication, he characterises the mythical rainbow-serpent of the 6 See “Medusa’s Head” in S. Freud, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love (NY: Collier, 1963, p. 212-13). Available on the Web and accessed November 8, 2011. http://imageandnarrative.be/inarchives/uncanny/laurensdevos.htm Likewise, according to Jung (1977: 202), Freudians tend to view all round, spherical, or hollow objects as symbols of womanhood. 7 As mentioned by Bachelard (1948: 264-65). The information about the specific publication from Rank is not provided. 8 As quoted by Tabick (1986: 160) from T. Reik, Pagan Rites in Judaism (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Co., 1963), pp. 84, 85. 9 Reik, Pagan Rites, p. 86.

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Chapter 1.4

aboriginal peoples of Australia as “ambisexual,” being male when standing erect and female when engulfing (Róheim 1945, chap. 9). Recalling this aspect of snake symbolism in his Psychoanalysis and Anthropology (1973: 23), Róheim does add however that the mental inclination to see penises through snakes is “potentially universal” since it cannot be “correlated with any particular type of culture or of society or of personality” (p. 22). The ethnopsychoanalyst believes that the “unconscious” is “the same in every culture” and “sub-cultural” in essence (p. 444). The predominant identification of snakes with the male generative organ has been objected to by various scholars, notably Rycroft, a post-Freudian psychoanalyst. In his understanding (p. 132-33), the range of things that may be given “symbolic representation” covers “all aspects” of the human “biological life-cycle” and most people are very much concerned with “their biological destiny” and “their intimate personal relationships.” Adds Rycroft (p. 139), “Freudian symbols are not (…) exclusively sexual; they represent (…) everything that comprises man’s biological destiny.” Following up on some of Róheim’s intuitions and on other ethnographic or ethno-psychological evidence, Guttman (1955), then a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, underscores that many peoples recounted myths implying that human beings were originally androgynous. Such a belief, in his view, was grounded on the “bisexual” character of human genitals (foreskin as pseudo-vulva and clitoris as pseudo-penis), which by itself would have generated “a psychic hermaphroditism” allowing the analyst to state that “pure masculinity and pure femininity do not exist” (p. 282). Depending on the associations supplied by a given dreamer, any scene featuring a snake could therefore be attributed male or female connotations. From Guttman’s perspective one can legitimately interpret a dream featuring the strangulation of a male dreamer by a coiling serpent as venting a fear of sexual intercourse unconsciously experienced as the crushing of the penis by “vaginal contractions.” On the ambiguity of snake symbolism, here is what a student of Japanese culture has to say: In the folk lore of most cultures, the snake represents male sexuality and often acts as a thinly disguised symbol for the penis. In Japanese folk belief, on the contrary, the snake is identified with jealousy, passion, and

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envy of the female, and snakes which seduce and deceive are usually female and assume the form of women. (Opler, p. 259)10

Likewise, in Indian mythology female cobras are often represented with human heads and were believed to be so beautiful that several men as well as gods have been seduced by them (Sax, p. 67; Combe, p. 460). As suggested in the foregoing chapter by Sax and alluded to by Baudelaire, the feminine polarity of snakes derives notably from their undulating motion and their curvilinear anatomy. A major analyst of snake cults from all continents cautions against overgeneralizing the phallic or even sexual connotations of snakes (Mundkur, p. 9). Although “powerful” in some cultures, the genital symbolism of snakes has always been “ancillary to the cult of fertility and the deities that preside over it” (p. 173). An anthropologist also plays down the analogical identification of snake and phallus even though the Arawak myth he analyses states plainly that the Carib, neighbours and traditional enemies of the Arawak of northern South America, originate from an Arawak girl impregnated by a mythical boa.11 Argues Drummond (p. 645, 641), the serpent always stands “for more than one physical attribute,” appearing in some mythical traditions as a “seemingly (…) self-fecundating being.” According to many Freudians, the snake is evocative of male sexual energy if not of the human sexual drive or of sexuality per se.12 As Jung (1977: 266) pertinently observes, those who, like the ancient Greeks and the so-called “primitive peoples,” have liberallyʊand quite explicitlyʊused phallic symbols have never mistaken phallic icons for penises; rather, the ritual phallus has everywhere imaged a supernatural

10

That being said, Opler (p. 255-56) was told by an elderly Japanese male informant that certain small snakes could “go into the female organ and kill the woman.” This belief apparently discouraged girls and women from remaining outdoors in the fields after sunset. 11 That story had been echoed by MacCulloch (p. 411), the impregnator being in this case “a water-spirit, with both human and serpent form.” Fourcade (p. 193) presents a picture of a “pre-Columbian petroglyph from the Arawak culture” representing either an anaconda or a very large pit viper known as bushmaster. 12 See La base de données symbolique (BDS). Accessed September 22, 2011. http://www.oniros.fr/BDS.html#S. See also Dictionnaire psychanalytique des images et symboles du rêve. Accessed on the same day. http://tristan.moir.free.fr/dicoreve/symboleshtml/interpretation-des-revesdictionnaire.php?lettre=S%&commentaire=Serpent.

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Chapter 1.4

life-generating power of which human sexuality is a very partial expression. Having so often alluded to ophidian symbolism in his numerous publications, Jung is probably the analyst of conscious and unconscious mental processes to have meditated the most over the issue we are concerned with. He has corroborated the basic Freudian assumption that the snake in dreams is an analogue of the phallus and a symbol of the libido (Jung 2009: 185, 189 and 544 for instance).13 However, in his teaching on dreams Jung did note that the snake may have “seven thousand meanings,” depending on the social and psychological circumstances of dreamers.14 A rough exploration on our part of a limited range of Jung’s publications reveals the following snake-related themes: (i) the snake as representing the soul of dead heroes (Douglas 1997: 275-76); (ii) the snake as a symbol of death (Jung 2009: 619); (iii) the snake as an icon for regeneration (Ibid., 711); (iv) the snake as evoking the flow of rivers or that of life (Douglas 1997: 381); and (v) the snake as exemplifying the “crooked way” as opposed to the “straight line” in reference to patterns of human behaviour and communication (Ibid., p. 510). This listing is far from exhaustive. For instance Henderson (1964: 154), a Jungian analyst, holds the snake to be “the commonest dream symbol of transcendence (…) as represented by the therapeutic symbol of the Roman god of medicine Aesculapius,” which seems to “embody a kind of mediation between earth and heaven.” Among the themes underscored by Aeppli (1972: 284), a follower of Jung who also rules out any simplistic rendering of ophidian symbolism in dreams, the shedding of the snake’s skin is an apt symbol for the “inner transformation” or rebirth of the Self. An adept of analytical psychology ponders upon “the serpent in Jung’s thought” (Mogenson 2003). There are in his view five “general psychological meanings” about snakes15: 13

The psychoanalytical notion of libido is defined as “the energy of the sexual drive as a component of the life instinct.” See http://www.wordreference.com/definition/libido. Jung did not endorse the primarily sexual nature of the libido (Jung 2009: 241-42). 14 As quoted by Mogenson (2003) from McGuire (1984: 251). 15 The excerpts from Jung are indicated by quotation marks. These and Mogenson’s own observations stem from or relate to Jung’s following works: (a) The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious (first German edition, 1935), more

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“The snake, as a chthonic and at the same time spiritual being, symbolizes the unconscious.” (a) In particular, [the unconscious as snake] seems to refer to “the latter’s sudden and unexpected manifestations, its painful and dangerous intervention in our affairs, and its frightening effects.” (b) Crucial to an understanding of the significance of the serpent or snake as a libido-symbol is a consideration of the biological characteristics of the actual creature. (c)

In (c) Jung highlights the snake as a “cold-blooded vertebrate” and stresses the fact that no “psychic rapport” can be established with it, in contrast to “warm-blooded animals.” Like the Gnostics who identified the serpent with the human medulla and spinal cord, Jung regards the snake as the psychic representative of the profoundly unconscious reflex functions which are governed by these organs. (d)

The fifth load of “general meanings” is the richest. Here the snake stands for “what is totally unconscious and incapable of becoming conscious” but which “seems to possess a peculiar wisdom of its own and a knowledge that is often felt to be supernatural.” This is where “the snake signifies evil and darkness on the one hand and wisdom on the other.” Moreover, on account of its unrelatedness, coldness, and dangerousness, it represents “instinctuality,” “ruthless cruelty,” and the antipode of humanity. (e) The unconscious that Jung has in mind is the collective unconscious. The present author would single out two symbolic themes that appear to be crucial to the Jungian theory of the human psyche, the first of which overlaps with some of the features highlighted by Mogenson: ʊThe snake as imaging the deepest, amorphous and “cold-blooded” layer of the human psyche Jung (1933: 126) wrote that every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deepest levels of his psyche. Just as the human body precisely parag. 651; (b) Symbols of Transformation (first German edition, 1952), parag. 580; (c) Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (first German edition, 1951), parag. 369; (d) Aion, ibid.; (e) Aion, parag. 370.

42

Chapter 1.4 connects us with the mammals and displays numerous relics of earlier evolutionary stages going back to the reptilian age, so the human psyche is likewise a product of evolution which, when followed up to its origins, shows countless archaic traits.

He is also reported to have said in his teachings that “the snake usually symbolizes the darkness of the human soul that is connected with the earth” (Douglas 1997: 276) and that “the serpent, as a soul, represents the lower strata of the human personality, the cold-blooded animal, the animal of darkness” (p. 540). ʊThe snake as an indicator of a critical psychological imbalance “The very common snake dreams,” writes Jung (2009: 650), “always reveal a contradiction between consciousness and instinct.” Mundkur (1983: 266) points out that the serpent is Jung’s symbol of “the point of greatest tension between the opposites.” As Mogenson puts it, “pushed out of awareness, the repressed value devolves into a less related creature. When the repression is particularly severe it devolves into a snake.” This is consistent with what a French Jungian psychologist holds: “The appearance of a snake [in a dream] often indicates that it has become imperative to remedy a dangerous state of imbalance created by the unilateral or forceful exclusion [repressingʊR.H.] of a complementary principle” (Tamborini 2008). Presumably Jung held these two themes to be universally valid. The second reintroduces the Freudian principle of repression. The first has been echoed by major followers of Jung, notably G. Adler (1870-1937) and E. Aeppli (1892-1954).16 “The snake,” writes Adler (1999: 100, 104) on the subject of dreams, is one of the most pregnant symbols of the unconscious, so much so that it often stands for the unconscious itself (…) it is the personification of the chthonic earthly unconscious, of the instinctual layer, with all its secret, mantic, and curative powers as well as its inherent dangers which must be overcome.17

16

Jung himself was born in 1875 and died in 1961. G. Adler, Studies in Analytical Psychology (Abingdon U.K.: Routledge – Taylor & Francis, 1999 and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation), first published in 1948. The book is a compilation of lectures given in London between 1936 and 1945. 17

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As Aeppli (p. 281) also notes, “the person experiencing in dream an encounter with a snake is faced with deep psychic impulses foreign to his or her self and, may we say, as old as this prehistoric animal itself.”18 The identification of the snake with the unconscious concurs with the wider association of snakes to the ground or underground. In other words, it accords with its “lowly” nature and with the darkness that characterises the recesses of snakes. ***** Considering the wide-ranging representations disclosed in chapter 1.3, the present chapter has added surprisingly little in terms of a deeper understanding of ophidian symbolism. Like many other fields of symbolism, snake symbolism could not remain impervious to the basic male௅female dichotomy. The symbolic attributes of snakes have never been plainly sexual and phallic, contrary to what Freudians have claimed. It has been reiterated that snake symbolism has not been devoid of female connotations. Notwithstanding the aspects that relate to Jung’s theory of the human psyche, the very diverse Jungian statements on ophidian symbolism are broadly consistent with what the encyclopaedists and other scholars—many of whom have certainly been influenced by the findings of analytical psychology—have written. Charlesworth (p. 176) believes that “Western culture seems in the post-Enlightenment Era to be especially interested in the serpent as a phallic symbol.” In his view, such a focus probably has to do with the withering of other aspects of ophidian symbolism caused notably by the growing gap between humans and the natural realm.

18

As translated by the author from the French edition of Der Traum und seine Deutung.

CHAPTER 1.5 SYMBOLISATION, A CRUCIAL CULTURE-BUILDING PROCESS

As the foregoing chapters make it clear, this essay will deal throughout with meanings, symbols, and beliefs. Representations are typically the products of the interplay of the immediate processing of sensory stimuli, language, and imagination, three basic tools for the shaping and ordering of human experience, two of which at least are definitely culture-bound. Animal symbolism—and even more so ophidian symbolism—is but a tiny portion of what has been referred to as cultural symbolism or, in Fernandez’s terms (1974), “expressive culture.” There is more to social interaction than its being framed by practical and goal-oriented considerations. As Basso et al. (1976: 2, 3) contend, “non-verbal actions are immensely symbolic” and “behaviour is a form of symbolic action” which is “unfailingly communicative.” Likewise, as stated by Leach (1964: 24), “language is one means of communication, but customary acts of behaviour are also a means of communication, and the anthropologist feels that he can, and should, keep both modes of communication in view at the same time.” One can only agree with LeVine (1984: 79) when he argues that preindustrial societies do not “partition their culture into its instrumental and expressive components.” Fables, legends, myths, rituals, works of art, and other condensed cultural forms are especially loaded with meanings, whether explicit or implicit. They are obviously more “expressive” than ordinary social life. The difference is merely a matter of degree or intensity, at least as far as traditional societies are concerned. It is therefore useful at this early stage to dwell upon the issues of meaning and symbolism. The basic ways and means whereby meaning is generated will first be reviewed: denotation, connotation, metonymy, and metaphor. We will then consider the notion of symbol and illustrate the power of symbolic thought. The last portion of this chapter will focus on the intimate connections between meaning, symbols, and culture. As we shall see, there is no unanimous scholarly understanding of some of those notions.

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***** Meaning is a notion so fundamental that it can only be defined in reference to itself and to other meanings. As the online Oxford Dictionaries note, it is “what is meant by a word, text, concept, or action,” either explicitly or implicitly. An action is meaningful inasmuch as it is driven by an intention. If a person throws away that which has been given to him or her before the very eyes of the giver, the latter will understand either that the intended gift is taken to be worthless or that he or she, the giver, is perceived by the receiver as an unworthy individual. However, the meaning of attitudes, utterances, and behaviour has often to be sorted out because the actor’s purpose or intent is anything but clear. In such cases, any two persons are likely to come up with more or less different understandings. Interpreting is an on-going feature of human experience. Halton (1992: 54) aptly states that “to be human is to be an interpreter.” Because humans are constantly producing meanings through their intentions, utterances, and behaviour, they are continuously on the lookout for some messages while dealing with fellow humans or while being confronted with the natural world. This is especially obvious when something out of the ordinary takes place. As Almagor (1987a: 24-25) writes about the Dassanech of southern Ethiopia, The reality of everyday life is often taken for granted, and people do not try to make sense or make order of every event or situation they encounter. But when someone has experienced something which is unusual and cannot be explained, when an unexpected event occurs, or a disturbance to social life or to cosmic rhythm takes place, it is assumed that the combination of principles behind that event is unknown and should be discovered.

There is a fundamentally anthropomorphic tendency to discard the possibility that things happen without their being some intentionality behind them or some message in store for us. Divination, a form of seeking as well as creating meanings, has long flourished. An anthropologist contends that meaning is “the constitutive and organizing power in cultural life” (Wagner 1986: ix). As a semiotician puts it, “we seem as a species to be driven by a desire to make meaning,” adding that “above all, we are surely Homo significans—‘meaning-makers’” (Chandler 2010: 16). The latter expression is also used by Crick (1976: 23, 5) who advocates a certain type of anthropology focussing on the interpretation of the meanings of cultural forms. Likewise, according to Gardner (1984: 266), “human beings are meaning-seeking and meaning-

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Chapter 1.5

creating individuals.” Halton (p. 49) similarly argues that the human mind has “an obsessive need for the semblance of meaning.” The meaningmaking and meaning-seeking drive has long been fully operative in dayto-day social interaction and productive life, not to mention the figurative world of ritual and arts. ***** Linguistic signs relate to other linguistic signs, all being part of a given language. Each is an element of an abstract lexical system meant to efficiently designate, characterise, or manipulate the social and natural worlds out there: “man,” “woman,” “child,” “boy,” “girl,” “dog,” “cat,” etc.; “old,” “young,” “big,” “small,” “rich,” “poor,” “quick,” “slow,” etc.; “run,” “go,” “sleep,” “eat,” “talk,” “bark,” etc. The differential meaning of all such signs has to be learnt. This holds true for the positional meaning of numerical signs: “one,” “two,” “three,” “four,” etc. Number four comes after number three and before number five. Meaning is constituted socially; that is, culturally. The chief mechanisms whereby meaning is conferred to a spoken or a visual percept will now be briefly reviewed. The linguistic sign “table” represents a certain object not by virtue of some resemblance with what is referred to (contrary to a drawing representing a table) but by way of convention. The vocal pattern “stick” is made up of four sound units: s - t - i - k. The linguistic sign that goes with it consists of five letters: s - t - i - c - k. By way of a convention known to all Englishspeakers, that sound or visual percept has two very different meanings, both of which are arbitrary, i.e. unmotivated by any analogy between the word and what it refers to. The word denotes either an object: a man-made elongated piece of wood of a certain length (not too long, not too short) and thickness (not too thick, not too thin), or an action implying the effect of some glue.1 A person will instantly guess from the context of which it is part: some utterance or written sentence, which one of the two meanings of the sound or visual percept is relevant. As a counter-example, if someone says “stug,” that person will be taken to be making noise because no such meaningful linguistic sign exists in English. People will possibly think that the noise-maker, if not a young child learning to talk, is 1

Linguistic and other types of signs generally tend towards “univocality” (Turner 1975: 151).

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behaving in a childish or foolish manner. The sound “stug” does not have a signified (that which is meant or referred to); having no signified, it cannot be a signifier. Lacking the two basic characteristics of a linguistic sign, it cannot be an English word although it may be or may have been a linguistic sign in some undetermined existing or extinct language. Words are meaningful first and foremost by way of an arbitrary act of denotation. But denotation is not all there is to the process of generating meanings. In addition to the “denotative” or “representational” dimension, the attribution of meaning has other aspects, notably a “connotative” or “evocative” dimension which entails notably the venting out of feelings. Although the two designations of “shit” and “faeces” refer to the same thing, the first one is more expressive than the second, which is scientific and emotionally neutral. The difference between the two designations lies in the process of connotation whereby a moral or aesthetical valuation is attributed to a linguistic sign; for instance disgust in the case of “shit.” In D’Andrade’s view (1984: 101), “thinking and feeling are parallel processes that have evolved together because both are needed for any animal to attend to its needs in a highly intelligent way.” D’Andrade also asserts that “meanings involve the total human psyche, not just the part of us that knows things” (p. 100). Any linguistic sign inevitably carries with it a number of associations. Let us concentrate on the first meaning of the linguistic sign “stick,” the manmade object. Such a sign brings about a set of connected notions such as wood (the matter out of which it is made), tree (its origin, or the whole from which it has been cut off), hardness (sticks often being made of hardwood), and dryness as opposed to living tree branches. This set of associations relates to the physical realm. Other associations will be generated by the ways in which sticks are commonly used in a particular cultural setting. In some societies sticks will immediately bring to mind the notion of walking and perhaps that of elderhood. In other communities sticks are used by adult men to beat misbehaving grown-up sons. In communities of hunter-gatherers, the stick will evoke the female activity of using a digging stick to unearth wild edible roots and tubers. In pastoral groups the stick is the indispensable tool of the herder. Of a man possessing three herds among the Fulani pastoralists of northern Mali it is said that he has “three sticks,” each one representing a “stick-holder,” i.e. a herd boy and thereby a cattle herd. Since a herd boy is able to take care on his own of about 50 cows, people will understand that the man has some 150 head of cattle.

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Chapter 1.5

All the foregoing connections derive immediately from the stick as a stick. On account of such close or direct associations, a stick may hint for instance at “wood” (a rather universal inference) or at “elderhood” (and even “moral authority”), at “beating,” at “food,” or at “animal husbandry,” the latter four inferences being more or less culturally motivated. Such inferences derive from a mental operation known as metonymy, which consists of “using one signified to stand for another signified which is directly related to it or closely associated with it in some way” (Chandler, p. 101).2 The ideas and objects closely associated through metonymy with the word “stick” all contribute to the open-ended constellation of meanings pertaining to that object in a given community. The following additional examples will help to appreciate the power of metonymy. The connection between the act of enjoying the smoke or taste of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe and the production of smoke is so strong that the former has been routinely coined “smoking” (i.e. “making smoke”) and the persons involved in the process are known as “smokers,” i.e. “smoke-makers.” Here an action is fully represented by its most visible by-product. This is a good illustration of the metonymic substitution of something by its outcome. Inversely, the notion of sight, here taken as a result, can be graphically represented by an eye, the organ of sight. Metonymy may also involve the replacement of a whole to be designated, for instance a forest, a car, a police force, a house, a person, or marriage, by one of its typical components, for example a tree, a steering wheel, a badge, a key, some hair, or the playing of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night's Dream. Metonymically the bifid tongue can be an apt substitute for the snake. When the terms of an association are organically connected, one of them may conveniently be substituted for the hitherto more pivotal or complete term without generating any confusion. Metonymy, in other words, is an indirect way of designating, but also affecting—as in good and bad magic for example—something or someone.

2

Alternatively, such inferences may be said to derive from an “indexical” mental effort: here the signifier (say, a word) is “directly connected in some ways (physically or causally) to the signified” (Chandler, p. 27). For instance, a stick may be used to refer indexically to a bruise, just like smoke easily conveys the notion of fire. The concept of indexicality is associated with the pioneering works of Peirce (1839-1914) who, along with the Swiss linguist De Saussure (18571913), was the founder of semiotics, the scientific discipline devoted to the study of signs and symbols.

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There is a lot more to the meaning attributed to a given thing or action than metonymic associations. One has to take into account another crucial operation of the human mind that is different in essence from metonymy: the creative perception of analogies or likenesses between objects, actions, or even processes, and the substitutions which may be generated therefrom. The online Oxford Dictionaries define analogy as “a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification,” as when, for instance, “the workings of nature” are linked to “those of human societies” (or vice versa). Attitudes and behaviour may also be framed by analogies. As Lakoff (2001b) keenly observes, “someone weighed down by responsibilities may adopt a posture as if he had a heavy load on his shoulders.” Surmelian (1969: 230) stresses the human “imaginative ability to connect” and points out that in metaphors “some resemblance, some connection no matter how tenuous or imaginative must exist for the comparison” (p. 231). It may be that in some contexts the association established by our imagination between X and Y is arbitrary but in most cases it is analogically motivated. Foster (1997: 366) strongly emphasises the human “capacity to operate analogically” and our “ability and drive to construct new analogies.” One scholar emphasises the “bridge-building capacity of the [human] psyche” which is continuously seeking to define the unknown in terms of what is already known (Stevens, p. 13). Jung (2009: 250-51) also underscores the tendency to discover analogies, which has been “enormously important for the development of the human mind.” This mental ability is perhaps more specifically human than the production of metonymic associations. Indeed, many animal forms appear proficient to some extent in the latter mode of mental operation. If a mature and experienced deer smells smoke and feels a hot wind in its forest environment, it immediately becomes aware that fire is once more raging and runs away upwind in no time. The analogical mode of thinking is typically human and unsurprisingly conditioned by cultural considerations. For instance, as noted by Wilson (1954: 236) about the Nyakyusa of south-western Tanzania, the images men use, the things they feel to be alike, are determined in a general way by the form of the society. (…) Nyakyusa images are in terms of bananas, staple grains, smithing on a primitive forge, lineage organisation, and so on. These are ‘cultural idioms,’ accepted forms of expression, which frequently recur (…).

Such analogies are established by the informants themselves and not by a creative analyst.

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The analogical mode of thinking is best illustrated by metaphors. According to Fernandez (p. 123), the Greek roots of the term “metaphor” imply a “change in motion,” meta and phora alluding to the notions of “change” and “motion” respectively. As stated online by the Oxford Dictionaries, the term of “metaphor” originates from the ancient Greek word metapherein, “to transfer,” a very relevant notion. Metaphors are “an absolutely necessary part of language” (Surmelian, p. 228), “central to language” (Chandler, p. 97-98), and “basic (…) to creative thought” (Sapir 1977: 32). Moreover, according to an anthropologist, “metaphor is a part of all thought” (Jackson 1983: 134) while a linguist and cognitive scientist states that “most thought” makes use of what he terms “conceptual metaphors” (Lakoff 2001a). Some metaphors are simple inasmuch as they merely consist of the transfer of some attributes of object Y to object X, the starting point of the mental operation, on the basis of a perceived analogy of shape or function between X and Y. The profile of one object is contaminated, so to speak, by that of another object held to be somehow similar in certain respects.3 It is useful here to quote from Sapir’s paper on the “anatomy of metaphor”: In establishing a [metaphoric] relationship two processes operate: first, the reduction of the [two] terms to their shared features—to what makes them alike; secondly, the transference from one to the other, but mainly from the discontinuous to the continuous,4 of what they do not share—what makes them unlike. The first process, which is basic, gives the metaphor its specificity. It allows us to foreground certain features of the continuous term that are felt as being salient to the general topic. On hearing George the Lion we are compelled to consider what we know about lions and to select those features that would apply to George, thus learning something very specific about George. In contrast, the second process gives a metaphor, for want of a better word, its colour. It allows us to consider the continuous term for what it is not, to assume for a moment that, although George is “really” like a lion only in certain specific ways, he might be a lot more like a lion than in just those ways. We are given the means to imagine George as a real lion, straight and simple, even down to his tail. (Sapir, p. 9)

3

In Peirce’s terminology an object or an act becomes an “icon” for another object or act on account of the perceived (partial) similarity between the two instances. Iconicity is seen as complementary to indexicality. 4 In the metaphoric statement, “George is a Lion,” George is the “tenor” or, in Sapir’s terminology, the “continuous” term, and Lion the “discontinuous” one.

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When a metaphor is consistently used it results in the imaginative blurring or merging of the identities of the two terms, so much so that the second term comes to stand for the first. The present study will provide numerous instances of such occurrences. ***** To begin with, two significant examples will be briefly considered while keeping with the same object: the stick. The metonymic association of sticks and trees noted above is often compounded by the metaphoric conflation of sticks and snakes. The Bible and the Quran provide ancient instances of such mergings. As we shall see below, snakes may be rendered as stiff as sticks. West Africa offers a fine illustration of this imaginary equivalence. The mischievous trickster of the Ashanti (Ghana), a spider known as Ananse, wanted to catch a large python (Allan et al. 2012: 98). The latter was falsely told that it was not longer than the stick the spider was carrying. Anxious to prove that it out-matched the rod, the snake had its head tied to one of its ends. Then the trickster quickly fastened the tail. The snake was caught. It may have become a stick… The stick–snake conflation surfaces in the following event: in eastern Kenya Lindbloom (p. 268) came upon a Kamba man who claimed to be “able to transform a stick into a snake.” According to a Gusii (Kissi) proverb from western Kenya, “a biting snake is pushed away with a stick” (LeVine 1963: 240).

Box 4 From Sticks to Spears and Snakes Among the Datog of northern Tanzania the elders would hold a blessing ceremony to ensure the success of a raiding expedition. If in the course of this ceremony a black snake crawled over the piled-up spears (= sharp sticks) of the young men, the raid would be successful (Berger 1938: 188). It has also been recorded that Datog warriors would not wage war before the irruption of a venomous black snake (Berger et al. 1998: 162). By crawling over the spears, the deadly serpent was presumably believed to render their weapons exceedingly lethal. Millroth (1965: 130) describes a similar war ritual conducted in Sukumaland by the ntemi, a local chief: the warriors put all their weapons together and the ntemi sprinkled on them and on their weapons a medicine consisting of the powdered root of a certain bitter plant and a magical substance made from the heads of mambas. The medicine was meant to make the warriors as strong as the

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lion and their weapons as deadly as the black mamba.5 It is good to know that a great deal of social and cultural interaction took place between the Datog and the Sukuma in the past (Itandala 1980; Batibo et al. 2001). An authority on myths and legends observed that snakes commonly have their dens at the foot of trees (Krappe 1938: 268). Since snakes are often seen near trees or on their branches, they are metonymically connected with trees. We therefore end up with a thick conglomerate of meanings bringing together sticks, trees, and snakes. This cluster of metonyms and metaphors seems to be almost universal. The metaphoric identification of sticks and snakes is paralleled by another analogy of shape, also quite universally established: that between the stick and the elongated, erect, and rigid male organ. Our familiarity with the ethnography of Eastern Africa will be helpful.6 Among various ethnic groups of that area only men would be seen carrying sticks or spears. In south-western Kenya for instance, Keyo (or Elgeyo) men “seldom move from their huts without carrying a knobkerry and at least one other stick about 4 feet long made from the kurior tree” (Massam 1927: 149). Males commonly “burdened” themselves “with several of these slender sticks, which are valueless as walking sticks, and are of little value as weapons” (Ibid.). Sticks were also an attribute of masculinity for the Hamar of southwestern Ethiopia: “a man who walks without a weapon, at least a stick, (…) is considered to be ‘naked’” (Strecker 1979: 246, end-note 71). Never have the ethnologists Lydall and Strecker “seen a girl carry a stick in the presence of young men or boys. In Hamar only very old women use walking sticks whilst young women only use sticks in ritual occasions” (Lydall et al. 1979a: 110). The nearby Dassanech males were also very fond of sticks: “The way in which Dassanech men, especially young men, care for and handle their sticks, including smearing them with fat to clean them [or, possibly, to prevent them from becoming too dry and, thus, from breaking – R.H.], suggests that they embody the essence of these men’s virility” (Almagor 1985: 4). In northern Tanzania, Nyaturu (or Rimi) men were always seen walking with their herding-sticks across their shoulders to support their arms: “These sticks are a symbol of manhood, and no adult 5

A Maasai “war medicine” was made from snake eggs. The mixture was put in a large leg-bell which was tied to a club that was hurled at an enemy “offering resistance” (Merker 1910: 93). 6 The analogy of shape was complemented in this specific ecological context by an analogy of function: ejaculating penises were matched with spitting snakes. See Box 36.

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male will go far without one” (Jellicoe, p. 74). In the same region, “Iraqw men always carry sticks, and if a man has no stick, he is not recognised as a man” (Yoneyama 1969: 102); women refrained from taking the sticks and weapons of men (Yoneyama 1970: 96).7 That sticks were expressive of manhood becomes all the more obvious when one considers some of the uses of such implements. In parts of Eastern Africa, a man was permitted by custom within certain limits to chastise his wife with a stick.8 However, were a man to serve a similar beating to his daughter, a commotion would immediately be created in the neighbourhood. Such an act would reportedly be tantamount to incest. The reason for that was the actual assimilation of the beating of a female body using a “stick” with the sexual act.9 In Tanzania, Beidelman (1997: 127) commonly heard a few euphemisms for the male organ, including fimbo (“stick”) and was told by a number of Kaguru individuals that one of the most “unequivocal” expressions for sexual congress was kufita, a verb apparently meaning “to stick.”10 Moreover, in a Kaguru initiation song, kutowa, “to strike,” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse (p. 215). The conflation of the two acts can be demonstrated with some confidence. In some ethnic groups, young men were allowed to court or marry only those girls who were not related to them in kinship terms, that is, young ladies whom they could strike with a whip.11 Reportedly a young man would only whip a girl of his liking. A girl who was never whipped tended to feel neglected. It is also reported that a man was not allowed to beat his pregnant wife. This makes sense since a severe beating could cause an abortion. That being granted it is interesting to note that in much of Eastern Africa, pregnant women were prohibited from sleeping with men. The duration of the prohibition was extended not only up to the birth of the child but also until its weaning. Presumably a man would never attempt to hit with a stick—or with any other object reminiscent of a stick—a wife nursing a child. The beating of a man with a stick by his wife or some 7

Men would reciprocate vis-à-vis the cooking pots, hearth, and grinding stones of women (Yoneyama, ibid.). 8 Bruising the head and breaking bones were unlawful. Slapping with the bare hand and punching with the fist were quite uncommon. The apparently useless sticks carried by Keyo males may have been used for castigating wives and children. 9 Nothing prevented a man from thrashing a son using a stick. 10 In a related Bantu language: Kinyarwanda (Rwanda), the verb kubita means “to beat.” 11 As Leach (1964: 43) points out, “friendship and enmity” are “alternating aspects of the same structural relationship.”

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other woman would also stir the neighbourhood into commotion. People would in this case react to something felt contre nature. How could a female person display aggressiveness and make use of a “stick” to beat a male? The victim of such a beating would be humiliated; few options other than exile or suicide were left to him.12 The assimilation of the stick with the penis has inevitably led to the merging of two different actions featuring a “stick” and persons of opposite sexes. The sexual act was “contaminated” by the act of beating (penis as stick) and the beating was reciprocally “contaminated” by the experience of sex (stick as penis). The assimilation of penises with sticks also prevailed in a highly significant context: that of fire-drilling, an activity that was as a rule the exclusive privilege of males and which was loaded with generative connotations. The metaphoric assimilation of sticks and penises, in addition to that of sticks and snakes, considerably expanded the constellation of meanings attached to sticks in Eastern Africa. ***** It is common knowledge that all metaphors imply a “transposition” or “imaginative leap” from one domain to another (Chandler, p. 102). Crocker (p. 167) uses the expression “intuitive leap.” Fernandez (p. 124) illustrates this “linking of domains of experience” by the phenomenon of synaesthesia, i.e. the translation of one sense modality into another; for instance from sound to touch as when characterising a music as “hot”: “On the sound continuum of fast and slow, a certain kind of music (…) occupies a position parallel to that occupied by hot objects on the continuum of hot to cold.” Leach (1964: 36-37) offers an illustration of a different kind, using homologous realisations13 of the continuum from “closeness” to “remoteness,” i.e. “distance from Ego (self)”: in the social realm, we have “sister,” “cousin,” “neighbour,” and “stranger”; in the animal realm, we have “pet,” “livestock,” “game,” and “wild animal”; and on the spatial continuum, we have “house,” “farm,” “field,” and “forest” 12 A woman would hardly attempt to beat of man with a stick inasmuch as such a deed would almost turn her into a male person, thereby compromising her womanhood and fertility. However, in some East African communities, a man who had violated the dignity of his wife could be severely beaten and defiled by a mob of infuriated women, the coevals of the mistreated woman reacting to her sounding the alarm. 13 Homology is a “structural” form of analogy.

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or foreign lands. The fact that house animals (pets) are usually considered inedible nicely correlates with the fact that sisters (“house females”) must never be sexual partners. The reason is that both pets and sisters are very closely associated with the self. At the opposite end, foreign ladies and (at times imaginary) wild animals can no more be espoused or admitted as food.14 According to Jackson (p. 136), African metaphors of pathways— which are believed to be opened, obstructed, darkened, etc.—“coalesce social, economic, political, and anatomical elements into a single image which in effect expresses the essential interdependence of those elements” or domains, thus creating avenues for remedying difficulties experienced at one level, for instance individual health problems, through taking ritual action at some other corresponding level. Lakoff (2001b), who is both a linguist and a cognitive scientist, provides another illuminating illustration, one which is closer to the life experiences of Westerners. A common metaphor used by English-speakers is that “love is a journey.” This metaphor, which is both conventional and conceptual (the conflation of two notions), has the following implications: “lovers are travellers”; their “common goals correspond to their common destinations on the journey”; “the love relationship corresponds to a vehicle”; and “difficulties in the relationship correspond to impediments to travel.” The domains of love and journey are obviously different. A number of non-arbitrary and significant connections have nonetheless been culturally established between “travelling in a vehicle” (a car, also a plane, or a boat), a very familiar experience in contemporary times, and “love,” a somewhat mysterious inter-personal process. When the love relation gets bogged, the solution is to abandon the “vehicle.” In Lakoff’s understanding, a metaphor corresponds not only to the linguistic expressions (such as “Love is a journey”) but more importantly to the systematic intellectual or imaginative “mapping” of different domains (such as “love” and “journey”). The starting point of a metaphor has been coined the “source domain” while the ending point of the “leap” has been termed “target domain.” According to Quinn (1991: 57), 14

Tambiah (1969) uses the same model which rests on the analogy between the need for sex and hunger for food: some categories of people (close kin) are sexually taboo, others not (distant kin and strangers); likewise, some animals (domestic) may not be eaten (too close) while others may be eaten (bush animals), except for some too distant and dangerous forest animals (likened to terrifying strangers).

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Chapter 1.5 source domains are familiar ones, most often of the physical world; these are easy to think with in the sense that the thinker can readily conceptualise the relations among elements in such domains and changes in these relations that result when these elements are set in motion conceptually.

For instance in the “love is a journey” metaphor, the source domain is the more familiar theme of “journey.” In his interpretation of indigenous American myths, Lévi-Strauss exploited such insights to the full. He once wrote that “the societies that we call primitive do not have any conception of a sharp division between the various levels of classification.”15 He also emphasised “the convertibility of ideas between different levels of social reality.”16 As we have just seen, the habit of transposing one domain of experience into another is not specific to “primitive” man. In the cases provided above, there is no great “imaginative leap” since the beating and the sexual act both feature males and females relating to one another at the community level or within the confines of the domestic setting. Inasmuch as it is both a crucial and a veiled feature of human experience, the sexual act has commonly been translated into analogies and metaphors. In the “sexual imagery” of the Fulani of Marua in northern Cameroon (Eguchi 1973: 76-77) for instance,17 The verb tufa, meaning to pierce, is used to describe the act of intercourse. A verb used for a constant, persistent movement of the man back and forth vertically over the woman’s body during intercourse is nama, which means to grind grain (originally done with a smooth stone on an oblong rock platform). The verb una, meaning to pound in a mortar, is used to describe a strong vertical or in-and-out movement of the male during intercourse.

In the latter case, the penis is explicitly referred to as a pestle, gafgal, while in the first metaphor the underlying image would seem to be a knife, sword, or spear. The domains analogically correlated with sexuality in this part of northern Cameroon are on the one hand aggression or war and on the other hand food-processing. The first analogy was common in Africa. The Nyakyusa for example viewed sexual intercourse as the “war of the mats” (Wilson 1954: 237) and, in the understanding of the Borana of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya and of the nearby Hamar, 15

As quoted by Sax (p. 30) from Lévi-Strauss’ Savage Mind (1966, p. 138). As quoted by Chandler (p. 124) from The Savage Mind, p. 75-6 in its 1974 edition. 17 The order of the sentences in the following quotation has been inverted for convenience. 16

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“spearing” was likened to “copulation” (Baxter 1978: 171, 172; Strecker 2006: 99). The second analogy was commonplace throughout Africa.18 In the wake of the two Fulani food-processing metaphors, semen implicitly becomes assimilated to “flour” and therefore to “food” (for the woman). The last two analogies possibly betray a predominantly female perspective knowing that only the wives, as sexual partners and food-processors, are actively involved in the two metaphorically conflated domains. Although this is not emphasised by Eguchi and although it may not apply to the specific context of the Fulani of northern Cameroon, the feeding of husbands by wives has implicitly been viewed in various parts of Africa as the reciprocal counterpart of men sexually “feeding” women. The major meal was served in the evening and in polygamous households a man would sleep with the woman who had prepared food for him that evening: “I have given food to you; you must now ‘feed’ me.” That analogical thought can be extremely powerful in the shaping of human experience will be shown even more vividly through the following case involving rural Nubian communities of northern Sudan.19 As above, the “imaginative leap” will not be great but the imaginative effort will prove far-reaching. Interlocking metaphors will here combine creating a structural homology between the same two domains of sexual reproduction and food-processing. The women of rural northern Sudan were more or less confined to their domestic environment, taking care of the young children and preparing food for the family. Most agricultural work was left to males. The major dish was the kisra, a type of pancake typically made from wheat flour and water. The two ingredients are mixed and then cooked in a large earthen container known as gulla. The gulla is a spherical vessel with a short neck and a narrow opening at the top. The narrow opening of the gulla helps to keep the heat within the pot. Another important feature of the gulla is its 18

It recurs for instance in Tanzania among the Kaguru: “The verb kusajila (to grind flour) is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. Both copulation and grinding make useful products, offspring and food” (Beidelman 1997: 203). The same euphemisms occurred among the nearby and related Ngulu (Beidelman 1964a: 370). Likewise, in the minds of the Zaramo of coastal Tanzania (Swantz 1995: 70) and among the nearby Luguru (Brain 1978: 181), the pounding of grains was evocative of sexual activity. 19 For the detailed data and analyses, see Hazel et al. (2007), part 3, chap. 4, 8, and 11. The sources of the data are numerous. One major source will be mentioned here: Boddy’s pioneering paper (1982).

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non-porosity. The gulla is significantly different from the water-holding earthen containers: these are large-mouthed, porous to keep the water cool, and elongated rather than spherical. In size as well as in shape, the gulla was comparable and implicitly compared to the distended abdomen of a pregnant woman. This was apparent in the custom of placing a stillborn baby in such a container when burying it next to the house. The metaphoric analogy between the female womb and the gulla was pushed much further to the point of encompassing the local theory of conception. The Nubians believed that a baby resulted from the mixing of the man’s “seed” or semen and of the woman’s blood in her abdomen. Moreover, sexual intercourse was held to be instrumental in the “thickening” or coagulation of the mix, that is, in the formation of a foetus. The local theory was inspired from the preparation of kisra. Of the two ingredients used in equal proportions, one was a wifely input: water drawn from the nearby Nile River; the other was contributed by the husband as the family agriculturalist: wheat, which was later ground into a whitish flour by the wife. The second ingredient was implicitly analogous to the husband’s semen while the first stood for the blood of the wife. The mix actually thickened as the wife stirred it vigorously with her arm inserted into the narrow-mouthed gulla. The stirring of the mix into the gulla must have been evocative of the activity of the male organ in the womb. The reduced opening of the womb-like container was barely large enough to accommodate the arm of the food-processor. In this regard it must be noted that Nubian women were infibulated at the age of four or six. The husband’s penis could barely find its way through the small opening left by this type of female genital surgery. Once the foetus was formed, the almost closed vaginal opening was believed to keep the internal heat—and the life-promoting humidity—inside the womb.20 The (re)construction of the overall structural homology must take into account yet another highly significant aspect. Prior to sexual intercourse, Nubian wives would submit themselves to “smoke-bathing,” dukhana. They would undress and cover themselves using a large woollen blanket (shamla), and remain seated for about two hours over a smouldering fire burning in a small pit in their private quarters. The dukhana caused the 20

In numerous African cultures, gestation was assimilated to a form of “cooking.” Such a notion derived from the identification of the womb with a large pot.

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woman, especially her abdomen, to sweat. The effects of the smoke-bath were believed to last for a few days.21 Smoke-bathing makes sense considering the basic analogy between womb and gulla. It was noted above that one of the characteristics of the gulla was its non-porosity. This feature resulted from a more thorough baking than for the porous water containers. Smoke-bathing may be equated at least in part to a “hardening of the womb.” This was done notably for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the womb as a container of lifegiving substances. Given the metaphoric connotations of cooking kisra, it is no wonder that this domestic task was the prerogative of the wife. A daughter would not substitute for her mother, save perhaps in exceptional circumstances. This case shows that analogies or metaphors generate further analogies or metaphors. No doubt this process is set in motion especially when the subject matter is of prominent import. Female fertility is indeed a very crucial issue. The first conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing analysis is that through analogically reflecting upon their mode of livelihood, Nubian women have managed to create for themselves an implicit or subconscious understanding of the mysteries of fertility and child conception. These insights, which have certainly been put together in the distant past, were foreign to the mental framework of their husbands. The second conclusion is that analogical thought is a very powerful means of shaping human experience. One can only agree with Surmelian (1969: 230) when he asserts that “metaphor is insight, a perceptive act, an imaginative feat where the unconscious is at work.” But clearly the analogical mode of thought can do a lot more than “saying what cannot be said directly in straight language” or “making clear what would otherwise remain unsaid or obscure” (Ibid.).22 Jackson (p. 138) and Wagner (1986: 7) are closer to the mark when writing respectively that metaphors are “means of doing things and not merely ways of saying things” and that they are “significant for the anthropological modelling of culture.”

21

Smoke-baths also had the effect of whitening the skin of the abdomen, which was then compared to an eggshell. Ostrich eggs were viewed and used as “fertility objects” in northern Sudan (Boddy 1982); that is, objects capable of keeping the moisture within. 22 Surmelian’s essay focusses on techniques for fiction writing.

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The Nubian case is not exceptional as shown for instance by the deepseated analogy established by the Jie of eastern Uganda between a married woman and her granary: The master granary is built on the model of a womb; its mouth is the centre of the symbolic circle of the Jie universe (…). This granary is in many respects the navel of the Jie world, its umbilical point, and the symbol of continuing creation. (Mirzeler, 2004, p. 244-45)

Mirzeler was told that children come from the granary of their mothers: when a man “puts his seed” in his wife’s granary, it is mixed with the latter’s blood and a baby should be on the way (p. 241). Among the immediate neighbours of the Jie, the Karimojong, a man should not look into a pot on the fire, look into his wife’s granary, or drink from a broken calabash: “All these three symbolize the integrity of the womb, which a man should have the wisdom not to look into, for these are the women’s matters that should be entrusted to women” (Knighton 2005: 143). Likewise, in Turkanaland, east of the Karimojong, the abdomen was “closely associated with fertility, procreation, life, womb, and blessing” (Barrett 1987: 48) and the inner organs of a ritually sacrificed goat: the intestines and stomach, were food for females (p. 52). The Kuranko of Sierra Leone provide another vivid illustration of the constitutive power of gendered metaphors: Everyday tasks and objects reinforce [the sexual dichotomy], so that the way women lift and let fall a pestle when pounding grain in a mortar, the sway of the body needed in winnowing rice, and the suppleness required in tending a hearth or bending to an infant all become habitual dispositions, defining for the Kuranko a mode of comportment which is typically “feminine.” On the other hand, the arduous work of the men in felling trees or hoeing steep hillsides fosters muscular strength and rigidity which, in turn, become metaphors for the “masculine” disposition and justifications for male politico-jural control. By contrast, the supple and fluent movements of women as they bend to their daily tasks give rise to metaphors which make women out to be capricious and unreliable.23 (Jackson, p. 135)

*****

23 Such an opinion in all likelihood must have been aired mostly when males talked between them about females in general.

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What some scholars have said about “meaning” or “metaphor” has been echoed by what others have claimed about “symbols.” Of “the capacity to symbolise,” Rycroft (p. 136) states that it is “a general mental capacity, which can be used consciously or unconsciously, while awake or asleep, neurotically or creatively, with or without insight into its implication.” In the words of Roberts (1997: 192), “symbols are the stuff of culture.” However, as D’Andrade (p. 103) points out, “there is no agreement among anthropologists and other social or linguistic scientists as to how to define a ‘symbol’.” Peirce, the co-initiator of semiotics, viewed symbols as a type of sign which is not iconic (bearing no resemblance to its signified), nor indexical (implying no physical or temporal contiguity, etc. with its signified), but which refers to its signified in a purely arbitrary or conventional way. He used the notion of symbol in the restricted sense of an arbitrary sign. A good example would be a flag featuring certain coloured patterns and evoking the nation that has made it into its emblem. The other founder of semiotics, De Saussure, also focussed on the study of language. However, he did not apply the notion of “symbol” to linguistic (Chandler, p. 28) or numerical signs. In his view the scale has become the symbol of justice because it alludes to the notion of objectivity or of unbiased and balanced judgement (Ibid.). Symbols are not wholly arbitrary contrary to linguistic or numerical signs but are to some extent analogically or otherwise motivated. Tambiah (1968a: 189) for instance agrees with such a view: a symbol is “more than a conventional sign because it highlights a resemblance.” Halton (p. 37) forcefully rejects what he calls “conventionalism, the view that all human meaning is based upon non-natural social conventions,” a view which in his opinion “holds a pervasive sway over contemporary life.” In Pierce’s understanding, homo sapiens is “a symbol-using animal.” 24 Other authorities have coined the human being as homo symbolicum (Stevens, p. 21) or “symbolizing creature” (Baer 1998). Decades ago Cassirer characterised the human species as animal symbolicum, i.e. the symbol-making or symbolising animal, using this expression as an alternative concept to the old and standard formulation of “rational animal,” which dates back to the philosophers of ancient Greece.25 In 24

As quoted by Chandler (p. 31). Excerpt from Cassirer (1976). The quotation to follow is taken from the same article. 25

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Cassirer’s view, “reason is a very inadequate term with which to comprehend the forms of man’s cultural life in all their richness and variety.” For the German philosopher, cultural life is made of symbolischen Formen, “symbolic forms.” In his view, all entities impregnated with meaning are symbolic. Animals may be taught to react to signals, as when a dog follows the orders of its master, but only humans create and live by symbols. The German term for “symbol” is Sinnbuild. This descriptive term is made up of the words Sinn, “meaning,” and Build, “image.” In German a symbol is basically an image that has meaning. As for the English (and French) equivalent word, it hails from an ancient Greek term: sumbolos, which implies a mental activity: “the putting together of that which had been divided” (Firth 1973: 47). According to the online Oxford Dictionaries, sumbolon, “mark” or “token,” is made up of two words: sun, “with,” and ballein, “to throw.” The notion of “bringing together that which was separated” or that of “throwing” things together brings us back to the metaphor and to analogical thought. Leach sees an intimate connection between symbols and metaphors: The essence of the matter is that, with symbolism (metaphor) … we use our human imagination to associate together two entities, or sets of entities, either material or abstract, which ordinarily belong to quite different contexts. (Leach, 1976, p. 39)

He makes a distinction between a symbol and what he calls a signum, an old Latin term (p. 14-15). If item A stands for item B while both items relate to the same semantic domain, then A is a signum for B. A crown for instance is an apt signum of sovereignty. If item A stands for item B while the two items belong to wholly different semantic fields, then A is a symbol of B. A crown may be the symbol of a trademark, notably a label for a type of whisky. In the latter case, a greater mental effort is needed since the domains brought together are totally apart. The substitution in the minds of consumers of a trademark of whisky by the royal image of a crown will succeed only if a major investment in publicity is made. Leach argues that “symbol relationships are arbitrary assertions of similarity” (Ibid.). On account of its emphasis on the “arbitrary” character of the similarity, the statement is to some extent at variance with the opinion aired by De Saussaure, who believed that the relationship between a symbolic signifier and its signified derives from some kind of analogy

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between the two. Wilson (1954: 236) points out that “symbolism is always based on an association, a feeling of likeness between things. The intrinsic quality of an object or relationship, or event, is expressed in terms of another object or action which it is felt to resemble.” Likewise, Turner (1975: 151) states that there must be “some kind of likeness between signifier and signified” in the case of symbols as opposed to ordinary signs, and that “symbols tend to be iconic” (p. 152). In the example provided above by Leach, the identification of a drink with the crown would be motivated by an assumption of superior quality. To follow up on Leach’s own wording, the character of the similarity may be more appropriately coined “creative” rather than “arbitrary.” As a first-level representation, the lexical sign “stick” stands for an artificial wooden object. As a second-level representation, the stick may symbolise the male organ just as a clay pot or a granary may represent the female womb. At the second-level of representation, numerical signs enter the realm of numerology. The “degree of complication of the relationship” (Firth, p. 65) between signifier and signified is obviously a feature of the symbolistic mode of thinking. The latter has to do with what philosophers and others call the poetic mode of expression: the “ability to say one thing in terms of something else or to say several things at the same time, thereby creating something new” (Kearny 1998: 145). It can be stated with some confidence that to qualify as a symbol a sign must be multivocal or polysemic. Writes Fernandez (p. 120), symbols have “many and often incompatible meanings,” a feature which he and others label “condensation.” Turner (p. 152) similarly views the symbol as “a vehicle loaded with meanings.” Cohen (1977: 117), LeVine (1984: 77), D’Andrade (p. 100), Kostuch (2009: 123), and Charlesworth (p. 117, 196) are among the many scholars who have similarly underscored the polysemy of symbols and the fact that the meaning of a symbol depends on the context of its use or on its environment. This feature explains why symbols may, to some extent, appear “ambiguous” (Firth, p. 427). It can also be stated with confidence that to qualify as a symbol a sign must be emotionally charged. For instance the fondness of males for sticks is correlated with their proud virility; likewise, the identification of women with pots and granaries is underpinned by their self-esteem as potential or actual mothers. Symbols are indeed emotionally charged to the second degree. According to Cohen (p. 117) symbols do not only “evoke emotions and sentiments” but “impel (…) to action.” They have the power

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to move people on account of their polysemous ability to combine meanings relating to the overall experience of the person, from the bodily level to their ideological or political aspirations. Quinn (1991) similarly contends that the more common metaphors in the Western world are those which “capture” two, three, or more elements of a given “cultural model,” such as what people understand by marriage. As Turner (1969: 42-43) phrased it in a mild critique of Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism, the symbols and their relations as found in Isoma [an area inhabited by the Ndembu of Zambia] are not only a set of cognitive classifications for ordering the Ndembu universe. They are also, and perhaps as importantly, a set of evocative devices for rousing, chanelling, and domesticating powerful emotions, such as hate, fear, affection, and grief.

The ability of symbols to conflate levels of human experience makes symbolic systems irreducible to conceptual systems (Halton, p. 33, 36). It can be stated once more with confidence that symbols also stand in opposition or as complements to other symbols. Stick symbolism and pot symbolism make sense especially in opposition to one another. The potency of such symbols will be boosted by the degree of “antagonism” between the sexes in a given community. Turner has entitled one of his books on Ndembu ritual The Forest of Symbols (1967). Likewise, according to Thomas (1980: 438) symbols come in “bundles” or “constellations.” The symbols recognised by a given community are by no means given equal ideological might. Some symbols are more pervasive and moving than others. Ortner (1973) devotes an article to “key symbols.” Other scholars use similar expressions: “dominant symbols,” “core symbols,” and the like. According to Turner (p. 152), such symbols are especially multivocal: they even “constitute semantic systems in their own right.” The meaning of symbols, even that of dominant ones, may be more or less lost through time on account of economic, social, or political change. At some stage people like to embellish their houses or artefacts with certain visual motifs or patterns without knowing why. The value of oncepowerful symbols has been reduced to almost nothing. Obviously, the notion of symbolism in general is more relevant to the subject matter of this essay than the restricted symbolism of words and numbers. *****

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In the course of time, the anthropological concept of “culture” has been defined in many different ways. The original definitions focussed on material culture such as hunting, fishing, or agricultural implements, pottery, house-building, and so forth. The definition of culture then shifted to stress social features, notably kinship systems, social structure, and political organisation as well as myths and ritual practices. The emergence of linguistic studies and semiotics in the first decades of the twentieth century came to have a strong and lasting influence on anthropological thinking. Culture in general was likened to the grammar of a language, i.e. to a system of rules that shape all utterances in a specific language but which, though obviously learnt during childhood, cannot be formulated explicitly by the users of that language unless its grammar is formalised and taught at school. Given cultures were likened to exotic texts in need of analysis and interpretation. Upon learning a foreign language, one is indeed exposed to “all kinds of new metaphors” (Surmelian 1969: 231). “More than any other signs,” as Houis (1971: 105) stated, “symbols remain mysterious for those who are not intimately familiar with a given historical and cultural background.” Language came to be taken as a component of “a larger symbolic order,” i.e. culture itself (LeVine 1984: 70) or as “a part of culture” (Leach 1964: 24). Geertz (1966: 3) sees culture as “historically transmitted patterns of meanings embodied in symbols—a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms.” According to Schneider (1976: 202), culture amounts to “a body of definitions, premises, statements, postulates, presumptions, propositions, and perceptions about the nature of the universe and man’s place in it.” Many social scientists have followed suit. For instance culture is defined as “collective organizations of ideas, symbols, and meanings” (LeVine, p. 82), as “the achievement of systematicity across persons through meanings” (D’Andrade, p. 110), and as “shared understanding that people hold and that are sometimes, but not always, realized, stored, and transmitted in their language” (Quinn, p. 57). Even from the standpoint of a multicultural education specialist in Western industrial societies, it is the values, symbols, interpretations, and perspectives that distinguish one people from another in modernized societies; it is not material objects and other tangible aspects of human societies. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts, and behaviors in the same or in similar ways. (Banks, 1989, p. 7)

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In Foster’s understanding (p. 380), it is “when shared signs become conventionalized, institutionalized, and semantically interrelated through shared metaphoric understanding” that “culture is born.” A semiotician proposes the following definition of culture: “a kind of ‘macro-code’ consisting of the numerous codes which a group of individuals habitually use to interpret reality” (Danesi 1994: 18).26 The “codes” Danesi has in mind are verbal language, body language, behavioural codes, ideological codes, aesthetic codes, etc. Cultural systems being historical forms, the quest for consistency between such “codes” can only be an on-going process. Considering the separateness of the domains of men and women in Africa and elsewhere, and knowing that the experience of males and that of females in given communities were not only specific but were often made deliberately mysterious to the opposite sex, there is good reason to argue for the existence of gendered sub-cultures within preliterate or traditional communities. Granted that analogical thought and symbolism are crucial to the very possibility of culture, it has to be kept in mind that the natural environment, the modes of livelihood, and the degree of technological development in given communities have everywhere been primary pools of notions and images for analogical processing, as illustrated by most of the examples presented above. Communities sharing similar natural environments, similar modes of livelihood, and similar technologies are likely to come up with more or less similar cultural representations; for instance regarding the proper division of labour between men and women and the definition of gendered identities as well as with similar ideas and practices pertaining to the supernatural. As a final note to the present chapter, it is useful to highlight what Turner (1975: 150) briefly refers to as the cultural or symbolic “styling of behaviour.” Geertz has studied personhood from an anthropological standpoint in three communities: one Balinese, one Javanese, and one Moroccan. In each case he identifies different “symbolic formsʊwords, images, institutions, behaviours” which have contributed to creating a certain Balinese, Javanese, or Moroccan “style” of person (Geertz 1976: 224-25). As will be seen in later chapters, animal images—that of the snake for instance—have been put to use in the “styling” of certain

26

As quoted by Chandler (p. 123) from M. Danesi, Messages and Meanings: An Introduction to Semiotics (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1994).

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categories of individuals in various parts of traditional Africa, notably Eastern Africa and the Horn. The present study will also illustrate that much of the cultural heritage of a given East African community was shared with neighbouring peoples. This may be attributed to constant interethnic contact and to the frequent merging of groups from different origins to form new communities. Moreover, cultural systems never rise in a vacuum. They develop from earlier cultural systems. The prestige of powerful or high profile ethnic groups of the past tended to be strong and in their days their influence was wide-ranging. In the East African context, a regional approach to the interpretation of cultural features would seem especially appropriate and promising.

CONCLUDING NOTE TO PART I

Part I has equipped readers with a fairly good knowledge of the biology of ophidians: their scaly and ectothermic character, their weak sexual dimorphism, the diversity of their species and habitats, the predominance of the non-venomous species, etc.; and of some of their important behavioural patterns: they are lonely hunters, like dark places, are elusive, etc. Part I has also outlined the basic perceptions and attitudes of humans confronted with snakes: inordinate fear, a mix of fear and curiosity, fascination. The writings of encyclopaedists and other scholars were then reviewed to elicit the features of snake symbologyʊwhich vary considerably from place to placeʊand more importantly to map out the more general themes evoked in human imagination by ophidians. One of the striking aspects of snake symbolism lies in its paradoxical nature, i.e. snakes are or were liable to evoke life as well as death, goodness as well as evil. Since Freudians and non-Freudian psychologists have been highly concerned with disclosing unconscious meanings, and knowing that symbolism is a notion as crucial to psychoanalysis as it is to ethnology, a chapter was devoted to the students-of-the-mind’s views about ophidians. It turns out that the Freudian basically phallic characterisation of snakes is not wholly endorsed by key Western psychologists such as Jung and that this feature is simply one of the many facets of ophidian symbology highlighted by them, as well as by various encyclopaedists. The last chapter focussed on symbols and on the complex process of symbolisation as it unfolds in language and imagination. For many anthropologists that process is crucial to the emergence of human culture. The examples used to illustrate the power of metaphors and symbols were taken from traditional Africa, mostly Eastern Africa. It has been shown for instance that the notion of stick was contaminated, so to speak, with the images of the snake and of the membrum virile. It is now time to introduce readers to the symbology of the snake in past civilisations. We will turn to Africa later on.

PART II THE IMAGE OF THE SNAKE THROUGH THE AGES

Part II will cover a lot of ground both historically and in geographical reach, to the exclusion of Sub-Saharan Africa as well as areas far removed from itʊand therefore unrelated to itʊsuch as the Americas and Oceania. It will draw a set of configurations of what snakes represented in the old civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, south-eastern Europe, ancient Arabia, and Palestine, all of which may have had connections, more or less, with the areas this study is mostly concerned with. The case of contemporary India will also be reviewed inasmuch as snakes have remained culturally significant in modern times. The relics of ophidian symbolism in the European Christian world will also be explored. Even though the overall picture will be somewhat impressionistic, it will suit the limited purpose of providing a basis for comparison and also for assessing the likely roots of some of the representations that loomed large in Eastern Africa. To be sure, many of the notions associated with snakes in that part of the world have long been around, some reaching back to ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia.

CHAPTER 2.1 THE PROFILE OF THE SNAKE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND MESOPOTAMIA

The earliest manifestation of a snake cult in the region appears to be an undated, but prehistoric, pictograph showing a person with arms raised, possibly a woman, standing and facing a long rising snake, presumably a cobra (Keimer 1947: 2; Charlesworth, p. 192). The pictograph was discovered in the early years of the twentieth century in southern Egypt by Schweinfurth, a German scholar. The prehistoric scene seems to echo for example the large rising serpent guarding each of the “gates” of the night (Amélineau 1905: 5) which, according to the Book of Gates, the shades of the deadʊfirst and foremost pharaohs, princes, and high priests in the early millenniums of the kingdomʊhad to go through in the process of their transformation into an immortal spirit. Four of the eight gods who, according to one of the creation myths of ancient Egypt, presided over the primeval chaos were illustrated bearing snake-heads (Brix 2004: 54). Amun, the god venerated at Thebes, was sometimes represented under the guise of Kematef, meaning “The Serpent that created the World” (Ibid.). Other myths told of a primeval serpent that brought everything into being and that was “known as the ‘Provider of attributes’ because it named all things and gave them their individual characteristics” (Morris et al., p. 42). A mythical serpent named Sitoʊcoined as “the primeval Serpent of the Egyptians” by Mundkur (p. 82)ʊwas assumed to “encircle” the world and to protect it from persistent untold threats (Morris et al., p. 43). The spirit of the Nile was held to be a snake god dwelling in “the caverns from which the spring floods were supposed to come” (Ibid.).1 Ancient Egyptians did not believe in purely spiritual beings (Amélineau, p. 9). The spirits of gods and those of pharaohs needed to be given a material 1

As Erman (1966: 290 fn.) points out, “That the Nile, or at any rate the inundation, comes from the nether world is an old Egyptian belief.”

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form, especially that of a living creature. This required of necessity the intervention of dearly rewarded experts (Ibid.). The ability of snakes to shed their skin and to start anew impressed the Egyptians, who thought that snakes were capable of regenerating themselves (Lalouette 1995: 38 fn.). Indeed, the Book of the Dead told of a magic formula the shades of the departed would utter so as to be finally transmuted into or reincarnated as a serpent and thereby access immortality (Brix, p. 56).2 Snakes were commonly taken to represent male or female gods, some sacred snakes being named after the very god they were believed to embody (Amélineau, p. 349). Given the near identification of snakes with gods, snakes or snake-gods were often credited with a protective role according again to Amélineau. The Nile valley as a whole was under the protection of two cobra goddesses: Nekhabit at its southern limit, the town of Nekhen (the contemporary El-Kab), and Wadjet at the northern town of Pa, nowadays Buto (p. 346).3 Many provinces of the kingdom were likewise under the protection of a named snake-god, for example SeHathor (“The son of Hathor”) for the province of Denderah, Neb-Speher for Esnech, and Djetfet for Memphis (p. 347). The palace of a pharaoh housed a kerehet, which was the standard name given to “a snake which lives in consecrated places (…) as the guardian-spirit” (Erman 1966: 101 fn.). Protector-snakes were also generically referred to as ha (Amélineau, p. 352). Many families had house-snakes, presumably guardian-snakes (Morris et al., p. 41; Foerster in Bromiley, p. 570). As a rule, the temples devoted to gods—ophidian or otherwise—were protected by serpentine representations above or at the sides of their main entrances.4 That snakes were commonly believed to be exemplary guardiansʊnotably of gatewaysʊin the world of the living as well as in the realm of the dead is corroborated by Maspéro (1967: lxxvii, 61 fn.; also Erman, p. 303 fn.). Both MacCulloch (p. 403) and Maspéro (p. 61-2 fn.) recall that not so long ago each section of the city of Cairo was protected by a “peculiar guardian 2

Dead kings and queens from the city of Thebes were for instance believed to turn into snakes (Chevalier et al., p. 875). The Theban dynasty, the Eleventh, ruled Egypt during the late third and early second millennia BCE. 3 The goddess of Lower Egypt Wadjet (or Uatchit) was “often depicted as a snake that spewed out flaming poison” (Montenegro, 2003). 4 The Egyptian gods, especially the leading ones, “varied over the centuries and according to the ruling Pharaoh’s preference” (Montenegro). Some gods represented the powers of nature, others some abstract concepts such as justice or wisdom. Many were local deities. Numerous gods, or at least some of their attributes, were represented by animals.

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genius (…) which has the form of a serpent,” their common source being a book originally printed in 1836.5 According to Sayce (1893: 529), some Egyptian families still kept house snakes, harras el-bet, in the late nineteenth century. If properly cared for, such snakes would never harm members of the family and would protect them from intruding inimical ophidians. In an inner room of the main temples of serpent-worshipping provinces resided a sacred snake very few people could access. Such snakes, often poisonous ones, were tended by priests (MacCulloch, p. 402-403; Morris et al., p. 41-42). According to Morris et al. (p. 42), “anyone who was accidentally bitten by one of these sacred reptiles was considered to have been divinely favoured.” Such sacred creatures were offered food and drink: barley, honey, and milkʊin addition to incense6ʊ, as attested by Ælianus, a Roman learned man of the early third century CE, who wrote in Greek (MacCulloch, p. 403; Charlesworth, p. 138-39). Once dead, sacred snakes were mummified; those dedicated to Amun, however, were buried in the temple (MacCulloch, p. 403). Pharaohs, it is said, tamed snakes and would order them to comply with their lordly wishes, including killing those who offended them (Brix). The central component of the crown worn by numerous pharaohs, notably those of the twelfth dynasty (1975-1800 BCE), was the uraeusʊfrom iaret, meaning “She who rises” (Brix)ʊa rearing Egyptian cobra poised to strike and kill the enemies of the king. The crowns of twenty-fifth dynasty pharaohs who ruled from c. 750 to 650 BCE showed two cobras. Those emperors hailed from the Nubian kingdom of Kush in contemporary northern Sudan. The main regalia items of an Ancient Nubia king were “a close-fitting cap which usually [had] a diadem encircling it, sometimes covered with rearing snakes” and the double uraeus worn on the forehead: “two rearing cobras” whose bodies weaved back “over his head” (Morkot 2012: 121). Near Napata, the capital city of Ancient Nubia, lies a tabular mountain known today as Djebel Barkal. It was believed in those days to be sacred and closely associated with a god of Egyptian extraction: Amun, “The

5

E.W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (London: Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1836). 6 The ancient Egyptian term sentjer, “incense,” meant literally “that which makes divine” (Lalouette, p. 38 fn.).

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Hidden.”7 The mountain was flanked by a rocky spur said to represent a terrifying rearing cobra with its extended hood. The “great cobra” of Djebel Barkal faced the rising sun (Ikram 2012: 223). Indeed, the head of the mighty serpent was surmounted by a solar disc that was plated with shining gold at the time of the Napatan dynasty (Desroches Noblecourt 1995: 150-51). It appears that the sculptors of one of the leading Napatan kings, namely Taharqa, made some adjustments to the rocky spur “so that its appearance as a cobra could not be doubted” (Bianchi 2004: 153). Many of the kings of Ancient Nubia were crowned at the holy mountain of Djebel Barkal. Charlesworth’s comment (p. 84) is illuminating: The cobra was an ideal choice for the creature who would guard the pharaoh. The Egyptians observed that the cobra had no eyelids and thus would always be awake to guard the pharaoh, a god on earth.

Just like a pharaoh, a sacred cobra was feared as well as revered. No one dared to look a king in the eyes, being notably apprehensive of the potentially spewing uraeus positioned on his forehead. The spittle of an irate pharaoh may have been believed lethal. Long ago Amélineau (p. 354) suggested that a living cobra was fastened to the war helmet of early pharaohs and that their war belt was made of entwined venomous snakes. Such remarkable adornments would have literally terrorised the enemies of Egypt. The list of Egyptian snake-gods provided by Mundkur (p. 94) comprises fourteen different names, including Wadjet, Nekhabit, etc. Nehebkhauʊmeaning “The Soul Swallower” (Amélineau, p. 14)ʊwas a god of the underworld. Renenutet was an agricultural goddess. Wilson (2001: 173) characterises Renenutet as “the serpent-goddess par excellence” in her capacity as mother and wet-nurse. Mertseger was a funerary goddess associated with a pyramidal mountain near Luxor. She has been reported to pay visits to people beset by illness in the form of a snake credited with healing power (Retief et al., p. 190). The great goddess Isis was sometimes represented with a snake entwining her forearm, the motif hinting at the magic power she drew upon to destroy her enemies (Kostuch, p. 116 fn.). Wilson (p. 36) attributes an “ophidian character” to

7

The most important indigenous deity of Nubia, Apedemak, a lion-god, was sometimes represented as “a lion-headed snake” (Yellin 2012: 134).

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Osiris, Isis’ male consort as well as a god of the underworld and of agriculture. According to Retief et al. (p. 191), “in many old Egyptian representations deities are shown holding erect serpents as staffs.” For instance Wadjet was sometimes depicted “with a serpent around her scepter” (Montenegro, 2003).8 The snake-stick motif may have led MacCulloch (p. 403) to emphasise that the serpent was generally connected with life-giving and healing in ancient Egypt. The scene in the Old Testament (Exodus 7: 8-12) whereby a pharaoh summoned the country’s magicians to compete with Aaron, Moses’ brother, fits nicely with what has just been depicted. To impress the pharaoh, Aaron with help from Yahweh had his rod changed into a living snake; local magicians then turned their own walking staffs into snakes; Aaron’s rod or snake swallowed those of his competitors. Snakes were known in ancient Egypt as sa ta, “offsprings of the earth” (Amélineau, p. 353; Brix, p. 54). The subterranean realm was especially filled with snakes and with human-headed ophidian spirits (Amélineau, p. 357-58), some beneficent, others fully evil. According to Vasquez Hoys (2002), the infernal world was represented in paintings by a snake biting its tail.9 Every night in the underworld, the sun god Ra (or Re) was believed to be protected by a mighty reptile: Mehen, “He who encircles” or “He who shrouds.”10 A series of less impressive snakes protected the sun god and his boat, hour after hour, during their 12-hour subterranean journeys through the night. Before rising triumphantly on the eastern horizon, Ra had time and again to overcome Apep (known as Apophis in Greek), his formidable adversary, which was envisioned as “a huge snake, symbolizing darkness, storm, night, the underworld and, of course, death.”11 8

Retief et al. and Montenegro rely respectively on J. T. Bun (1967), “The origin of the caduceus motif.” Journal of the American Medical Association 202 (7); and on E. A. W. Budge (translator), The Egyptian Book of the Dead (New York: Dover Publications, 1967). 9 Also according to Vasquez Hoys, the oruboros represented “the never-ending passage of time” in ancient Phoenicia. The oruboros was sometimes represented in ancient Mesopotamia (Van Buren 1935-36: 62). 10 Ra himself was usually portrayed as “a man with the head of a hawk or falcon, crowned with a solar disk surrounded by the sacred asp” (Montenegro). Mehen apparently replicated the primeval Sito (See above). 11 Source: “Egyptian Gods and Religions.” Accessed November 13, 2009. www.aelives.com/gods.htm. Apep sometimes managed to swallow the barge of the sun god, thereby setting the stage for an eclipse (Morris et al., p. 44).

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Obviously, not all snakes were taken by the ancient Egyptians to be wellwishing. According to an ancient myth featuring a confrontation between the sun and a mighty snake, the former was bitten by the latter, which lay in its path; its burning venom ran through the god’s veins like fire (Keimer, p. 6 fn.).12 The story is known as the legend of Ra, Isis, and the Snake. The great serpent had been fashioned by the goddess Isis, who first mixed earth with the drool of the ageing sky god and then breathed life into the mixture. The myth implies among other things a similarity between sunburns and snake bites and asserts that the burning effect of sunrays was the outcome of a primeval solar envenomation.13 An old story reported by Erman (p. 164-65) tells of a prince doomed to die, whose alert and courageous wife managed to intoxicate with beer the snake that had come one night to kill her sleeping man; she then cut the deadly reptile to pieces with an axe. There were ill-fated days in the year when the evil spirits of the underworldʊmany of whom were certainly snakelikeʊwould roam over the land, people then being advised to remain indoors (Amélineau, p. 360). In contemporary Egypt, the highly poisonous Egyptian cobra and Carpet viper can be encountered in farmland and near water while the horned viper remains a constant threat in the desert (Canova 1994: 190 fn.).

Box 5 Were Modern Egypt Snake-Charmers Immune to Snake Bites? If one compares, as Keimer did (1947), ancient drawings or engravings with current practices, it becomes clear that many of the ways of snakecharmers in Egypt have endured through the ages.14 One of the tricks still used by snake-charmers in the late eighteenth and early decades of the nineteenth centuries was to render a reptile as stiff as a stick by pressing its head in a certain way; the flexibility of its body was restored by manipulating the tail (p. 70, 76). 12

Keimer’s source is A. H. Sayce, The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. 1902), p. 209. As Canova (1994: 191 fn.) notes, the effect of snake venom is compared to fire in some contemporary Egyptian poetic works. 13 Worthy of notice is that the Arabic word ‘ilahat can refer to both the burning sun and a gigantic serpent (Chelhod 1964: 96). 14 “Snake-charmers” were apparently in business early in the third millennium BCE in Mesopotamia (Mundkur 1983: 84). One of the Mesopotamian gods of the Underworld, Nergal, was a snake-charmer (Bottéro et al. 1989: 466).

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Ridding snakes from houses or gardens has long been a task for which snake-charmers have been called for in towns as well as in the rural areas. Other than snake-charmers, all or most people greatly feared snakes, notably intrusive ones. In contemporary as well as in ancient times, the only tools used by a snake-charmer, hawi (pl. huwah) in Arabic, are a stick and a basket. Judging from the numerous written testimonies that have been patiently collected by Keimerʊmost of them quite reliableʊfrom French, English, German, and Italian travellers, the earliest of which dates back to the late sixteenth century, the method of finding and catching snakes was the following: the hawi uses his stick to feel the place; he also relies importantly on his sense of smell; he makes noises using his tongue; once a snake is located, he supplicates the reptile to come out of its hiding place, using hissing-like alliterations; the snake often complies; if it does not come forward he orders it loudly out of its hide-out; the snake finally sneaks out and draws near to the hawi who then spits upon it or next to it, which renders the snake motionless; he picks it up gently with his bare hand and puts it safely in his basket. The hawi method of finding snakes appears, at least in part, to mirror that of a snake calling out for a companion. Some European eye-witnesses have half-heartedly credited huwah with mysterious power over snakes. Keimer (p. 73) was aware that the field of snake-catching was intruded by “charlatans and conjurers.” A number of European travellers have witnessed snake-charmers biting snakes and eating them or sections of themʊincluding the headʊraw, a very gruesome show obviously meant to impress people. These were possibly charlatans. But such behaviour falls within the scope of individuals acting like snake people. Large snakes do feed on smaller snakes. The true huwah were reportedly members of a Sufi sect known as Rifa’iyya (Keimer, p. 59, 61, 65, 74, 76, 79, 80; Canova 1994: 187).15 They always uttered Islamic prayers to be granted protection from snake 15 In Morocco a high-profile Muslim figure of times past, Sidi bin Aissa, was known as “the patron saint of snake-charmers” (Harris 1921: 286). His followers, the members of the Aissawa sect, were mainly people from the lower classes; they travelled from town to town, living on charity while staging street shows including music, dances, recitations, acrobatic feats, and snake-charming (p. 285-86). Westermark (1926, II: 353-55) and Prost-Biraben (1932: 774-75) also provide information about the snake-related sect. According to the former authority, “When a person has been bitten by a snake, an ‘Esawi [Aissawi] is employed to cure him, which he does by making cuts in the skin round the bite and by sucking the blood and the poison.”

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bites and imprecations to order snakes out of their hide-outs (Canova, p. 200-202). In the past the sect was formally headed by a shaykh from Upper Egypt, who acted as a trainer (Canova, p. 188). In recent times, the art of snake-charming was transmitted from father to son. Of the children of a true hawi, the one who as a young boy was seen sharing food with wild snakes would take over from his father (Keimer, p. 78). Many European travellers quoted by Keimer have wondered about the risks taken by huwah while handling poisonous snakes; for instance while staging street “snake-dancing” with cobras. Some felt that the risk was close to nothing since the fangs had been extracted.16 Others had noticed that this was not necessarily so. Still others maintained that even when the fangs are taken out, the danger is not eliminated for good because, and this is a fact of biology (Canova 1994: 190 fn.), venomous snakes are liable after a number of days to develop replacement fangs. Huwah, especially true ones, did take risks. This is evidenced by the fact that there were cases of people severely bitten by snakes that did no harm to snake-charmers (Keimer, p. 53). The fate of a most illustrious Egyptian snake-charmer known as Musa el-Hawi is revealing: he diedʊwithin an hour (Canova, p. 190)ʊfrom a cobra bite in April 1937 at Luksor (Keimer, p. 12). The event ended a very long career of snake-charming. His grandfather had suffered the same fate (Ibid., p. 80), not to mention two of his brothers and one of his sons (Canova, p. 190).17 That huwah often suffered such a fate is attested by local sayings (Ibid., p. 191). Some of Keimer’s informants held that true huwah enjoyed a degree of immunity to snake bites possibly through being inoculated with snake blood (Keimer, p. 61). In fact, the secret training of a new hawi involved the inoculation of cobra venom in doses of growing importance as well as the repeated smearing of the body with a paste, balsam, made of snake fat and cobra venom, inter alia. This is indeed one of Canova’s major documentary findings (p. 191-92).18 Importantly, the inoculation needed to 16

According to Canova (1994: 190), those who did so also made use of nonpoisonous snakes and tended not to be true snake-charmers. 17 Musa el-Hawi was born in Esna, an Upper Egyptian town that appears to have been “an important centre for snake-charmers” (Canova, p. 188). 18 Preventive inoculation was also part of the art of snake-handling in Iraq (Canova, p. 195). According to a legend reported by Canova (p. 193) and taken from Brunel (Essai sur la confrérie religieuse des ‘Aissâoûas au Maroc, 1926), the initial members of the Moroccan Aissawa sect became immune from snake and scorpion venom in the following circumstances: they would not stop complaining

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be repeated year after year. The unfortunate fate of true huwah can be attributed to an excess of self-assurance and irregular self-inoculation. We will learn in chapter 4.12 that preventive inoculation was practised in eastern as well as Southern Africa. The implication is that such a technique is age-old. It probably dates back to the ancient Egyptian epoch. Keimer quotes a health practitioner pointing out that “the Egyptian people credit snake-charmers with (…) knowledge of medicinal plants from the desert” (p. 75). Canova (p. 195) has it from one of his sources that snakecharmers rubbed their limbs with a plant of the Artemisia sp. as a means of inhibiting poisonous snakes from biting them. It was apparently not common that huwah treated people who had been bitten by snakes using medicinal plants. In that respect, modern-day Egyptian snake-charming was at variance with India and Africa, as we shall discover. The healing powers of Egyptian snake-charmers, modern and ancient, must be correlated with the so-called Psylli snake-doctors of the Sirte area in nearby ancient coastal Cyrenaica: “They were reputed to be able to cure snake bite simply by placing their fingers on the injury, or spitting into the wound. If the victim was in serious pain, the antidote was a draught of water which the snake-charmer first swirled round in his mouth. In extreme cases he would apply his naked body to that of the patient, thereby rendering the poison harmless and effecting a perfect cure.” (Morris et al., p. 86)19 It is worthwhile before turning to Mesopotamia to stress that ancient Egyptian folklore is replete with strange ophidian figures. Many snakes of the underworld were depicted with two or more heads; one of them had five heads and was named “Many Faces” (Amélineau, p. 17). Some paintings showed snakes with legs (Morris et al., p. 43), others without legs but with a human head. The tale of The Shipwrecked Sailor features a very long serpent that had a one-metre-long beard, which, as Erman (1966: 31 fn.) comments, was like “the plaited beard of a god.” The body of that marvellous reptile was reportedly “overlaid with gold” and his eyebrows of hunger while their master was wandering in the desert; exasperated, the latter ordered them to eat poisoned food; they caught and ate snakes and scorpions and, miraculously, with no harm to them. That theory was a convenient one to communicate. The secretive Aissawa probably owed their immunity to preventive inoculation. 19 For a somewhat different description also on the basis of old Roman accounts, see Canova (p. 183-84 fn.).

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were “of real lapis lazuli” (p. 31). The legendary snake lived on an island known as Ka, very far upstream on the Nile. It could speak, foretell the future, and shower rare visitors with highly valuable gifts before sending them back to their place of origin. ***** The primordial battle featuring the god Marduk and the dragon-like and female monster Tiamat was the Sumerian counterpart of the Egyptian mythical combat between Ra, the sun god, and the Master of the Underground, Apep. But as far as the more standard reptilian creatures are concerned, “in the earliest art of Mesopotamia the serpent is never depicted as hostile to man, perhaps partly because there are few varieties of venomous snakes in that region” (Van Buren 1935-36: 54). In an old Sumerian script, the snake appeared as a nimble and elusive character, one to imitate in order to move away from evil spirits (Bottéro et al., p. 289, 294). According to Van Buren (Ibid.), Serpents glided out of holes in the ground or out of the water of rivers and canals; hence they were associated with springs and water-courses. This led to the belief that they were connected with the secret sources of water which flowed from the underworld and therefore with the water of life which was found there. In this way the serpent came to be regarded as a chthonic spirit, with wide powers of life and death, healing or destruction. From its association with the underworld, the reptile was thought to be the lord of the minerals hidden in the earth, and thus able to confer riches; its identification with the sources of rivers and brooks gave rise to the belief that it could impart the blessing of fertility to vegetation in general, and to cultivated products in particular.

The Sumerian god Ninazu, “Lord Healer,” was “probably the prototype of all Western-Semitic healing gods” (Wilson 2001: 33). The chief god in two Sumerian cities, Ninazu was the son of a goddess of the netherworld connected with death. Sometimes invoked as “king of snakes” (Wiggermann 1997: 35; Vacín 2011: 258), he was a chthonic deity with clear ophidian traits, just like his son Ningizzida, a name meaning “Lord of the True Tree” (Wiggermann, p. 39; Vacín, p. 253).20 A third representative of this family of gods was Ninmada, a brother of Ninazu, who acted as a snake-charmer for the benefit of a leading Sumerian divinity (Wiggermann, p. 42). 20

Located in the bush, Ningizzida’s cultic centre was known as Gisbanda, a name meaning “Young tree” (Wiggerman, p. 40).

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The most telling piece of visual art underscoring Ningizzida’s reptilian character is the dark green libation vase of Gudea, a Sumerian king of the late third millennium BCE: (…) dedicated to Ningišzida, [it] shows the god in the form of a pair of dragon-snakes intertwined around a pole and apparently trying to sip the libation from the vessel’s orifice while a pair of winged dragons stand behind holding perhaps gate-posts in their forepaws. (Vacín, p. 256)

Ningizzida was not the only Sumerian divinity associated with some monstrous creature. In Van Buren’s view, the entwined-serpents’ motif “always retained its inner meaning and value as an omen of fertility” (p. 55), people being aware that one of the two snakes was male and the other female (p. 60). Ninazu and his brother Ninmada are the gods who brought grain to Sumer (Wiggerman, p. 39).21 According to Vacín, Ningizzida was connected with water, vegetation, agriculture, trees, and the netherworld, i.e. death.22 Krumholz McDonald (1994: 23) states that Ningizzida stood for “fertility, rejuvenation, healing, and even wine.” His relationship to wine was notably through his wife Gestinanna, “Wine of Heaven” (p. 24). It is good to know that baked or dried powdered viper flesh was among “the materia medica of Mesopotamia.” Combined with other reportedly medicinal or apotropaic substances, ophidian flesh, blood, or fat was absorbed by the sick mixed in vinegar or in grape or date wine (Ibid.). Ningizzida was moreover invoked as an enforcer of law and justice, a peculiarity he shared with a more important snake-deity, Istaran (Wiggermann, p. 43; Vacín, p. 257). Known to be the son of An (Sky) and Uras (Earth), that god was worshipped in the city of Der in eastern Sumer and likewise connected with vegetation (Wiggermann, p. 42, 43). Although his representation tended to be anthropomorphic (p. 37 fn.), his son and messenger, Nirah, was depicted as a snake. Ninazu, Ningizzida, and Istaran were lamented as “dying gods”: knowing their connection with vegetation, “it can be safely concluded that these gods died and were resurrected together with the cycle of nature” (p. 41). It is useful to recall that snakes in Mesopotamia hibernate during the cold 21 A Sumerian snake-god unrelated to Ninazu, Tispak, was associated with a plough (Wiggermann, p. 38-39). 22 The people of Mesopotamia appear to have assimilated tree roots to snakes (Vacín 2011: 257). The Sumerian god of agriculture was Ninurta, meaning “The Lord of the (arable) land” (Bottéro et al., p. 338).

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season and that the warmth of spring brings them out of their subterranean hide-outs. A Babylonian serpent deity known as Sachanʊperhaps another designation for Istaranʊwas worshipped in Der as an “independent deity” and as “lord of life” (Foerster in Bromiley, p. 570). Vasquez Hoys (2002) also refers to a “mysterious” Babylonian serpent-godʊa goddess in her opinionʊknown as Sahan and revered as a nurturer of health. Istar, the Mesopotamianʊmore exactly Akkadianʊgoddess of war, sexual love, and fertility was likewise associated with snakes. She was Istaran’s sister (Wiggermann, p. 42).23 According to Mundkur (1980: 216) the goddess bore the title of Usumgal, “Great Serpent.” The high gods of ancient Mesopotamia were sometimes admiringly called Usumgal, a mighty legendary dragon (Bottéro et al., p. 191 fn.). According to Wiggermann (p. 48), the people of Mesopotamia lost interest in their snake-gods during the first half of the second millennium BCE. ***** The Sumerian Epic of the ruthless king of Uruk was widely known in the second millennium BCE, if not before, in southern Mesopotamia and beyond. Son of a minor goddess and of a king, Gilgamesh was a man of outstanding physical strength and pride.24 Seeking immortality, he managed to locate on a distant island the one and only individual, a wise and venerable old man, to enjoy unending life.25 By falling asleep instead of staying awake, he failed the first test that would have made him immortal. Thanks to the wife of the old man, he was offered a second chance. Gilgamesh was confided the secret of a plant capable of restoring 23

One of Istar’s geographically distant manifestations was Astort, the fertility goddess of Cyprus, whose temple was located at Paphos. Emblematic of the goddess of Paphos was “a pillar entwined by a serpent” (MacCulloch, p. 402). Astort was displaced in Cyprus by the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, in the middle of the second millennium BCE. 24 There are many accounts of the Epic of Gilgamesh, notably on the Web. See, for instance: www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM. 25 This unique privilege had been granted by Ea, the Akkadian counterpart of the Sumerian god Enki, to an old man named Um-Napishti (“purity of life”), who had been the sole survivor of the Deluge (Deonna 1956: 11). In the Sumerian version of the Great Flood, the same hero was known as Ziusudra, “Extended Life,” or Atrapasis (Bottéro et al., p. 586). Um-Napishti and Ziusudra were predecessors of Noah.

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youth and which thrived on the ocean floor. The hero reached the sea bottom with stones tied to his feet, plucked out the plant, and swam back ashore. Rather than ingurgitating it on the spot, Gilgamesh brought the plant back to Uruk in order to try it on an elderly person. On the way he made a stop to rest, but once again fell asleep.26 A snake showed up, ate the plant, and crawled away. From that moment, so goes the story, snakes have been credited with the faculty to shed their skin and the prerogative of rejuvenation. The snake appears prominently in another major Sumerian legend. The story has been recorded on a cuneiform tablet found at Niniveh and dating back to the seventh century BCE. It tells of the quest of King Etana of Kish, a city to the north of Uruk, to find a plant that would make him capable of siring a male heir. King Etana is known to have ruled Kish in the early or middle third millennium BCE. The magic plant was to be found in the upper reaches of the sky. Etana used an eagle to get to it. The first part of that story is relevant to our study. Etana had to rescue and heal an eagle before mounting it for his perilous flight to the heavens. The snake that resided by the roots of the great tree where it nested had bitten the eagle in revenge for its young ones, which the great bird had preyed upon, thereby breaking a pact of non-aggression. The story emphasises the honesty of the snake. In contradiction to so many later stories, the snake is not the one guilty of treachery. Wilson (2001: 14, 80) portrays it in this legend as the “innocent” or “humble” victim. The tale may have been an allegory, the snake symbolising the indigenous people of Kish and the eagle representing some foreign dominating group preying upon them until the populace rebels. In Vacín’s opinion, snake symbolism in ancient Mesopotamia exhibits “a dual nature,” ophidians representing “healing powers” on the one hand and the “powers of justice” on the other hand (p. 258). Their association with healing was underpinned by their assumed superior lease on life and their role as justice-makers by their venomous bite. Snakes were additionally connected with water, the ground, the netherworld, and vegetation.

26

Chap. 4.4 will take up the association of immortality and “awakeness.” In what is perhaps the standard account of the myth, the snake takes away the plant of immortality while Gilgamesh is refreshing himself in a pool. Snakes are often connected with water.

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Box 6 Moon-Gods, Vessels, Drinking Serpents, and Medicines Horemheb, an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled in the thirteenth century BCE, is reported to have said: “I shall be reborn like the moon” (Galán 2000: 259 fn.). Indeed, the ever-recurring lunar cycle of death and rebirth makes “the moon the heavenly body above all concerned with the rhythms of life” and death (Eliade 1996: 154; also 1964: 139). Long before Horemheb, the male moon-god Sin—also known as Suen or Nanna—was one of the major Mesopotamian divinities. Lord of waters and the establisher of vegetation (Ibid., 1964: 143, 145), he was the chief god of the cities of Ur and Harran (Bertman 2003: 123). When just before the new moon, that god was not visible in the night sky, he was said by the Mesopotamians to be “in the netherworld” (Ibid.), the place of the dead, but also of serpents. Sin’s sign was a crescent (Eliade 1996: 446). Commenting on an ancient Sumerian sculpture, Hentze (1964: 186) notes that “the symbol of the moon-god Sin is a serpent that drinks from a lunar crescent,” i.e. from a crescent-shaped bowl. As with Sin snakes were connected with water in addition to the moon. Moon and snakes had much in common: “The moon is a visible symbol of death and renewal” while “the serpent sheds its skin and symbolizes renewal” (Ibid., p. 183). Likewise, as noted by Charlesworth (p. 260), “since the snake appears to die and live again, the waxing and waning of the moon is often depicted symbolically as a serpent.”27 Known as “Lugalbanda in a mountain cave,” an age-old Sumerian story upholds the connection between the moon-god and snakes. Overcome with sickness, the young Lugalbanda—the future king of the city of Uruk28— was left in a cave by his older brothers on the war path; he implored Sin to rescue him from death, glorifying his power and saying: “When your heart becomes angry, you spit your venom at evil like a snake which drools poison.” The hero miraculously recovered. The lunar crescent symbol seems to have evolved into a bowl. The “drinking snake” does appear on many Mesopotamian vessels, sculptures, and inscriptions. An ancient Mesopotamian boundary stone features a 27

Commenting on contemporary Central African representations, Moen (2005: 58) writes: “Both the moon and the snake emerged beaming with new life and energy.” 28 Lugalbanda, it is said, succeeded Enmerkal as the ruler of Uruk. According to some, he became Gilgamesh’s father.

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snake drinking from a crescent-shaped bowl. Ritual containers were often decorated with a snake moving up the rim, undulating alongside the rim, or winding its way toward the spout, “with the head of the snake sometimes dipping into the opening, as if to drink from the vessel” (Krumholz McDonald, p. 21). The substance the snake drank from “the dish of immortality” was, according to Hentze (p. 186), the endlessly repeating life of the moon itself, viewed as the source of all rejuvenation. Krumholz McDonald (p. 25) suggests that such vessels were possibly filled with a medicine basically made from two commonly associated ingredients: wine and snake flesh. The “drinking serpent” theme later resonated from ancient Greece to ancient China. In ancient Greece both Asklepios, the local god of medicine and healing, and his daughter Hygieia were intimately associated with snakes.29 Her own cult started in Athens in the early decades of the fifth century BCE. The combined image of cup and serpent or of the goddess Hygieia feeding a snake was a common Greek artistic motif (MacCulloch, p. 405; Burnand 1991: 18; Charlesworth, p. 255). MacCulloch (p. 405) assumed that Hygieia’s snake was fed with milk. Old Palestinian artefacts also feature vessels decorated with snakes. Charlesworth (p. 111-12, 120) argues that the snake does not drink the liquid the vessel holds but merely protects its content. It is appropriate to recall that ancient Egyptians used to offer milk, a liquid as white as the moon itself, to sacred snakes. We will see below that this was a common ritual practice in ancient and modern India as well as in traditional Eastern Africa. In Middle Age Europe, Hygieia’s vessel became the mortar used by alchemists or pharmacists to prepare drugs and her snakes became the providers of substances used in the making of medicine (Burnand, p. 28). Up to the eighteenth century, an old “viper-wine remedy” known as theriac was “seen as a universal panacea for ills” and “thought to strengthen and invigorate one’s health immeasurably” (Krumholz McDonald, p. 21). Combined with a serpent, the bowl is the current symbol of the Hungaryan pharmacist profession. Hygieia’s bowl is in fact “the most widely recognized international symbol for the profession of pharmacy.”30

29

For Asklepios, see chap. 2.2. The word ‘hygiene’ derives from the Greek hygieia. 30 Source: http://www.thepharmacyexpert.com/Hygieia.htm

CHAPTER 2.2 GODS, SNAKES, AND HEROES IN ANCIENT GREECE

In old Egyptian fashion, snakes have been coined “sons of the earth” by Herodotus (MacCulloch, p. 404), the famous fifth century BCE Greek historian. Two olden stories supplied by Vernant (1963: 42) vividly underscore the tellurian polarity of snakes. A newly-born royal child is left naked on the bare ground by its careless wet nurse; it is immediately bitten to death by a venomous snake. Placed on the bare ground before an invading army, a naked baby transforms itself into a snake, which disappears into the earth; the scene frightens and scatters the invaders. The iconographic relics of the snake-holding goddess of Minoan Crete, dated about 1600 BCE, are well-known. One of her counterparts was the goddess Athirat, who was “the ‘procreatrix’ of all lesser gods” as well as the consort of El, the supreme god of Ugarit, a coastal city of ancient Syria, which ceased to prosper by about 1200 BCE. Athirat “often appears nude, holding serpents in one hand or both hands” (Charlesworth, p. 345). An old Cretan story echoes quite clearly the legend of Gilgamesh. It features Glaukos, the son of Minos, king of Crete, and of queen Pasiphae. MacCulloch (p. 409) and Deonna (1956: 15) provide summaries of this tale. A detailed account was readily found in a book written by Persson. As a little boy Glaukos fell in a jar half-filled with honey while he was racing after a fly or a mouse. The boy died of suffocation. Desperate to find his only heir, whether dead or alive, Minos appealed to a number of diviners. Minos compelled one of them, Polyidos, who appeared more skilled in the art of divination, to find his boy. As Polyidos was successful, the king insisted that the diviner bring his son back to life: While in this great perplexity, he saw a snake approach the corpse. Fearing for his own life should any harm befall the boy’s body, Polyidos threw a stone at the serpent and killed it. Then a second snake crept forth, and when it saw its mate lying dead it disappeared, only to return with an herb

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Polyidos was overcome with astonishment. He then applied the same herb to the corpse, thereby raising Glaukos from the dead. Greek iconography and mythology owe much to ancient Crete in addition to being “deeply influenced by Egyptian ophidian symbolism” (Charlesworth, p. 125). But here again Near-Eastern influence was clearly discernible. Indeed, the old Sumerian story of Gilgamesh had its Greek equivalent. In this case, the secret of unending life is not to be found in the deep sea but in the abode of the gods. The myth is as follows: Some men went to tell Zeus, the king of gods, that the god named Prometheus had stolen Fire from him in order to teach humans how to use it; as a reward, Zeus gave these men a medicine against ageing; the medicine was loaded on a donkey; as it was a hot summer, the tired and thirsty donkey came upon a snake which was in its hole or was guarding a spring, and asked it for water; the snake accepted on the condition that the ass handed it the load it was carrying, an offer which the donkey accepted.2

Box 7 Zeus and the Gift of Immortality Reeve (1996-97: 245) recalls a scene from a book written by the Greek historian and mythographer Apollodorus (second century BCE). The mortal Endymion was granted eternal youth by Zeus, the Lord of the Greek gods. However, he could never sleep. On his part Charlesworth (p. 1

A more elaborate but similar story entitled “The three snake-leaves” was collected by the Grimm brothers in nineteenth-century Germany. See Henderson et al. (p. 135-38) or McNamee (p. 5-7) for that story. Albanians also knew that snakes could restore dead serpents to life, even if very badly wounded; they believed that the way to prevent that was to cut off the head of a snake (McNamee, p. 52). 2 A somewhat similar story has been recorded among the Limba of Sierra Leone (See chap. 3.3). The Greek word used in the myth for “medicine” is pharmakon. Greek mythology offers yet another relevant example of stealing from Zeus for the benefit of humans. The object of this theft was ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink that nurtured the immortality of the gods. The thief was the unfortunate Tantalus. Along the same line, the sea-nymph Calypso welcomed disaster-stricken Ulysses on her island for many years. Enamoured of Ulysses, she offered him the food of immortality on the condition that he remained forever with her. But the hero longed for his wife and son. In Homer’s Iliad, the corpses of two dead warriors, Sarpedon and Patroclus, are anointed with ambrosia to prevent decay.

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259) recalls from Homer’s Hymn to Aphrodite the story of the goddess Eos, “Dawn,” who persuaded Zeus to confer immortality on her mortal lover. More details are available on the Web: “In her haste for Zeus’s approval, Eos did not ask for perpetual youth for Tithonos and, as the years passed, he began to age until he finally lost all strength in his limbs. Eos, with love and pity, put him in a private room and shut the shining doors.”3 Krappe (1938: 289) was among the first contemporary analysts to revive, after the eighteenth-century French writer Voltaire, the tale of the donkey and the snake.4 This tale has become identified with the Greek poet Nicander, who lived in the second century BCE. Nicander appears to be the Greek author to have written the most about snakes. His Theriaca describes more than a dozen snakes, notably the common viper, the horned viper, the cobra, and the so-called amphisbaena, an ophidian said to have a head at both ends of its body. His book also deals with the effects of their poisons. A poet as well as a physician, Nicander lived at Colophon in Ionia, Asia Minor. Some five centuries later, the Roman naturalist Ælianus reported the same story about the snake and the donkey. Both Nicander and Ælianus appear to have relied on earlier Greek writings reaching back to the fifth and sixth centuries BCE (Deonna 1956: 19). Deonna (p. 342-44, 351-52) offers useful clues for a better understanding of the tale. The snake and the donkey were both correlated with water: the latter was reputed to be always successful at finding watering places; the second was known to live near water. It is good to recall that according to one version of the Gilgamesh story, the hero was deprived of the gift of immortality while he was in a pool. The Greek term applied to the snake of the present story is įȚȥĮȢ, “dipsas,” a venomous snake reportedly found in Libya, whose bite was known to cause an acute thirst followed by death. Now, the donkey was also characterised by its proverbial thirst. Deonna suggests that the donkey transferred to the snake not only the medicine of perpetual regeneration but also a proverbial want for water, which was wholly transferred to the unfortunate victims of the dipsas’ bite. Let us now turn to one of Zeus’ offspring: Hermes, whose mother was a mountain nymph. Hermes was the gods’ messenger but he also guided 3

See http://www.mythagora.com/bios/eos.html. Accessed January 12, 2014. Leaving aside Voltaire and Krappe (1938), the few recent writers to refer to the old Greek story are notably Deonna (1956: 17-9), Reeve (1996-97: 245-46), Fourcade (p. 190), and Charlesworth (p. 259).

4

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human souls to the underworld. He once saw two snakes fighting each other; he used a stick to separate them; they coiled symmetrically around it and remained in place (Burnand, p. 8). The stick became his emblem, the kêrukeion (Retief et al., p. 190), better known in Latin as caduceus. A Greek cultural hero closely associated with stick and snakes was Asklepios, known to the Romans as Aesculapius. A native of Thessaly, he may have lived around 1200 BCE.5 Asklepios later came to be known as the son of the god Apollo and of a mortal lady. His cult flourished in Rome, especially at the turn of the Christian era. He also had contemporary counterparts elsewhere along the shores of the Mediterranean, notably Eshmun, the Phoenician god of healing, who was likewise symbolized by a serpent (Charlesworth, p. 256, 344-45). Carthage, an ancient city founded in present-day Tunisia by the Phoenicians, also revered a healing snake representing Eshmun (ProbstBiraben 1947: 104). The mythical circumstances of Asklepios’ birth are worth mentioning. His mother Koronis, a Thessalian princess, reportedly had a love affair with a man while being pregnant with Apollo’s child. Out of jealousy, the god immediately killed her or had her killed. While her dead body was being given to the flames, Apollo learned that she was with child. He rushed to save the foetus. According to another version, he sent Hermes to remove the unborn child from the dying mother’s womb. The rescued boy, i.e. Asklepios, was later entrusted by his lordly genitor to a centaur, who taught him the use of drugs and the art of surgery. Asklepios also benefited from magic potions handed to him by Athena, a war goddess with ophidian connections. He or his sons healed a leading warrior bitten by a snake at the time of the Trojan War. Asklepios was ultimately killed by Zeus, the supreme god, after Hades, the master of the underworld, complained that his ability to cure was preventing people from dying. Asklepios could even return the dead back to life. Sick people flocked to Asklepios’ temple at Epidaurus to be relieved from sickness or cured of wounds. In the healing traditions initiated by him, harmless snakes crawled freely in the temple in the midst of the sick and injured. As Charlesworth (p. 163) notes, “tame snakes considered sacred were fed by devotees at the shrines of Asclepius.” According to one 5

According to Foerster (in Bromiley, p. 569), Asklepios was “originally an earthgod of Thessaly.” Magri (2007: 412-13 fn.) mentions two scholars, one Italian, one German, who suggested that Asklepios was originally a “snake-god.”

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authority relied upon by Magri (2007: 423), snakes would lick the wounds and sores of the sick. The latter would sleep in the temple and have dreams telling them of ways to improve their health. Indeed “women slept in the temple of Asklepios and thought themselves visited by the serpent-god in their dreams, and their offspring was believed to be the result of the visit” (MacCulloch, p. 410). An Italian folktale reported by McNamee (p. 127-28) seems to echo ageold Aesculapian beliefs. A cave known as La Grotta dei Serpi, “The serpents’ cavern,” is said to be located north of Rome. Those suffering from various skin diseases would lie down naked in the small cave, be licked by many snakes throughout the night while sleeping, and wake up cured. Worth noting is that the famous first-century CE Greek physician Dioscorides “prescribed viper flesh soaked in wine for the nerves, eyesight, and longevity.” He also recommended cast-off viper skin against earache, toothache, and as eye medication (Krumholz McDonald, p. 22). Asklepios’ emblem of office was a stout staff with a single snake coiled around it. According to Charlesworth (p. 457), the snake sacred to Asklepios was a reddish-brown adder. The former ended up in the sky as the constellation Ophiuchus, “serpent-bearer,” in recognition of his contribution to the welfare of mortals.6 Another of Apollo’s sons was connected with snakes. The god had a love affair with a mortal female, who gave birth to a son. Named Iamos, the baby was raised and fed honey by snakes; he was to become the founder of a major Greek priestly family (Chevalier et al., p. 873).

Box 8 The Snake in Roman Times The Romans used to keep domestic snakes, known as genii loci or “spirits of the place”: “This house-snake of the Romans was regarded as the guardian of the penus” (Lazenby, p. 248). The latter Latin term refers to provisions and victuals. Rats and other vermin would relish such food. 6

Magri (2007, end-notes 31 and 32) provides a list of the recent publications devoted to Asklepios as well as a list of the main Greek and Latin sources referring to this hero or god. The Web is rich in information about Asklepios. See for instance “Asklépios. Dieu de la médecine grecque antique.” Accessed November 15, 2009. www.aly-abbara.com/histoire/Mythologie/Grece/Asklepios_Esculape.html.

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Morris et al. (p. 47) are less definite on the role of house snakes: “Amongst the Romans every man had his guardian in the form of a snake. They were fed and encouraged to take up residence in the house.” The common European rat snake (Elaphe longissima romana) is also known as the Aesculapian snake. This type of snake was reportedly introduced from Asklepios’ temple at Epidaurus to Rome in the third century BCE. In those days, the city had been plagued for three years by a major epidemic which, it is said, subsided thereafter. The Romans, writes Charleswoth (p. 255), “imagined the serpent [brought from Epidaurus] was Asclepius.” In the temple, which was then built for this god of healing on an island on the Tiber River near Rome, water was used to heal the sick (Charlesworth, p. 111). The Aesculapian cult culminated in much of the Roman Empire in the second century CE (Magri, p. 410-12). By then “no god was more revered and had more devout followers” in the whole empire (Charlesworth, p. 164). Another facet of ophidian symbolism in the closing century of the preChristian era relates to death-dealing snakes. Imperial propaganda assimilated the fear inspired by the Roman armies to that generated by venomous serpents (Kostuch, p. 117-18). Such ophidians were mostly identified with Northern Africa, especially Libya, a region reputed in Rome to be “the kingdom of reptiles” (p. 119). A legend tells that in the early steps of the first Roman expedition to Northern Africa against the Carthaginians in the mid-third century BCE, General Regulus and his troops were confronted by a gigantic cave-dwelling, hissing, venomous serpent (Bassett 1955).7 Such awe-inspiring creatures sharply contrasted with the harmless life-promoting ophidians of Roman households. According to Bodson (p. 527-28), the Romans’ perception of snakes differed markedly from that of the Greeks: “Whereas the Greek texts, even those dealing with myth, betray a level of genuine knowledge of snakes,8 it has not been so with Roman writings which have treated the animal rather expediously and have identified it symbolically with mostly negative forces.” Her appreciation of the cultural status of the serpent in the Roman Empire rests exclusively on literary sources. It ignores the influence of the 7 The early Latins believed in a fabulous crowned serpent known coincidentally as Regulus (Jeffreys 1942: 252). As a common term, the Latin word has to do with kingship. 8 No fewer than 41 words denoting snakes or identifying a type of snake appear in ancient Greek texts (Charlesworth, p. 452).

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Aesculapian cult in the first and second centuries CE. It is also at odds with the ancient custom of keeping house snakes and with the popularity of the anguine jewellery in Pompei in the first century CE: “gold, silver and bronze serpent armbands, earrings, and especially bracelets”ʊpossibly used as protective charmsʊ, not to mention the frequent use of ophidian motifs to decorate walls and earthenwares” (Charlesworth, p. 101-102; also Magri, p. 411). According to Vasquez Hoys (2002), the citizens of Pompei believed that the souls of the dead remained in graves as snakes. Another significant aspect of the Roman religious experience must be taken into account: the serpent cave near the city of Lanuvium in the Latium area near Rome. The entrance of the long dark cave was located in a sacred grove and next to a temple dedicated to the city goddess, Juno Sospita. Every year virgins were taken to that cave “to prove their chastity” and “if the serpent accepted the offerings brought to them, their chastity was proved and also a fertile season ensured” (MacCulloch, p. 404). According to Janan (2001: 116), “the rite of Lanuvium explicitly sacralizes virginity in the service of (agricultural) fertility.” As we shall see in a moment, the Roman virgins corresponded to the young priestesses of ancient Greece. In both cases, the role of the sacred snakes was to foretell a bright or a gloomy future. Greek mythology offers a range of other serpent’s manifestations, notably the following: – According to an ancient Greek mythical tradition, the first ruler of Olympos was Ophion, “The Snake” (Austin, p. 96). Ophion and his wife Eurynome were overthrown by two other Titan gods: Kronos and his consort Rhea. – Zeus, the lord of the Greek gods, was often associated with snakes even though he was paradoxically viewed as a sky god. Zeus was reportedly born in the Dictaen cave (eastern Crete) because his mother Rhea wanted to protect him from his father Kronos. Rustic spirits or demons were appointed to take care of the baby. In being born in a cavern and being guarded by tellurian spirits, Zeus had something snake-like. Indeed, under the name Meilichios, “The Kindly God,” Zeus was sometimes portrayed as a bearded serpent on Athenian votive tablets (Mundkur 1983: 70-71; Austin, p. 94), a representation mirroring the legendary Egyptian serpent that lived in a remote island on the Nile River. The ophidian character of Zeus has also been underscored by MacCulloch (p. 404, 409). Moreover, on a number of occasions, this insatiable god turned himself into a snake to seduce goddesses as well as human females.

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His first victim was his own mother Rhea, who had forbidden him to marry. Out of fury Zeus threatened to rape her. She transformed herself into a lethal serpent. Her son did the same, tangled himself “in a knot with his mother that could not be untied” and raped her. The same scenario was replicated when Zeus caught up with Demeter, an earth goddess who transformed herself into a snake to escape from his lustful grip (Austin, 94). In some mythical accounts, Zeus also seduced the maiden goddess Persephone, a daughter of Demeter by him, in the guise of a serpent. Persephone later became the wife of Hades, the great god of the netherworld. She was herself the snake-like goddess of the underworld. As such, she presided over the rebirth of vegetation and the growth of new crops with the return of springtime.9 – The outcome of the incestuous union of Zeus and Persephone was Dionysus, whose cult involved the handling of snakes by devotees or their crowning by wreaths of serpents. The god himself was represented “as both a snake and a phallus” (Charlesworth, p. 222).10 As Wilson (2001: 17) notes, “the serpent was one of the pillars of the cult of Dionysus on Crete in the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE.” In the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ritual

9

Her Roman counterpart was Proserpina, a name in which the old Indo-European root serp or sarp is discernible. According to Ernout et al. (1951: 956), Proserpina was a corruption of proserpo. In normative Latin, a snake might be termed proserpens bestia, that is, a creature moving underground (Ibid.). Proserpina was herself known to make her way below the surface of the earth (Ibid.). Charlesworth’s comments on Persephone and Proserpina may be quoted here: “The serpent, which goes underground seemingly whenever it wishes and hibernates during the winter because it is coldblooded, emerges with the coming of spring and warmth. The connection between serpent symbolism and Persephone, who also appears at spring from the underworld—the world of the dead—is evident in Greek and Roman symbolism.” (p. 351) 10 The story of Psyche provides another vivid illustration of the snake as a phallus. Psyche was a mortal princess of phenomenal beauty. Men were so fascinated by her that none of them ever thought of asking her hand in marriage. Her beauty was a malediction rather than a blessing. In order to find a husband for his beloved daughter, her father went to consult the famous oracle at Delphi. He was told that Psyche’s fate was to become the wife of a terrible winged serpent. Dressed in black, she was brought to the top of a mountain and was carried from there to a wonderful palace. The monster, which only came at night, turned out to be a handsome god, none other than Eros, who had fallen victim to his own medicine, i.e. falling in love.

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involved the kissing by the neophytes of a snake representing the goddess Demeter (Douglas 1997: 275, 375, referring to Jung). – Another reputed victim of Zeus’ inordinate attraction towards goddesses and women was Olympias. King Philip of Macedonia divorced her. She later gave birth to Alexander the Great: “Zeus was his father. Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, had come to Olympias in the form of a snake. (…) Philip did acknowledge that [Olympias] would sometimes sleep with snakes in their bed.”11 Olympias had been a “sacred prostitute” in the Ægean island of Samothrace where she had snakes as familiars (Cazenave, p. 625). Two lesser Greek heroes were reportedly begotten by a god or spirit in serpent guise: Aristomenes in the seventh century BCE and Aratos in the third century BCE (Kostuch, p. 121; Lentano 2011, par. 18).12 – Some old Greek tales recounted that snakes sometimes took milk from the breasts of sleeping mothers, thereby creating a foster brotherhood with their children (Probst-Biraben 1932: 774).13 – Æneas, the son of Aphrodite (goddess of Love) and Anchises and a cousin of Priam, once left food at his father’s tomb on the anniversary of his death; a snake came out, tasted the offerings and then disappeared. The snake was an embodiment of his father’s 11

Source accessed June 11. 2013: C. Whitten, Alexander the Great. World Conqueror. www.interesting.com/stories/alexander/#zeus. Chandra Sinha (p. 57) also reports that Alexander was sired by a snake, his source being Plutarch. Whitten adds: “In 331 BCE, the Egyptian oracle at Siwa confirmed that Alexander was the son of Zeus. Actually, the oracle confirmed that he was the son of Ammon, but Ammon is the Egyptian equivalent of Zeus in nearly as clear a way as Jupiter is his Roman equivalent.” As noted in a foregoing chapter, Ammon (Amun) was represented by a huge snake known as Kematef. 12 Aratos’ mother is sometimes reported to be Asklepios’ own wife (Eliade 1964: 148). On the Roman side, two great military leaders were reputedly sired by spirit snakes: Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal in the third century BCE, and Augustus Caesar, born Octavian, who overcame the armies of Anthony and Cleopatra in the first century BCE (Kostuch, p. 121; Lentano, par. 19-20). In his Twelve Caesars, Suetonius has the following story about Octavian’s mother Atia: she went along with other women to attend a midnight service at the temple of Apollo; while she was sleeping in the temple a serpent came to her; on awakening she purified herself as if she had had a sexual relation; an irremovable serpent mark then appeared on her body, which prevented her from going to public baths; months later, she gave birth to Octavian. 13 The motif of a snake sucking milk from the breast showed up in Moroccan folklore (Westermark 1926, II: 350-51).

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ghost. That the offerings were tasted by the snake may have implied that they were well received by the deceased. In one of Aeschylus’ (525-456 BCE) tragedies, Queen Clytemnestra dreams of giving birth to a snake, which bites her breast when she attempts to nurse it. The diviner she consults tells her that the dead are angry, the dead referring here more specifically to the soul of her lawful husband, King Agamemnon, whom she had killed with help from her lover.14 – Kekrops, the primeval founder of Athens, was half-man, halfserpent (Gourmelen 2004). – Since time immemorial, a genius known as oikouros ophis, “domestic snake,” protected the Acropolis of Athens (Brulé 1987: 25-26; Robertson 1996: 61-63, 76), especially the old temple of Erechtheion dedicated to goddess Athena (Burnand, p. 16). Kekrops’ tomb was next to it. That temple was known to contain in its basement a crypt covered by a stone slab, where sacred snakes reportedly resided.15 The oikouros ophis was identified with Erichtonios, “He of the very earth,” who resulted from a fleeting encounter at the time of Kekrops between goddess Athena and the male god Hephaistos. Oikouros ophis was fed every year in his cave with honey cakes; when it did not accept the food offering, the Athenians knew that their city would fall prey to its foes in the coming months.16 A similar pattern occurred in Epirus, a region encompassing north-western Greece and southern Albania. Next to a temple dedicated to Apollo was a holy grove, which was home to sacred snakes. At the beginning of each year, they were offered food by a naked virgin priestess. If the snakes proved friendly and accepted the food, the year would be prosperous; otherwise a bad year was to be expected.17

14

This story brings to mind the suicide of Cleopatra who, once defeated, reputedly let a snake bite her breast. Kostuch (2009) convincingly argues that this episode was a fabrication, a pure product of Augustus Caesar’s propaganda. The snake that reputedly killed the Egyptian queen may have been Octavian himself in his double capacity as military commander and as the so-called son of a serpent. 15 http://francoib.chez-alice.fr/rodier/rodsanct/grsp35.htm and http://www.portergaud.edu/academic/faculty/cmcarver/erec.html. 16 The genius was the ancient Greek counterpart of the Roman genii loci and of the persisting Hindu vastu sarpa (See below chap. 2.3). 17 This is reported by Róheim (1972: 300) and Charlesworth (p. 158), the latter’s source being Ælianus. See Box 8 for a Roman illustration of the same theme.

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– Greek mythology provides additional instances of the snake’s power to foreshadow events to come. The famous Pythia, the woman who made prophecies at Delphi under the aegis of the same Apollo, substituted for Python, a monstrous snake killed by Apollo, then a young child. Cassandra was the prophetic daughter of Priam, king of Troy. In her girlhood, Cassandra had spent a whole night in one of Apollo’s temples with her twin brother Helenus. They were both found in the morning with snakes enlacing them and licking their ears. From that they gained the ability to foresee future events. But as a maiden Cassandra refused the sexual advances of Apollo, who then laid a curse on her: her prophecies, although true, would never be believed. In Book 2 of Homer’s Illiad (eight century BCE), a snake is seen crawling out from under the altar while the Achaian warriors are making sacrifices in the city of Aulis on their way to Troy; it moves up a tree and devours a nest of eight little birds plus their mother; a soothsayer tells the Achaians that the nine birds represent the fully nine years they would spend besieging the city of Troy before capturing it.18 – The story of one of the more famous soothsayers of ancient Greece features a connection of some sort between snakes and prophecy. An ordinary man named Tiresias was walking in a wood; he saw two large snakes copulating. He struck them with his staff, killing the female snake. He was immediately transformed into a woman. Years later Tiresias was confronted with the same scene and acted similarly, this time killing the male snake, thereby instantly recovering his original sex. In those days, Zeus and his wife Hera had an argument as to which sex enjoyed sexual intercourse the most. They decided to consult Tiresias, the only one, god or human being, to be able to settle the argument impartially. Tiresias asserted that women enjoyed sex more than men, thereby siding with Zeus. Out of anger Hera struck him blind. By way of compensation, Zeus granted him the power to make prophecies.19 18

A late example of the oracular snake occurred in the second century CE at Ionopolis (formerly Abonoteichus), a Turkish town on the Black Sea. The initiator of the widely known but ephemeral cult of Glykon, the bearded snake, was a Greek “false priest” known as Alexander (Magri 2007: 431-32). 19 See Tiresias by J. Hunter. Accessed February 25, 2013. http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/tiresias.html. See also “Tiresias” by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Accessed December 27, 2012. , http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/596811/Tiresias. Another version of the story holds that Tiresias became blind upon seeing goddess Athena naked.

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Another interesting case is the goddess Artemis, whose mother was the mortal Leto and whose father was Zeus. Known to the Romans as Diana, she was the twin sister of Apollo and the virgin goddess of the hunt. While her brother was associated with the sun, the moon was a feature of Artemis’ cult. In Athens and elsewhere in southern Greece, the goddess was honoured notably by maidens. Her emblematic animals were the bear, the deer, and also the snake as the following story illustrates. With support from Apollo, Admetus, a prince of Thessaly, won the contest set up by King Pelias to select among the very many suitors a husband for his beloved and very beautiful daughter Alcestis. The marriage was celebrated but Admetus failed to hold a ritual to propitiate the goddess Artemis, the protectress of maidens. The offended deity filled the bridal bed with snakes, thereby preventing the consummation of the union. Admetus made a sacrifice to Artemis and the reptiles disappeared. The following comment brings out the implicit connections between moon, maidens, and snakes: The characteristic disappearance and regeneration of the moon link its symbolism to that of the snake, which is cunning at concealing itself and which regularly casts off and renews its skin. Being tellurian, the snake is also closely associated with the fertility of the earth. Moreover, to many tribes, the snake is endowed with “moon force” and is responsible for the menstruation and the fertility of women. (Stevens, p. 194)

Equally worth mentioning is the well-known story of Orpheus and Eurydice, a tree nymph. The former was the musically gifted son of the king of Thrace. Euridyce fell in love with him as he was playing his lyre and singing in a wood. Orpheus himself fell in love with the exceedingly beautiful nymph. Shortly after the marriage ceremony, Eurydice ran away from another man who was desirous of her. While fleeing she stepped on a venomous snake, which bit her to death. To retrieve her the disconsolate Orpheus went to the underworld, the realm of the dead. His risky adventure was almost successful. The unfortunate event was seemingly accidental. Still, the story highlights the close connections between snakes, death, and the netherworld.20 *****

20

In terms of covert symbolism, the story might be interpreted as follows: Eurydice was preyed upon by a phallic-like snake, an event which prevented her from being raped by her pursuer and which also ruled out the consummation of her marriage.

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The ancient Greeks were also fearful of serpents, as the following excerpt from Homer’s Illiad reminds us: When [Paris] saw Menelaus there, Among the fighters at the front, his heart sank. He moved back into the ranks, among his comrades, Avoiding death. Just as a man stumbles on a snake In some mountainous ravine and gives way, jumping back, His limbs trembling, his cheeks pale, so godlike Paris, Afraid of Atreus’ son [= Menelaus], slid back among proud Trojan ranks. (Book III, lines 30-36)21

Malevolent or cruel serpents, primeval or not, played their part in Greek mythology. The first of the great monsters was the hundred-headed, fieryeyed, lava-spitting Typhon, the offspring of the earth goddess Gaia and of Tartarus, a primeval god of the underworld. Typhon was destroyed by Zeus, with help from the high gods. A no-less terrifying serpent named Python, whose mother was also the goddess Gaia, guarded a sanctuary and a spring while creating havoc in the land of Pytho, an ancient name for Delphi, until it was destroyed by Apollo.22 Better known are the Gorgons, especially Medusa, who were monstrous feminine creatures living in a distant land, covered with scales, with hair of living snakes, a protruding tongue, sharp fangs and whose terrifying glance would turn any onlooker into stone.23 Whallon (1958: 272) sees the Gorgons as “snake-women.” Son of Zeus and of a mortal princess, Perseus killed Medusa with help from some deities and, once back home, gave goddess Athena the head of the slain Gorgon, which he had brought with him in a special bag. While Perseus was crossing a desert, some drops of Medusa’s blood fell on the 21

Vengeful King Menelaus of Sparta wanted to retrieve his wife Helen, whom Prince Paris had abducted and brought to Troy, his home city. 22 Austin (1990) also reports a theory whereby the name Python would derive from the root pyth-, which appears in the Greek verb pythano, “to inquire, ascertain, understand” (Ibid., p. 88). Python would mean “He who has achieved understanding” (p. 95). This is hardly an appropriate name for a true monster but it does fit with the prophetic power of the Apollonian priestess who took over from it at the shrine of Delphi. It has also been stated that the name Python was connected with the root pythein, “to rot.” 23 This is the ultimate metaphor for the state of being paralysed with fear. Of the three Gorgons, only Medusa could die. Information on the Gorgons is plentiful on the Web. See http://mythologica.fr/grec/gorgone.htm; www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gorgons.html; www.aly-abbara.com/histoire/Mythologie/Grece/images/Meduse_ Capitole_Rome.html. The three Web sites were consulted in January 2010.

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sand to become poisonous snakes. Athena reportedly buried the dreadful head in Athens to protect her city. Still capable of terrifying its enemies, the dead Gorgon became a protective charm.24 Athena was said to have given blood taken from the Medusa’s right side to Asklepios so that he could use it to restore life. The blood from her left side was extremely noxious. Deadly snakes or serpent-like monsters were used by the gods as executioners to eliminate those who displeased them, which was possibly a relic of Egyptian or Mesopotamian lore. One instance was Python, which was commissioned by Hera, Zeus’ jealous sister and future wife, to torment the goddess Leto, who had a love affair with Zeus and gave birth to Apollo. The little boy went after Python and left it dead. Hera later learnt that her husband had seduced a mortal female, Alcmene, who gave birth to a son. Again out of jealousy, Hera sent two snakes to kill the baby boy. Named Herakles and known to the Romans as Hercules, the child managed to strangle the two serpents with his two tiny hands. That came as a prelude to his famous exploits, some of which featured the killing of monstrous snakes or snake-like creatures. One of Herakles’ victims was a many-headed water snake known as the Lernæan Hydra. Another case in point is Laocoon, a Trojan priest dedicated to Apollo, who became unhappy with him because he broke his oath of celibacy and begot children and warned the Trojans against accepting the wooden horse left by the Greeks. Moreover, he was unfortunately selected to conduct a sacrificial ritual to honour another god. The lives of Laocoon and his two sons came to an end when they were crushed by two great sea serpents. A similar creature sent by Poseidon to punish the ruler of an Abyssinian kingdom was destroyed by Perseus in the course of his travels. Each year the local king had to feed the monster with young people. In the end he had to give away his own beloved daughter as prey to the monster. Perseus found the very beautiful maiden, named Andromeda, naked and chained to a rock by the sea. He fell in love with her, learned her story, lay in ambush, and beheaded the monster. The rescue of Andromeda by Perseus was in fact a remake of the slaying by Herakles of a sea-monster sent by 24 Greek ships were sometimes decorated with Medusa’s heads to promote safe navigation. The head of Medusa became the centrepiece of the contemporary Sicilian flag. The terrifying and protective Medusa had much in common with the uraeus displayed on a pharaoh’s crown. The latter has been described as “a protector of the pharaoh, ready to strike and kill his enemies” and as representing “the rearing fire-spewing cobra” (C. Seawright, November 2001, www.thekeep.org/~kunoichi/kunoichi/themestream/wadjet.html).

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Poseidon to take the life of a Trojan princess named Hesione, who had also been tied to a rock off the seashore. Greek mythology offers a number of instances of awesome custodian serpents. Before laying the foundations of the city of Thebes, Kadmos killed a great iron-scaled, fiery-eyed, poisonous serpent that had exterminated his companions. The mighty reptile watched over a local spring, in fact a sacred spring known as Ismenos. Years later Kadmos’ wife witnessed his unfortunate metamorphosis into an ophidian. Having become a reptile, Kadmos soon slipped away into the forest. An analogue of the Ismenean serpent was the Colchian dragon, a giant and ever-awake poisonous serpent that had been instructed by the king of Colchis in the Caucasian mountains to protect a highly coveted golden fleece which was hanging from a giant oak. The great tree was the abode of the mighty serpent. With help from a witch who had fallen in love with him, Jason managed to take the prized fleece away. The witch was none other than the king’s maiden daughter, Medea. She implored Hecate, the queen of the night, and used strong eye-medicine to drag the monster into sleepiness. As for Herakles, he managed to steal the golden apples from a marvellous tree guarded by Ladon, a many-headed and never-sleeping great serpent. That feat took place in the distant Garden of the Hesperides, nymphs of the Evening or daughters of the Night.

Box 9 Serpents as Custodians of Life Symbols The spring of Ismenos was definitely a source of life. In Cooper’s understanding (1978: 74-5), the Golden Fleece stands for “spiritual illumination” and the “regaining of immortality” while the giant oak is a type of “Tree of life” (Ibid.). The Golden Fleece appears to have been an icon of welfare and prosperity, that is, of good life, in central and eastern Mediterranean. According again to Cooper (p. 14), the apples in the legend of the Hesperides denote immortality as they do in some Scandinavian myths. Colin (p. 283, 470) agrees: the Golden Apple of Greek mythology is a symbol of immortality as well as of fecundity. It is useful to note that the tree bearing the marvellous fruit in the Garden of the Hesperides was the property of goddess Hera, a senior sister of Zeus. She had received it from the great earth goddess Gaia in reward for having accepted to becoming Zeus’ wife. Gaia possibly hoped that Hera’s union with Zeus would be as fruitful as an apple tree. Hera had planted the

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precious tree in a sacred garden at the western edge of the world. The Hesperides, the lovely nymphs of sunset, were given the task of tending the grove. Interestingly, it is said that they “occasionally” plucked fruits from the sacred apple tree.25 The Hesperides are therefore evocative somewhat of Eve in Paradise. In Lithuanian folklore, apples evoked love, beauty, and health (Greimas 1992: 74). In a nineteenth-century Armenian folktale, a king possesses a beautiful garden in which “the most beautiful and valued tree” was “an Apple-Tree of Immortality” (Surmelian 1968: 41). Each year the apples of this folktale are stolen by a great earth-dwelling serpent or dragon—quite paradoxically at that—which is finally beheaded by the king’s youngest son. Apples of immortality or rejuvenation feature in other Armenian folktales (Ibid., p. 145, 214-15). There are strong affinities between Western Armenian folklore and Greek folklore, and linguistic as well as historical connections between the Armenian people and the Phrygians of ancient central Anatolia (p. 19, 32-33, 318). ***** Ancient Greece was also a land of fabulists and philosophers. Aesop (ca. 620-560 BCE) put down in written form many of the old fables recounted in his days. Some of these featured the snake. One is entitled “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 tried to attack him with an axe. The farmer then lost his wealth and he realized that he had prospered because of the good luck he had gained from the snake before having wounded him. The farmer then begged the snake to forgive him for his evil deed, and the snake replied, “You are sorry for what you have done, but you must not expect me to be your faithful friend until this scar heals. It is not possible for me to be truly reconciled to you until all thought of that treacherous axe has left my mind.” (Gibbs, 2002, p. 39 [By permission of Oxford University Press])

The interest of the fable lies in the connection between snake and good fortune. In some parts of ancient Greece, people honoured Tykhe or

25 See “Hesperides.” Accessed March 12, 2013. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Hesperides.html.

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Euthykia, a goddess of fortune, chance, providence, and fate. However, no association between her and the snake seems to have been recorded. Turning to philosophers, this is how for instance Plato, who lived mostly in the first half of fourth century BCE, viewed snakes, as summed up by Runia (1986: 349): The more foolish the soul that has descended into animals, the greater the number of supports the animal is given to connect it to the earth. The legless reptiles have their whole body stretched on the ground, and so are lower on the scale of folly and ignorance than the four-footed and many footed species.

In Aristotle’s thinking the snake is a “mean and treacherous” animal. Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers initiated an intellectual perspective that dissociated itself more or less from common beliefs and representations such as all those reviewed above. Still, beliefs remained tenacious. Late in the third century of the Christian era, Porphyry described the death of his intellectual master, the neoplatonician philosopher Plotinus, in the following terms: “He was almost dead. (…) When a serpent passed under the couch on which he was lying and squeezed into a hole in the wall, his spirit expired.”26 This is a late illustration of what Foerster (in Bromiley, p. 569) sees as the “widespread” connection “of the serpent with the world of the dead” in Ancient Greece.

26

Porphyre’s excerpt has been taken up from Wilson (2001: 177). Aristotle’s judgement is to be found in The History of Animals, Book 1: 488, a work he wrote in 350 BCE or thereabouts. The author owes this reference to Bodson (p. 535).

CHAPTER 2.3 GODS, SNAKES, AND PEOPLE FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN INDIA

As Crooke (1919: 413) observed, “in no part of India is the [serpent] cult more general than in S. [= South] India,” i.e. in the modern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But, notes Combe (p. 29), snake cults are as important in Bengal (eastern India) as in Dravidian southern India. According to Jones (2010: 100), snake (or naga) worship is “particularly vibrant in Gujarat, Maharastra, Kerala, Orissa, and West Bengal.” That is not to say that the rest of the sub-continent, notably central and northern India, has not been much involved in snake idolisation. Writing decades ago about “serpent-worship” in India as a whole, Crooke (p. 411-12) asserted that “in no other part of the world is it more widely distributed or developed in more varied and interesting forms.” Likewise, according to Chandra Sinha (p. 16), “the importance of serpent worship [in India] can never be exaggerated.” The snake was highly considered already at the time of the old civilisation of the Indus valley in the middle of or late in the third millennium BCE (De Planhol 2004: 545; Wilson 2001: 185). One can only agree with Jones (p. 112, 109) when he stresses the “antiquity,” the outstanding “resilience,” and the “cultural breadth” of snake cults in India. The snake was and remains the most revered animal in the country on account, argues Cazenave (p. 627), of its reputed ability to rejuvenate itself and of its intimate connection with water, the very source of life. As Combe (p. 458) writes, The veneration for snakes [in India] is deeply rooted in ancient folk beliefs. It is linked to olden tree and water cults, cults which are meant to promote the fertility of fields and the fecundity of livestock as well as humans. If snakes are held to generate life, they are equally associated with destruction and death. And, as obtains with other awe-inspiring divinities, people have revered snakes to propitiate and appease them, and to protect believers from the wounds and torments they inflict upon people, or to recover from such evils.

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Sarpa is the old Sanskrit common term for snake.1 The root is more or less clearly discernible in various ancient and modern Indo-European languages such as Greek (herpeton, “crawling animal”), Latin (serpens), Romanian (sarpe), Italian (serpe, serpente), Spanish (serpiente), and French and English (serpent). In modern India, the word sarpa normally refers to an ordinary snake whereas a mythical, supernatural, or sacred snake is termed naga (Combe, p. 459), a word also designating cobras. Sacred snakes are “supposed to be different from the ordinary serpents” (Mehra, p. 136), a point also made by Aubert (2008) and Combe (p. 428). However, the distinction is not clear cut. As we shall see below, “domestic” or protector snakes were commonly called sarpa. Moreover, in some parts of southern India, the term sarpam refers to a “sacred” snake known to be highly poisonous, golden in colour and from 15 to 45 cm long (Mehra, p. 136). ***** A Vedic or ancient Indian counterpart of the Egyptian Apep was Vrtra, “The Suppressor” (of life). In a cosmogonic battle, the giant monster with neither feet nor arms was vanquished by Indra, the son of the sky god Dyaus and the earth goddess Prithivi. The life-giving water that Vrtra imprisoned in the depth of a mountain was released (Éliade 1976: 218) or “water and light [were] liberated from the embrace of the forces of chaos” (Lurker, p. 8456). Likewise, the young Krishna, an incarnation of the great god Vishnu, had to fight demons and monsters, including a mighty boa and a great five-headed water serpent known as Kaliya (Combe, p. 257). Snakes are also associated with Bhairava, the embodiment of the destructive powers of Vishnu (Crooke 1896, I: 108; Combe, p. 317). In Uttarakhand (north-western India), the pollution by dalit (untouchables) or bleeding women of a specific mountain spring infuriated Jal Devi, the normally benevolent water goddess, whose wrath, embodied in white snakes, caused the water to dry up (Joshi et al. 2001). The two major snake deities acknowledged by Hinduism are Shesha and Vasuki. The former is also known as Ananta (“The Endless One”), which was reckoned as “The-One-Bearing-the-Earth”: (…) the Earth made him an opening, which he entered, in order to support her from beneath. From that time onward, Sesha (…) carries the sea1

Crooke (1919: 419) reported two Sanskrit expressions relating to snakes: drigvisha and drishti-visha, both of them meaning “having poison in the eyes.”

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Shesha was also known to have helped the deva godlings stir the primeval ocean of milk with a huge churning stick in order to prepare the potion of immortality (Vogel, p. 192-93; Chandra Sinha, p. 44). The other divine serpent that looms large in Hindu mythology is Vasuki, a mythical cobra regarded as “the genius presiding over the nether world” (Chandra Sinha, p. 45). Much more involved in worldly affairs than Shesha, Vasuki is “commonly invoked in the laying of foundation of a new house to ensure the security of the household” (Jones, p. 95). Some authorities identify the snake involved in the mythical churning of the sea of milk, at the bottom of which lay a vessel filed with amrita, the nectar of immortality, as Vasuki rather than Shesha (Combe, p. 225; also Crooke 1896, II: 255 and Lurker, p. 8456).3 Along with a number of other mythical snakes, Shesha and Vasuki reportedly ruled in succession the underground kingdom of the cobras (Combe, p. 460). The great snake gods were and are still believed to bring rain and fertility when revered or to dispatch earthquakes, death, and destruction when ignored or angered (Jones, 95). According to Jones, they represent cosmic powers “in animal form” (Ibid.). One of the more prominent snake gods was and remains the goddess Manasa, a name that reportedly means “Born of the Spirit” (Combe, p. 461 fn.).4 Manasa is sometimes referred to as “the goddess of the snakes.” According to one tradition, her father was a wise man of the early ages. She came into being while her genitor was imploring the supreme god to 2

See also for instance Combe (p. 461). In the Greek mythology Atlas was condemned by Zeus to stand at the western edge of the Earth and hold up the sky on his shoulders. 3 The Hindu amrita would seem to echo the ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink that nurtured the immortality of Greek gods. The life of the gods of ancient Egypt was also sustained by “a marvellous liquor” known as sa (Amélineau, p. 11). One of the Hindi terms for “immortality” is amarata. A parallel may be established with the ancient myth of Gilgamesh, who reached the ocean floor to collect the plant of immortality. The connection, here a loose one, between the snake and the vessel filled with amrita could shed additional light on the ancient theme of the snake drinking from a cup. See Box 6. 4 Crooke (1919: 413) also noted that the Sanskrit term manas refers to the “mind.” Combe (p. 461 fn.) additionally suggests that the name of the goddess may relate to the Dravidian word moncha, “snake.”

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tell him the sacred formulae capable of neutralising the venom of deadly snakes. Crooke (1919: 417) reported that in Bengal “a karabi root (Nerium odorum), pulled whilst the breath is held, on the night when the snakegoddess Manasa is worshipped, protects the wearer from snake-bite” during a whole year. Temples or sanctuaries have long been dedicated to Manasa in many villages from various parts of India. In the south, she is typically represented by “an earthen pot with vermillion marks” (Mehra, p. 133; also Crooke, p. 413). As a rule, her emblem is the naga or cobra (Combe, p. 475; Mundkur 1983: 45). Another major Hindu god associated with cobras is Varuna, the Lord of the Ocean (Éliade 1976: 215; Combe, 475), who may have been the most important god of ancient Vedic India (Combe, p. 418). Many Indian cities honoured a tutelary snake when Alexander the Great invaded the Punjab in the fourth century BCE. The Greek conqueror was implored not to harm the supposedly huge cave-dwelling creatures, which he agreed to. Each time his army marched before such a cave, a great hissing sound was heard (Crooke 1919: 412; Chandra Sinha, p. 36). These serpents were probably believed to protect local communities and insure their permanence, which would be reminiscent of ancient and even modern Egypt. In contemporary Manipur (far eastern India), the snake is still believed in some communities to be “the manifestation of a dead ancestor and is accordingly venerated and worshipped” (Mehra, p. 133). The Nagar aristocrats of Gujarat (north-western India) still share the belief that they all descend from the union of the great god Shiva and Nagkhanya, a mythical queen of the cobras; the Nagar are said not to fear snakes and if bitten by them, they never die (Combe, p. 460). Similarly, a Punjabi “snake tribe” honoured snakes every Monday and Thursday, offering them rice and milk: “If they find a dead snake, they put clothes upon it, and give it a regular funeral. They will not kill a snake and say that its bite is harmless to them” (Crooke 1896, II: 151). The Bais Rajput of northern India held that they are “children of the snake” and as such they feel “safe from its bite” (p. 152).5 These people claimed to be the descendants of a hero sired by a snake: “The tribal totem or symbol is the cobra. They perpetuate the tradition of origin and assert that no snake has or even can destroy one of the clan; for the same reason no Bais will ever kill a cobra” 5

In Rajasthan, the term rajput is equivalent to kshatrya (Combe, p. 79 fn.). The latter term refers to the warrior and politically leading group of Vedic communities.

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(Bingley 1986: 39). Several Indian royal families also believed that their original ancestor had been a cobra (Chandra Sinha, p. 37). In other parts of India, however, serpents are thought to be “pious spirits who are reborn as snakes or sinners who in their snake incarnations may be doing penance for their sins of past lives” (Singh Talib 1975: 31). ***** An old legend additionally illustrates the porousness of the divide between human beings and snakes. The story paraphrased by Sax (p. 78) is taken from the Panchatantra, a Hindu animal epic dating back to the end of the pre-Christian European era6: A Brahman and his wife (…) are told by an oracle that they will have a son surpassing all others in appearance, character, and charm. Instead of a boy, the wife gives birth to a snake. Against the advice of horrified companions, the woman refuses to kill the infant. She nurtures the snake as if it were a human being. Her husband goes on a trip to distant lands in search of a girl who will accept his son in marriage, and he returns with a beautiful maiden. The snake sheds its skin and becomes a handsome young man. His father burns the skin, and the marriage is joyously celebrated.

This story seemingly evokes the old Greek myth of Eros and Psyche.

Box 10 The Snake-Husband: Distant Echoes of Ancient Greece and Ancient India The author is aware of six stories analogous to the foregoing myth that have been recorded elsewhere, three from Europe and three from SubSaharan Africa. One hails from Norway and bears the title of “Prince Lindworm” (Henderson et al., p. 167-72). With help from a witch, a queen gives birth to twins, the first a male snake, the second a boy. The snake disappears until the boy, now a young man, asks his father to be given a wife. The first-born twin suddenly resurfaces, demanding to be married first. It devours its first two wives, who happen to be princesses. Its third consort, of modest extraction, manages with the help of a witch to have her snake husband slough nine skins on the night of marriage. At sunrise the serpent turns into a handsome young man. This opens the way to 6

Sax’s source is A. W. Ryder, The Panchatantra (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 177-79. See also Vogel, p. 174-75.

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marriage for the other twin. The two other European stories are from Italy. In the first one, entitled “The serpent king,” an infertile and sorrowful queen finally gives birth to a snake; she raises it with love and care; once grown up, the very large snake-man asks to be given a beautiful princess as wife; at last, the request is granted; it then changes itself into a man at night; after various events it is allowed to take a human form for good (McNamee, p. 122-25). In another Italian tale known as “The enchanted snake,” a poor childless couple adopts a little snake, which happens to be a prince turned into a serpent by a curse. On account of its magical abilities (turning fruits into gems, etc.), the marvellous snake marries the king’s daughter. It may come as a surprise that a story broadly similar to the Norwegian tale was recounted in Southern Africa. Many Zulu stories tell of women giving birth to animals. In many cases, the animal born to a woman is a crow. When the animal is a snake, the mother is very much looked down on by the other women. As a result, the snake turns to be a human being after all. Thus in the story of Mamba, a snake-hero is adulated by a girl. He therefore manages to cast away his skin just before the wedding dance and “appears shining and beautiful to dance before the assembled guests” (Krige 1936: 357). Hauenstein (1978: 555-56) has the following story from the Yakuba of Côte d’Ivoire: a rich man had begotten two girls, one of whom was a very lovely young lady; the python wants to marry her and comes to her father disguised as a handsome and colourful young man; the father accepts, but the younger sibling is not fooled by the suitor and tells her sister that her future spouse is a serpent; the elder sibling refuses to believe her; she is carried away to her suitor’s place; the young wife finally discovers the truth; with the help of her sibling, she escapes and runs back home. The lesson behind this story is that younger people are sometimes cleverer than their seniors. Finally, the Fulani of West Africa had a story involving two male twins, a boy and a snake (Allan et al., p. 45) as in the Norwegian tale. Once married, the human twin hides his snake brother from his wife, who finally discovers the mysterious recipient of the food taken away daily by her husband. In this case, the snake simply disappears in a river while remaining his brother’s protector. Less well-known is the following Indian story of a woman and a river snake, here in condensed form7: 7 Snake and Serpent Husbands in Folktales, translated and/or edited by D. L. Ashliman. Accessed December 2, 2011.

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Chapter 2.3 A pregnant woman on her way back to her village after a long journey was stopped by a flooded river. There was no way she could cross. As night was setting in, she was distressed. All of a sudden, a mighty river snake appeared: “Woman, you must give me something before I ferry you across.” – “Snake,” said she, “I have truly nothing to offer.” The snake insisted. In despair she promised that, if her child was a boy, it would become the juri of the snake; if her child was a girl, it would become its wife.8 The woman was safely brought across on the back of the snake. Soon she gave birth to a daughter. Years later, as she was fetching water, the snake came out of the stream and asked: “Woman, where is the wife whom you promised me?” She went and came back with her daughter. The snake seized her and drew her underneath the water. The mother wept, thinking the snake had drowned her daughter. With time the latter bore four snake sons. One day the snake’s wife visited her family. All were astonished to see her. She told them that the snake had made her its wife and that she was now a mother of four. As the brothers wanted to see the husband, she told them: “Go to the river and call it.” So they did. The snake came out and accepted to go with them. It was malevolently offered quantities of rice beer to drink. Coiling itself, the snake went to sleep. Losing no time, the brothers seized their axes and beheaded it.

***** Major ophidian gods as well as minor snake deities have long been honoured with prayers and rituals on certain private or public occasions, and at certain places in order to secure their blessings or to be protected from misfortune, notably the actual bite of poisonous snakes. In Hinduism the naga was generally held to be a “door guardian” according to Tambiah (1968b: 87). The same point is made by Aubert (2008): throughout India, cobras were often viewed as protectors of sacred enclosures and “guardians of the doors,” dvâra-pâlakan.9 In recent times, http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/snake.html#bompas. Original source: C. H. Bompas, Folklore of the Santal Parganas (London: David Nutt, 1909), 452-53. A similar tale was known in Lithuania (Bradunas 1975). 8 The juri or “name friend” relationship is possibly similar to the a contemporary Hindu custom. When sterile couples, after having implored snake deities for offspring, do beget children, the latter are held to be brothers and sisters of the cobras and must protect and feed them (Combe, p. 463). 9 Such a belief was echoed as far east as Buddhist central Thailand where the “guardian spirit” Nagararaja was credited with “jurisdiction over doors, forts, and ladders” (Van Esterik 1982: 7). These representations are reminiscent of the snakes which guarded the doors and gateways in the realm of both the living and the dead in ancient Egypt. See chap. 2.1.

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a Hindu domicile was typically protected by a snake called vastu sarpa. According to Chandra Sinha (p. 11), “if the vastu sarpa is seen to abandon the house (…) the continuity of the family is supposed to be in danger.” The same belief probably applied to the tutelary snakes of the cities of ancient India. Valuable descriptions of a domestic Hindu snake grove, kavu, or snake shrine, sarpa kavu, are provided by Crooke (1919: 413) and Mehra (p. 135-36). According to the latter, it consists of a patch of raised land surrounded by bushes and trees, interestingly including at least one plant yielding a milky sap; it is located some distance away from the main building “in order to best preserve its sanctity and to avoid accidental pollution”; the trees and bush around the shrine are never cut; no insect nor animal may be killed next to the shrine; stone images of many-headed snakes with spreading hoods (= naga or cobras) are to be found; and the area must be kept very clean at all times. While menstruating or after delivery, women keep away from the shrine, which appears consistent with the taboo on “killing” any animal or plant (= “spilling blood”) next to the shrine. The violation of such a taboo would “anger” the residing domestic deity which, unless propitiated right away, “may cause disease or harm to the offender.” The killing of a snake at such a shrine must have been exceedingly inauspicious and therefore almost unheard of.10 Once or twice a year, a “worship” (puja) ceremony is conducted at the shrine, which is also described by Mehra (p. 136-37): all the while reciting incantations and mantras, a priestʊpresumably a Brahmanʊcooks rice in milk, adding pieces of ripe plantain and flowers, in a special oven near the shrine; he then pours some water and puts some flowers over or on the snake-icons, anoints them with turmeric (= curcuma) powder, showers basil leaves and flower petals on them, etc.; oil-lamps are lit in front of the snake-images; three banana leaves are laid on the ground opposite the 10 Mehra (p. 133) reports theʊin his understandingʊexceptional case of the Khasis people of north-eastern India, who propitiated a local snake god with offerings of human blood. Similar practices have been described by Crooke (1919: 413) for Assam and by Jones (2010: 111) for Nepal and northern India. Human sacrifices to snake-gods were part of religious systems in the ancient Middle East (Wilson 2001: 7, 131, 157, 216). In various parts of India, according to Combe (p. 427), animal sacrifices are held to placate village deities known as grava devata. Harper (1959: 230-31) also reports bloody sacrifices offered in southern India by low caste people to mane chowdi or guardian family spirits. Such religious practices possibly antedate the rise of Brahmanism.

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lamps, the uncut tips pointing away from the shrine; uncooked paddy, coconuts, and bananas are placed on these leaves; the boiled rice is offered to the snake-idolsʊas well as some rupees dropped in the lamps’ coconut oilʊand then eaten by the members of the family and by the priest, who is entitled to half of the ceremonial food; the officiant also takes with him the offerings placed on the banana leaves. Each month or every three months, on Tuesdays or Fridays, low-caste people come to sing songs and make music in praise of the domestic deity and they are rewarded for this service. The aim of all these rituals is in Mehra’s understanding to “please the serpent god and to flatter him so that he may bear the welfare of the host in mind, and guard the family against disease, misfortune and harm accruing from human or supernatural agencies” (p. 138). A comprehensive interpretation of this Hindu domestic cult is out of the question. It would require a long familiarity with Indian culture, which the author does not have. What matters here is that the details of the ceremony betray a somewhat fixed and probably ancient pattern. For instance the bananas laid out on one of the three banana leaves must be of the kadali variety “because kadali is referred to in the Vedas” (p. 137). As for the description of the sarpa kavu, it attests to an intimate connection between sacred domestic snakes and purity. That seems to place this cult in mainstream Hinduism, including the cast system. This may sound paradoxical inasmuch as some scholars hold that the ancient practice of snake worshipping has long been opposed by the Brahman elite and that Brahmans and cobras are “incompatible groups” (Jones, p. 96, 99, 107, 110). However, the snake child of the old legend recounted above was begotten by Brahman parents. Moreover, the Nayar of southern India believed that snakes have been brought to their country by a Brahman who promised to bring them back where they came from; as the story goes, he was never seen again (Mehra, p. 134). In Madras, according to Crooke (1919: 416), “a cobra is popularly believed to be a Brahman.” Moreover, “in Travancore, if a dead cobra was found, it was burned with the same ceremonies as a man of high caste” (p. 417). In southern India, people of the higher castes deemed the killing of a snake to be a sinful act (Chandra Sinha, p. 73). That must have been especially true of the cobra (naga), which was reputed “sacrosanct” in that area (Harper 1969: 82). Also in southern India, “whenever a Tamil encounters a serpent, he joins his hands and invokes a deity; or if he is literate, he says ‘Nalla pambu’‘Good serpent’” (Wilson 2001: 184-85). In some temples of that part of

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India as well as in Bengal, people revere live cobras (Combe, p. 464). A useful description of such a place, namely the impressive circular Manarsalil temple, is offered by Mehra (p. 135). The sacred building is surrounded by a wide road where on festive days commercial fairs are held. The low-caste people are not allowed to go any further: Lodged within is the garden where the snakes are to be seen in their natural habitat. In this area is a sacred tank (…) which is reputed to be medicinal in property. Here too is a very large vessel into which milk is poured by the priest so that the snakes might be well fed. Within this belt of vegetation and bushes is the shrine itself. There is a verandah with a central hall called mandapa with an open space in front, and in the centre is the platform where the snake deities are enshrined. There are two images here, one of Nag Raj with five heads and the other of a serpent with only one head. This is the inner sanctuary where only the priest enters. (…) a virgin priestess conducts the most sacred rites and is considered to be the guardian of the serpents.

The temple appears as a magnified materialisation of the domestic sarpa kavu, unless the other way around is closer to the mark. Once again, the relevance of the snake cult to the caste system comes to the fore: the lowcaste people are pushed out at the outskirts of the temple and the ritually pure Brahman, the people of higher caste, are placed at its centre. Inasmuch as the temple has a circular concentric structure, its configuration evokes an imaginary coiling serpent with its head at the very centre of the sacred building. In all likelihood, the temple described by Mehra is the large and famous Mannarasala Sree Nagaraja Temple of southern Kerala. According to its website,11 this is one of the rare temples where the puja or worship ceremony is headed by a female Brahman. The establishment of the temple is mythically associated with the creation of the country of Kerala. The five-headed deified cobra stands for both Ananta (= Shesha) and Vasuki. Even today devotees believe that Naga Raja stays in the cellar of the temple “doing tapas for the abound prosperity of his dependents.”12 11

See http://www.mannarasala.org. Most of what follows has been taken from that source. 12 Nagaraja (or Nagarajan) is a male snake deity, the female counterpart being Nagarani. Note the correspondence with maharaja and maharani. A raja is a chief, ruler or prince, whereas maha conveys the notion of “greatness.” The two terms originate from Sanskrit. The Encyclopedia Britannica online defines the Hindu term tapas as: “Ascetic practice voluntarily carried out to achieve spiritual power or purification.”

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The god is referred to with great respect and devotion as Muthassan and Appoppan, “Grand-father.” Known as Appoppan Kavu, “Grandfather’s Grove,” the nearby forest is “the exclusive preserve for his unobstructed peregrinations.” Female devotees come to the temple seeking fertility. Once they successfully give birth, they return for a thanksgiving, often bringing snake images as offerings. A special turmeric paste believed to have strong curative powers is also available at the temple.13 ***** The Hindu ritual calendar features a major “snake festival” known as Naga Panchami.14 It is held on the fifth day of Shravana, a month overlapping July and August: This celebration takes place at the onset of the monsoon when the snakes move nearer to the houses seeking respite from the heavy rains. But their closing-in signals the beneficial rains that will soon bring about good harvests. It is at once to be protected from them and to welcome them that people draw or place snake images on the walls of houses and lintels of doors, and that major festivities are held throughout India. (Combe, p. 464)15

On the day of the festival, the peasants do not till the land for fear of harming or, worse, killing snakes. People pray for rain, good harvests, the fertility of livestock, and for protection against snake bites. The goddess Manasa and other snake-related gods are also worshipped on that day (Ibid.). According to another account,16 Particularly on the Nag-Panchami day live cobras or their pictures are revered and religious [rites] are performed to seek their good will. To seek immunity from snake bites, they are bathed with milk, haldi-kumkum [powdered curcuma and saffron] is sprinkled on their heads and milk and See http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/583081/tapas. 13 Another major temple dedicated to a snake god is that of Jahar Pir Mandir in Rajasthan, where devotees revere Gugga (Jones 2010: 102). The latter was known as one of the “snake kings”: “When he is duly propitiated he can save from snakebite, and cause those who neglect him to be bitten” (Crooke 1896, I: 212-13). 14 The word panchami derives from the Sanskrit root panch, meaning “five.” 15 Singh Talib (p. 30-31) also reports a ceremonial held in August in Rajasthan in which food made from flour and milk is offered at a snake shrine so as to keep the people safe from snake bites. 16 “Nag Panchami - West Bengal, Maharashtra and South India.” Accessed November 29, 2011. http://www.festivalsofindia.in/nagpanchami.

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rice are offered as naivedya [food offering to a deity]. The Brahmin who is called to do the religious ritual is given dakshina [payment for religious services] in silver or gold coins. Sometimes even a cow is given away as a gift.

The propitiatory offerings to snakes at Naga Panchami and on other occasions could derive from “ancestral veneration rites of feeding ancestors,” according to Jones (p. 106). In some parts of India, “the enthusiastic feeding of live snakes, typically caught for the holy festival, frequently results in the death of the snakes from indigestion or asphyxiation” (Ibid.). The Indian government has banned the use of live ophidians in the context of the festival. Known as Naga Saviti, another one-day snake festival used to take place in the month of Kartika (October - November)17: The real object sought for by the masses is to be preserved from being bitten by snakes; but there is also some idea that these monsters are able to cure certain diseases, chiefly those of the skin. (…) The principal object of worship on this day is the cobra, which is considered to be the chief of the snakes. The worship is mainly done by the women who, accompanied by a family priest, go to the nearest white-ant heap, a favourite abode of the cobra, taking with them milk and flowers, and a dish prepared with ground rice, jaggery, and camphor. The worshippers, having previously bathed, let their hair hang down and then perform a service at the ant-hill, by repeating the name of the god, pouring milk down the hole, and scattering flowers over the hillock. (…) The worship is concluded by placing burning incense by the side of the hole. (…). There is a certain amount of danger necessarily incurred in thus trifling with such deadly creatures. I remember (…) hearing of a poor woman who met her death through engaging in this method of worship. She was pouring milk down a snake hole when a cobra darted out and bit her so that she died. (Padfield, 1908: 154-55)

Here again similarities are discernible with the domestic puja held at the sarpa kavu. In the present context, it is the women who are mostly involved in the ceremony as devotees.

17

The Hindi word saviti implies notions of purity, chastity, and honour. See http://dict.hinkhoj.com/words/meaning-of%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%B5%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80-inenglish.html. Accessed October 12, 2013.

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Another late-nineteenth-century British observer reported that white-ant hills were seen as the “homes of snakes” and that people offered sugar, rice, and millet at such places (Crooke 1896, II: 145). Even nowadays, Anthills are often seen decorated with flowers and small offerings of food are displayed near the base when it is known that a cobra is in residence. In many cases, a shrine is erected over the anthill and women can be seen lighting candles and praying to the deity within. At times, even in cities, an anthill occupied by a cobra can be the cause of great traffic problems. To remove such a sacred mound would cause much distress to a great number of people. Anthills, as well as indicating the presence of underground water, exist as mythical entrances to an exotic, sensuous, subterranean 18 world called Patala, the shadow or the nether world, home of the Nagas.

Chandra Sinha (p. 12) supplies a very plausible explanation for the engaging of women in such practices: “There is a widespread belief that serpents have the power to remove barrenness. In the whole of western and southern India, the Naga is worshipped up to the present day by women who are desirous of offspring.” Female cobras, it is said, can give birth to hundreds of young (Jones, p. 101), a gross exaggeration. In other parts of the country, people turn to the snake goddess Manasa. They pray to her in order to be protected from snake bites and various illnesses, and to be blessed with fertility and prosperity. Childless couples beseech her for offspring and if their desire is fulfilled their children are considered to be siblings of the naga (Combe, p. 463). In some parts of India, if a child is begotten after prayers or offerings to sacred snakes, “it is given an appropriate nameʊNagappa, Nagamma, etc” (Crooke 1919: 414). When a couple is sterile, it is suspected that either the man or the woman has killed a cobra in a prior existence; to be pardoned, the spouses hold regular rituals dedicated to cobras (Combe, p. 464; Crooke 1896, II: 226). De Planhol (2004: 546) echoes the belief that killing a snake or even destroying snake eggs results in sterility or leprosy. Padfield (p. 154-55) also alludes to a connection between snakes and skin diseases. Indeed, according to Mehra (p. 136, 138), skin problems such as leprosy and

18 Taken on January 16, 2010 from an anonymous Web page no longer available. On the notion of Patala, “the shadow or the nether world, home of the Nagas,” see “Indian cobra,” http://www.indiaprofile.com/wildlife/indiancobra.htm. Accessed November 11, 2017. Combe (p. 428) also sees ant-hills as entry-points into the kingdom of the cobras or naga.

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“leucoderma” are believed to result from the anger and curse of snakes. A similar belief is mentioned by Crooke (p. 413) for southern India.19 The last type of ceremony no doubt worthy of reporting is the Pampin Thullal or Sarpam Thullal, i.e. the Snake Dance, which is mostly performed in southern India, notably in the state of Kerala.20 The ritual involves the drawing on the ground of “elaborately entwined snake figures” using flours of different colours, then music playing, dancing round the snake figures, and the singing of snake songs, sarpan pattu. The dancing is done by young people—often females—emulating the movement of snakes and representing the family for whose benefit the ceremonial dance is held. A key dancer typically falls into trance. The ecstatic dancer is said to be possessed by the snake god honoured on that day21 and the sounds uttered by that person are believed to be “the words of the god.” The dancer is pressed with questions, suggesting in Jones’ words the “oracular purposes” of these possessions. The trance is seen as indicating that the ceremony is successful and will be rewarding for the family. ***** 19

According to Charlesworth (p. 131), the old Greek word ophiakos, in which the root ophis (“snake”) is recognisable, denoted “a form of leprosy in which the patient sheds his skin like a snake.” In his influential treatise, the second-century CE Roman physician Galen wrote that the bad skin of a leper once peeled off after he had swallowed a mixture of wine and viper flesh (Krumholz McDonald, p. 23). Tabick (p. 161) quotes a rabbinic text implying that lepers look like scaly snakes. In the early decades of twentieth-century Ethiopia, eating “cooled” snake flesh was believed to be a good treatment against leprosy (Bustorf 2010: 638). 20 The information to follow is taken from Jones (p. 103-104) who himself relies on the accounts of two scholars, one Indian, one French. Additional information can be gathered on the Web, notably in “Pampinthullal or Sarpam Tullal.” Accessed March 3, 2013. http://www.webindia123.com/kerala/arts/ritualart3.htm. 21 The dancing may last for five days, each day being dedicated to a specific snake god: Nagaraja (the king serpent), Nagayakshi (queen serpent), Karinagam (black serpent), Paranagam (flying serpent), and Anchilamaninagam (five-hooded and jewel-carrying serpent). Some or all cobras were held to have shining jewels in their heads. See again: “Indian cobra,” http://www.indiaprofile.com/wildlife/indiancobra.htm. According to the same source, “It is from a fissure in the anthill [a privileged place of residence for cobras, as mentioned above] that the rays of light from the jewels in the cobras’ heads shine forth and, coming in contact with the rainclouds (…), they form the rainbow, known in Vedic times as ‘Indra’s Bow’.” As we will see later, Africans often identified the rainbow with another type of snake, the python.

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The victims of venomous snakes often turned to snake-charmers for salvation.

Box 11 Snake-Charming in Contemporary India A chapter on ophidian symbology in India can hardly do without addressing the issue of snake-charming, an age-old occupation in that part of the world. The intense snake-skin trade led the government of India to forbid any use of wildlife. Snake-charming was actually rendered illegal by the federal government in 1991. Of late it has come under the fire of activists advocating animal rights. These days snake-charming is practised less openly than it used to be. Also music players, snake-charmers entertain people at marriages and other happy events with their self-made instruments. Flute-playing snake-charmers, known as sapera in northern India,22 were a popular sight in many Indian cities and towns, notably on the days of snake festivals. They are also expert at snake-catching and at removing intruding snakes from premises. In Maharashtra (west-central India) they went from house to house with their serpents; these were venerated and offered gifts of milk while their masters were handed food and gifts (Combe, p. 464). Snake-charmers used to “strike the ordinary person as beings with almost supernatural faculties” (Singh Talib, p. 30), just like the swaying cobras they used to breed. Some snake-charmers reportedly “call back by their power the snake that bit the particular person” and have it “suck away the poison from the wound” (p. 33). They are also “supposed to possess some herbs or drugs which are believed to cure snake bite” (p. 30). Indeed, snake-charmers have often been described as providers of traditional drugs made by them out of medicinal plants collected in the bush or forest. These drugs were meant to treat a range of health problems, not only snake bites (Dutt et al. 2005; Panghal et al. 2010). One study found that more than nineteen different plants were used to cure snake bites (Panghal et al.). In town, the drugs were sold to people who attended snake-charming street performances. In cases of snake bite, the drugs were mostly applied through an oral route as an infusion or decoction, but some were applied topically on the bitten area (Ibid.). Healers keep such patients under continuous observation for several days. 22

Various sources report that the word sapera derives from the root sup or sap, meaning “snake” in Punjabi. The root sap possibly derives from the Sanskrit sarp.

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Snake-charmers typically form small peripheral and more or less nomadic communities such as the Nath of Haryana and Assam in northern India, the Irula of Tamil Nadu in southern India, and the Vadi of southern Gujarat in north-western India. For instance all Vadi children, male and female, embark at an early age upon a 10-year training programme in snake-handling.23 These people are reported to have “an almost mythical attachment to snakes and especially cobras.” Their ancestors, they say, concluded a pact with Naga, the snake god. Their cobras are fed with an herbal mixture which reportedly renders the snake’s deadly poison harmless. They do not pull out their fangs, holding that this would be a cruel practice. They keep the snakes they catch for no more than 7 months, after which they release them in the bush. Keeping them longer would make it risky for the snake-handler.24 The Nath of Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh believe that the cobra is an incarnation of Lord Shiva, the great god of Hinduism, and therefore they revere it (Dutt et al.). Vasuki is widely depicted as coiled around Shiva’s neck (Jones, p. 95). Among other things the ancient snake-charming tradition of India illustrates in a special way the connection between snakes and healing, common to ancient Egypt, Middle Eastern civilisations, and ancient Greece. The victims of snake bite have other recourses than snake-charmers. In Rajasthan (north-west), they invoke a well-known local deity, Teja (“The radiant”), hold a puja in his honour, and put a special red amulet around a wrist or ankle of the patient while reciting sacred formulae (Combe, p. 429).25 Dalal (2007), a psychologist, visited one of Teja’s shrines: 23

Daily Mail Online (Foreign Service), “Indian village where children as young as two are taught to be snake charmers.” June 11, 2009. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1192122/Indian-village-children-youngtaught-snake-charmers.htm1#ixzzf0ZOSM1V 24 The health of snakes that are kept in captivity by snake-charmers deteriorates after a few months (Dutt et al.). This must be a factor in the restitution of snakes to their natural habitat. 25 The story of Teja features a very special relationship between a mythical hero, Teja, and a sacred cobra (Crooke 1896, I: 213-14; Combe, p. 428-29). In the end Teja was all at once bitten to death and blessed by a sacred serpent which he had, he felt, saved from fire. According to Rawlinson (1986: 140), teja refers to both “splendour” and “radiance” whereas tejas means “heath, brilliance, light, splendour, glory, majesty” (Combe, p. 65 fn.). The Hindi term may also refer to fire as one of the five cosmological elements (Guénon 2001: 31). See footnote 40 in this chapter.

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Chapter 2.3 In my presence a person bitten by a snake was brought in a semi-conscious state. The bhopa (snake doctor) made strange gestures and sounds as if invoking some spirit, recited something loudly, which I did not understand, pressed his mouth on the open wound and sucked it. To my amazement the person sat down after a while and after half-an hour walked back home without assistance.

Bhasin (2003: 80), an anthropologist, describes the treatment administered by a “traditional faith healer” (bhopa) in some other part of Rajasthan. It is not just the snake bite itself and the poisonous effect that is to be treated but also the shock as well. Therefore the treatment of snakebite requires special rituals as well. Generally the snake-bite victims are carried to (… a shrine …). The healer goes in to trance and invokes his deity. During trance he grabs thuar (Euphorbia nerfolia) shrubs and starts biting and chewing its dendrons. After this he sucks venom out of the wound (…). The regurgitation of the mixture of latex rich pulp and poison from the snake bite annuls the poison effect. In some cases, the folk healer performs only jhara26, not accompanied by physical sucking of poison. The mere presence of a ritual healer and his magical powers are sufficient to save the victim.

Dalal attributes the fair rate of success of such treatment to the fact that many people show all the clinical symptoms of a bite by a venomous snake even when they have been attacked by a more or less harmless ophidian. Moreover, “even the most poisonous snakes only rarely inject sufficient poison for their bite to be fatal.” In southern India, people bitten by a snake may turn to pious men known as sarpa vaidya, “who have through their devotion to, and worship of, the snake deity [here not identified], acquired the art of curing victims of snake bite” (Mehra, p. 139).27 The chanting of magical formulae and the tearing of a betel leaf in front of a milk pot are believed to impel the snake to withdraw its venom from the victim, “thus effecting a gradual cure” (Ibid.).

26

Jhara consists of a “ritual sweeping away of the illness” or “ritual cleansing ceremonies” (Bhasin 2003: 77, 81). 27 Vayda means “promise” or “commitment” in Hindi. However, it may possibly be a phonetic corruption of vidya, “knowledge.” Sarpa-vidya refers to “knowledge of snakes” in Hinduist education. See “Hinduism and Education.” Accessed December 1st, 2011. http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/h_education.asp.

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As evidenced by Dalal, there is scepticism about the abilities of traditional healers. In the Kendrapara district of Odisha (east-central India) for instance, 17 people were reportedly killed by venomous snakes during the first two months of the 2009 monsoon rains. These people had been cared for by “snake charmers and sorcerers” in the first place. When they came to a hospital, little could be done to save them.28 ***** Various instances of milk offerings to cobras have been reported in this chapter. Ophidians in general do not drink much, their impervious skin and lack of sweat glands keeping moistness inside. As a matter of fact, their digestive system is unable to assimilate liquids such as milk or beer. Although snakes use their very active tongue mostly to feel things, many people still believe that they taste or drink whatever is offered to them. Hindus strongly hold that snakes, notably cobras, are very fond of milk.29 According to Jones (p. 105), to see a snake drinking milk from a bowl offered to it or tasting some of the food laid out next to its place of residence, whether in the wild or in the domestic grove, is “believed to be extremely auspicious, an indication that any prayer made by the witness would be granted.” This resonates with the ancient Greek and Roman practices of the yearly ceremonial offering of food to sacred snakes. In their cases, a positive reaction signalled a prosperous agricultural year for the whole community.30 Cobras are not only given offerings of milk in several circumstances. They are also associated with milk, a very pure food, in a more general way. As 28 Article entitled “Three persons die of snake bite” written by a Kalinga Times (India) correspondent and posted on the website of the Ethiopian Review, August 28th, 2009. 29 The same belief pertained to parts of Europe, as will be seen in chap. 2.6. Immigrants carried it with them in North America: “In the old days, [Louisiana] farmers often believed that so-called “milk snakes” were responsible for cows drying up. They thought that this kind of King snake would sneak into the barns under the cover of darkness and suckle the cows dry. The discovery of a snake in the barn the following day led to the farmer's ‘logical’ conclusion: the snake was the guilty party.” See “Louisiana Milk Snake.” Accessed December 1st, 2011. http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/louisianamilksnake/. The culprit was Lampropeltis triangulum of the Colubridae family, which typically feeds on rats. 30 See also chap. 2.6 for similar scenes in Middle Age Europe.

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mentioned above, there must be at least one white-sap yielding tree in a domestic snake grove, sarpa kavu, and on Naga Panchami “devotees pour milk into all the holes in the ground around the house or near the temple to propitiate [cobras]. Sometimes, a small pot of milk with some flowers is placed near the holes so that the snakes may drink it.”31 Hindus seem to imagine cobras quietly sipping at night the milk offered them in broad daylight. But there is more to it than the drinking of milk. On the day of the Snake Festival, cobras are actually bathed with milk by those paying homage to them,32 just like in the course of a domestic puja, snake icons are moistened with water (ideally milk?), as described above. Rightsminded Indians are outraged by what they view as a “colossal waste” of a nutritious food that so many poor children are deprived of throughout the country.33 The cobra’s reputed liking for milk is vividly illustrated in the following age-old story34: A poor Brahman named Haridatta worked hard on his farm but to no avail. One day, after a hard day’s work, he fell asleep under a tree in the middle of his field. Waking up, he saw a large cobra on top of a nearby ant-hill. Overcoming his dismay, he said to himself: “This must be the lord of the land. A lord to whom I have never offered milk, and who must be angry with me. Certainly, that is why my field yields so little. I must give it milk and beseech it.” The next day, he offered a bowl of milk to the cobra and implored it for wealth and happiness. As the man went to recover the empty bowl on the following day, he was surprised to find a gold coin in it. He felt it must be a blessing from lord cobra. Each time he offered it milk,

31

See http://www.indiancultureonline.com/details/NAGA-PANCHAMI.html. Accessed December 1st, 2011. 32 For pictures of snakes showered with milk, see for instance: http://newshopper.sulekha.com/milk-is-poured-on-a-snake-as-an-offering-duringthe-annual-hindu-nag-panchami-festival-dedicated-to-the-worship-of-snakes-ina_photo_252064.htm. Accessed December 1st, 2011. 33 See for instance: http://nirmukta.com/2008/09/11/nagapanchami-the-serpentsnightmare, by T. V. Manoj and http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/ tp-karnataka/article2323769, August 5, 2011, “Do not waste milk, people told.” Both these opinions were aired in south-western India (Karnataka). 34 The story is adapted from Vogel (p. 173-74), who replicated it from the Panchatantra, “The five principles.” See also Crooke (1896, II: 133-34). The origins of the Panchatantra are said to reach back to the third century BCE, if not earlier.

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he collected gold the next day. With time, not only did the Brahman 35 become rich in gold, but his field became very productive.

Let us now pay attention to the second term of the snake-milk connection, i.e. the white liquid. Already in Vedic times, the cow was held to be pure and its “milk and dairy preparations served not only as food, but in ritual as well” (Simoons 1994: 107). Since then milk has been “the purest form of nourishment” (White 1992: 97). To be precise, considered “pure” (sattvika or sattwika) is “the milk of a cow which has grown in good surroundings, is healthy and has been obtained after the calf of the cow has been fed well.”36 Being white in colour, milk partakes in the sphere of whiteness symbolising brightness, purity, harmony (Combe, p. 177). Whiteness is closely associated for instance with Sarawasti, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and arts (Ibid.). She is typically represented as dressed in white and riding on a white swan, and her throne is said to be a white lotus,37 a flower which in itself is a powerful symbol in Hinduism. Interestingly, the Hindu terms deva and devi, “god” and “goddess,” stem from the root div, “to shine brightly” (Combe, p. 64 fn.). The Latin divum, “sky,” and divinus, “divine,” probably derive from the ancient Indo-European root dev or div. Hindus attribute much importance to milk, yoghurt, ghee, dung, and urine, which they callʊor the mix of which they callʊpanchagavya (White, p. 57; Combe, p. 456).38 Like the holy water of the Ganges River, these

35

The end of the story is of less concern to us. It goes like this: Haridatta went on a journey; his greedy son attempted to kill the snake with a stick, hoping to get hold of all its gold at once; he failed and was bitten to death, etc. The story of the poor Brahman is in some ways similar to the old Aesopian tale entitled “The snake and the farmer” quoted above. Another analogous moralising story, entitled “Of good advice” and including the offering of milk to a house snake, was told to monks in French abbeys in the sixteenth century. See chap. 2.6. 36 See http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/Sattva. 37 See http://hinduism.about.com/od/hindugoddesses/p/saraswati.htm. 38 Panchagavya means “the five things produced by the cow” (Rajapala Advanced Learner’s Hindi-English Dictionary. Edited by H. Bahri (Dilli: Rajapala, 2009), 460. According to another reliable source focussing on south-eastern India and Sri Lanka, the five “gifts” of the cow are its milk, the ghee and curd made from it, its urine, and cow-dung (Yalman 1963: 43). All of them are considered “effective

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bovine ingredients are deemed efficient pollution-removing substances.39 Known as panchamrita,40 the mix made from milk, yoghurt, ghee, sugar, and honey is used to ritually “bathe” or anoint icons representing some divinity (Combe, p. 119), notably Shiva (p. 328). Knowing that, as seen above, the mythical elixir of immortality that lay deep in the ocean was referred to as amrita, the intention presumably behind the anointing of a divine icon with panchamrita would seem to be the sanctification of the icon as well as the reassertion or promotion of the immortal essence of the deity being worshipped. As the provider of milk and of the other four pure bovine products, the cow is “the animal with which the priestly Brahman most closely identified himself,” the dog standing at the opposite pole of filthiness (White, p. 57). Indeed, the Brahman and the cow are “always associated”: the former performs religious ceremonies and the latter provides the offerings needed at such events, the two having reportedly been created simultaneously (Combe, p. 455). The cow is the gift par excellence to be offered to a Brahman as a reward for his religious services. Such a gift ensures that the diet of a Brahman is rich in milk. Milk is not only used as a remover of pollution; its daily intake builds up the purity of the self and, in particular, it enhances the effectiveness of the Brahman as a ritual specialist. In the Hindu caste system, each of the four categories of people is represented by a distinctive colour: white, red, yellow, or black. The first is of course the colour of the pure and therefore higher Brahman priestly cast (Combe, p. 37 fn.). What then are we to understand from the connection between cobras and milk? The answer can hardly be very different from this: the propitiation of snakes with milk is analogous to the honouring of deities with panchamrita. We have already heard of a minor snake festival known as purifying agents” (Ibid.). For the Punjabi, the by-products of the cow are pure because cows only eat grass (Hershman 1977: 284 fn.), and never flesh or blood. 39 Some African pastoral societies use cow urine to “clean” milk vessels. Similarly, Jews should use spring water mixed with the ashes of a sacrificial unblemished “red” (brown) cow to purify themselves from corpse contamination (Milgrom 1993: 111). 40 The word is made of pancha, “five,” and amrita, “nectar” (Rajapala Advanced Learner’s, 22). Five is numerologically important in Hinduism. The universe, for instance, is reputedly made up of five elements: ether (akasha), air (vayu), fire (tejas), water (ap), and earth (prithivi), each corresponding to a physical sense, respectively sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell (Guénon 2001: 31).

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Naga Saviti. And we have noted that the Hindi word saviti is connoted with notions of purity, chastity, and honour.41 The cognate term sattva means “brightness” or “purity.” The implication is that sacred cobras partake of the realm of divinity and purity. Sacred snakes, including domestic ones, are implored not only for fertility and protection against snake bite but also for general welfare and prosperity. In the age-old tale recounted above, the snake rewards the poor hard-working Brahman with gold. The handing out of gleaming metal coins does tally with the brightness of the quasi divine status of Brahmans. Moreover, as reported above, during the great Snake Festival, Brahmans are sometimes rewarded for their good offices with silver or gold coins. Likewise, in the course of a domestic puja, some rupees are dropped in the coconut oil of lamps that are set alight and offered along with food to the snake-idols being worshipped. All this implies that snake deities are the source of all wealth and that, out of gratitude, people must return to the sacred snakes or their intermediaries some of the wealth they have acquired. A number of indications pointing to the connectedness of Brahmans and ophidians, especially sacred snakes, have been provided above: Brahman parents giving birth to a snake-boy; a Brahman showing up in southern India with the very first snakes; a Brahman priestess officiating in a temple dedicated to a snake god; a poor Brahman being rewarded with gold by a sacred cobra…. Jones (p. 107-108) quotes a prayer known as sarpanama, which is recited exclusively by Brahmans and which praises the snakes of the Earth, of the trees, and of the sky. Through highlighting the belonging of both the sacred cobras and the Brahmans to the realm of purity, the present section of this chapter brings their association to a climax. The connection between Brahmans and sacred snakes would therefore parallel that between “snake-charmers” (sapera) and ordinary venomous snakes.

Box 12 Naga: A Buddhist Perspective Rawlinson (1986) devotes an interesting paper to the protean identity of the naga in the canonical scriptures of Buddhism. These holy texts, which have been written in Pali, an ancient vernacular language of northern 41

See footnote 17 in this chapter. It has just been noted that sattvika or sattwika means “pure.”

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India, reportedly date back to the first century CE, i.e. centuries after Buddha’s death. Snakes often appear in those texts. For instance, soon after his enlightenment, Buddha was given protection from a severe storm during seven days by the coils and hood of the king of the nagas, Mucalinda. Some of the ancient sacred Buddhist texts betray a compassionate attitude towards ophidians: snake-charmers are coined “snake-mutilators,” “snake-harmers,” or “snake-pounders” (Rawlinson, p. 146-47). In Buddhist scriptures, the term naga basically referred to a snake. However, it sometimes applies to certain pre-Aryan communities which had a cobra as their totem or which worshipped cobras. More importantly, it also refers to supernatural beings, deva. These were snake-like and among other characteristics were credited with magical powers. Such powers enabled them to create magnificent palaces and to appear in the guise of animals such as a frog or, more often, as human beings. Indeed, in Indian mythology as a whole several men as well as gods were seduced by a gorgeous female cobra (Sax, p. 67; Combe, p. 460), i.e. a nagani, nagini, or nagi. Conversely, a male spirit cobra in the guise of a handsome and rich young man married the beautiful daughter of a king and brought her to his people, all of whom had to cover up their true identity (Rawlinson, p. 149). In Hindu traditions, such spirit snakes were believed to have an ophidian body with a human head surmounted by an extended hood (Combe, p. 158). To return to Rawlinson, the nagas, whether as true snakes or ophidian spirits, were closely associated with trees and ant-hills. A story tells of the long list of objects to be discovered when digging in an ant-hill, the final find inevitably being a naga (Rawlinson, p. 146). When Buddha received protection from the nagaraja (king of all cobras) Mucalinda, he was seated at the foot of a tree of the mucalinda species, also known as the Bodhi tree. In some ways, the tree represented the lord of the nagas. Its foliage turned into the hood of a mighty serpent. Rawlinson recalls the story of some merchants who were in the habit of cutting branches from a sacred banyan tree; since it was “haunted” by nagas, each time this was done, some bounty sprang forth: water, food, a fair woman, or a piece of precious metal; one day, they decided to cut the whole tree in order to become exceedingly

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wealthy in one shot; however, the nagaraja immediately sent an “army” of snakes to kill these greedy people (p. 149).42 Nagas were “closely associated with water and fire” and to “a lesser extent” with earth (p. 142). But on account of its poison, a naga is primarily an “embodiment of fire” or even an “expression of the fire element” (Ibid.). In Upper Burma for instance, the king of the nagas was believed, in addition to wearing a magic ring, to spit fire (Crooke 1919: 414) like a dragon. Moreover, the drops of poison spewed by a legendary cobra could not touch the ground “because all plants would be dried up,” the sky “because there would be no rain (…) for seven years,” or water “because all fish and water-borne creatures (…) would die” according to a Buddhist story supplied by Rawlinson (p. 143). Hindu cosmogony also attests to the intimate connection between venomous snakes and fire, a familiar theme for the ancient Egyptians. It features episodes of absolute destruction putting an end to a given era. In one case, the whole universe is set ablaze by the torrents of flames belched out by the mythical serpent Shesha (Combe, p. 197). A well-known story from the Hindu world exemplifies the impact of snake venom on water: that of Kaliya, a great five-headed water serpent, whose venom poisoned the lake in which it dwelt, thereby preventing people from using its water.43 The water of Sesakunda—or Shesha-Kunda?—a deep pool in central India, was probably undrinkable. The pool was reportedly inhabited by a fearsome red-crested snake. Whenever it came out of the pool, it set fire “to the grass along its track” and, were a man to cross its path, he would become “black in colour,” suffer “excruciating pains,” and die (Crooke, p. 413). Referring to a Naga king, Chandra Sinha (p. 7) writes that “Taksaka by his bite reduced a [sacred] banyan tree to ashes,” adding the comment that 42

This legend clearly echoes the second portion of the Haridatta story. See footnote 35 in this chapter. 43 Kaliya ends up being overcome by Krishna, an aspect or avatara of Vishnu (Combe, p. 257). This story seems to echo that of Kadmos, the Greek hero. Interestingly and somewhat unexpectedly, a similar legend was heard of in norther Italy some centuries ago. The coat of arms of the Visconti, a leading family of Milan, displays a great and fearsome serpent. Known in the Midle Ages as Tarantasio, it lived in a lake close by, now disappeared. The monster caught and ate people, especially children, and polluted the water with its venom. Reportedly slain by the founder of the Visconti family, it has now become part and parcel of Alfa Romeo’s logo, a high profile automobile manufacturer housed in Milan. The information was picked up on the Web by the author while seeking why its emblem features a mighty snake swallowing a person.

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“the destructive action of the serpent’s poison resembles that of the alldevouring fire.” In essence water, including rain, and snake venom are antinomical fluids, the first being “cool” and life-giving, the second being “hot” (burning) and death-dealing. Therefore, although liquid, snake venom is the very negation of the water element. Clearly we have here a case of what Bachelard (1942: 130, 133) terms the “combination” or “marriage” of opposites. In his view, this is the most powerful evocative construct of human imagination. Likewise, according to Leach (1976: 72), the juxtaposition of opposites is “nonsense in terms of normal logic but […] fully consistent with mythologic” inasmuch as the divine sphere is held to be the human sphere inverted. In parts of contemporary Buddhist north-eastern Thailand, people resented snakes, nguu, but believed in a purely benevolent “mythical water serpent which dwells in the swamps and rivers and is associated with rain” (Tambiah 1969: 448, 445). Named Naag, the spirit serpent was linked to Uppakrut, a deity sometimes referred to as the “Lord of the Nagas.” Village communities invoked it each year in order to be protected against “their mortal adversary Mara, embodiment of passion, death and malevolence” (Tambiah 1968b: 85). Mara was “Buddha’s enemy” in his lifetime (p. 84). Uppakrut or Naag was believed to ward off drought, and also, interestingly, fire and lightning (Ibid.). The mythical water- or rainserpent was credited with control over the destructive forces of nature. Its identity had been cleaned of all negative elements. ***** The present chapter has demonstrated that ophidian symbology in ancient as well as in contemporary India is wide-ranging and comprehensive. According to Combe (p. 207), the snake in its opposition to the eagle represents for the Hindus the undifferentiated depths of the ocean or of the earth. More specifically, the image of the snake, especially that of the cobra, carries a range of semantic associations: latent energy, the transformation of unconscious evil forces into positive powers of awakening, fertility, health, the repeated cycles of life and death, reincarnation, and immortality (p. 298). The snake has clearly been a key figure in the imaginary of the people of the Indian sub-continent since time immemorial.

CHAPTER 2.4 TRIUMPHANT MONOTHEISM AND THE SERPENT IN ANCIENT PALESTINE

This chapter will focus on the Bible, mostly the Old Testament. It will show that ophidian symbolism was very much part of society and culture in Palestine. It will successively scrutinise the following themes: the ambivalence of the snake symbol among the Jews; Moses’ brazen or cupper serpent in the Sinai; the significant connection between staffs or poles and snakes; the overlapping symbolic profiles of Jesus and snake as healers; and the controversial status of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Needless to say, our perspective will be anthropological, not theological. The Middle Eastern regional context will be kept in mind throughout. Indeed, the Jews were relocated in large numbers at Babylon for five decades after the Chaldeans conquered Jerusalem in the early years of the sixth century BCE. Some of the early Hebrew myths, such as the story of the Great Flood, hailed from Mesopotamia and were taken over from the nearby Canaanites “by the Hebrew tribes after their settlement” in Palestine (Widengren 1960: 489). The ten primeval patriarchs of the Old Testament, ranging from Adam to Noah, echo the ten primeval kings of Mesopotamia (p. 475). Great mythic snake-like creatures, more or less reminiscent of the Mesopotamian dragon Tiamat or of some great sea serpents feared by the Sumerians (Bottéro et al., p. 383), show up in the Holy Scriptures of Judaism. One case in point is Leviathan: this “coiling” or “gliding” monster of the seas was destroyed by God’s mighty sword (Isaiah 27: 1). The Book of Isaiah (51: 9-11) also refers to Rahab, a primeval monster of the deep sea that was pierced and cut to pieces by God. Rahab is taken by some scholars to represent “the powers of chaos” (Widengren, p. 474).1 1 For Rahab, see also The Book of Job 26: 12-13. Worth noting is that the very first living beings created by God, according to the Holy Scriptures, were great seaserpents, taninim. Such creatures were part of the ancient Semitic worldview since “neither at sea, nor when navigating along great rivers, could [Arab] sailors feel safe because of the presence of the tinnin, a terrifying serpent-like dragon whose

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***** In Tabick’s opinion (1986: 155), “there is no symbol in Biblical and Rabbinic writings that seems to be more mysterious and gripping than the bundle of meanings surrounding the snake.” The symbolic profile of the serpent in these writings, notes the analyst, is as “sinuous” as the reptile itself. According to the same scholar (p. 156), “the snake was not seen just as a symbol of evil, but often just the opposite.” Bodson (p. 528) coins the serpent as seen by the ancient Hebrews as “the most ambivalent animal.” Montenegro (2003) reaches a similar conclusion: “It seems that in the Pentateuch, the serpent is a multi-faceted metaphor and symbol.”2 In the same vein, referring to the dual role of the serpent in Mesopotamian lore, Wilson (2001: 66) writes that “It was the symbol of both ‘death and the underworld’ and ‘life and healing’.” As he and Charlesworth (2010) have convincingly argued, the basic explanation for what Tabick sees as the “multivalence” (Ibid., p. 156) or the “ambivalence” (p. 165) of the snake symbol in the Bible is that the different segments of the Old Testament were written at various epochs, from several centuries before to several centuries after the turn of the first millennium BCE, and that during this extensive historic span the perception of the serpent changed significantly, considering that the Jews gradually turned their back to polytheism or henotheism and espoused monotheism.3 Tabick was well aware of that evolution since she notes that the “mythological status of the snake,” exemplified for instance in ophiolatry, “continued into post-Biblical times” (p. 163). Moreover, one of the three main “themes” involving the snake symbol emerging in her opinion from the biblical and Talmudic literature, namely “the snake as a servant of God,” was grounded on the “primitive idea of the snake as a mediator between man and God” (p. 156).4 Just like Wilson and Charlesworth, Montenegro establishes tail was filled with deadly poison” (Canova 1991: 221). It was assumed that tinnin could also be encountered inland (Canova 1992: 212). The term possibly hails from a Sumerian serpent or dragon, Dannina, which was associated with the Netherworld (Wiggermann 1997: 35 fn.). 2 The Pentateuch consists of the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. 3 A useful notion coined by Charlesworth (p. 350), henotheism implies worshipping secondary deities in addition to a dominant god. 4 The snake appears as a “servant of God” when, for example, it bites someone who has rebelled against his Lord. The other two outstanding themes singled out by Tabick are “the snake as a symbol of the rebellion against God” and “the serpent as a creature independent of God.”

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significant connections between ancient Middle Eastern, and/or Egyptian beliefs and practices, and the various facets of the snake showing up in the Old Testament. What happened is that various shades of meaning coexisted: among the Jews, the negative ones were gaining ground with the consolidation of monotheism while the positive ones were very gradually declining. In the end the latter were more or less completely discarded. Importantly, in the second century CE, the religious status of the snake was boosted by the growing popularity of the cult of Aesculapius (Asklepios) in much of the Roman Empire. That god became the guarantor of Emperor Hadrian’s personal health (Magri, p. 415). Palestine was no exception to the renewal of the cult of Asklepios. In fact, towards the end of his reign (from 117 to 138 CE), Hadrian had a temple built to Aesculapius at Bethesda near Jerusalem. The Jews ultimately rejected the cult of Aesculapius. Judaism ended up being quite thoroughly averse to snakes. This is reflected for instance in the views aired by the Jewish French psychoanalyst Haddad (2008) in a website devoted to the serpent in nature and in human culture. In his understanding, the image of the snake in Judaism is the most negative that can be. Snakes are seen as the principal enemies of humanity and as filthy creatures fit only to be stepped upon and trampled down. The Jews typically perceive snakes like all other creatures crawling on the ground as beset with impurity. Haddad quotes the following phrase: “The dignity of man is to stand upright before God.”5 Human beings are almost unique among living creatures in being erect. Upon death the body reclines, thereby losing its human character, and becomes impure. An additional explanation for the Jews’ rejection of snakes provided by Haddad is that serpent worship was an important feature of Egypt, a country where the Hebrews were held in captivity for some 200 years. Grether and Fichtner also argue that “The reason for the uncleanness of the serpent is that it was paid cultic honours by neighbouring peoples” (in Bromiley 1967: 572). This point is alluded to in the Book of Leviticus (11: 45): “I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be you holy, because I am Holy.”6 In other words, the movement 5

According to another source, “standing is perhaps the most essential physical position of Jewish prayer.” See http://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Prayer/Prayer_Music_and_Litu rgy/Physical_Movement.shtml. 6 Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV). See

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out of Egypt amounted to a ridding of impurity. Snake cults apparently exemplified paganism and polytheism, and therefore un-holiness and impurity, more vividly than any other Egyptian practice. Haddad also notes that Jews refrained from relating in any way with the spirits of the dead. Given the common association of snakes with the dead, both belonging to the ground or underground, the ban on relationship with the departed must have impacted the attitude towards snakes. The prohibition to relate with the dead was another aspect of the Jews’ renunciation of the Egyptian heritage. As Milgrom (1993: 110) notes, tombs, the repositories of corpses, enjoyed a “holy status” and were “centres of cultic activity” in ancient Egypt. He argues quite persuasively that Judaic defilement and purity have to do basically with avoiding any contact with “the forces of death” (Ibid.). It is common knowledge that the disgust for the snake has been fuelled by the Holy Scriptures. Bodson (p. 525) emphasises that, as a rule, the snake is pictured unfavourably. In her view, the third chapter of the Book of Genesis and the Book of Apocalypseʊwhich is the final part of the New Testamentʊhave been especially influential in shaping Bible readers’ perception of snakes (p. 530). Chapters XII and XX of the Apocalypse identify the snake or dragon with Satan (Prigent 1996: 954). The Book of Leviticus (11: 41-43) is also worthy of mention as it proscribes, among many other things, eating creatures that move along the ground, notably “on [their] belly,” because of their utter uncleanness.7 http://www.biblegateway.com. 7 Douglas (1966: 56; 1975: 257-58), an anthropologist, offers the following interpretation for the Jewish “abomination” of “creeping things.” The unique ophidian mode of locomotion “confounds the tidy logical scheme of things”: proper terrestrial creatures move on two or four legs, creatures of the air have wings to fly and fins allow water creatures to swim: “This marks [snakes and other similar creatures] as abominable,” i.e. wholly impure. She goes on to compare snakes with pigs which have a proper mode of locomotion just like sheep, goats, and cattle. However, the pig is “the only non-cud-chewing hoof-cleaver in the whole of creation,” which sets it as “a monster with no other judgment possible of its improper, law-defying existence than outright abomination.” Douglas applies the same scheme of analysis to the African pangolin. This scaly tree-dwelling anteater was the object of a cult by Lele male hunters in southern DRC on account, she believed, of its anomalous character. In a later visit to the Lele, Douglas learns that its religious status had much to do with the fact that its long tongue is rooted at the top of its spine and holds its ribs together; by eating one, men were safeguarded from chest pain, coughing, and death (Douglas 1990: 32). The connection of

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All, including Haddad (2008), have also in mind the admittedly mischievous role of the serpent in Genesis, which talked Eve into tasting the forbidden fruit and having Adam bite it too, thereby ignoring the will of God and unleashing dire and everlasting consequences for their posterity, if not for the whole of humanity. That ophidian figure eventually became identified with Satan, the adversary of God. The following quotations from two evangelists illustrate Jesus’ perception of snakes. The persons he was speaking to or whom he was referring were his disciples: I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. Luke (10: 19) In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. Mark (16: 17-18)8

That being said the snake is far from being disparaged throughout the Bible. Jesus Himself exhorted his disciples in their efforts to spread the Good News to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Mathew 10: 16). In other words the disciples were advised to be alert, prudent, cunning, and cautious just like snakes (Charlesworth, p. 356). Joines (1968: 249) reports that pre-Israelite cultic objects showing serpents facing doves have been unearthed at Beth-Shan, some 25 km south of the Sea of Galilee. These objects were used in the eleventh century BCE or thereabouts. *****

snakes with the ground and death, i.e. the underworld and the dead, is in our opinion more appealing and more universal than its classificatory anomalous character. Religion is basically about the preservation of life. 8 Saint Paul has in fact enacted this exhortation (See Box 14, which quotes Acts 28: 3-6). Along with Mark (16: 17-18), that passage has inspired contemporary Pentecostal Christian communities of rural Tennessee (south-eastern United States) to handle venomous snakes in the course of church rituals.

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Exodus and Numbers, the second and fourth books of the Pentateuch, tell us that on the way to the Promised Land, the Jews spent decades in the Sinai desert. At some point, many of them died from snake bite. The snakes, it must be underscored, were sent to them by the One-and-Only God as a punishment for their sins, unruliness, and lack of faith (Numbers 21: 6). However, as Stevens (p. 344) points out, Yahweh provided his people with the antidote. The repentant Israelites asked Moses to beseech The Almighty to rid them of deadly reptiles. Moses was told to fashion a serpent out of metal and fasten it to a pole. Any person bitten by a poisonous snake would be cured instantly by gazing with confidence at the serpent erected on the pole.

Box 13 The “Fiery” Serpents of the Book of Numbers The Hebrew term, substantive or adjective, used in chapter 21 of the Book of Numbers about the snakes sent by God to punish the people is saraf, “burning (snakes)” or “the burning-ones” (Asurmendi 1996: 939). Charlesworth is aware of this. In his understanding, the standard Hebraic root for “to burn” is berb. He therefore suggests that saraf could imply “a connotation for purifying a human of sickness” (p. 257). He also notes that the notion of “burning” may denote, in addition to the painful bite and the possibly reddish skin colour of that particular snake, its “red or fiery eyes” (p. 443). Feliks (2007: 695) holds that the term saraf “appears to be the general [Hebraic] name for poisonous snakes whose poison, so to speak, soref (‘burns’) the body.” According to Montenegro (2003), the Hebraic word saraf hails from the Egyptian term srf, signifying “warm” or “hot,” itself related to a verb meaning “to heat up” or “to inflame.9 It is useful to recall that Yahweh had already sent real fire as a warning sign to his people in the Sinai after having been irritated by their grievances (Numbers 11: 1-3); that fire “consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.” The event took place at a place called Taberah, “Burning.” The sending by Yahweh of venomous snakes to torment the Hebrews in the desert was itself reminiscent of his plaguing the Egyptians with small biting insects so that the pharaoh would release his people (Exodus 8: 16-19). 9

Montenegro relies here on an Egyptologist, J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997), 146, 147. The old Egyptian connection between the sun and venomous snakes has been underscored in chap. 2.1. The Arabic counterpart of saraf is sarfat (Vasquez Hoys 2002).

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It seems that old Egyptian patterns were replicated in the Sinai. As mentioned above, pharaohs reportedly used tamed snakes to kill those who offended them. And the ancient Egyptians made use of ophidian representations with hieroglyphic inscriptions to repel serpents and heal persons bitten by snakes (Joines 1968: 252-53). “Justice-making” serpents were also familiar to Mesopotamians. Just like Wilson (2001: 75), various analysts have pointed out that the Brazen Serpent entwining the pole in the Sinai was akin to Asklepios’ lifepromoting emblem of office. That icon seems to be less ancient than the Brazen Serpent of the Sinai, but other ritual staffs were precursors of long. We learnt in chapter 2.1 that the Sumerian god Ningizzida, the son of Ninazu (known as “Lord Healer”), held a staff with one or two snakes coiled around it. The same chapter informed us that many Egyptian deities were represented holding either an erect serpent as staff or a sceptre entwined with a serpent. A second-millennium BCE goddess of Cyprus, Astort, was identified by “a pillar entwined by a serpent.” However, not all of those were divinities of healing. Nonetheless, in much of the Middle East and ancient Egypt, the snake was definitely associated with healing. In Joines’ opinion (p. 251), “the most prominent element in the tradition of Moses and the bronze serpent seems to be that of sympathetic magic”; that is, “an adversary could most effectively be controlled by the manipulation of its exact image.” Using Milgrom’s words (p. 111), it may alternatively be said that an apparently idolatrous rite, one which the Jews on their way out of Egypt could readily believe in, was “eviscerated” of its “pagan content.” Charlesworth (p. 333) agrees: the Hebrews were not intimated to idolatrously “worship the copper serpent lifted up on the pole.” It is faith in Yahweh rather than “sympathetic magic” that did miracles. A few generations later in Jewish history, a snake idol known as “Nehushtan” and identified with the snake icon fashioned by Moses in the Sinai was revered in the temple of Jerusalem (Kings II, 18: 4).10 Joines (p. 252-53) points out that ancient Egyptians are not known to have fashioned metal snakes and that cultic copper, brass, or bronze snake replicas have rather been found in many Bronze Age Mesopotamian, northern Syrian

10

The New International Version of the Bible notes that Nehushtan “sounds like the Hebrew for both ‘bronze’ and ‘snake’.” The Hebraic root nhs, “snake,” is clearly discernable in Nehushtan.

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and pre-Israelite (= Canaanite) Palestinian archaeological sites.11 In these cases the metallic snake replicas were associated with fertility goddesses and cults. Joines (p. 253) argues that Moses blended two religious traditions, one from Egypt, that is, the notion of repelling snakes using an ophidian representation, and one from Mesopotamia and Canaan: the practice of fashioning metallic snake idols for some purpose. When Moses chose to make a serpent icon out of metal, he most likely had in mind some notion of durability or of being everlasting, like the snake itself. This brings us to a much discussed and controversial passage of the New Testament: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (John 3: 14-15). The following verse reads: “(…) whoever believes in [the Son of Man] shall not perish but have eternal life.” In comparing Jesus’ crucifixion on the Golgotha with the erection of the bronze or copper snake on a pole in the Sinai desert, the Fourth Evangelist did not make a meaningless statement. He implied that the Brazen Serpent was a prefiguration of Christ: those in the Sinai who were bitten by a lethal snake were spared from death through faith in God. Likewise, those who believe in Jesus on the Cross, in his resurrection, and who follow the path laid down by him will be granted a glorious and unending afterlife.12 Clearly the common denominator was the restoration or perpetuation of life. All this enables Charlesworth (p. 388) to write that “the serpent is a type of Jesus.” Conversely, ruling out his extended arms, Jesus the Crucified was to take a vaguely serpentine shape in some of his material representations. The analogy with the Brazen Serpent is nonetheless defective. The snake moves out if its old skin periodically; it is believed to be born anew on each occasion and therefore to hold an indefinite lease on life. Jesus died on the cross, i.e. on a pole, only once, but nine days later he was resurrected. Contrary to the serpent, he did not remain on earth but ascended body and soul to the sky, thereby returning to where he had come from.13

11

Charlesworth (p. 351) leaves the question of Nehushtan’s background open: possibly Babylonian, Canaanite, Jebusite, or Egyptian. 12 The very notion of a blissful afterlife was possibly a legacy of pharaonic religion. 13 As will be seen below, some East African snake-associated priests reportedly ascended to the sky rather than dying on earth. It was believed that they had

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***** We will return to healing with regard, this time, to the New Testament. For now let us focus on a significant feature of the Old Testament: the strong connection between staffs or poles and snakes, which was quite common in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and which verged on identification. The connection between snake and staff comes out very graphically in a well-known episode of the Book of Exodus (7: 8-12), which the author referred to above: the contest between Aaron, Moses’ older brother, and the senior magicians of Egypt; here staffs are changed into snakes, Aaron’s staff or snake swallowing the staffs or snakes of his challengers. Yahweh had already granted Moses’ staff the power to transform itself into a snake as soon as it hit the ground; the snake would instantly turn back into a stick once grabbed by the tail (Exodus 4: 1-5). This was done so the Jews believed Moses to be a man of God and a true prophet. It is implicit that Yahweh blessed Aaron’s staff with the same power. The greater seers of Egypt could turn their staffs into serpents, but Moses’ and Aaron’s staffs proved much more powerful. From the Jewish standpoint, the power of their staffs hailed from the One-and-Only God whereas the power of the Egyptian staffs was merely of a magical character. Of the nine plagues of Egypt, six were activated by either Aaron’s or Moses’ staff: the waters of Egypt turning into blood (first plague); the Nile and the whole country of Egypt teeming with frogs (second plague); gnats biting all people and animals throughout the land (third plague); Egypt beset by hail, lightning, and thunder (seventh plague); and locust cleaning the country of all greenery (eight plague). The ninth plague: Egypt in the darkness was activated by Moses stretching out his hand towards the sky; however, his hand may very well have held his staff. In the case of three out of these six plagues, the staff was raised over the streams (second plague), “toward the sky” (seventh plague), or “over Egypt” (eight plague). In the first and third plagues, the staff struck water and dust respectively. The three remaining plagues were directly triggered by Yahweh. The crossing of the Red Sea offers yet another instance in which Moses’ staff was put to good use. The prophet was told by Yahweh to raise his brought snakes with them when they originally came down from heaven to earth on a cloud.

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staff and stretch out his hand “over the sea to divide the water” so that the Hebrews could get across safely (Exodus 14: 16). Moses did as God had instructed him to do: “The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Exodus 14: 21-22). The Egyptian army was pursuing them; it was completely annihilated by the subsiding sea as Moses again stretched out his hand (Exodus 14: 26), presumably holding the staff. Both the Book of Exodus (17: 17) and the Book of Numbers (20: 9-11) describe an additional manifestation of the power of the staff blessed by Yahweh. Here the Jews complain that there is no water to drink in the area of Sin (or Zin) where Moses has led them. Once again, the prophet turns to God who tells him to strike a rock at a nearby place called Horeb. The word reportedly denotes a dry place. After one stroke (Exodus) or two strokes (Numbers) of the staff, water miraculously gushes out of the dry rock and the Jews as well as their livestock quench their thirst. According to Numbers (20: 8), Moses was instructed to speak to the rock in addition to striking it. It is also mentioned that the staff used by Moses on that occasion was the same as that which had caused the Nile to turn blood-red (Exodus 17: 5). Once more, the blessed staff saves the lives of many. Shortly after those events, the Hebrews move to a place called Rephidim where they are attacked by the Amalekites (Exodus 17: 8-16). Moses charges Joshua to lead his men into battle. He himself goes to the top of a nearby hill with “the staff of God.” While he points it to the sky, his combatants prevail; when he tires, the Amalekite warriors take the advantage. But with support from Aaron and another man, the staff is kept pointing towards the sky for hours and the Hebrews are victorious. In this particular case, the staff serves as a link ensuring optimal communication between the people of Israel and Yahweh, not unlike the raised pole supporting the Brazen Serpent as well as the Cross. The staff’s ophidian identity is largely obliterated; instead, it stands metaphorically for a towering tree in Mesopotamian fashion.14 Taking stock of the analogical equivalence between staff and snake as well as of what we have learnt from previous chapters, we are well positioned to suggest plausible interpretative clues regarding a number of extraordinary events.

14

See chap. 2.1 and Box 17.

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Let us first consider the turning of the waters of Egypt into blood. When Aaron’s staff struck the Nile, the water instantly had a bad smell, fish died, and the people of Egypt could not drink any surface water, not even the water stored in domestic containers (Exodus 7: 18, 21). They had to dig new wells. Hindu and Buddhist mythologies tell us that the flaming venom of mighty snakes can poison lakes and rivers and bring death to water creatures. In other words, Aaron’s staff was the analogue of a mythical poisonous serpent that would have spat extremely noxious venom in the Nile. The colour taken by the waters of Egypt was that of death. We also know from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hindu, and Buddhist mythologies that snakes are intimately connected with water. Greek traditions offer various converging illustrations of this strong imaginary association. The correlation between snake and water, whether groundwater or water from the sky, also came out loud and clear on the African scene, as we will see further on. The association between the two terms leads to the notion that water is part and parcel of the ophidian essence and that snakes somehow have power over water. Unsurprisingly, three more miraculous events from the Pentateuch have to do with water: - The seventh plague: Egypt beset by hail, lightning, and thunder - The parting of the waters of the Red Sea - The spurting of water out of the rock at Horeb On account of its snake-like character, a staff can be fabulously credited with power over water, whether by making the sky rain, by having water flow out of a rock, or by commanding the waters of a river to part.15 ***** While teaching the New Testament for a number of years, Madsen (1991) was “struck over and over again with the image of Jesus Christ as the healer or Great Physician.” Indeed, 27 out of the 36 miracles mentioned in the gospels relate to healing (Ibid.). Jesus’ ability to restore health came as a potent indication of his power to confer a glorious and everlasting posthumous existence on those who followed the path marked out by him.

15

East African mythology offers various instances of rivers being crossed dry by groups of fleeing people due to the magical intervention of staff-bearing Moseslike medicine-men who are typically connected with snakes. The parting of streams or sea may have to do with the staff as a “fiery” or “burning” reptile.

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Some of Jesus’ curing accomplishments are of particular interest. The first relates to the death of a dear friend of Jesus named Lazarus. He had been dead for four days when Jesus came to his sister Martha, still overcome with grief: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die’” (John 11: 25-26). Martha was a believer and she led Jesus to her brother’s grave. Some men removed the stone blocking the entrance to the funerary cavern. Then “Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face” (John 11: 4344). Jesus also brought back to life the only son of a widow from the town of Nain (Luke 7: 11-15). As the Son of God, he demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to restore the biological life of recently dead individuals. The resurrection of Lazarus echoes in the first place the power of the Brazen Serpent in the Sinai which, in times past, saved the lives of many believers on the verge of death. Commenting on the two scenes, Charlesworth (p. 398, 402) points out that the serpent was used in the Book of Numbers as “a symbol of salvation” and that Jesusʊwho was “lifted up” on the Cross just as the Brazen Serpent had been on a poleʊis “one who embodies the positive symbolic power attributed to the serpent,” notably its power to heal and its special grip on life. Lazarus’ resurrection was a prefiguration of Jesus’ own triumph over death, but it also pointed to Asklepios’ legendary achievements, specifically his capacity to rescue people from death. As mentioned above, Asklepios’ deeds angered Hades, the god of the land below, who complained that too few shades were coming over to him. Asklepiosʊwhose emblem of office, may we recall, was a staff entwined by a snakeʊended up being thunderstruck by Zeus, the king of gods. Jesus, as everyone knows, was crucified. The four evangelists report cases of Jesus curing the blind. Luke (18: 3543) and Mark (10: 46-52) tell of the healing of a blind beggar at Jericho and one learns from Mathew (12: 22-23) that Jesus cured a “demonpossessed man who was blind and mute.” These persons were healed through words. John (9: 5-7) also has a story about a man born blind. After saying that he was the “the light of the world,” Jesus spat on the ground, made some mud with his saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “‘Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’. So the man went and washed, and

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came home seeing.”16 We also learn from Mark (8: 22-25) what Jesus the curer did to heal the blind. Some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

The miracle described by Mark took place at Bethsaida. Yet another noteworthy healing event happened at Bethsaida, a place name which has been variously rendered as Bethesda or Bethzatha, depending on the manuscript. This point is significant because Bethsaida was no ordinary site. Some decades after Jesus had performed these miracles, a shrine to Asklepios was established by the Roman Emperor Hadrian “near or in Jerusalem at Bethzatha” (Charlesworth, p. 376), more exactly “just inside Jerusalem and north of the Sheep’s Gate” (p. 108). Even before the time of Jesus, the natural pool of Bethsaida was known as a place of healing. At times, so the people believed, the water appeared to be stirred and the very first person to move into the pool was “made whole,” i.e. healed.17 It is next to that marvellous pool that Jesus miraculously cured a man who had been paralysed for years (John 5: 6-9). As he was too incapacitated to move by himself and since no one volunteered to assist him, the man was hopeless. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’ – ‘Sir’, the invalid replied, ‘I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

16

The pool of Siloam was a low-lying permanent water point, perhaps the only lasting one, in the city of Jerusalem. It was probably a sacred place. 17 The notion of being “made whole” (cured) would seem to hail from the Sumerians. See Box 17. In contemporary Lithuanian, the notion of health, sveikumas or sveikata, has much to do with being “whole,” sveikas (Greimas, p. 93-94).

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We may recall that the Egyptian snake-goddess Mertseger was believed to pay visits to the sick in the form of a snake with healing power. The two major healing gods of Sumer, Ninazu and his son Ningizzida, had ophidian traits and were divinities of the underworld. Nearer to Palestine, Eshmun, the Phoenician healing deity, was likewise symbolized by a serpent. In all likelihood, the old Palestinian belief was that the pool of Bethsaida was frequented by a snake endowed with healing abilities. It must have been such a creatureʊand not an “angel” as some versions of the Bible suggestʊthat occasionally came out to disturb the normally still surface of the pool. The connection between serpents and water, especially healing water, has been made by a German archaeologist working in Palestine18 and by Joines (1968: 254), who brings up biblical evidence according to which “crawling things” (zoheleth) were associated with one of the two springs of Jerusalem. It has been noted in chapter 1.4 that hawwah, “life,” possibly meant “snake” in ancient Hebrew. When Jesus cured the paralysed at the pool of Bethsaida, he in all likelihood acted as a substitute for a healing snake. It is useful to describe more vividly the Palestinian context in which the hypothetical healing snake of Bethsaida could fit. The Hebrews were “aware of the connection between the serpent and healing, which was well known in ancient Palestine from the serpent cult at Beth Shan in the middle of the second millennium BCE” (Charlesworth, p. 329).19 Snakeassociated deities or even serpent cults were not unfamiliar to ancient Palestine. Hazor, nowadays Tel el-Qedah, was “the centre of a Canaanite serpent cult” in northern Galilee (Charlesworth, p. 69; also Joines 1968). The Canaanites honoured the goddess Asherah, a counterpart of Athirat, herself a major fertility goddess in ancient coastal Syria (Ugarit).20 She

18 This is pointed out by Magri (2007: 427), who refers to Benzinger, the author of HebrƗische ArchƗologie (1927). 19 As Charlesworth (p. 118) writes, “The remains of serpents with breasts and sometimes with a cup beneath to catch milk indicate that there was a goddess at Beth Shan who was perceived as a serpent.” 20 According to Wilson (2001: 93), Ushara (Ashera-Athirat) was “directly associated with the snake (hlmz) in Ugarit.” The name Ushara is “the Hurrianized form of Ishara, known from Mesopotamian sources as another form of Ishtar in her capacity as a fertility goddess.” Ishtar and the kindred Cypriot Astort were snakerelated divinities. The Hurrians were politically or economically dominant in

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was often represented holding serpents in one hand or in both hands (Charlesworth, p. 345). Asherah was apparently worshipped in sacred groves and associated with sacred trees (p. 344), all of which may have been snake-related. She was, no doubt, connected with the “fertility cults of greater Canaan” (Wilson 2001: 204). King Hezekiah (727-698 BCE) was the thirteenth successor of David. He attempted to rid the country of idol worship (Kings II, 18: 4). This involved the shattering of a snake idol worshipped in the Temple at Jerusalem, known as Nehusthan. Hezekiah also cut down the “Asherah poles.” King Josiah, the fifteenth successor of David, completed the work initiated by his predecessor, destroying some of the last remnants of Asherah’s life-giving cult and burning her sacred pole to ashes (Kings II, 23: 6-7). In such a context, that the pool of Bethsaida may have been haunted by a healing snake becomes even more likely. Bethsaida was not the only healing place of its kind available to the Jews. The sanctuary of Dan, at the headwaters of the Jordan River, was also credited with healing power (Robertson-Smith, p. 156). It is likely that snakes were a common sight there.

Box 14 Dan and the Snake as the Justice Maker Dan also happens to be the name of one of the many sons of Jacob. His father called upon him to be a justice maker. He compared him in that capacity to a biting snake (Gen. 49: 17). This is in line with the “burning” serpents sent out by Yahweh to punish the unfaithful Jews in the Sinai. It is also in line with the justice-making snakes of old Mesopotamia (See chapter 2.1). In the Acts of the Apostles, the snake also appears as a divinely guided justice maker. Paul and the many other prisoners on board survived being shipwrecked on Melita (Malta): “Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, ‘This man must be a northern Mesopotamia and much of inland Syria in the middle of the second millennium BCE.

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murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.’ But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” (Acts 28: 1-6) A final touch to the present analysis of some of Jesus’ healing accomplishments will now be made. As mentioned already, Jesus sometimes cured blindness using his spittle. According to Madsen (1991) saliva was “considered a medicant” at the time. For instance, in the early decades of the first century CE, the Greek geographer Strabo reported that certain individuals from Parium in central Anatolia (Phrygia) could heal a person either by touching them or by applying their saliva to the wound (MacCulloch, p. 411).21 Interestingly, the method used by Jesus the Curer to remedy blindness is remarkably similar to that applied in recent times, as we will see in a later chapter, by certain East African ritual specialists whose spittle was believed to remove cecity.22 Additionally, those specialists were especially acquainted with snakes, notably spitting ophidians. Such practices were possibly age-old. It is useful to recall here that the art of contemporary Egyptian snake-charming was very deeply rooted in history. That being granted, we find once more the person of Jesus connected somewhat with healing ophidians or with snake-affiliated healers. In Roman times, as noted in Box 5, the Psylli of Cyrenaica cured snake bites by spitting on the wound. Although some early dissident Christian groups came to hold such a belief, the present author is not implying here that Jesus was truly associated with serpents or that he was serpent-like. He is merely taking note that, as a great healer and as the supreme promoter of life, Jesus was moving in a field already heavily signposted by the serpent. More generally, as Charlesworth (p. 382) has aptly put it, ophidian symbolism is highly relevant because it “discloses the point that Jesus is the one who brings ‘eternal life’.”23

21 In these particular cases, as mentioned by Strabo, the patients had been bitten by a venomous snake. MacCulloch (p. 411) suggests that these healers belonged, like some others of their kind, to a clan said to hail from a goddess impregnated by a legendary serpent. 22 See chap. 4.9 and 4.11. 23 This section of the present chapter would have probably benefited from two publications mentioned by Magri (2007: 418 fn.): A. Dupriez, Jésus et les Dieux

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Box 15 Snakes, Divination, and Knowledge In Palestine the snake was not only reckoned as a supernatural agent of healing and fertility. There was evidence of ophiomancy, i.e. divination through serpents, which was “no doubt (…) practiced by many in Israel since passages in both the Law and the Prophets repeatedly condemn such practices” (Charlesworth, p. 438). In fact, the Hebrew word nahas may mean “snake” or “divination, magic curse,” depending on which syllable is accentuated (Ibid.). In the preface to his book, Wilson (2001) similarly mentions that the Semitic root nhs may refer to “either serpent or magic, divination.” The point is also made by an encyclopaedist (De Vries et al., p. 503). According to a student of Semitic languages referred to by Vasquez Hoys (2002), the Hebraic root verb nhs means “to foresee, to see into the future.”24 Chapter 1.4 and chapter 2.2 (Ancient Greece) have touched upon the connection between snakes and prophecy, augury, or knowledge. The next chapter will bear witness to the involvement of snakes with divination in ancient Arabia. It is meaningful at this juncture to bring into the picture the high regard for the serpent that characterised some gnostical sects active in the first and/or second centuries CE in the Near and Middle East, including apparently Palestine. Gnosticism may be defined as the possession of knowledge (gnosis in Greek), especially of the esoteric kind, regarding spiritual matters, notably salvation. According to one source,25 “Gnostics were ‘people who knew’, and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know.” The earlier gnostical sects possibly flourished in Anatolia some five centuries BCE. There have been a number of gnostical schools in the Near East throughout the centuries. Two of them are relevant to the present topic, i.e. the Peratae and Naassenes, both of which worshipped the serpent, were short-lived, and partook of what has been labelled Ophite Gnosticism. The term “ophite” has, of course, to do with ophis, “snake” in Greek, and Guérisseurs. À Propos de Jean V (Paris: Gabalda, 1970); and P. J. Van Staden (1998), “Jesus and Asklepios,” Ekklesiastikos Pharos 80: 84-111. 24 The scholar is M. Modena, the author of “Il tabu lingüístico e alcune denominación del serpente in Semitico,” an article published in the Annali della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell'Università degli statale di Milano (ACME, 1982). 25 The Catholic Encyclopedia online. Accessed July 29, 2012. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm.

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refers more specifically to those who venerated snakes (Tardieu 1981: 150). The data available on the two sects is limited but sound enough. Various sources relate the designation “Naassenes” to the Hebraic root nhs. While associating this sect with the Jews, Magri (p. 409) also brings up the similarity of their name with the Greek word naos, “temple.” The Naassenes stated that there were no religions without temples and all temples were ultimately dedicated to the serpent god (Ibid.), the giver of all knowledge and salvation. They reportedly viewed the serpent as “the chief principle, the mediator between the upper and lower world” (Foester in Bromiley, p. 582), the upper world pointing to the heavenly notions of Being and Perfection while the lower world was equated with degraded and finite physical existence (Tardieu, p. 150).26 The picture is somewhat richer as regards the Peratae, who are described by Magri (p. 395, 427) as “a syncretical mix of [early] Christianism and Asclepius’s cult.” The Peratae underscored the relatedness of the snake coiling round the stick emblematic of Asklepios’ healing powers with the salvation by the Brazen Serpent entwining the pole lifted by Moses in the Sinai (Numbers 21: 4-9), both of which they saw as forerunners of Christ on the Holy Cross, as John the Evangelist (3: 14-15) has himself metaphorically hinted concerning the other component of the gnostical equation. The Perates identified the Brazen Serpent as well as the serpent of Genesis with Knowledge or Wisdom; they involved snakes in the celebration of the Eucharist; and they emphasised the ophidian-like nature of our inner abdominal organs (Magri, p. 406). According to Tardieu (p. 249), their notion of Trinity or Triad featured the oruboros—the circular pattern of a snake biting its tail—representing the Father, the Brazen Serpent representing the Son, and the “fiery serpents” of the Sinai representing matter, the first two standing for knowledge and life, the latter for moral ruin and death. The Naassenes and Peratae gnostical sects exemplify in extreme ways the association of snakes with knowledge, divination, and prophecy, which used to be commonplace in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. 26 According to Tardieu (1981: 150), the members of this sect never called themselves Naassenes. That designation was given to them as worshippers of snakes by those who wrote about and against them. Tardieu links the Naassenes with the mystery cults of Greece and Phrygia (Anatolia) rather than with the Jewish world.

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***** The final and more elaborate section of the present chapter will focus on a most significant expression of ophidian symbolism in the Old Testament, that is, the serpent in the third chapter of Genesis. This Book was reportedly drafted in the tenth century BCE or thereabouts. The story of the Garden of Eden will be examined along a regional Middle Eastern perspective, taking note that this part of Genesis was compiled from “diverse and contradictory mythological traditions and different symbolic worlds” (Charlesworth, p. 300). Somewhat intriguingly, the serpent of Eden is in no way a frightening custodian. Quite the contrary, it persuades the primeval woman to pick a forbidden fruit and to taste it. Genesis seems to emphasise some other facet of the rich ophidian symbolism. The story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise is a variation of an age-old and basic mythical theme: the separation of God from Man or, more generally, of Heaven from Earth. Originally, according to the Hebraic tradition, God could be seen “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3: 8). After what became known as the Fall, humans could not easily communicate with God anymore. Only priests and ritual sacrifices, prophets and God’s incarnated Son would re-establish an interaction that was initially immediate and familiar. The separation was triggered by a single and exemplary human misdeed in which the snake played a key part. But the focus of the Eden story is wider since it also “explains” the subordination of woman to man: Adam was made first, his female companion being fashioned by God from his side or rib; God speaks in the first place to Adam; the latter is seemingly named by God himself whereas Eve receives her name from Adam; Eve entices Adamʊhere a passive character (Beynen 1990: 48-50)ʊto go against God’s will and, as a consequence, women became indefinitely subordinate to men. Among all natural creatures, the snake is a very sinister character according to most commentators of the Bible, whether contemporary or ancient. In their opinion, it is the serpent that in Paradise shrewdly turned Eve and through her Adam away from God and which caused their expulsion from Eden. Indeed, the first woman, later to be named Eve, claims before God that she was “deceived” by Serpent (Gen. 3: 13). Accordingly, the latter was condemned by God to crawl on its belly, eat

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dirt, and be trampled and killed by humans (Gen. 3: 14-15),27 which implies that Snake originally had feet and possibly stood upright. Had it not been for the snake, humanity would have enjoyed a blissful and possibly eternal existence in Paradise. Thus the serpent came to be identified with Satan, the adversary of God. Many biblical commentators are much more cautious in their assertions about the serpent of Eden for a number of good reasons. Nahas, the term used in the third chapter of Genesis in its Hebraic version, is the most generic and possibly the more neutral Hebraic designation for ophidians. Additionally, as Charlesworth (p. 291) points out, the Hebraic adjective used in the Book of Genesis to characterise Serpent’s behaviour is “rather neutral.” Far from implying that by essence Serpent is mischievously sly, Genesis portrays it as “wise and clever” (p. 23). Likewise, argues Fichter (in Bromiley 1967: 574), the author of the Book of Genesis “does not equate the serpent with a demon or anti-godʊhow could he when he is dissociating himself from the religions around him?” The religions here referred to are notably those of the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. According to Fichter, the snake is introduced in Genesis as an animal of the field, not as some kind of supernatural creature. In the early days when the Book of Genesis was written, the serpent could not be identified with “Satan, who plays the role of God’s adversary only much later” in the history of the Scriptures (Ibid.). As Charlesworth (p. 23) comments, “It is no longer prudent to assume that the serpent is evil in Genesis.” There are interesting ambiguities about Serpent’s condemnation.28 Woman, it is said, picked the prohibited fruit because it was “good for food and pleasing to the eye”ʊas most of the fruits growing in the Garden of Eden were (Gen. 2: 9)ʊand also “desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3: 6). Serpent had just told her that she would gain “wisdom” or “knowledge” while eating the forbidden fruit and that no one would die,

27 As the disciple Paul (2 Corinthians 11: 3) wrote much later, “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” 28 According to Charlesworth (p. 320), “no one should imagine that the serpent alone is responsible for the entrance of sin into creation [author’s italics], the appearance of death, and the cause of punishment and ultimately of banishment.” The blame was shared: “That is why all three were punished by God.” (Ibid.)

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contrary to the warning issued by God to Adam.29 Adam and his wife tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and no death resulted from that event. Far from being poisonous, the fruit proved tasty and sweet. As Kugel (1998: 96) and many other commentators understand it, God’s warning to Adam was that he would become mortal, not that he would die then and there. Indeed, part of Adam’s punishment was that at some point in the future he would return to the ground or to dust (Gen. 3: 19). Actually, Genesis tells us that Adam died at the age of 930 years (Gen. 5: 5). Other figures of the Old Testament enjoyed very long lives, notably Methusaleh: 969 years (Gen. 5: 27) and Noah: 950 (Gen. 9: 29). Death at the age of some 950 years seems to be a medium term between a life expectancy of less than 60 years in that distant past and immortality. As the number of generations since the expulsion from Paradise increased, the life-span was drastically reduced: Abraham and Moses reportedly died at the age of 175 and 120 years respectively (Gen. 25: 7; Deuteronomy 34: 7). In its third chapter, Genesis does not provide an effective account of the origin of death, as various other Middle Eastern myths do. The first human to actually die was Abel through murder (Gen. 4: 8).30 In other words, Serpent did not prove to be a great liar. Moreover, it told Woman that the eating of the forbidden fruit would “open [her] eyes” (Gen. 3: 5), which is what actually occurred (Gen. 3: 7). The author is in agreement with Tabick (p. 164), Austin (p. 101), and Charlesworth (p. 307), all of whom argue that the snake of Eden did not tell lies.

Box 16 The Serpent and Genesis as an Etiological Myth The Eden episode is primarily about “explaining” the estrangement of God and humans, the origin of suffering as well as death, and also how women came to be subordinate to men. But there are many other subsidiary lines 29

Genesis (2: 16-17): “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’” 30 Primeval humans also enjoyed very long lives in the mythology of ancient Mesopotamia (Bottéro et al., p. 592). Interestingly, a number of men and women of more than 110 years are to be found in a region of Armenia known as Karabagh, “Black Garden” (Surmelian 1968: 18), not very far from northern Mesopotamia. Apples trees were possibly plentiful in that region.

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of “explanation” in Genesis 3, most of which rest on the premise that in the beginning of times, things were quite different from, if not opposite to, what they later turned out to be.31 Serpent’s condemnation to crawl on the ground and eat dirt implies that snakes have not always been as we currently experience them. At the very beginning, they perhaps dwelt in trees and ate fruits. More probably, as some ancient Egyptian paintings illustrate, it was believed that snakes originally had legs and even arms, in addition to a long tail, and that they stood erect, not unlike humans. Calling serpent iconography to testimony, Charlesworth (p. 304) thinks it “likely” that Serpent was “standing on two or more feet” in Eden. Tabick (p. 160) quotes a Rabbinic writing in which God tells Snake: “I made you so you should walk erect like a man, but you would not; therefore, ‘upon your belly shall you go’.” De Vries et al. (p. 500) also report that “in old prints of the Paradise scene, the ‘serpent’ does have limbs.”32 Such representations were possibly inspired by the rearing cobras of Egyptʊknown in ancient Egyptian as djeser-tep, “erect of head” (Mundkur 1983: 65)ʊand elsewhere. Among other things, the story of Eden would then “explain” how ophidians acquired their very peculiar mode of locomotion. It also tells of how the perpetual enmity between humans and snakes came to be.33 The Book of Genesis does not state this explicitly but through God’s curse, Serpent lost more than its standing posture. It must have equally been deprived of the ability to speak. Muteness, as we know, is another outstanding ophidian feature begging for some kind of explanation. We have here three components that add up to an etiological tale, i.e. a legendary account of how snakes came to be what they are: crawling, voiceless, and most inimical to mankind. But the tale is incomplete in one important respect. It does not say how snakes came to be endowed with the ability to regenerate themselves and to live indefinitely. This omission was filled by other Middle Eastern or Eastern Mediterranean myths, notably the Sumerian legend of Gilgamesh and the old Greek story of the 31

The author follows here, with a purely ophidian perspective, a trail marked out by Charlesworth (p. 322), who supplies a list of some 13 questions to which the author of Genesis possibly wished to provide answers: Why must the serpent crawl on its belly? Why do women suffer at delivery? Why humans return to dust? Etc. 32 Similar representations occurred in Arabia, as we shall see in the next chapter. 33 As Grether and Fichter (in Bromiley 1967: 573) recall, when the Messianic kingdom of peace will be established on earth, “The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.” (Isaiah 11: 8)

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Ass and the Snake. Here Snake steals the medicine of immortality from mankind or bargains it away from humans. On the other hand, these two legends do not “explain,” as the Book of Genesis does to some extent, how snakes lost their limbs and, implicitly, their voice. From such a perspective, Genesis appears to complement nicely two other ancient mythical traditions. One thing seems as clear as crystal: the scene of Serpent luring Woman to pick out and taste the forbidden fruit and that of Snake stealing the medicine of immortality from humanity or bargaining it away have the same outcome. Thereafter, no human being would ever escape the fate of death. Charlesworth (p. 309) comments that Serpent was not condemned to death as Man and Woman were, and that the narrator possibly felt no need to insist on the latter’s immortality because that was common knowledge in his days (Ibid.). As pointed out above, the more the heroes of the Old Testament were ancient, the longer their life expectancy was. The implication is that, had Adam and Eve not been expelled from the Garden of Eden, they would have lived indefinitely. Serpent was cursed by Yahweh but it was not explicitly expelled from the Garden of Eden, and this seems consistent with its reportedly indefinite lease on life. Having tasted the forbidden fruit, so God said, Adam became “like one of us,” meaning those knowledgeable about good and evil (Gen. 3: 23). Prior to that event, the pronoun “us” must have referred to God himself in the first place and in the second place to Serpent. The knowledgeable snake is the creature that sees everything because its eyes are never closed. It is also the snake, which, in ancient Palestine as elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean, notably in the Greek world or in the Near East, was connected with divination or augury.34 Thus, we have here a nice connection between Genesis and the world of which it was part. Once Adam’s eyes were “opened,” he immediately became “afraid” of God. His sudden apprehensiveness plausibly derived from the guilt and shame experienced for instance by a disobedient child. The implication here is that the first man could become aware of good and evil only after having first committed something wrong, a logical outcome. However, it is explicitly stated in Genesis (3: 10) that Adam became anxious because he found himself “naked.” Soon after the transgression, he and his wife covered themselves with fig leaves (Gen. 3: 7) and hid from God “among 34

See chap. 2.1 and 2.2. See also chap. 2.5.

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the trees of the garden” (Gen. 3: 8). God instantly understood what had gone wrong: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?” (Gen. 3: 11). They had previously gone naked without feeling any shame (Gen. 2: 25). In the end, they both received skin clothing from Yahweh (Gen. 3: 21) as if they entered civilisation, that is, humanity. As Charlesworth (p. 293) notes, the Hebrew word used in Genesis for “knowledge” implies “experiencing” rather than intellectual understanding. Likewise, in ancient Mesopotamian thinking, “knowledge” referred first and foremost to “know-how” (Bottéro et al., p. 253). In the real world, the uneasiness with nakedness comes about when children grow older. For the youth as well as for adults, nudity also entails feelings of weakness, vulnerability, and fear, at least when nakedness is experienced in the public domain by people who are customarily clothed. Adam and Eve did not cover their whole bodies with fig leaves. They merely covered their genitals, a part of the body conveniently referred to by the Latin word pudenda, “the things that must induce shame” (Austin, p. 22). This episode of Genesis also sets the stage for the appearance of sex-related taboos, a basic feature of human society. We know that the fertility goddesses of the ancient Middle East were closely associated with snakes and poles, and even with ritual prostitution. Is it then conceivable, knowing that the first Man and the first Woman were involved as a couple in the transgression, that the non-malevolent and clever serpent featuring in the Eden story was a fertility symbol. Various authors have argued that Genesis’ third chapter refers obliquely to sexuality and procreation. For instance, according to Haupt (1916), “the serpent symbolizes carnal desire, sexual appetite, concupiscence.”35 For Leach (1961, 1969), Wrigley (1996: 108), and others, including a nineteenth-century polemist quoted by Krappe (1938: 297-98), the knowledge of good and evil basically has to do with “carnal knowledge” or the “know-how” of sexuality. Echoing MacCulloch (p. 410), Tabick (p. 160) has the following Rabbinic quotation: “You [serpent] wanted to kill the man and take his wife, therefore I will establish enmity between you and the woman.” According to another Rabbinic tradition highlighted by Eliade (1964: 148), Eve was seduced by Serpent and thereafter she experienced her first menstruation. Wilson (2001: 208-09) also views the 35

As reported by Charlesworth, p. 217.

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serpent in Paradise as a “symbol of fertility” or as the representation of a heathen life-giving god. Genesis (1: 28) states that “God blessed [Man and Woman] and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’” It alludes to the union of man and wife whereby they become “one flesh” (2: 24). But these phrases only turn into reality later: “Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.’ Later she gave birth to his brother Abel” (Gen. 4: 1-2). These births took place after the expulsion from Paradise. But the Eden story refers openly to procreation and implicitly to sexuality. Indeed, God “cursed” Woman using the following words (Gen. 3: 16): “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children,” adding that “Your desire will be for your husband.” It is also said that Eve would be “the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3: 20). We can now review the crucial episode of Genesis’ chapter three with a more specific focus and with renewed interest: Serpent talks Woman into picking a fruit from the forbidden tree; Woman finds it tasty and invites Man to share it with her. Beynen (1990: 49) describes this episode as a sequence of role reversals with Serpent as the instigator: “First the serpent usurps Adam’s role when it tells Eve what to do, and then Eve exchanges roles with Adam by telling him what to do.” Adam is characterised as “unheroic” in being passive; he does not bother to defend “his managerial function” (Ibid.). The present author does not focus on Adam as a “manager” of resources, human or otherwise. Adam and Eve must be viewed first and foremost as husband and wife. Indeed, the woman is pictured right from the beginning as Adam’s “wife” (Gen. 2: 24-25).36 In Sub-Saharan Africa as well as in ancient Mesopotamia (Bottéro et al., p. 274), eating is often compared to love-making. The two courses of action are somewhat interchangeable inasmuch as they are both spurred by a biological impulse and are physically and mentally gratifying. By way of metaphor, sex is experienced as “sweet” or “tasty.” Furthermore, in various parts of the world, food-sharing between men and women used to be so sexually connoted that men and women could not publicly share meals any more than they could have sex publicly. Eating and sex were 36

In the myths of Ancient Mesopotamia, gardens are favourite places for lovemaking (Bottéro et al., p. 270). In one story, Inanna, the goddess of sexual love, is sexually abused by a “gardener” while sleeping (Ibid., p. 260-61).

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strictly private affairs. The evening meal has long been a prelude to intercourse between spouses. In Eden, Adam and his yet unnamed “wife” do share a tasty fruit. This food is offered by the latter to her husband, as is usual in domestic life. The fruit which Adam takes from his wife and eats can, by association, be identified with the giver, that is, Eve herself. In this sense, while biting into the forbidden fruit, Adam “tastes” Eve, an experience which had hitherto not been attempted. The episode may, in other words, be taken as a pre-enactment of the sexual relationships whose outcome would be the birth of Cain and Abel. Since Snake entices Woman to snatch the forbidden fruit and moves her to share it with her husband, it acts here as the instigator of human fertility.37 According to Charlesworth (p. 305), “Paradise was no place of contemplation, rest, or sensual pleasure” since Adam was assigned to “work” in the Garden of Eden and to “take care of it” (Gen. 2: 15), with Eve as his “helper.” The suggestion that the Fall had some sexual underpinning does not appeal to him. Relying on an early proponent of the Bible, the disciple Paul, Bromiley (1985: 750) also thinks it “unlikely” that the deceiving of Eve by Serpent was sexually connoted. In his view, the issue is “the woman’s receptivity to cunning arguments.” But sexual congress was inevitable and procreation was virtually extant ever since the emergence alongside Adam of the first woman. As Combe (p. 196) cogently comments in general terms, “The advent of the female principle immediately entails sexuality and the possibility of offspring.” The present author suggests that actual love-making was antithetical to living in the Garden of Eden inasmuch as Adam and Eve were implicitly immune from death. As with all other living and mortal creatures, human beings basically engage in sexual reproduction to perpetuate life. From a philosophical standpoint, one cannot or should not be credited at once with both immortality and the ability to reproduce. Sexual intercourse could not simply take place in Paradise because it did not make sense in a context where the difference between divinity and humanity was not clearly and firmly established, even though Adam and Eve had been fashioned by God from earth. In making sex metaphorically in Paradise, the original human couple negated its ill-defined but implicitly immortal nature more than it 37 In some African myths, an animal—sometimes a python, as with the Ashanti of Ghana (Lynch et al. 2010: 106)—teaches the primeval human couple to mate.

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committed a sinful act; as a consequence, they de facto became (longlived) mortal creatures.

Box 17 Ancient Sumerian Legends Shed Light on Genesis38 The Garden of Eden was located “in the east” (Gen. 2: 8). Presumably the writer had in mind east of Palestine. But East is also the direction of the rising sun, often implying birth, in this case the emergence of human society. The brook that watered Eden was the source of four rivers, notably two great Mesopotamian streams: the Tigrisʊsometimes referred to as Hiddekelʊand the Euphrates (Gen. 2: 14). Genesis almost explicitly assumes that Eden was the mythical source of life for the various peoples and cities which benefited from the waters of these four rivers. The name Eden is widely reported to derive from the Sumerian edin, meaning “plain,” “fertile plain,” or “uncultivated land.” Various scholars have argued that the story of the Garden of Eden connects in many ways with ancient Mesopotamian mythical traditions. Of the three legends the author elects to take into consideration, one features a snake: the story of Inanna. The two others do not: the story of Enkidu and the legend of Enki and Ninhursag, although the latter may obliquely feature an ophidian-like creature. Even though unique in itself, the Eden story seems to have recycled significant bits and piecesʊmany of which are sexually connotedʊtaken notably from these three Sumerian legends. Given the close Mesopotamian connection between snakes and springs, the presence of a snake in the biblical paradise was something to be expected. Before God “planted” a garden (Gen. 2: 8), “no shrub had yet appeared on the earth (or “on land”) and no plant had yet sprung up,” the reason being that God had not sent life-giving rain to earth; however, “streams (or “mist”) came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground” (Gen. 2: 5-6). These lines are reminiscent of the works of Enki, the Sumerian god of fresh waterʊunderground water according to Bottéro 38

The author could hardly bypass that issue, one which has been the subject of much sophisticated research (See for instance Dickson 2007). Bottéro et al. (p. 601) also suggest that the Hebrew Bible owes a lot to Mesopotamian mythologists, whose writings antedate the Holy Book by a millennium or so. This box will merely offer a few hints or insights. Sumer was located in southern Mesopotamia; it is the oldest Mesopotamian civilisation.

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et al. (p. 578 fn.)ʊand life generation. He was the deified expression of male sexual potency.39 Enki is credited with the creation of a garden at Dilmun, an area on the Persian Gulf associated with the goddess Ninhursag, the “Lady of the rocky ground.”40 The male god dug irrigation ditches with his phallus and watered the land; he also made love to the goddess in the marshes.41 At some point in the legend, Enki, or on his behalf the gardener of Dilmun, offers apples (or apricots), grapes, and cucumbers to Uttu, a maiden goddess of whom he was amorous. Among the maiden goddesses he successively impregnated, Uttu was the first to experience pain either during sexual congress or at childbirth. Moreover, Enki voraciously devoured the eight sacred plants that grew from the land out of his seminal fluid, which had previously been cursed by Ninhursag. These plants proved deleterious to him, each one affecting a different part of his body. The last two plants he ate caused his rib and side to ache. Only Ninhursag could “make him whole,” i.e. cure him, and she finally did so. Enki’s profile is tantamount to being ophidian: he is closely associated with water and marshes; his water or semen generates life but also spells death.

39

According to Cooper (1997: 93), “Enki’s fecundating phallus” was “the emblem of male sexuality in Sumerian literary texts.” 40 For an account of this legend, see http://history-world.org/sumeria,%20Enki.htm; see also more generally: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk. According to Bottéro et al. (p. 355, 372), Ninhursag means “The Lady of the Hills.” 41 The Sumerian hieroglyphic signs for water and semen were the same (Dickson 2007: 8 fn.). Understandably, irrigation and sexuality are “homologous terms in Sumerian myth” (p. 7). Bottéro et al. (p. 173-74) also stress the analogy between water and semen. Likewise, Cooper (1997: 93, 94, 95) argues that “ploughing a field, digging a ditch, watering a garden” were symbolic of the male’s role in sexual intercourse. This theme was familiar to ancient Greece (Vernant, p. 25-26). According to Chelhod (1954: 56), it also surfaced in Arab culture, notably in the Holy Book of Islam: “Your wives are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth” (Quran, chap. 2: 223ʊAll Quranic quotations are taken from http://www.quran.nu). The analogy between cultivation and sexuality appears to have been exported to the Muslim and Swahili-speaking East African coast: “(…) some of the songs [sung at the initiation of boys and girls on Mafia Island] refer to cultivationʊplanting, hoeing and diggingʊand their overt meaning is to teach children the values of hard work on the land, but their ‘inside’ meaning is, of course, sexual” (Caplan 1976: 27). But the analogy may have been home-grown. Sowing in north-central Tanzania was sometimes done in the following way: “The woman makes a grove in the earth with a paddle-shaped instrument (mufumbajo) or a hoe, the man drops in a handful of mixed seed and covers it with his foot” (Jellicoe, p. 11).

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Inanna was a prominent goddess of Sumer in the fourth and third millennia BCE. Her temples were attended to by a priestess with whom the high priest, sometimes the king himself, ritually engaged in sexual congressʊoften referred to as a “sacred marriage”ʊat the onset of every agricultural season. Inanna’s temples were represented by two gateposts of which the two sacred trees of Eden, i.e. the tree of knowledge and the tree of life,42 may have been distant reflections. A number of parallels may be drawn between Genesis’ chapter three and some aspects of the complex and multifaceted body of stories about Inanna.43 The first parallel is the association of the Sumerian goddess with a sacred and certainly fruitful grove in whichʊperhaps in the middle of whichʊstood the huluppu tree. That tree was the abode of a snake (at its base), of a female spirit (in its trunk), and of a lion-headed eagle (in its branches).44 The huluppu has been characterised as a great cosmic tree connecting the heavens and the world below. Inanna reportedly wanted to get rid of the snake, spirit, and great bird. It is not clear why Inanna wished to dispose of these “parasites.” A local hero, the famous Gilgamesh, killed the snake, thereby frightening away the female spirit as well as the monster-bird. But he also uprooted the tree, implying perhaps a crucial breach of communication between the heavenly gods and the earthly humans. Whatever the case may be, Inanna ended up with a dead trunk out of which were fashioned a throne and a bed for religious copulation. Inanna was the goddess of sexual congress. She was invoked in hymns as “womb-snake,” mus-satur (Mundkur 1980: 216). She was identified with a maiden as well as with arable or garden land, much like some of the goddesses impregnated by Enki. Knowing that the agricultural Sumerians metaphorically equated ploughing fields with sexual intercourse, the “sacred marriage” between a male officiant and Inanna’s priestess amounted to a ceremonial pre-enactment of the fertilising of agricultural land.45 These aspects of Inanna’s cult echo the legend of Enki and 42

See below in this chapter. The author will basically rely on a series of four articles published by Stuckey (2004, 2005), who has herself carefully consulted numerous publications about the Sumerian goddess Inanna. See also footnote 36 in this chapter. 44 Both snakes and birds are very commonly associated with trees. 45 Similar religious practices were held by the Canaanites, involving “temple prostitution and orgies, which the Old Testament condemned as morally repugnant, although they were actually efforts to increase agricultural fertility” (Beynen 1990: 51). 43

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Ninhursag. Worthy of mention is the fact that the kings of Sumerian cities bore the honorific title of “Gardener.” Significantly, Adam was the gardener of Eden. There is however an important distinction to be made here. The high priest or king came to Inanna’s temple with loads of gifts, as Enki had done with goddess Uttu. And the outcome of the ritual sexual congress initiated by the Sumerian male officiant was a bountiful harvest. In Paradise, the lead in the metaphoric sexual intercourse is taken by Eve, who, prompted by Serpent, offers a tasty fruitʊpossibly symbolising herselfʊto Adam, whose passivity is noticeable. Such a scenario may very well have sounded unorthodox if not ill-omened and “unnatural” in Mesopotamian or Canaanite thinking. The consequence of the female-initiated pseudosexual-intercourse in the Garden of Eden could only be regretful. Indeed, suffering and mortality came down upon mankind. Plausibly the moral conclusion implicitly deriving from the core incident of Genesis’ chapter three is that in actual procreation women should surrender the lead to males. Finally, a major theme from Genesis is discernible in another Sumerian legend which antedates Genesis by at least one millennium. Enkidu was the strong man who was to become the heroic companion of King Gilgamesh. He had been created by a goddess out of clayʊjust like the very first human beings (Bottéro et al., p. 215). He lived in the wild and befriended animals of the field as well as those of the river. One day, Enkidu was charmed out of his natural realm by a graceful priestess of Ishtar, a goddess of Love, the Akkadian counterpart of Inanna.46 The priestess had been sent by the local king, Gilgamesh (once again), who wished that Enkidu join him. The man from the wild must have received clothing either from the hunter who was with the priestess or from the priestess herself. The expulsion of Adam from the Garden of Eden appears to echo Enkidu’s trekking out of the wild into civilisation, with Eve playing to some extent the part of the priestess of Ishtar.47 Up to this point, the author has emphasised that Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise because they ignored God’s command not to eat 46

A modern rehash of the myth of Enkidu would be the story of Tarzan and Jane. The analogy with Genesis was perceived long ago by E. Worcester in The Book of Genesis in the Light of Modern Knowledge (New York: McClure, Phillips, & Co., 1901), 225-49. Excerpts from the particular chapter can be read online at http://www.argonauts-book.com/epic-of-gilgamesh.html.

47

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from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Genesis implicitly tells us that God had another justification in mind, one of a presumably preventive character. A second very special tree was to be found in the centre of the legendary garden: the Tree of life (Gen. 2: 9). The implication is that the original couple was potentially given the opportunity to choose between two forbidden trees and fruits. Of the two very special trees, it is the Tree of life that is first mentioned (Ibid.). Soon after his interdiction was violated, God came to realise that “[Adam] must not to be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of life and eat, and live forever” (Gen. 3: 22). Had Adam eaten from the other forbidden tree, it would presumably have been impossible for God to dissociate humanity from death as well as from divinity. As for Serpent, which stood in the very midst of Eden, it had no doubt plenty of opportunities to taste the sweet fruit of immortality. Moreover, Serpent may have been the custodian of that tree. Neither Serpent nor God wished Adam to taste of the Tree of life. Both would have connived to turn Adam and Eve’s attention away from that tree, and to keep them focussed on the Tree of knowledge. Perhaps the full story or the story behind the story was that Adam and Eve were actually given in Paradise the choice between picking a fruit from the Tree of life or plucking one from the Tree of knowledge.48 Mortal life is indeed filled with joy (good) and sadness (evil). We know from other ancient legends that Snake and Man are typically competitors for the privilege of indefinite life. As with the Sumerian legend of Gilgamesh and as with the Ass and Serpent Greek story, Snake came along. In the present case, it did not take away the medicine of immortality but would have persuaded Eve to eat from the Tree of knowledge rather than from the Tree of immortality, surreptitiously “opening her eyes” to the excitement of sex and motherhood bliss, with a view to keep to himself the enjoyment of an everlasting existence. Adam would have possibly opted otherwise. It is useful to recall at this stage that Snake is described as “more cunning” than all the other animals created by God (Gen. 3: 1). The hypothetical full

48 That is what was suggested more than a century ago by J. G. Frazer in a paper entitled “Folk-lore in the Old Testament” (1907) as very usefully recalled by Reeve (1996-97: 251-52). Frazer surmised that the Tree of knowledge must be the Tree of death since it is opposed to the Tree of life. The present author will attempt to add some flesh to the bone.

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story would document that point: Serpent tricking Eve and Adam into bypassing immortality with the aim of retrieving it for itself.49 Another ancient Mesopotamian myth: Adapa and the Food of Life helps to put the biblical story into a wider context.50 As with the old Hebraic word adam, adapa reportedly meant “man” in Akkadian, itself an ancient Semitic language of northern Mesopotamia. Adapa was originally a Sumerian figure. He was one of the seven wise men, apkallu, who assisted the gods in maintaining order and civilisation in the human world before the time of the Great Flood. Adapa was the son of Enki, the god of fresh water and life-generation, of which we heard in Box 17. Adapa acted as his father’s priest in Eridu, one of the oldest known Sumerian cities and one devoted to Enki’s cult. He was credited with wisdom and a powerful mind. One day he cursed the wind that had overturned his boat while he was at sea fishing for his godly father, thereby damaging the wings of the wind-bird Shutu and causing the land to heat up excessively. This angered the supreme god Anu, Enki’s father. The culprit was summoned to the supreme god’s residence in heaven. Enki warned his son Adapa to turn down any food or drink his godly grandfather Anu offered him because he would die a sudden death. While travelling to Anu’s place, Adapa managed to cajole two major divinities into speaking up for him. So successful was he that Anu’s fury was abated. Instead of serving Adapa the food of death, the supreme god decided to offer him the food of everlasting life.51 Keeping with his father’s advice, Adapa refused the food. He was then returned to earth to live out the rest of his finite life. This is how, according to this Sumerian legend which complements that of Gilgamesh and the Snake, humans missed a great opportunity to become like gods. The end result was the same as that which Genesis provided centuries later. In both cases, humans ended up with finite life and either wisdom or the “knowledge of good and evil.”

49 Such shrewdness is consistent for instance with an old Indian tale entitled “The cunning snake” in which a serpent fools a colony of frogs and manages to swallow them one by one, including the bull frog, its last meal. See http://panchatantrastories.tripod.com/60.html. See also Daniel (1910: 47-48) for a very similar West African variant of that story. 50 The correspondences between this well-known legend and Genesis have been noted by various writers, for instance R. J. Fisher in chap. 6 of his Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham (Lanham MD: University Press of America, 2008). 51 Anu was perhaps outwitting his own son, Enki.

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To summarise, the profile of Serpent as it appears in Genesis is multifaceted: it is the one who is awake, sees, and knows; it induces sex and fertility; yet it is also a custodian and a deceiver, the one which, with God’s blessing, lures Adam and Eve away from the food of immortality. Never is it truly or fully evil.

CHAPTER 2.5 THE SNAKE IN THE ARABIC WORLD FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO ISLAM

Mundkur (1980: 215) stresses “the Muslim attitude of deliberately playing down memories” of the “days of ignorance,” jahiliya in Arabic. The growing importance of the Islamic faith was in his view, and rightly so, a critical factor in the eradication of the ancient “veneration of serpentdeities” among the Arabs and other Semitic peoples of south-western Asia. Nonetheless, Middle Age Arab scholars still believed that snakes never died of natural death or that they were very long-lived, a thousand years or more (Canova 1990: 193). Of something remaining lively for a very long time, Arabs would say: “It is more enduring than the snake” (Canova 1991: 239). The ability of snakes to heal the sick is another one of the snake-related beliefs that have endured well into the Islamic era. Basset (2005, I: 97, 165; II: 140) provides three Arab tales clearly illustrating that creed, one of them featuring the theriac medicine alluded to above.1 Worth recalling here is the semantic connection between two Arabic terms: hayat and hayam, respectively “life” and “snake” (Mundkur 1980: 225; 1983: 70). The two words may have the same root. Our entry point in the Arab world, notably in the south-western portion of the Middle East, will be the Quranic version of the Eden story. We will radiate from there in the direction of the past (snake deities) and then towards more recent times (early and contemporary Islam), all the while focussing on the evolving profile of the snake. We will see that, despite the downgrading of the snake’s religious profile, significant traces of ophidian religiosity have persisted up to the present in the Islamic realm. This is notably apparent in a number of cults focussing on the tombs of saints. The author will argue that one of the key rituals accomplished by the pilgrims in Mecca is connoted, however dimly, with snake symbolism. Contrary to scorpions, snakesʊnotably in their role as guardiansʊhave never been, throughout the Muslim world, fully identified with evil 1

See Box 6.

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(Canova 1991: 240, 243).2 Snake bites were viewed in the Islamic worldʊjust like in parts of the Bibleʊas a divine punishment (p. 232, 243), which accounts for the fact that prayers and invocations became key ingredients in the treatment of envenomation.

Box 18 The Threat of Snakes in the Arabian Desert In his Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence (1935: 269-70) illustrates vividly to what extent venomous snakes could be a nightmare next to water in the northern Arabian interior: (…) the valley seemed creeping with horned vipers and puff-adders, cobras and black snakes. By night movement was dangerous; and at last we found it necessary to walk with sticks, beating the bushes each side while we stepped warily through on bare feet. (…) Twice puff-adders came twisting into the alert ring of our debating coffee-circle. Three of our men died of bites; four recovered after great fear and pain (…).

At night snakes would end up upon or even under sleeping blankets, probably for warmth. Lawrence’s party killed an average of twenty snakes daily. (…) they got so on our nerves that the boldest of us feared to touch the ground; while those who, like myself, had a shuddering horror of all reptiles longed that our stay in Sirhan might end.

In the Egyptian desert, the threat of scorpions is more persistent than that represented by horned vipers (Canova 1994: 196). ***** The Arabs claim to be the descendants of Ibrahim (Abraham) through his son Ismail whereas the Hebrews have reportedly been fathered by Abraham’s other son, Isaac. Most prophets featured in the Bible are recognised as such in the Quran. The biblical story of Aaron’s staff turning into a snake is for example replicated in the Quran, notably in the following chapters: 7: 106-19; 20: 19-21; 26: 32-46; 27: 10; and 28: 31. The Holy Book of Islam also has Moses’ staff bringing forth water out of 2

For an interesting tale about the greater or lesser damage caused by snake bites and scorpion stings, see Tremearne (1913: 270-71). The Hausa tale heard by him in Muslim northern Nigeria may be of Arabic origin.

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rock (Chap. 2: 60 and 7: 160) and setting apart the waters of the sea (Chap. 26: 63). The Quran very often describes ‘Adn (Eden) as a lush garden with rivers flowing underneath it, a somewhat familiar picture. The ancient Semites believed that land fertilized by subterranean water was most productive, especially in dry conditions (Robertson-Smith, p. 96-97). The Garden of ‘Adn’s entrance is guarded by angels led by Ridwan, their chief. ‘Adn seems to be homologous to Paradise, firdaws, the lofty garden of reward where the blessed ones live out an everlasting, peaceful, and blissful existence after their resurrection and the Final Judgement. The Holy Book of Islam states that Adam was fashioned from clay by Allah. It says that he was born to live a finite life (Quran 6: 2), even though, as in the Old Testament, humans lived happy and very long lives in the golden age of early humanity, fitaht (Chelhod 1962: 86). It is also stated that Adam’s wife was made from one of his ribs (Q. 30: 20); that Allah created her “in order that he might enjoy the pleasure of living with her”; and that she would become pregnant “when he had sexual relations with her” (Q. 7: 189). As in Genesis, there was a forbidden fruit-bearing treeʊa single tree in this caseʊin the paradisiacal garden. Contrary to Genesis, Adam’s wife does not take the lead in the unlawful act of eating a fruit from that tree; the one who is talked into swallowing the forbidden food is Adam himself.3 Moreover, the tempter is not Serpent. Rather, the Quranic lurer is Iblis, a jinni (plural form, jinn) created out of fire, whom Allah had cursed after he disregarded his will. More precisely, the haughty Iblis was rebuked because he refused to prostrate before Allah’s noble earthly creature: Adam, who had merely been made from mud.4 Iblis, however, was not expelled from the Garden, which allowed him to fulfil his malicious role. Ignoring the first woman, he “whispered to him, saying: ‘O Adam! Shall I lead you to the Tree of Eternity…’?” (Q. 20: 120), suggesting that by eating of that tree he and his wife would “become of the immortals” (Q. 7: 20). The Quranic tempter does appear as a true deceiver, one seemingly acting out of jealousy or resentment. After Adam and his wife’s disobedience, “that which was hidden from them of their shame (private parts) became manifest to them and they began to stick the leaves of 3

In some Arab stories, it is the woman who induces the man into sexual union (Chelhod 1962: 76). See below. 4 Quran 2: 34; 7: 11-12; 15: 33; 17: 61; 18: 150; 20: 116; etc.

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Paradise over themselves (in order to cover their shame)” (Q. 7: 22). As in Genesis, the shame of guilt fuses with an emerging modesty, implying a homology between man and woman sharing food and having intercourse.5 In the Muslim version of the Fall (Q. 7: 19-25), as Mundkur (1980: 21617) points out, the part of the snake is played by a jinni, a demoniacal creature identifiable with Satan. As we will see later in this chapter, jinn were believed to manifest themselves to humans in the typical shape of snakes. The Quranic and Biblical versions of the Fall are therefore not that different. As a matter of fact, Muslim scholars of the late first millennium or early second millennium CE, such as al-Tabari and al-Kisai, have explicitly linked Iblis to Serpent, commenting that the latter could freely move in and out of ‘Adn, and that Iblis fooled it, promising to tell it a great secret if it agreed to bring him into the Garden hidden in its mouth (Weber, p. 317).6 The explanations supplied by those scholars possibly stemmed from folk versions of the ‘Adn story. Bushnaq (1986: 223-25) for instance provides a tale from Palestine corroborating that Iblis had been expelled from the Garden and that Serpent was the only animal to accept carrying him back into it: “So it was that Iblees returned to paradise and spoke to Eve and brought upon her and Adam and their children to this day all the troubles in the world. Eve thought it was the serpent speaking but it was a devil hiding in the serpent’s fang.”7 Mundkur (1980: 213) mentions a similar story, one apparently hailing from Iran. That is why many Muslims believed that Snake was expelled by Allah from ‘Adn along with Iblis, Adam, and the latter’s wife, Hawa, and that in the process it was deprived

5

Sexual congress, janaba, generates a state of impurity which is incompatible with the fact of being in a sacred or divine-like place (Weber 1996: 287) such as the Garden of ‘Adn. The shame experienced by Adam and his wife in the ‘Adn story may also hint at the abandonment of the customʊpossibly connected with fertilityʊof people (men only?) running naked around ritual sites, which was sometimes practised in ancient Arabia (Khan Durrani 1931: 28; Ryckmans, p. 10, 12). This practice was utterly rejected by Islam, which required special clothing for the ceremonial circumambulation, tawaf, around the Ka’ba. 6 The great secret which should have been confided to Snake by Iblis was that the sweetest flesh on earth is that of humans; instead, it was told that toad’s flesh is the tastiest. Iblis was truly a deceiver. 7 In this folk version from Palestine, Iblis uses the wife to deceive the man, as in the Bible and in Judaism.

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of hands and feet (Weber, p. 317) as in the Bible.8 The Iranians are among those who further believed that it is because Snake fell from the Garden in Isfahan that their country was especially plagued with ophidians (Mundkur, p. 222; also Canova 1990: 198 and Weber, p. 118). ***** In ancient Arabia sacred stones or rocky outcrops were worshipped, people believing that they embodied gods.9 This was for instance the case of three female deities of central Arabia: Al-Lat, whose earthly representation was a square-shaped rock10; Manat, whose sanctuary located halfway between Mecca and Medina featured a large rock (Ryckmans 1951: 15; Weber, p. 230); and Suwa, whose rocky idol also stood between the same two towns (Weber, p. 324). On these sacred rocks or boulders was spilled the blood of sacrificial victims, whether camels, bovines, or sheep (Ryckmans, p. 17). Dhou l-Shara, the supreme god of the Nabateans in present-day Jordan, was represented by a natural and rectangular black rock, on which was likewise spilled the blood of animals (Weber, p. 103). In Hadramaut, southern Arabia, the god Al-Jalsad was embodied in a white rock “with a black head” (p. 188). In general, natural boulders conveyed in very concrete terms the notion of divine perenniality, foreshadowing the man-made stone temples of times to come or else imitating them since such cultic centres have been in place in the Middle East early in history. Whatever the case may be, in Robertson-Smith’s view (p. 188), the sacred stone of ancient Arabia denoted both an idol and an altar.

8

According to a seventh-century Arab scholar, Snake was originally a marvellous camel (Canova 1990: 196). The ninth-century Iraqi Muslim scholar Ibn Qutaybah referred in one of his works to the “camel-legged serpent of Paradise” (Stetkevych 1996: 56). Weber (p. 317) also alludes to the camel-like shape of Serpent prior to its expulsion from ‘Adn. The Burji of southern Ethiopia had a story explaining how in the mythical past Snake was condemned by God to lose its four legs and crawl on the ground (Amborn 2009: 196-97). The origin of the tale must be Arabic. 9 People possibly held that sacred stones or rocks had fallen from the sky. It is to be noted that “many stones and rocks in Arabia were believed to be transformed men, especially women.” (Robertson-Smith, p. 86 fn.) 10 Al-lat is the feminine form of al-ilah, “divinity” in Arabic, from which the name Allah is reportedly derived (Weber, p. 104).

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Islam put a term to the worshipping of sacred rocks or boulders with the exception of the Black Stone of the Ka’ba (Weber, p. 279) to which we will soon return. However, at the African periphery of the Muslim world, sacred stones continued to be central religious elements, for instance among the Fur of western Sudan (MacMichael 1922: 100-01), where sacred stones were associated with extraordinary snakes, and among the Bisharin, a Beja sub-group of far south-eastern Egypt (Murray 1950: 158). A Muslim group, the Somali, used to swear on stones (Trimingham 1952: 267).11 Setting aside the sacred stones, the indications are that the religious profile of ancient Arabia was not very different from what pertained elsewhere in the Middle East. For instance sacred trees and groves were part and parcel of the old Arabian religious scene (Robertson-Smith, p. 169; Ryckmans, p. 8; Weber, p. 37, 220), with plausible connections with snake-like deities. According to Ryckmans (p. 20), serpents were “divine symbols” in ancient Arabia. On his part, Mundkur (1980: 215) boldly states that “ophiolatry” was “one of the outstanding features of the religions” of the pre-Islamic Semites. Although perforce limited in scope, our investigations corroborate Mundkur’s assertion to a significant extent. Not quite overwhelming, the evidence is nonetheless sufficiently convincing. In Oman, “a vast amount of ophidian iconography” dated 1200 BCE has been unearthed on the “Mound of Serpents” (Charlesworth, p. 123). Socalled “snake-bowls,” with skeletons of serpents often curled around a pearl or gem, were found “beneath the floor of the Palace of Uperi at Qal’at Bahrain,” which dates back to the seventh century BCE (p. 40; also Mundkur 1980: 217). It appears that (a) these pearls or gems had been hidden in a cave and that (b) they were kept and protected by snakes. Tales

11 Untouched by Islam, the Nilotic Karimojong of eastern Uganda conducted a great tribal ritual every forty or fifty years next to a sacred stone known as “the rock of the land” and located near a river at a fair distance from the settled areas (Dyson-Hudson, 1963: 370; 1966: 192). The great tribal ceremony had something of a pilgrimage and commanded a state of perfect social harmony. In south-eastern South Sudan, “a hard black stone” was “the centre of Topotha ritual” (King et al., 1937: 66). The Toposa are linguistically and culturally related to the Karimojong. Their sacred stone had reportedly been carried out from their initial homeland in eastern Uganda. Pebbles were used in divination by the Didinga and Acholi of nearby southern South Sudan (Driberg, 1933).

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featuring ophidian custodians of treasures remained quite common in the Arab world up to modern times (Basset, I: 39, 42, 95-6, 116, 143-44).12 The lunar and ophidian male god Wadd was the “national deity” of the Minaeans in the south-western regions of the Arabic peninsulaʊnow Yemenʊduring much of the first millennium BCE (Mundkur, p. 218). Wadd was known in his days as Nahastab, “good serpent” (Ryckmans, p. 39; Mundkur, p. 218).13 He was offered milk (Ryckmans, p. 9; Weber, p. 365), which seems to be in line with his ophidian nature. The supreme ruler of one of the south Arabian kingdoms, Qataban, was called “Son of Wadd” (Ryckmans, p. 36) whereas the people of the nearby Minaean kingdom referred to Wadd as “Father” (Ibid., p. 43). At least another male god from southern Arabia, Sahar, was symbolised by a serpent (p. 39; Weber, p. 312) or a dragon (Mundkur, p. 219). Another pre-Islamic god, this one from central Arabia, was offered milk. Known as Dhou-l-Khalasa, he was represented by an idol made out of a white rock or stone onto which a sort of crown (cobra?) was carved; his sanctuary was located seven days’ walk south of Mecca (Ryckmans, p. 9, 17). According to Weber (p. 102), Dhou-l-Khalasa was a female agrarian deity. Very significantly, the snake also appears in relation to the Ka’ba, the holy centre of Islam in Mecca. Before bringing up this topic, a few words about the Ka’ba as the “house of god,” bayt al-ilah (Weber, p. 208), and about its famous Black Stone, al-Hajar al-Aswad, will be useful. According to the Muslim faith, the very ancient cubic templeʊobviously differing in shape from the Arab circular traditional houses (Chelhod 1973: 249) and possibly an evocation of a sacred rockʊwas first “repaired” by Ibrahim (Abraham), an early forerunner of Prophet Muhammad, and his son Ismail. Ibrahim is also known by many Muslims to have been the one who inserted the Black Stone in the walls of the Ka’ba (Khan Durrani 1931: 26). The holy stone was reputed to be “of celestial origin” (Murray, p. 157). Some Muslims believe it is a meteorite (Khan Durrani, p. 26); others say that it was sent to earth by Allah to Ibrahim at Mecca (Ibid.; Weber, p. 278). In the remote past, it was supposedly whiteʊand in exceptional circumstances powerfully gleaming 12 The notion that snakes are the keepers of treasures overflowed notably from the Arabs to the Somali (Révoil 1882: 344). As we saw in chap. 1.3, serpents were known almost worldwide as custodians of treasures. 13 The term nhth carries “the double meaning of ‘good snake’ and ‘good spirit/fortune’” even in contemporary Arabic (Wilson 2001: 185).

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(Chelhod 1964: 232), just like a gem. Because of the sins committed by humanity, the stone has turned from white to black (Chelhod, p. 143; Weber, p. 208). The Ka’ba became a place of worship dedicated exclusively to Allah when the Prophet, at the time 35 years of age, was involved in its reconstruction, more specifically in the reinstallation of the Black Stone. Prophet Muhammad was reportedly the first to kiss the stone in the memory of Ibrahim (Khan Durrani, p. 26). Those who study the origins of the Islamic faith do recognise that the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba is significantly more ancient than the Muslim pilgrimage, Haji. The holy Black Stone of Mecca was the most prestigious of the sacred stones of pre-Islamic Arabia (Weber, p. 220) and it remains the most sacred element of the present Ka’ba. The Black Stone has always been pivotal in the Haji. The seven rounds of walking around the temple start “from before this stone and counted from it” (Khan Durrani, p. 25).14 Pre-Islamic mythology tells us that the Ka’ba was protected by a dragon (Chelhod 1964: 232). At least two legends connect it with a mighty snake. The first is reported by Mundkur (1980: 214), the second by Weber (p. 317-18). The latter story runs as follows: when in the life-time of the Prophet the Ka’ba was to be reconstructed, a large black-and-white goatheaded snake raised itself over the walls whenever workers came near to repair the building; the scene was repeated day after day until a great black-and-white bird with yellow claws took the frightening serpent away forever; only then could the work of reconstruction begin. According to the first story, treasures were hidden underneath the Ka’ba and these were “guarded by a white serpent with a black head and black tail, and a head like that of a goat.” Dwelling in a pit under the sanctuary, this aweinspiring creature had reportedly been placed there by Allah Himself.15 One learns from Robertson-Smith (p. 180-81) and others that a pit known as ghabghab in which a “sacred treasure” was stored was “a usual adjunct to sanctuaries” in ancient Arabia. At Taif for instance, there was a deep hole of the ghabghab type under the holy cubic rock dedicated to the goddess al-Lat: “The rich offerings which came to the temple were stored

14

In pre-Islamic times, devotees would run naked several times around holy stones, mounds, or trees, including Mecca’s Ka’ba (p. 83). See footnote 5 in this chapter. 15 Mundkur quotes Al-Halabi, a thirteenth-century Egyptian scholar. Sacred snakes reportedly lived in a room or cave underneath some Greek temples, as seen above.

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in this hole and formed a big treasure” (Khan Durrani, p. 24).16 There is obviously a connection between the Ka’ba as pictured above by Mundkur and that of the Palace of Uperi at Qal’at Bahrain, whose basement was filled with gems, pearls, and snakes. According to Chelhod (p. 227), while circumambulating around the Ka’ba the pilgrims believed they were imitating on the horizontal plane the vertical movement of the sun around the earth. That may have been the case. But while remaining in the fertile land of homology, it is best to keep in mind the facts of cultural history. In this frame of mind, one can only be struck by a likeness of a different sort: that between the pilgrims’ circular movement (tawaf) around the Ka’ba, with the Black Stone as its key component, and the pattern displayed in the “snake-bowls” of seventhcentury BCE Bahrain. In other words, the pilgrims’ circumambulation round the “Black Gem” is homologous to the curling of holy snakes around pure or holy pearls or gems in sacred bowls. That homology must have been significant also in the pre-Islamic ceremonial running around some old idols. The worshippers of those days were naked, just like snakes.17

Box 19 The Prophet’s Attitude Toward Snakes As the author has read, it is held by Muslims that the Prophet Muhammad was immune to snake- or scorpion-bites. Knowing that such creatures were the “agents of destiny” (Canova 1991: 232), it was in any case unlikely that the Prophet would ever suffer from their attacks. The danger was nonetheless real inasmuch as the Prophet sometimes retired in caverns, a favourite abode of ophidians. For instance Muhammad stayed for a whole month in successive years in a grotto known as Hira, near Mecca, in order to fast and pray; this is in fact where he received the first revelation from Angel Jibril (Weber, p. 161). Mundkur (1980: 220) reports an incident featuring a snake that took place in a cavern where the Prophet and his party had halted for prayers: “When a serpent sprang upon them, 16

The term ghabghab or jabjab also refers to the hole or ditch underneath a traditional altar into which the blood of sacrificial victims would flow (Weber, p. 187). 17 A distant homology may be established with the “snake dances” of Kerala in India: people dancing around serpentine figures drawn on the ground, and emulating the movement of snakes while the crowd sings snake songs. See chap. 2.3.

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he is said to have cried, ‘Kill it!’ But when it evaded their swords, he observed, ‘This animal has escaped your wickedness just as you have escaped its wickedness’.” Canova (1990: 203) has a similar story, one taken from Islamic folklore rather than from a hadith: Abu Bakr, the first male convert to Islam, went into a cavern on Mt Kef and he covered all the holes he could locate in the dark with pieces of his clothing; one hole remained on which the naked man set his foot so as to prevent the Prophet from being harmed by a snake; Muhammed then came in and rested on the ground; he was soon awakened by the screams of his companion, who had been bitten by a viper. The Prophet spat on the woundʊa pattern which is becoming familiarʊand Abu Bakr was instantly cured. Muhammad told the snake: “You have commited an ignoble deed. May Allah submit you to torture and have you cut to pieces!” Arabs used to consider harmless little whitish dark-eyed snakes as houseprotecting spirits; destroying such snakes entailed dire misfortune (Basset, I: 29). A European traveller in Arabia made similar observations in the 1790s (Westermark 1926, II: 351). Now, the Prophet has been reported by Hanbalʊa leading Muslim scholar and theologian of the ninth century CEʊto declare that house-dwelling snakes, i.e. familiars, should not be killed (Mundkur, p. 220). This saying by the Prophet was widely known in the Muslim world (Westermark, p. 351).18 ***** There is another highly relevant point to make before we move on to the final section of the present chapter: a sacred water point was associated with the cubic temple. Needless to say, notably in the midst of desert, permanent water can only call to mind the notion of Life and, as such, be sacralised. To make comparisons, the pool at the source of the Belus River in Lebanon was “the most famous of all Phoenician holy places” (Robertson-Smith, p. 155). It is reported that the Iraqi people still believed in the Middle Ages that those “who bathed in the springtime in the source of the Euphrates would be free from sickness for the whole year” (p. 18

When called upon to take snakes away from a house, modern-day Egyptian snake-charmers (huwah) distinguish between “resident snakes” and intruders, the former being urged not to harm anyone while the latter are ordered to come out of their hide-outs so as to be removed (Canova 1994: 200-02). In parts of Morocco, a person killing a snake in a house was likely to meet with death (Westermark 1926, II: 349). Sparing the life of a snake in the wilderness proves most rewarding in an Arab tale (Basset, I: 98-99).

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167).19 There used to be within the confines of the Ka’ba itself a spring or fountain where offerings were made by worshippers; it had dried up long before the cubic temple became the holy centre of Islam (Ryckmans, p. 910). In pre-Islamic times, a reddish stone, the idol of the male moon god Houbal, was placed immediately above the fountain (p. 14). Significantly, a sacred well known as Zamzam is located barely 20 metres from the modern Ka’ba. It is reckoned to be a permanent source of water in an otherwise extremely arid environment. Having circumambulated round the Ka’ba seven times and touched or kissed the Black Stone, pilgrims walked to the holy well and either drank from it or poured some water over their heads, thereby imitating the Prophet. According to Chelhod (1964: 230), the devotees threw offerings in that well as they had done centuries before at the inner spring. Both the sacred Zamzam well and the Black Stone are associated with the east, the direction of the rising sun: the dark stone is anchored in the eastern corner of the temple whereas the well is located east of it.20 The legendary finding or excavation of the holy well of Zamzamʊif not that of the fountain within the ancient cubic templeʊis linked to Ibrahim (Abraham) and, more specifically, to the preservation of the life of his young son Ismail, who was saved from death by thirst by that well or fountain (Chelhod 1962: 84; Basset, II: 531). It is said that when Ismael’s mother saw the well in the desert, she said to her child in her native Egyptian language Zamzam! “Stop walking!”21 Both Canova (1992: 213) and Basset (I: 98-9, II: 93) stress the common association of snakes, djinns, and wells in Arabic folklore. The fact that life-giving water stands within or next to the cubic temple can only reinforce the already referred to legendary association of the Ka’ba with a wonderful serpent. In the old Canaanite context, when water and snakes were combined, the water tended to be credited with healing power. Likewise, in central Syria, 19

The Euphrates was one of the four rivers to flow out of Eden in the traditions of Arabia and adjacent areas (Weber, p. 129). 20 Chelhod (1964: 223) notes that the four angles of the Ka’ba correspond to the four cardinal points and suggests that the temple was originally designed to serve a community of sun worshippers. The actual orientation of the stone would partly explain why it originally became sacred. 21 See Genesis (21: 15-19) for a similar story involving Ishmael and his mother, Abraham’s second wife. In this case, God opens Hagar’s eyes and she sees a well. This story takes place in the desert of Beersheba in Palestine.

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people believed that the sacred spring of Ephea at Palmyra was haunted by a snake-like demon and many used its sulphurous water as a cure for their ailments (Robertson-Smith, p. 154). In southern Arabia, “the water of the sanctuary of the Palmetum was thought to be health-giving, and was carried home by pilgrims” (p. 153). The same thing occurred in the nineteenth century with water from the Zamzam well (Ibid.), which was also blessed with healing power (Chelhod 1964: 233). In those days, the Arabs still regarded “medicinal waters as inhabited by jinn, usually of serpent form” (Ibid.). Nowadays, according to Charlesworth (p. 329), “the Bedouin believe that jinn, the desert demons, are like serpents and they congregate around healing waters.” The same point has been made by Krappe (1938: 206). Many “healing springs” were to be found in Morocco, a country where “water and places containing water” were reportedly “haunted by jnun” (Westermark 1926, I: 84-85, 290), i.e. jinn.

Box 20 Of Jinn and Serpents As Robertson-Smith (p. 114) observed, jinnʊthe singular form of which is jinniʊare usually unfriendly spirits with “no personal relations to men.” They are known to frequent certain types of treeʊembodying their spiritual essence (p. 126)ʊand to visit human habitations, appearing and disappearing “mysteriously” (p. 113 fn.). They were also believed to reside in rocks and stones (Weber, p. 279). Jinn are mostly on the side of wild animals as opposed to godsʊand angels, as the present author may addʊwho side with people (p. 114). Robertson-Smith argued that their haunts in wild places such as springs and groves correspond to the natural or man-made sanctuaries of the gods (Ibid.). Whereas divine sanctuaries may be accessed with caution, jinn’s haunts were and are still greatly feared and must be circumvented. Setting fire to a dense thicket that happens to be the abode of some jinn would infuriate them; they would appear as white snakes and would lay a death curse on the intruder (Ibid., p. 125; also Tritton 1934: 717 and Basset, I: 29). The Arabic root jnn refers to what is hidden from the eyes and to what is veiled by darkness (Tritton, p. 715; Chelhod 1964: 71). Jinn are therefore believed invisible. But they may be heard. They are associated with the ground or, more exactly, the underground (Chelhod, p. 72). Sometimes referred to as “the people of the earth” (Tritton, ibid.), they are characterised by Chelhod (1962: 72) as “chthonian forces” and by Weber

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(p. 198) as having a “hellish chthonian nature.” Mundkur (1980: 222-23) also emphasises the basically chthonic character of jinn.22 Jinn may appear in dreams and even manifest themselves to people in the form of strange creatures, wild or domestic animals, and even human-like and often guileful figures (Ryckmans, p. 12; Chelhod 1964: 73-74; Weber, p. 198-99; Charlesworth, p. 201). According to Robertson-Smith (p. 122), “the only animals directly and constantly identified with the jinn were snakes and other noxious creeping things.” Chelhod (p. 73-74) and Canova (1990: 199-200) agree: jinn prefer to manifest themselves in the form of crawling creatures, notably snakes. Reports Tritton (p. 717), “a place full of snakes was full of djinn”; and “a kind of thin black snake was named djinni.” In Palestine, “a jinn can be suspected in every snake” (Foerster in Bromiley, p. 569). Not all jinn are serpents but all serpents are jinn, wrote Robertson-Smith (p. 422). The close connection between jinn and snakes may explain why the female jinniya was believed to lay eggs (Weber, p. 198).23 A jinni residing in a house or living next to people was sometimes referred to as ‘amir (Tritton, p. 716). The term could equally denote a snake (p. 717). According to Charlesworth (p. 212), the Arabic term jinn “denotes both a desert evil and a snake” while Chelhod (1964: 74) and Canova (1990: 200) both point out that a cognate term, jann, refers to a type of serpent. The term notably applied to house-protecting spirit snakes (Basset, I: 29). Interestingly, Robertson-Smith viewed jinn as “gods without worshippers” (p. 114), i.e. former gods whose cults had come to an end. A similar point is made by Trimingham (p. 258). In fact, as Chelhod (1964: 80) notes, the Quran itself states that the Arabs used to worship jinn (Q 34: 40-1). The three major female divinities of ancient Arabia: Al-Lat, Manat, and ‘Ozza, were connected with jinn, if not assimilated to chthonian spirits (Chelhod, p. 79). As mentioned above, serpents often used to be icons of gods in ancient Arabia.

22

People also believed in the existence of flying jinn known as wahawis and assumed to be winged serpents (Basset, I: 30). The Greek historian Herodotus alluded to Arabian flying snakes. 23 Mundkur (1980: 222) reports the popular Muslim belief that female snakes possess thirty ribs and lay thirty eggs. He also reports that snakes are attracted by fire because jinn are believed to be created from fire. A tenth-century Arabic text tells of the making by God of jinn from the dry and burning desert wind (Basset, I: 30).

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Jinn were also involved in divination. We are told for instance that a northern Arabian eponymical ancestor named Hizar communicated his last will in cryptic fashion to his four sons on his deathbed; unable to make sense out of his ultimate words, his heirs consulted a diviner whose name was A’fa, son of A’fa, a name clearly referring to ophidans (Chelhod 1962: 74), more exactly some type of adder or viper (Westermark 1926 II: 353; Canova 1990: 193; 1991: 239). Moreover, it was believed that the soothsayers of Arabia had jinn messengers (Tritton, p. 726) or inspirers (Chelhod 1964: 184). In Arabia, those jinn associated with divination were of the good-natured type (Ibid., p. 74). In the days of the Prophet, people believed that jinn spied on heaven to hear of things to come; Allah, however, reinforced the controls at the gates of Heaven (Q 37: 6-10) so that, with the advent of Islam, jinn could no more learn from the sky (Chelhod 1964: 99, 199).24 This theory was obviously a Muslim reformulation or mainstreaming of pre-Islamic representations. On the African side of the Red Sea, Afar diviners were coined ginnili; they were believed to be in touch with jinns and credited with a special relationship to tree species named after the term ginni (Morin 1991: 2433)—trees possibly frequented by some significant snake species. The story of a Moroccan Muslim anachorite of the twelfth century C.E. known as Sidi Abu Yaaza also echoes pre-Islamic beliefs. According to a biography in Arabian published in the sixteenth century, he was once visited by a huge serpent while resting on the bank of a river. The people witnessing the event were frightened. The holy man told them that the marvellous snake was a messenger, rasul, that had come to warn him that 40 thieves would attack the nearby village that very night.25 An Arabian story features an “enormous” serpent bringing a letter to a shaikh preaching in a mosque; the latter writes down his response and, after blessing the coiled messenger, sends it out with his letter in its mouth, to the amazement of the assembly (Basset, I: 101). In matters of divination as well as in matters of healing, the profile of snakes in ancient Arabia was unsurprisingly very similar to what it was in Palestine and among the Jews. One peculiarity of ancient Arabia was that the local poets were held to be inspired by jinn (Tritton, p. 723; Chelhod 1964: 184). 24

It is useful to recall that, according to Muslim folklore, Serpent could freely move in and out of the Garden of ‘Adn. 25 Source: http://blogsoufi.centerblog.net/ (Moulay Bouazza Yalannour, January 8, 2009).

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***** The evolution of the rules concerning the respect due to sacred places in Arabia offers much insight on the evolving ideological profile of snakes from ancient times to Islam.26 There used to be many cultic centres across pre-Islamic Arabia. The standard term applied to restricted areas, hima, was extended to areas surrounding holy rocks, trees, and springs. Within the limits of such himas, no damage would be done to trees, such as breaking branches or tearing leaves; no animal could be harmed or killed for instance by a hunter whose prey happened by chance to flee into a hima; even a man guilty of slaying a fellow tribesperson would be left unmolested if he managed to take refuge in such a place and for as long as he could remain there. Other than bloody animal sacrifices made on behalf of the local deity on its altar, harming or destroying life was sacrilegious in a site devoted to the promotion of life and well-being. Of course, the snakes to be found within such sacred enclosures were left in peace, whether or not they had a formal connection with the deity worshipped therein. Inasmuch as it was a place where life was generated and nurtured, a house was somewhat homologous to a temple. The respect owed to “domestic snakes” can only evoke the unmolested snakes of the old sacred sites. With the advent of Islam, most of the ancient sacred places were destroyed, debased, or abandoned. Other than the Ka’ba, only a few sacred grounds remain, such as the burial place of the Prophet at Medina and the burial sites of other key figures of early Islam. In contemporary Yemen, the space, hawta, around the tomb of a saint, wali, is sacred, it being forbidden to hunt, cut trees, or pursue a culprit seeking refuge therein (Weber, p. 160). In most cases, the rule that commanded absolute respect for plants and all living creatures was relaxed once Islam became the dominant religion. Henceforth certain types of animals were declared out of place in the himaʊrenamed haram, “forbidden” (area): mice and rats, vultures or kites, ravens, dogs, and hyenas as well as serpents and scorpions. In one instance, the notion of “biting dog” seems to have included lion, panther, and wolf. Such creatures could legitimately be killed within the haram, a major departure from traditional ways. Mundkur characterises these animals as “sinful” and “perverse,” fasiq. Some of 26

Our sources here are Robertson-Smith (p. 134 fn.), Murray (1950: 155), Chelhod (1964: 229-37; 1971: 393), Mundkur (1980: 213, 222, 225; 1983: 70), and Weber (p. 161, 207).

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these were clearly associated with the ground, underground, or dirt (mice, snakes) while others were connected with night and/or death: hyenas, vultures, ravens, snakes. The lumping of the serpent with a number of “perverse” or impure animals clearly implied the downgrading of a creature that had long been associated with life, healing, and knowledge. It is no doubt in such a context that the serpent of ‘Adn became Iblis, the evil and jinn-like deceiver. ***** According notably to Mundkur (1980), “traces of the archaic serpent cult persist [in the Arabic Middle East] in rituals connected with the veneration of Muslim saints.” In another publication, he adds that a number of “mosques containing the graves of saints have an honoured ‘resident snake’ to which ‘sacred’ bloody sacrifices of sheep and goats are made while beseeching cures for diseases” (1983: 306). As quoted by Canova (1992: 201 fn.), “if a snake is found at a shrine it is taken for the dead saint.”27 Norris (1972: 5) brings up the case of a “holy man” who died c. 1600 CE: his tomb in the Western Sahara was “guarded by a snake that lived in the branches of a tree whose multi-coloured leaves, if plucked by [his] descendants (…) could heal both man and beast.”28 There is a Moroccan saying that “If a snake comes near you, it is the spirit of a saint because ordinary snakes run away from people” (McNamee, p. 20). The cult of Shaykh Haredi provides another telling illustration: “Popular belief asserts that, after a life of holiness, the Sheykh was by God’s will reincarnated in the form of a serpent which had its home in a cleft of the rocks” (Blanchard 1917: 184). The shrine is still located on a mountain on the right bank of the Nile in its middle Egyptian course, not far from the town of Tahta. People held that the snake said to live by the grave of that Mohammedan saint was immortal and healed the sick. Fergusson (1868) saw in that cult, which reminded him of Asklepios’ epoch, “one of the best known examples of modern snake worship.” Embellished to some extent,

27

The quote is from E. Westermarck, Pagan Survivals in Mohammedan Civilisation (London: Macmillan and Co., 1933). In an earlier publication on Morocco, Westermarck (1926, I: 348) provided a few illustrations of this. 28 The tomb is or was located at Ra’s al-kalb, somewhere in north-western Africa.

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his description (p. 32-33) rests on information picked up by earlier European travellers29: (…) an ambassadress was sent in the person of a spotless virgin (…) and if his godship pleased he came out of his cave, hung himself around her neck, and allowed himself to be carried in procession to the sick man’s bedside. Here he stayed (…) a length of time proportionate to the gifts offered to his priest, and then returned alone to his dwelling.

The marvellous snake “had been there since the time of Mahomet”; “they sacrifice to it sheep and lambs,” and “when a number of women visit him, which is done every year, he comes out and twines himself about the neck of the most beautiful” (Ibid.). The snake embodied the shaykh’s spirit and enacted posthumously the healing and life-giving powers or baraka the holy man had displayed during his lifetime. The cult appears to be rooted in pre-Islamic times, combining the promotion of life and health, and the enhancement of female fertility. In a recent study, Canova (1992) convincingly argues that the still lively Egyptian cult is imbued with circumstances and connotations of a generative and sexual character, granted that, for instance, those who seek the blessing of the “serpent shaykh” are mostly women fearing infertility.30 According to Sayce (p. 528), a bronze snake was unearthed by an Egyptologist not far to the south of Tahta. Sayce also pointed out that in pharaonic times, the area was part of the province of Duf, meaning “The Mountain of the Snake” (Ibid.). More generally, Blanchard (p. 184) stressed that some of the cults dedicated to Egyptian saints displayed heathen features, including beer drinking and sex, and related to fertility. In view of the connections in the Maghreb between snakes and burial sites of some holy men frequented notably by women, Probst-Biraben (1933: 291) suggested that the real object of the cult was the reptile and that the so-called saints were but cover-ups for relics of ancient religious practices.

29

Sayce (1893: 523-26) and to a greater extent Keimer (p. 92-104) have collected reports from a host of Europeans who had been in Egypt since the early years of the eighteenth century. 30 According to Sayce (p. 527), the annual celebrations at Shaykh Haredi’s shrine took place after the month of Ramadan and were “attended by crowds of devout believers, largely composed of Nile sailors, who encamp for days together in the neighbourhood of the saint’s shrine.” In addition to promoting health and fertility, the sacred serpent may therefore have had something to do with the ancient spirit of the Nile and with safeguarding the security of boatmen.

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Murray (p. 158) heard among the camel-herding Ababda (Beja) in far south-eastern Egypt of a large snake that was referred to as weli, a term designating a Muslim saint of times past. The colonial officer asked the people to show him the serpent, but fearing it could be harmed they produced “a very inferior thin animal” which he took to be a “surrogate.” Murray searched the area with his men: “We did not discover the snake, but we found what seemed to be a little shrine of three flat stones set on edge.” Other customs of this Beja group pertaining to snakes are worth reporting (Ibid.): The ‘Abadda regard it as a point of honour not to pass a horned viper without attempting to kill it, and when this has been done, they bury its corpse in the sand with seven camel droppings beside it. Unless they do so, God has to send an angel to guard the grave (to prevent its coming to life again?) for an uncertain period.31

The Ababda custom seems to be a combination of ancient Middle Eastern beliefs (the snake’s ability to be reborn anew or its firm grip on life) and more recent Muslim representations. Although some of them used Sudanic colloquial Arabic, the Ababda have basically remained faithful to their native language as with other Beja tribal communities. In the 1950s, the Arabs of the Khartoum area in Sudan evidenced another striking instance of the combination of Islamic and pre-Islamic elements. The wandering mendicant dervishes were Muslim religious practitioners as well as providers of mundane services of a specific type: drawing snakes or scorpions on houses and curing bites from such creatures (Barclay 1964: 176-77). Their ability to handle poisonous snakes and scorpions or cure their bites or stings was regarded as proof of their “holiness” and of the sanctity of their teacher or shaykh. These men were possibly members of the Rifa’iyya sect, just like contemporary Egyptian snake-charmers. As pointed out in chapter 2.1, snake-charming was especially prevalent in Upper Egypt, close to northern Sudan.

31 Similar practices have been reported concerning the Bedawin from Kuwait as well as the Sinai (Canova 1991: 219-20).

CHAPTER 2.6 THE AMAZING PERSISTENCE OF THE GOOD SERPENT WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD

At least two authorities, namely Magri (2007: 410-11) and Charlesworth (p. 292), state that before the second century CE, serpent symbolism was predominantly positive in the cultural and mundane spheres of much of the eastern Mediterranean, including Palestine. Likewise, according to an authority relied upon by Bodson (p. 530), the identification of the serpent with Satan was not operative in the Judeo-Christian tradition before the same century. What could have changed the course of things? Asklepios’ snake-related cult was gaining ground in much of the Roman Empire at that time, culminating precisely in the second century (Magri, p. 410-12). By then, “no god was more revered and had more devout followers” in the whole empire (Charlesworth, p. 164). As pointed out by Magri (p. 417-18) and Charlesworth (p. 371), there were many significant similarities between the myth of Asklepios and the beliefs pertaining to Jesus. Both for example were known as healers and saviours; both could bring the recently dead back to life; one died transfixed, the other was crucified; both ended up in heaven; etc. Asklepios was therefore a major competing figure for those who devoted themselves to spreading the teachings of Jesus. There was in fact a “clash” between the two cults (Charlesworth, p. 370). No doubt the growing importance of Asklepios’ cult was a key factor in the Christian rejection of the serpent. The emergence of snake-worshipping gnostical sects in the same second century CE1 must have also impacted the symbolic value of snakes in early Christian minds. Among the leading scholars whose influence did much to alter the status of the serpent within Christianity, according to Charlesworth (p. 186, 417), were Tertullian (c.160–c.240CE) and Eusebius (c.263–c.339CE). The Council of the Church held in 325CE at 1

See Box 15.

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Nicea in Anatolia proved to be a “barrier that separates a period when the serpent was predominantly a positive symbol from one in which it is almost always a negative symbol” (p. 367). Since then, “the habit of assuming that the serpent symbolizes only evil has been a hallmark of Christian exegesis” (Ibid.).2 In the “usual Christian interpretation,” the serpent, notably the one featuring in Genesis chapter 3, is viewed as “a disguised Satan” (p. 286). In Eden, a recent edition of the Catholic Catechism asserts, the parents of mankind were “tempted by the devil.”3 Likewise, a Jewish American biblical commentator identifies the snake of Eden as Satan himself or as his agent, arguing that the serpent of Genesis simply cannot be a snake since ophidians are not clever and cannot talk (Kugel, p. 99). In his opinion, the focus on the snake-human relationship in Genesis betrays the exceptionally demonic nature of the serpent. Since the Catholic Church became triumphant in Europe, one of the outcomes of the Christian assimilation throughout the centuries of the image of the snake to the figure of Satan was a general detestation of snakes in that part of the world (Bodson, p. 530). “Despite the serpents on medical notes and prescriptions,” the wider Western ideological setting became averse to snakes (Charlesworth, p. 417). In medieval Europe, “the serpent was a symbol of envy, avarice, fraudulent imposture, and malice. Its forked tongue indicated duplicity and deceit while its incessant flickering motion was likened to the continual persuasion of devilish temptation” (Morris et al., p. 61-62). As Stevens (p. 344) notes, “[under] Christian condemnation, the serpent no longer symbolized fertility but lust,” which incidentally may account for the “widely spread but mistaken idea that snakes are slimy” (Sax, p. 67). Moreover, there are “strong indications that the animal bride tales which feature a bird or swan maiden evolved from earlier tales of marriage to a snake” (p. 65). What happened was that “[faced] with a revolt against the cult of the serpent, storytellers had to substitute a bird for a snake to make the tale of the animal bride 2

Austin (p. 98) offers a different perspective. In his view the demise of the serpent has been determined first and foremost by “the shift from a matriarchical to a patriarchical consciousness,” the former being correlated with the ancient dominance of earth goddesses, the latter by the revolutionary supremacy of the sky gods. That theory appears less grounded in the historical record than Bodson, Magri, and Charlesworth’s analyses. 3 See Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: An Image Book Doubleday, 1995), p. 112. See also the Quran.

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acceptable” (p. 67). The swan was an especially appropriate ersatz on account of its long and sinuous neck and its moulting. The revulsion against snakes had already gone a long way at the time of St. Patrick (373–465 CE) or thereafter. Many have heard and some still believe that while preaching the gospel in Ireland, the holy man expelled all snakes from the island. The myth goes as follows: Accompanied by the furious rat-a-tatting of a big drum, St. Patrick arrived at the hill from which he was going to banish the reptiles. The people who had gathered to watch the spectacle cried out when the drum broke because they believed St. Patrick’s magic power was dependent on it. A huge black snake slithered down the hill, laughing to see the saint so suddenly powerless. But just then an angel appeared and mended the drum. The drum was sounded and St. Patrick preached the sermon that drove the snakes and vermin from Ireland.4

As Charlesworth (p. 215) comments, the patron saint of Ireland never performed such a miracle: “[snakes] ceased to exist there after the Ice Age. This well-known myth developed because Patrick became a saint, and he drove evil out of Ireland. The best symbol to represent this belief is the serpent.” De Vries et al. (p. 503) offer an alternative interpretation: “St. Patrick delivered Ireland from the snake, i.e. the phallic snake-worship, connected with the round towers” and, perhaps, with sacred hills and groves. Another well-known saint is famous for his dealings with a mighty snakelike creature, namely St. George, the patron saint of England and a saint highly honoured in Coptic Egypt and Ethiopia. A terrible dragon, it is said, was ravaging the country around the city of Selena in Libya in the early days of the Christian era. The people had to feed it every day with a couple of lambs and sometimes with a human victim. St. George was riding by on the day the local king’s daughter was being offered as food for the dragon. Galloping on his horse and making the sign of the cross, the brave knight transfixed the dragon with his lance and all the townsfolk converted to Christianity.5 The underlying message would be that all Christians should 4

Other stories are recounted about St. Patrick and the last remaining snake of Ireland. See from the same source, accessed May 12, 2013: http://www.shamanswell.org/shaman/st-patricks-day-how-patrick-drove-snakespagans-ireland 5 The Roman legend of a gigantic serpent killed by Regulus and his troops in Libya during the first Punic war may also be recalled. See Box 8.

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neutralise the devil that may take root within their own selves (Chevalier et al., p. 878). The rescue of a maiden by St. George was also part of Near Eastern mythology: “Throughout the Middle Ages a small locality close to Beirut claimed to be the spot where St. George fought the [cave-dwelling] dragon and saved the maiden [who had been chained to a nearby tower], said to be a daughter of the king of Beirut” (Chojnacki 1973: 57). These stories are clearly reminiscent of the legend of Perseus and the Abyssinian princess Andromeda. According to a leading analyst, “[the] story of the serpent in our [Western] culture is a tale of how the most beautiful creature became seen as ugly, the admired became despised, the good was misrepresented as the bad, and a god was dethroned and recast as Satan” (Charlesworth, p. 419). ***** That point being granted, the image of the “good serpent” persisted in various parts of Europe long after the Christianisation of its peoples. The extent of this persistence will now be appreciated, obviously without any pretension to exhaustiveness. In numerous cases, the belief in the “good serpent” has long survived Christianisation. In a few instances, it has endured up to contemporary times. Some of the cases to be reviewed will appear as late replications of the “good serpent” as it was perceived by the ancient Greeks or Romans. However, the possibility that snake cults were autochthonous in prehistorical eastern, central, or western Europe cannot be ruled out. For example snakes were possibly connected with the ancient veneration of the Celtic peoples for springs and spring goddesses. The present section of this chapter will add a final touch to our overview of ophidian symbology in past civilisations. Other Christian proselytisers than St. Patrick have been confronted either reportedly or effectively with ophidians or, more specifically, with snakecults. Two cases will suffice to substantiate this point. In the seventh century, St. Barbatus found that some of the people of Benevento, an Italian city not far from Naples, worshipped a viper idol and a tree; he had the sacred tree cut down and the golden serpent melted down into a chalice or paten (Deane, p.253; Welsford 1919: 419). The snake-worshippers of

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Benevento were identified as Lombards, i.e. the descendants of an invading Eastern Germanic group.6 In the final decades of the fourteenth century, Jerome of Prague came upon a snake cult in Lithuania: Every male head of the family kept a snake in the corner of the house to which they would offer food and when it was lying on the hay, they would pray by it. Jerome issued a decree that all such snakes should be killed and burnt in the public market place. Among the snakes there was one which was much larger than all the others and despite repeated efforts, they were unable to put an end to its life. (Bradunas, 1975: 14)7

The Lithuanians were the last people in Europe to convert to Christianity. The new religion was introduced in Polish, a language unfamiliar to the average Baltic villagers. Lithuanians therefore remained faithful for centuries to many of their old beliefs (Bradunas, p. 12-13). The story of a Lithuanian peasant recorded near Vilna (Vilnius) in the seventeenth century is worth telling: (...) having been persuaded by a Christian to kill his sacred snake, [he] was horribly deformed, because, as he said, he “laid wicked hands on the serpent, his domestic god.” (Welsford, p. 420)

In the old records of Lithuania and of nearby Baltic regions, snakes were frequently referred to as žalþiai. However, they were sometimes termed gyvatơs, “a word which is clearly associated with Lith. gyvata, ‘vitality’, and gyvas, ‘living’” (Bradunas, p. 13). Greimas (p. 92-93) further states that one of the local words for “life” is gyvuonis, a term which may also apply to a snake’s tongue and to “life-giving water.” This means that the pattern evidenced in a number of Semitic languages8 whereby the terms for “life” and “snake” are related etymologically also apply in this part of northern Europe. Until the late Middle Ages, according to Greimas (p. 199-200), people would hold an annual ritual that consisted of shaking apple trees to make 6

Another warlike Eastern Germanic community, the Vandals, was known in its day to revere snakes (Deane, p. 252). The Vandals were prominent in southern Europe and beyond in the fifth century CE. 7 See also Deane (p. 246-47). 8 The Semitic languages are part of the Indo-European linguistic family, just like Lithuanian.

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them fruitful, knocking on beehives to wake up the bees, and praying to snakes to crawl out of the forest and come to the village to taste the food cooked on this special occasion. That ceremony has been reported to take place in mid-winter. In northern Europe, snakes are still in hibernation at that time. Springtime would appear a more appropriate period of the year to hold such rituals. Concerning the visiting snakes, it was further believed that if they failed to move into the houses and taste the food laid out in dishes, the year ahead would prove to be one of misfortune. Such a belief was clearly reminiscent of the mantic snakes of ancient Greece and Rome.9 The snake remains significant in contemporary Lithuania. Sax (p. 72-73) reports a tale recorded in the late nineteenth century in which a snake referred to as Zemyne, “earth,” turns into a woman: (…) a peasant is cutting grass in a field. He hears a loud hiss and turns to see a snake behind him. Fixing the head of the snake against the ground with his sickle, he picks up a stick and begins to beat the snake furiously. Eventually the skin of the snake falls off and changes into a many-colored dress. In that instant, a beautiful maiden appears before him. The peasant snatches the dress, takes the maiden home, and marries her. They live together happily for several years and have children, then one day the wife discovers the many-colored dress in an old chest. She puts it on and, once again, takes the form of a snake. She then kills both husband and children with her bite, and returns to the meadows.

As reported by Bradunas (p. 18), various sayings attesting to beliefs of old are still very much in use, such as the following: If a snake crosses over your path, you will have good luck. If you kill a snake and leave it unburied, then the sun will cry when it sees such a horrible thing. If a žaltys [the common word for snake] leaves the house, someone in that household will die.

A few decades ago, “the gabled roofs [of Lithuanian houses were] occasionally topped with serpent-shaped carvings in order to protect the household from evil powers” (Bradunas, p. 15). In this regard, the Lithuanian and Lombardian cases were by no means exceptional in Europe in the early as well as late Christian epochs. For instance one of the major gods of the Old Prussian native religion was the 9

See chap. 2.2.

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guardian of agriculture and cattle-breeding; he was also the god of health and life and a promoter of good fortune (Greimas, p. 103). Prominent in his cult was a snake, which was kept in a large jug and fed milk by a priestess; his name, Patrimpas, was related to water (Ibid.), an unsurprising connection for a snake-related deity. In central Europe, “various Slavic peoples believe [or believed?] that the souls of deceased ancestors dwell in snakes, which guard the homes of their human descendants” (Lurker, p. 8457). Moreover, Slavic “popular superstition preserved the belief that the snake brings wealth and has the power of healing,” the latter deriving from “its possession of ‘living waters’” (Welsford, p. 422). Similarly, “at Kormoc in northern Hungary (Slovakia), every house has a white snake, the guardian of the house” and were it to be killed, “somebody in the house will die” (Róheim 1973: 23). That was apparently common belief and practice at Kormoc in the early twentieth century.10 In popular Romanian belief, “each house owns a snake that insures its welfare by protecting it from evil spells; this snake must never be killed” (Talos 2002: 182). It is given milk to drink in the same bowl as that used for the children of the house. It is or was common knowledge in Romania that snakes are fond of milk, some even saying that they suck women’s breasts as well as cows’ udders when the latter venture in the woods (Ibid.).11 Even in a Nordic country such as Sweden, “snakes were virtually household gods (…) and not to be killed under any circumstances” as late as the sixteenth century (Morris et al., p. 47). Various similar European manifestations, notably through folktales, of the liveliness of the belief in the Good Serpent through the Middle Ages up to modern times could be brought in. Much of these snake-related beliefs and religious practices appear to derive from ancient Greece and ancient Rome. However, it must be realised that “the snake and its abstract derivative, the spiral, are the dominant motif of the art of Old Europe” and that snake-goddesses were revered in southern Old Europe as far back as the early seventh millennium BCE (Gimbutas, p. 93-112). Old Europe owed little, if anything, to Indo-European traditions which, during the fourth millennium 10

Further Hungarian or Slovakian evidence is provided by Róheim in another publication. See p. 88 in Magyar Néphit es Nèpszokdsoh (in Hungarian), Budapest, 1925. 11 This echoes an ancient Greek folk tradition mentioned in chap. 2.2.

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BCE, were carried into central and eastern Europe by invaders who would with time give birth to the Greek and Roman civilisations. ***** Armenia is interesting from our standpoint, it being a transitional zone between the Near East and Middle East on the one hand and eastern Europe on the other. Armenians have long had special affinities with Europeans, notably through Christianity which became the religion of the Armenian kingdom in the initial decade of the fourth century CE. The new religion was implanted “with fire and sword” in the years that followed, “sanctuaries and heathen temples were destroyed throughout the country.”12 Armenia became, in fact, one of the very first Christian nation states. The early Christianisation of Armenia surprisingly failed to wipe out all traces of heathenism. Abeghyan (1899: 74) highlighted various traces of ancient snake cults “still preserved in modern Armenian folk beliefs,” notably the custom of keeping house snakes: Only harmless house snakes—lortuk, lok (green-snake, adder)—enjoy a certain reverence. People believe that they protect Armenians from harmful snakes, especially poisonous ones, and can even chase them away. (…) Generally the skins of snakes (…) which are worshipped are regarded as a means of protection against harmful snakes and headaches (…). For this reason, Armenians regard them as untouchable and, since they are protectors of the house, they are left in peace to make their nests in the home.

As briefly mentioned by Jobes (p. 1419), snakes were believed by Armenians to embody “ancestral ghosts with an interest in the family’s fecundity and the field’s fertility.” According to Abeghyan (p. 74), adders were said to be “Armenians” and were therefore held to be “well disposed toward the Armenians.” Strangely, all species of adders are known by zoologists to be venomous. The solution to the paradox may be that, at least in Europe, adders are not aggressive, biting only those who attempt to “catch or handle them.”13 As Abeghyan (p. 75) observed, the implication 12

Source: http://armenianhistory.info/chapter-iii-from-apostolic-acts-to-551-a-d/. Source: http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/adder.htm. This ethological observation was made in Great Britain. One also reads on the Web that “the grey-brown background colour of the adder [Viper berus] is quite different from the dark green of a grass snake, and yet many people have difficulty distinguishing the two” (http://www.first-nature.com/reptiles/vipera_berus.php). The house snake seated 13

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of labelling a snake as “Armenian” is that such “snakes” may sometimes appear in the guise of human persons. In some of the folktales featuring a good male serpent, to be reviewed below, it is indeed addressed as “brother” (Surmelian 1968: 148-49; Marshall 2007: 86). Moreover, It is believed that every home has its own invisible snake, which pursues evil spirits. This snake is the luck of the home and occasionally manifests itself. Milk is placed before such snakes so that they will drink it and later leave gold in the vessel (…). One folk tale describes how such a luckbringing snake was mistreated and left the house, taking along with it all the joy and happiness it previously contained (…). (Abeghyan, p. 74-75)

According to Surmelian (p. 315, 230), “the average Armenian peasant would hesitate to kill a snake in his house for fear it would bring bad luck.” As a matter of fact, the intrusion of a snake in a house reportedly spells good luck. The offering of milk to a good snake used to be common practice in many of the regions to which this book is devoted. The notion according to which if a poor person is kind or generous towards a serpent that person will be rewarded with gold has already been encountered in a previous chapter, the one dealing with India. But not all serpents were or are viewed as benevolent. Indeed, darkcoloured snakes were and are still held to be “the most prominent of the symbols of dark evil” (Abeghyan, p. 30): The dark of night is perceived as the action of evil spirits, of Hell itself; while the light of day is from the effect of the good celestial beings or of luminous paradise. The Night Mothers appear as the personification of darkness (…). They are old witches or seers (vhuk) who hold black snakes in their hands. (…) If they ever spot the “face of the sun,” then not a single person on earth would remain alive, because in that case the Night Mothers would devour everything with their snakes; that is to say, with darkness, and everything would be destroyed. (Abeghyan, p. 29-30)

An Armenian folktale entitled “Zulvisia,” the name of a gorgeous princess, features one of these undesirable night mothers or witches. The “old witch” first stuffed a few deadly snakes into her bosom and then turned one snake into a walking stick and another into a whip. She came back on a chair in an Armenian drawing opposite p. 158 in Downing (1972) is predominantly green.

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entwined with live snakes: “All drew back in horror. She ordered Zulvisia to follow her (…): ‘Come along with me, or I’ll have these snakes tear out your eyes, feed on your cheeks, coil around your neck, and devour you with their bloody fangs’” (Surmelian 1968: 135-36). The myth of the night mothers seems to hint at the ancient Egyptian mythology: the everlasting nightly combat between the setting sun god and the great serpent of the underworld. It may also correlate with the contemporary western Himalayan cult owed to wrathful goddesses believed to command vengeful cobras (Jones 2010: 111). Mention should here be made of the Armenian custom of burying dead snakes (Downing 1972: 76). An unburied dead snake, some people believed, “would read the stars during the night, and bring itself back to life” (Ibid.). Presumably the people used to bury mostly dark-coloured snakes, i.e. snakes closely associated with evil.14 It has become apparent that snakes played a significant part in the local folklore. What the author knows about snake-related Armenian folktales is what he has gathered from Surmelian (1968), Downing (1972), and Marshall (2007). In addition to “Zulvisia,” the following folktales highlight evil snakes: - “The tale of the laughing fish” (Surmelian, p. 145): An apple of immortality is “poisoned by a snake” and kills. - “Tapagöz” (Downing, p. 168-70): A large black snake represents “the eldest of the demons.” - “Dzheiran-ogly, the deer’s son” (Marshall, p. 92-100): The hero of the story beheads a mighty snake with his sword but is changed into a stone when drops of its blood fall on him. Marshall (p. 6) also reports a fable whereby a snake bites a fish that gives it a friendly sea ride.15 14

In Eastern Africa, as we shall see, burial was believed on the contrary to restore snakes to life. 15 The story echoes an ancient Greek fable recorded by Æsop and entitled “The farmer and the snake”: a venomous serpent ungratefully bites a man who had succoured it. As stated by the Armenian fable, it is the “habit” of the snake to bite. An Armenian proverb listed by Surmelian (1968: 212) may be relevant to the present note: “The serpent changes its shirt, not its nature.” The Arabic folklore is not unfamiliar with the theme of the remorseless serpent (Canova 1991: 239). The author is aware of a few East African versions of the same story (Oyler 1919a;

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More often than not, however, Snake is a “most popular character” in that it effectively assists folktale heroes in reaching their goals, on a par with Horse and Fox (Surmelian, p. 22). This is apparent in the following tales: - “The woodcutter” (Surmelian, p. 148-55): A snake makes a very poor man immensely rich in precious stones through sacrificing its own life. - “The peasant’s son and the king’s daughter” (Marshall, p. 86-91): A poor peasant saves the life of a white serpent viciously attacked by a black one; the white snake turns out to be the daughter of the lord of the good serpents; the wishes of the peasant are accomplished as a reward for his deed. - “The gold pitcher” (Marshall, p. 126-27): His plough oxen having recently died, a poor farmer has to rent his field to another peasant. While ploughing, the latter hits something hard, a metal container full of gold. The two men quarrel about who should keep the gold, each refusing it for himself. To settle the issue, they appeal to the king who selfishly wants to secure the gold for himself. However, the pitcher turns out to be full of snakes. Wise men tell the king that the gold was only meant for poor peasants. They advise the two farmers to marry their children and bless them with the gold. - “Tale of the one-eyed giant” (Surmelian, p. 230): A large black snake shows the only way out of the burial cavern into which a man or woman have been locked along with their dead wife or husband. - “Habermany, the serpent prince” (Surmelian, p. 229-50; Downing, p. 157-67)16: The snake hero turns out to be a magnificent prince when a princess accepts it as her spouse and asks it to slough off its skin; however, the princess reveals her husband’s secret (‘Snake by day, man by night”); he has to disappear; at last the two are reunited in a distant place but the prince must free himself and his wife from the grips of a powerful witch; he transforms his wife into a stick and Stannus 1922; Cory 1953; Morin 1995). In some of these, the lethal snake bites the neck of a passer-by who agrees to ferry the reptile on his shoulders across a shallow but tumultuous stream; in one case, a man saves a snake from a bush fire. In another version, a long-toothed sorcerer acts as a substitute to the venomous snake. In a Kikuyu variant, the two protagonists are the jackal and the camel (Cagnolo 1933: 242-43). 16 The story of Habermany echoes to some extent the Calabrian tale entitled “The serpent king” alluded to in Box 10.

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-

-

winds himself in the guise of a snake around it.17 The witch is not fooled. In Surmelian’s version, the snake prince bites the witch to death; in Downing’s version, the witch lets them go. “The fair maiden Sunbeam and the serpent prince” (Downing, p. 40-45): A queen gives birth to a male dragon child, which must be fed with human flesh; at last, a very poor and orphaned maiden offered to it as food manages to free it from its apparent ophidian identity; the now human prince falls in love with the modest but clever maiden and the happy father of the handsome prince has them married.18 “Loqman the wise” (Downing, p. 73-80): The ageing king of snakes is a great healer; he decides to transfer his medicinal knowledge to a poor young man while surrendering his life in the process. The apprentice learns that his master’s head has “four brains: the two right ones are poisonous, the two left ones are beneficial and have healing qualities” (p. 76).19

The Armenian profile of snakes is clearly ambivalent: Serpent as Protector as well as Healer, as opposed to Serpent as the personification of Darkness and Evil. The two facets are strongly and, it seems, equally marked. This profile could be fairly representative of what prevailed in ancient times in Egypt and Middle East. But centuries of Christianity may have given extra weight to the dark side of the profile. The Mothers of Darkness with their poisonous black snakes obviously owe little to the more recent Christian religious layer. Abeghyan (p. 30) himself recognised the imprint of ancient Persian representations. *****

17

This obviously echoes Asklepios’ emblem of office. Marshall (p. 19-23) offers a longer version of the same story entitled “Snake child Otsamanuk and Arevamanuk who angered the Sun”: unfortunate events separate the newly-wed couple. In some distant place, the young lady is taken as a mate by another hero, who is cursed by the Sun god; she bears him a son. At last the prince and his legitimate wife are reunited while she entrusts her boy to his genitor, who has just been relieved from his curse: that of hiding day after day from the sun or daylight. In some ways, the curse brings to mind the case of the Mothers of Darkness perpetually chasing after the Sun but always failing in their pursuit (See above). 19 This is inversely reminiscent of the story of the famous Gorgon Medusa. We know from chap. 2.2 that blood from her right side was a most powerful medicine whereas that from her left side was extremely noxious. 18

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This last but one and shorter section of the present chapter intends to show through a few examples that even within the Christian Church itself the image of the Good Serpent had not been wholly eradicated in the Middle Ages and even in the early modern era. One reads on the Web that “serpent crosiers were commonly carried by bishops and high Catholic Church officials during the Middle Ages” and that “although it is claimed that the crosier represents the shepherd’s crook, it actually can be traced to the divining staff or augur of Pontifex Maximus of ancient Rome who inherited it from the priests of Babylon.”20 According however to a reliable scholar, the religious officers who carried such crosiers were Coptic and Byzantine bishops, the snake-headed staff symbolising “the prudence with which the faithful are to be guided” (Lurker, p. 8457). This interpretation is based on Matthew 10, verse 16: “Be wise as serpents.” As a matter of fact, Coptic bishops of Egypt still use a “pastoral staff” which is “just a stick” representing “leadership and pastoral authority” and a crosier “surmounted by a cross between two serpents,” which they must hold in liturgical services and carry during processions (Malaty 1992: 33). Of the two instruments, the Coptic crosier appears to be more loaded with symbolism. Although their meanings are undisclosed, it is likely that the two serpents represent the snake gods of pre-Christian Abyssinia, a subject matter to be dealt with in Volume Two, chapter 5.1. The European Middle Ages are famous for their magnificent cathedrals. Gargoyles are a remarkable aspect of the roofing of these works of art. Their practical purpose was to keep rain-water as much as possible off the walls and foundations. Being fashioned by artists, gargoyles also have a symbolic character. They typically represent fierce animals, often a dog, a snake, a dragon, an eagle, or a chimera, i.e. an imaginary combination of such creatures. According to a study conducted in France and referred to by Morris et al. (p. 60), the serpent was “only second in popularity to the lion as a [sculpted] symbolic animal”; if dragons, basilics, etc. are to be included, the serpent was on a par with its major competitor. To return specifically to gargoyles, they always display big wide-open mouths and appear to be “symbolic of devouring giants.”21 It is not clear whether they 20

See “Serpent crook of bishops of old.” Accessed April 15, 2012. http://infonom.com.ar/task/html/serpent_crook_of_bishops_of_ol.html. 21 See “Gargoyles.” Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.medieval-life-andtimes.info/medieval-art/gargoyles.htm. See also “Gargoyles and their meanings.” Also accessed August 16, 2012. http://makinbacon.hubpages.com/hub/gargoylesusesmeanings.

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were meant to ward off evil from the inner temple—for instance somewhat like the good serpent of the Armenians and, in the remote past, like the frightening serpents engraved next to the door of Pharaonic temples—or remind believers of what would be in store for them were they not to live out their lives according to the tenets of Christianity. Whatever the case may be, snakes were put to good use. Perhaps more revealing is a medieval folktale entitled “Of good advice” taken from a work entitled Gesta Romanorum and taught to monks in the abbeys of France in the sixteenth century: In the reign of the Emperor Fulgentius, a certain knight, named Zedechias, married a very beautiful but imprudent wife. In a chamber of their mansion a serpent dwelt. Now, the knight’s vehement inclination for tournaments and jousting brought him to extreme poverty. He grieved immoderately, and, like one who was desperate, walked backward and forward, ignorant of what he should do. The serpent, beholding his misery, (…) was on that occasion miraculously gifted with a voice, and said to the knight, “Why do you lament? Take my advice, and you shall not repent it. Supply me every day with a certain quantity of sweet milk, and I will enrich you.” This promise exhilarated the knight, and he faithfully followed the instructions of his subtle friend. The consequence was that he had a beautiful son and became exceedingly wealthy. But it happened that his wife one day said to him, “My lord, I am sure that serpent has great riches hidden in the chamber where he dwells. Let us kill him and get possession of the whole.” (…) he took a hammer to destroy the serpent, and a vessel of milk. Allured by the milk, it put its head out of the hole, as it had been accustomed; and the knight lifted the hammer to strike it. The serpent, observing his perfidy, suddenly drew back its head; and the blow fell upon the vessel. No sooner had he done this, his offspring died, and he lost everything that he formerly possessed. The wife (…) said to him, “Alas! I have ill counseled you; but go now to the hole of the serpent, and humbly acknowledge your offense. Peradventure you may find grace.” The knight complied, and standing before the dwelling place of the serpent, shed many tears, and entreated that he might once more be made rich. “I see,” answered the serpent, “(…) that you are a fool, and will always be a fool. For how can I forget that blow of the hammer which you designed me, for which reason I slew your son and took away your wealth? There can be no real peace between us.” The knight, full of sorrow, replied thus, “I promise the most unshaken fidelity, and will never meditate the slightest injury, provided I may (…) obtain your grace.” “My friend,” said the serpent, “it is the nature of my species to be subtle and venomous. Let what I have said suffice. The blow offered at my head is fresh upon my recollection; get you gone before you receive an injury.” The knight departed in great affliction, saying to his

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Chapter 2.6 wife, “Fool that I was to take your counsel!” (...) ever afterwards they lived in the greatest indigence.22

The story is clearly evocative of that of Adam and Eve in Eden: the subtle serpent, the man being led astray by his wife, the everlasting enmity between snakes and humans… The meaning of the story was coined as follows: “The knight is Adam, who by following his wife’s advice lost Paradise. The serpent in the chamber signifies Christ retained in the human heart, by virtue of baptism.” The narrative is also in line with two ancient folktales already referred to in previous chapters. One was recorded by the Greek fabulist Æsop in the first half of the sixth century BCE. As we saw in chapter 2.2, a snake was offered shelter and food by a poor farmer, who grew lucky and rich. But for some reason the man got angry with the snake and almost killed it. Having lost all of his newly acquired wealth, he begged for forgiveness. But the snake told him that no peace was possible between them while its scar remained visible. In an Indian version dating back to the third century BCE, if not earlier, a greedy man disastrously attempts to kill the benevolent snake that turned his poor Brahman father into a rich man.23 Two additional cases, one from Italy and one from Greece, will suffice to emphasise the persistence of old beliefs within the church itself. Both of them are contemporary, the Italian religious event being perhaps the better known one.24 On the first Thursday of May, a statue of San Domenicoʊbedecked with dozens of living but non-venomous snakes previously collected by male parishionersʊis carried through the streets of Cucullo, a village in the 22

Source: Man and Serpent - Folktales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 285D, translated and/or edited by D. L. Ashliman. Accessed December 2, 2011. http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0285d.html. 23 See the story of Haridatta reported in chap. 2.3, including footnote 35. For an East African (Oromo - Somali) rendering of the last part of this story, see chap. 4.3. A Kamba tale offers a distant and possibly exceptional East African echo of the friendly-snake-making-poor-people-rich theme (Mbiti 1966: 117-18). 24 The Italian case is reported by various authors, including Morris et al. (p. 65). The little known Greek case is described by Bodson (p. 529). See also from the same author: “De la symbolique religieuse à l’herpétologie: les serpents sacrés de Marcopoulo (Céphalonie, Grèce)” in Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de France 102 (1977), p. 485-87. See also: http://www.webring.org/hub?ring=snakesrus.

The Amazing Persistence of the Good Serpent within the Christian World 193

Abruzzi mountain range, east of Rome. San Domenico is locally regarded as the saint patron for curing toothache, rabies, and snake bites, all of which are obviously tooth-related. According to Morris et al. (p. 65), the snakes are put aside when the procession enters the church, to be later killed and buried: “By these measures the inhabitants are supposed to ensure that they will be free from snake bite and toothache throughout the following year.” Welsford (p. 404) reported that the “ancient Marsi snakeclan” had been prominent in that area in the past. Indeed, the early Romans had fought with the warlike Marsi group, whose military valour was attributed to “the fact that its members communed with snakes” (Kostuch, p. 118). In Roman times, the Marsi were also relied upon as snake bite curers (Morris et al., p. 86). Off the western coast of Greece, some devout inhabitants of Marcopoulo, an Orthodox village on the island of Kefalonia, still collect snakes near the local church for the annual celebration of the Assumption or Falling Asleep of the Virgin Mary in mid-August of each year. The physical contact with such reptiles in the church on that occasion reportedly shields believers from ill luck and illnesses for some time. It is said that snakes are not to be seen nearby except on the 14th and 15th of August, that they do not mind being manipulated on that occasion, and that their collaborative appearance augurs well for the next twelve months. The willingness of snakes to participate in this religious ceremony and the mantic character of their participation once again bring to mind ancient Greek and Roman snake-related religious events.25 ***** The Western notion of snakes has evolved considerably since the time of triumphant Christianity. In those days, snakes were basically identified with evil and were perceived as mundane representations of Satan rather than as individual members of some reptilian species. In restricted fields of activity such as medicine and pharmacy, some positive connotations have been retained.

25

A wholly different picture emerged at Luchon, a remote village in the French Pyrenees. Here “serpents [were] burnt alive on the eve of St. John’s day” (Morris et al., p. 86). This ritual was possibly inspired by the Acts of the Apostles, chap. 28: 1-6 (Saint Paul and the viper). See Box 14.



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CONCLUDING NOTE TO PART II

A few scholars have made sweeping statements about the symbolic profile of the serpent in some of the regions covered by Part II. Stevens (p. 192) for instance writes that “the affiliation between the Great Mother and the serpent is everywhere apparent” in the Mediterranean realm as well as in the Near East. In addition to its regenerative, numinous powers, the serpent is an intimate denizen of the earth and a symbol of the ever-fertilizing phallus. Moreover, its association with chthonic goddesses of the underworld makes the snake a familiar of spirits of the ancestors in the kingdom of the dead. (Ibid.)

In the course of his research on the status of snakes in ancient civilisations, the present author has mostly come upon fertility goddesses and goddesses connected with the seasonal rebirth of vegetation. The symbolic identification of snakes with the phallus did not appear overwhelmingly prominent. Other researchers have postulated the antecedence or the primeval supremacy of snake-related earth goddesses (Vasquez Hoys 2002). Austin (p. 98-99) holds that these primordial powers were demonised by the clergy of the gods that superseded them in a context marked by a “shift from matriarchal to patriarchal consciousness.” Male sky gods typically substituted for the old female earth goddesses, as argued by Austin and others. However, some ancient snake-related gods were definitely male deities, notably Sin, the Mesopotamian moon-god, and the primeval ruler of the Greek Olympos, Ophion, “The Snake.” Even Zeus, the male sky god and lord of all the later Greek gods, was not devoid of ophidian features. The earth goddesses were definitely not the only deities with significant ophidian connotations. There were, according to Wilson (2001: 18), three distinct mythical traditions relating to snakes in Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Ugarit, Crete, and Phoenicia: the serpent as “the supreme adversary of the grand deity in the great primordial battle”; as a “chthonic deity, guardian of the underworld and the dead”; and as a “terrestrial protector and healer and preserver of life and fertility.” Wilson further argues that Egypt and Mesopotamia made more or less specific contributions to the “serpentine

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heritage.” Although the serpent was reckoned to be “guardian of the underworld” in both areas, the traditions of the serpent as “creator of life” and “protector” would have hailed from ancient Egypt; and those of the serpent as “symbol of chaos,” “healer,” and “symbol of fertility” would have crystallised in ancient Mesopotamia (p. 211-12). But to bring up a telling example, the eternal adversary of the Egyptian sun god, i.e. the mighty nocturnal and subterranean serpent Apep (or Apophis), represented the threat of chaos, i.e. the potential triumph of the powers of the night, a triumph that materialised at the time of a solar eclipse. Wilson surmises that the theme of fertility may have been borrowed by the Mesopotamians from ancient India, notably its Dravidian component. The promotion of female fertility was indeed a crucial symbolic feature of the snake in India. However, the serpent has never been narrowly emblematic of fertility in that part of the world. In fact, the association of snakes with life, including fertility, seems to have been almost universal. ***** The review of the imaginary profile of the snake conducted in the foregoing chapters is admittedly uneven and patchy. Some chapters are more cursory than others. This is true of chapter 2.1 compared for example to chapter 2.2. The review nonetheless demonstrates that the snake was a markedly polysemic and contrasting figure and that most of the major facets of ophidian symbology showed up from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to Greece, Palestine, the Arabic peninsula, and India. The more significant features were the following: the connection of snakes with water, life, human and agricultural fertility (on account of their proximity to springs, of their phallic shape, and of their hole- or cavedwelling habits), milk, healing, and even wealth (gold, gems) and good fortune; their connection with fire, death, and royal or divine punishment through their venomous bites; their association with the earth and the underworld (the source of life-generating powers), and sometimes with burial sites, a coincidence that reinforced their connection with death; their identification with poles and trees (from roots to high branches), and, combined with their presumed immortality (casting of skin) and power over life, their ability to mediate between humanity and chthonian, but also celestial, divinities; their assumed wakefulness, which implied a superior knowledge of thingsʊeven of those to comeʊand which, combined with the threat of their venomous bite, turned them into fearsome custodians of precious symbols or wardens of gates and temples, or into protectors of families or even whole communities; a minor feature

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of snake symbolism that seemed to come up in a number of areas was the connection between snakes and skin diseases such as leprosy. Medusa, an awesome snake-related mythic Greek creature, provides one of the more striking illustrations of the contrasting powers: death-dealing and life-giving, of the snake. As regards the theme of custodianship, one can only agree with Charlesworth’s remark, especially considering the old civilisations: “In the world of symbology, as is abundantly clear from texts and objects, the serpent is the quintessential guardian” (p. 97). That being said, the imaginary profile of ophidians did vary from region to region to a certain extent: ʊ The astral connections of snakes were restricted mostly to Egypt (burning venom and sun) and Mesopotamia (moon, snakes, and rejuvenation). ʊ The cognizant snake, especially of things to come (omen, divination, prophecy), was apparently not prominent in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.1 It may have been mostly an ancient Greek addition to the symbology of the serpent, an addition which notably percolated into ancient Arabia and Old Europe. ʊ The deceiving ophidian figure of the Old Testament clearly appears as an exception rather than the rule. The impurity of snakes in the Hebrew realm contrasted sharply with the purity of cobras in Hinduism. ʊ The association of snakes with the beginning of things was a very common theme which, however, was obliterated by Islam. In the ancient Arabic world, the identification of snakes with chthonic spirits (djinns) was so strong that it almost precluded any connection with the dead. The few exceptions were peripheral to the heart of the Arab world: spirit snakes appearing near the tombs of a few North-African Muslim saints. ʊ Emblematic of healing or of fertility, the entwined snake or two entwined snakes were little known in both Arabia and India. The death-dealing–justice-making snake and the healing serpent do not appear to have been a significant feature of Indian culture. ʊ The belief in ophidian ancestors was common in India but not much heard of elsewhere, except perhaps in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds: gods in snake-form impregnating maidens, the 1

An ancient Egyptian tale, “The shipwrecked sailor” (See chap. 2.1), features a mighty serpent that could foretell the future and resided on the mythical Upper Nile island of Ka.

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Marsi ”snake-clan” of old central Italia, possibly some Phrygian families of central Anatolia (Turkey). In India, ancient Egypt, and in some Armenian tales, there could be shifts of identities between snakes and humans, some persons turning into snakes, some snakes becoming persons, or some snakes having a human head. ʊ Live snakes seemingly did not take up residence in Mesopotamian temples as was sometimes the case in Egypt, Greece, and India. But inside some old Canaanite and Mesopotamian temples stood a metallic effigy of a serpent believed to bestow fertility upon worshippers.

PART III MEN, ANIMALS, AND SNAKES IN TRADITIONAL SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Part III will focus on Africa as a whole and on parts of Africa other than Northern Africaʊan area already touched upon, to some extent, in chapter 2.5ʊand other than Eastern Africa and the Horn. Considering the large number of peoples and cultures in Africa, the continent is an exceedingly large and challenging area of study. The focus will therefore be on SubSaharan Africa. Offering an array of glimpses of African ophidian symbology is the most that can possibly be attempted by a single researcher. It will prove useful to initially consider the issue of the man-animal relationship, a vast subject in itself. The issues to be dealt with will be of a potentially universal scope, one of which being the often-reported notion of “identification” of humans with animals. The examples to be studied in the opening chapter, such as monkey and elephant symbolism, will mostly stem from Eastern Africa simply because this is the area the author knows best. Given its emphasis on symbolical processes, chapter 3.1 may be seen as a continuation of chapter 1.5. The focus will then turn to ophidian symbology in Sub-Saharan Africa in general terms. Its actual manifestations in portions of Africa other than Eastern and Northern Africa will be illustrated and commented on to some extent in chapter 3.3. This brief and preliminary overview will already show that the perception of snakes was shaped by a range of ideological, i.e. cultural or religious, considerations. It will also provide a proximate baseline for comparison with Eastern Africa.

CHAPTER 3.1 MAN-ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS AND ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN AFRICA

The traditional African perception of animals was not scientific in the narrow sense of the term. It was overarching, as Crandall (2002: 293) makes clear using his south-western Angola Himba evidence: As Himba discuss specific animals, conversation shifts freely from naturalistic considerations to moral (i.e. granting animals the moralising characteristics of human beings) and aesthetic ones without confusion.

Crandall (p. 293 fn.) also argues that “it is to be understood that, although a ‘natural’ world does exist, human beings encounter that world through a cultural one, so that the ‘natural’ world is always constrained by cultural classification.” Three decades earlier, Houis (p. 93) noted that flora and fauna have been prime sources of signifiers in Africa while adding that nature has always been perceived through the lens of culture. It must be emphasised here that the human mind is not a passive screen for selfstamping natural categories. The range of empirical features that may potentially serve to sort out and order the countless living forms is far too great for that to be the norm. But there is more to the point than the single issue of classification. For instance Douglas (1990: 34) heard from the Lele of the Kasai in DRC that the peaceful coexistence of fish, lizards, water snakes, and wild boar in the same environment was upheld by the client-patron relationship that these creatures presumably shared with the water spirits that protected them all and prevented conflicts between them. In other words a social model familiar to the Lele people was transposed into the natural realm to make sense out of some of its features. That being granted, several anthropologists, notably Douglas (1957), Bulmer (1967), Tambiah (1969), Richards (1993), and Crandall (2002), to name a few, have demonstrated that cultural systems of classification and native theories of natural history play an important part in the perception

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and ordering of natural phenomena. The variable criteria: habitat, size, shape, colour, mode of locomotion, etc., used by human communities to classify the wealth of observable living species and the varying emphasis placed on each of the criteria determine for instance which animal forms are fully representative of the several categories that are thus created, and which living creatures appear ambivalent, anomalous, and therefore especially “good to think” about. A more sophisticated formulation is that certain animals are “fascinating to think about and stimulating to think about other things through” (Galaty 2014: 33; his emphasis). Another very basic point to be aware of at the outset is the questionable divide initiated by the French philosopher Descartes in the seventeenth century, a divide that has fashioned Western thinking about animal forms for centuries. Indeed, in the words of Willis (1990b: 8), Western cosmology has been characterised by “a stark division between creator and creation, spirit and matter.” Since Descartes, “nonhuman animals have been conventionally classified as belonging entirely to the material side of that grand cosmological divide, and only humans participate in it, by virtue of their possession of material and mortal bodies, as well as immortal spirits” (Ibid.). In the Cartesian dualistic philosophical system, animals are sort of aliens and automata totally deprived of feeling and thinking. Of course there is a fundamental misfit between this theory and the traditional African cultural setting. As Broch-Due (1990: 40) notes for instance about the Turkana of north-western Kenya, these people “look upon the world as a unified and balanced whole, in which animals are construed as colleagues, capable of thinking and interacting with one another and with humans.” Even in the Western world, the predominant Cartesian perspective did not completely rule out folkloric representations such as the deep-seated belief in werewolves (Mullin 1999: 204), that is, persons believed to have been transformed into a wolf or to be capable of assuming the form of a wolf. The ancient Greek fables that featured the personification of animals or, rather, the “animalisation” of certain types of persons continued to be popular long after Descartes. Therefore some of the previous footbridges between the world of people and that of animals have persisted over and above the philosophical trend initiated by Descartes. *****

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Chapter 3.1

All rural societies coexist daily with domesticated and wild animals. Although everywhere the realms of people and animals were clearly distinguished, they were not thought of as watertight worlds. Good nonEuropean and non-African illustrations of this are notably provided by Bulmer (1967) and Crocker (1977). In the first case, we learn that from the standpoint of the Karam people of highland New Guinea the cassowary was not considered a “bird” on account of its terrestrial niche and its lack of real feathers. Its “hairy” appearance, its large size, its bipedal locomotion as well as the similarity of its leg bones with that of humans were emphasised. A local myth told of a young woman turning into a cassowary and laying eggs (Bulmer, p. 18). Although the cassowary was the “prime game of the forest” (p. 14), it was never killed with sharp blood-shedding spears, arrows or axe-blades (p. 18). Catching cassowaries was thus like fighting with closely related adversaries as opposed to strangers or enemies. Moreover, the cassowary was known to have a spirit that reportedly survived after its death and could harm the successful hunter or prevent him from killing more cassowaries; to avoid that, the killer ate the heart of his quarry (p. 17). Likewise, the slayer of a man, notably an enemy, used to sacrifice a pig and eat its heart (p. 17). For all these reasons, Bulmer (p. 17, 20) argues that cassowaries are “in a sense equated with [humans]” and further states that cassowaries are the “metaphorical cognates of men.”1 The case of the parrots, held by the Bororo people of the Brazilian forest, to be their “brothers” is also illuminating. In the eyes of that community white or red parrots were magnificently coloured creatures. Their plumes were needed to decorate people at dances and rituals. Wild parrots were hunted for their feathers and some were captured and then domesticated by 1

The Karam possibly believed that humans were originally cassowary-like forestdwellers. The near identification of humans and cassowaries did not prevent them from eating the cherished cassowary flesh. It also downplayed the well-known fact that these terrestrial birds have virtually no brain in proportion to their large size (Bulmer 1967: 11). Two other forest animals enjoyed a “special status” (p. 18) in the eyes of the Karam, both of which were marsupials. The first was the nonarboreal ground cuscus (Phalanger gymnotis), which differed from all other local marsupials: the ground cuscus was “identified (…) with the ghosts of the dead, its subterranean lair being an entrance to the underworld” (p. 23). The other special marsupial was the arboreal long-fingered triok (Dactylopsila palpator), which was connected with witchcraft “on account of its very elusive habits and probably also because of its distinctive black and white markings” (Ibid.).

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women who fed them, named them, and experienced grief when they died. These birds were also plumed prior to major rituals. People believed that spirits, notably ancestors’ spirits, entered or transformed themselves “into both wild and tame macaws rather frequently” because they wanted to be “beautiful” (Crocker, p. 185). More specifically, it is the men who identified with the brotherly parrots, especially the rare and more beautiful red ones (p. 189). The reason for this attitude was undoubtedly the fact that the colour red symbolised “vitality and transcendent beauty” in Bororo thinking (p. 182 fn.). But the statement “We are parrots” had other implications in that matrilineal and uxorilocal community. Above all, it expressed awareness on the part of men of being more or less “domesticated” by their wives. Indeed, according to Crocker (p. 192), “in metaphorically identifying themselves with red macaws, then, the Bororo do not seek to either disparage or adorn themselves, but to express the irony of their masculine condition.”2 These illustrations allow us to appreciate the worth of the following remark by Tambiah (1969: 455), whose fieldwork was done in northern Thailand: (…) the Thai villagers’ relation to the animal world shows neither a sense of affinity with animals nor a clear-cut distinction and separation from them, but rather a co-existence of both attitudes in varying intensities which create a perpetual tension.

Willis (1990b: 7) similarly underscores the “indigenous ideas of continuity between human and nonhuman nature”: (…) all human cultures, including our own, simultaneously recognize a duality that divides each cultural group’s worldview or cosmology while also recognizing some underlying commonality or continuity between the opposed constituents. (Ibid.; emphasis by Willis)

As the following sections of this chapter will demonstrate, Africa was definitely a region where, to use Mullin’s words (p. 202), the “boundaries between human and animal” were “fluid.” 2

In all likelihood the analogy between men and red macaws can be extended further. Crocker (1977) reports the male view of “femininity as inherently dangerous to men,” the latter notably believing that “during the sexual act a woman robs her partner of his vigor (rakare)”; consequently, “men should avoid intercourse as much as possible” (p. 189). Bororo men may have felt they were “plumed” by women, i.e. deprived of their beauty and vitality through sexual congress.

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***** Willis (1997: 198) emphasises the “extraordinary variety in zoomorphic symbolism” in Sub-Saharan Africa; in his view, “the sheer range of symbolic ideas using animal motifs” makes the whole region “unique.” Our prime interest is to highlight significant continuities between the human and animal realms. Thus the overall background of ophidian symbology will be laid out, i.e. the notion that animals were not necessarily taken to be mere natural forms but could be perceived as spirits or even as persons; and of the complementary notion that individuals were not always ordinary human persons but could be remarkably animal-like in their demeanour, if not animals in human guise. The Uduk people of south-western Ethiopia likened the skin of girls to that of roan antelopes or gazelles (James 1990: 201). Not far from the Uduk, the Surma pastoralists spoke of the Dizi agriculturalists as “cattle” and even as “mules” because of their perceived submissiveness3; conversely, the Dizi compared the Surma to snakes on account of their perceived double talk, treachery or unpredictability, and harmfulness (Abbink 2006: 236-37). Likewise, the Datog pastoralists of northern Tanzania compared themselves to goats as opposed to their Iraqw neighbours and allies whom they compared to sheep, knowing well that goats are “quicker and more intelligent than sheep” (Rekdal et al. 1999: 131). They also identified themselves to “lions” as opposed to the reportedly hyena-like Iraqw; the latter used to take advantage of the new lands taken over chiefly by the former, who were more daring and warlike (p. 135).4 Such animalistic metaphors are the products of analogical and moralistic thinking, much like fables. More significant instances of perceived continuity or equivalence between humans and animals occurred in Eastern Africa, which offered a wide spectrum of cases featuring an identification of some sort of individuals, social groups, territorial sections, ethnic communities, or age groups with animals. 3

The nearby and likewise lowland and warlike Bodi—or Me’en as they call themselves—also viewed the more peaceful Male mountain agriculturalists as “mules” (Fukui 1996: 369). Mules were to be found in the highlands and could not survive in the lowland zone (Ibid.), at least in Bodi reckoning. 4 As Tomikawa (1979: 27) observes, “There is no doubt that although both the Iraqw and the Bantu agriculturalists join in with the Datoga in pursuing Maasai [cattle] raiders, the Datoga are the most dogged and determined in pursuit.”

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Seligman et al. (1932: 169) were among the first to use the notion of “identification” to characterise the relationship of men, especially young men, to their favourite ox amidst the Nilotes of South Sudan. Healthy oxen are as big, strong, and admirable as cattle can be. A young man would decorate his favourite ox, reshape its horns, parade with it, dance with arms out, imitating the shape of its horns, and singing songs of praise to it and more or less obliquely to himself. A young man was commonly referred to as the “owner” or “father” of such-and-such an ox; for instance “Father-of-the black-breasted white ox.” Indeed, a major aspect of the “identification” complex was the colour pattern of one’s favourite ox. The range of colour patterns available in the local herds of cattle offered to a young man the opportunity to underscore his own individuality. When the ox died, it was soon replaced by a young animal of the same colour pattern, which was often begged from the herd of a relative or fellow tribesman. So strong was the emotional attachment to favourite oxen that a man would never partake of the toothsome flesh of his favourite animal when it was finally slaughtered.5 In the same region and among the same ethnic groups, Lienhardt (1954: 97-8) heard that certain persons were actually animals; for instance lions in human guise. He explained this belief in the following terms: “The people themselves do not confuse men with beasts; they merely do not distinguish all men from all beasts in the same way we do.” They believed that “an animal nature, and a man’s nature, may be co-present in the same being” (Ibid). The ethnologist formulated a more specific explanation in a later publication: When the Dinka speak of changes from human to animal form—as for example when they hold that some men are really lions, and can change into lions—they suppose that the outward form changes but the essential nature remains the same. A person human in outward appearance may therefore be in his nature an animal of some kind. (Lienhardt, 1961: 117) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Three decades earlier, Culwick (1931: 35) supplied a similar explanation regarding the Gogo of central Tanzania: these people saw no contradiction in a person being simultaneously a human and some animal.

5

The theme of the favourite ox has been scrutinised by many ethnologists, including Hazel (1997).

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Not far from the Dinka, the Mandari held that persons engaging in “unregulated sex”—for instance by immorally copulating in the bush— were animal-like (Buxton 1968: 47). The human nature is here corrupted by non-human instincts, a process potentially or ultimately implying a physical transformation into an animal. The Mandari also believed that the members of a clan from a neighbouring community had the power to change themselves into wild beasts such as lions, leopards, and snakes at night (Ibid., p. 46). An individual wishing to harm a fellow Mandari would pay the leader of that group and some of his men were sent to attack and kill that person; the misdeed was inevitably said to occur after sunset. The metamorphosis is here from human to animal form, a scenario opposite to the Dinka model as understood by Lienhardt. Further south in Buganda and Ankole, it was admitted that some people had the extraordinary power to change into animals (Williams, p. 74): They are nearly always considered malevolent and only change themselves for the purpose of carrying on their evil deeds. Sometimes, it is the animal that has the power of taking on the human shape in order to entice people from their homes and eat them. (Ibid)

Ben-Amos (1976: 248) came upon a similar “breakdown of boundaries” between animal life and humanity in the Benin kingdom of southern Nigeria: “The capacity to transform into a wild night creature represents the pinnacle of supernatural power obtainable by man.” According to the analyst, “The dissolution of boundaries creates a new ontological status of paradoxical duality. In transforming, the human becomes both man and animal: the identity between them is no longer metaphoric but substantial.”

Box 21 The Notion of Identification Commenting on some of Lienhardt’s analysis—and also on EvansPritchard’s observation that Nuer twins were referred to as “birds” in South Sudan—Firth (1966: 14) differentiates three types of identification: (1) A human person reportedly turns into some natural species, say a lion, and goes back to his or her basic human form. The other way around would also be possible. (2) An individual, for instance a twin, is “completely distinct to outward seeming” from some other entity, for instance birds, but

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the former and the natural entity are “identified in terms of an invisible, generalised entity,” for example a spirit of the air close to the sky god. (3) Animals, plants, etc. are “regarded as the embodiments of spirits, and so linked with the social groups with which these are identified.” It is assumed that the spiritual entity may take on the physical form of a plant or animal; it must then be respected or revered by the members of the social grouping concerned. This case is illustrated by the type of totemism practised in the Solomon Islands, as observed by Firth himself. Type 1 fits well with the Dinka, Mandari, Bugandan, and Ankole cases. The Nuer twin, however, does not seem to warrant a distinctive type of identification. The significant feature of the “identification” of twins with birds is that high-flying birds reach the sky. The equivalence can therefore be interpreted simply as a figurative way of stating that twins are closer to God than ordinary human beings. A somewhat similar case is provided by the Komo people from north-eastern DRC: instead of being buried, the elderly were “put high up on branches of trees in the forest” (De Mahieu 1975: 89). Unsurprisingly, the “quadrupeds of the above,” i.e. the monkeys, were typically held to be reincarnated ancestors (p. 90). According to Lévi-Strauss, the crucial issue about totemism is not so much the mystical relationship between an animal and a social group through some spiritual agency. It is rather the expression of social differences through the dissimilarities perceived between the natural entities used by clans as identity markers. A totemistic community is one that uses the external natural world to add substance to its internal differentiation. The structuralist approach need not obliterate completely the relevance of the traditional view of totemism as presented by Firth and others. In southern South Sudan not far from the Ugandan border, the Nilotic Lotuko have been described as a “totemistic” people. Almost all of their thirteen clans had as their emblem an animal or insect species: crocodile, elephant, termite, monkey or baboon, a type of worm, serpent, robin, warthog, grey gazelle, leopard, lion, hyena, and wind (Molinari 1940: 176; also Seligman et al. 1925: 9). These clans were exogamous, it being held that were a wife to be chosen from one’s own clan, she would only abort (Molinari, p. 176). Even more interesting is the Lotuko belief that “at death, everyone becomes the animal associated with his clan” (Seligman et al., p. 3), a belief also reported by Molinari (p. 175-76). Killing and, worse, eating the flesh of an actual specimen of the clan emblem must

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have been ruled out, just like endogamous unions. Here again the divide between humans and animals seems very porous. This is how Philipps (1926: 180 fn.) understood totemism in the South Sudan-DRC borderland: I am under the strong impression that the Zande does not believe that the dead man is simply and entirely transformed into a [clan] beast, or that his soul enters into a beast, but rather that his store of energy or vital spark goes back into the common fund of vital energy which enables [both] man and beast [of the clan] to persist and thrive.

The identification with animals was strongly emphasised among the Uduk, mentioned above. They held that the various types of domesticated livestock originate from wild animals: goats from the small gazelle, sheep from the kob, cattle from the roan antelope, camels from the giraffe, pigs from the warthog, and chicken from the francolin (James, p. 199-200). Moreover, they believed that the various human communities that surround them evolved from different “hoofed creatures,” tonycuk, i.e. antelopes. In the distant past, the Uduk had gone on all fours as hartebeests (Ibid.). In their understanding, humans as well as animal forms, whether wild or domestic, are kept alive by the same life force principle, arum (p. 198). Accordingly, the Uduk had a sense of “intimacy with the rest of the living creatures” (p. 200). They interpreted the birth of twins as “a reversal to a pure animal state” (p. 202).6 The Uduk possibly did not exclude the possibility of humans or domesticated animals reverting back to the wilderness. Nilotic peoples were remarkable as to the extent—but not necessarily the depth—of their connections with the animal world. In eastern Uganda, each of the Karimojong territorial sections identified with its own animal emblem (Dyson-Hudson 1966: 126-29): the Tortoise People (Bokora territorial section), the Giraffe People (Maseniko), the Crocodile People (Pian), the Elephant People (Tome), the Rhino People (Mosingo), the Wild Dog People (Pei), the Snake People (Muno), the Buffalo People (Kosowa), the Ostrich People (Kaleeso), etc. “At major public rituals and significant domestic rituals,” notes Dyson-Hudson (p. 129), “the section members attending perform communal mimetic dances representing their particular emblem.” The people did more than mimicking “their animal,” ekecetiang: 6

The Yoruba of south-western Nigeria similarly used to accuse women who gave birth to multiple babies of being animal-like through getting involved in irregular sexual relations (Chappel, 1974). That is a clear case of underscoring the fundamental opposition between humans and animals. That too was part and parcel of African culture.

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“At weddings, Ngimaseniko [= Maseniko] women decorate their faces with red mud and superimpose white clay circles, to represent the giraffe hide” (Ibid.), the giraffe being “the animal they revered” (Dyson-Hudson et al. 1962: 49). The relationship with the ekecetiang was not totemistic since it was normally not really matched by alimentary prohibitions and by a taboo on killing.7 Moreover, the Karimojong people as a whole was divided into named and long-lasting similarly named generation classes, males belonging to the generational grouping immediately following that of their fathers. These generational strata, of which there were two: the Fathers and the Sons, were in turn subdivided into age-sections and age-set subdivisions that were created in sequence after a number of years. The generation-set as a whole as well as its constituent age-groups had emblems, mostly animal ones. Their generations were named The Gazelles and The Rocks. The same pattern showed up among the related Dodoth and Jie to the immediate north of the Karimojong. The overarching denominations in the Dodoth generation-set system were The Bees and The Elephants (Knighton, p. 152). The two Jie generation-sets were named The Elephants (Tome) and The Topis (Mugeto),8 these two names recurring with time in the same order, as with the Karimojong and Dodoth generation-set names: “The Tome [my italics] generation-sets are exclusively entitled to wear ivory armlets, and to make elephant noises and dramatic representations at dances” (Knighton, p. 137). This feature was potentially the norm among the Karimojong and Dodoth. It echoed the pseudo-totemistic relationship of the Karimojong territorial sections with animals. The neighbouring pastoral Pokot, also a Nilotic group,9 replicated the Karimojong system, their generation-sets being termed The Zebras and 7

There was at least one exception. In one sub-section of the Pian territorial division, crocodile meat is never eaten (Knighton, p. 225 fn.). The Karimojong in general did not kill ostriches and giraffes. These species were actually “protected” (Farina 1965: 32). 8 This is according to Knighton (p. 150-51), who is more knowledgeable about the Jie than any other social scientist. Gulliver (1953: 151) heard of Buffaloes and Topis, and Lamphear (1976: 41) of Elephants and Ratels. The most junior subdivision of The Elephants (Knighton, ibid.) or The Buffaloes (Gulliver, ibid.) was named after a type of ophidian, ngidewa, a yellow grass-snake with white stripes. 9 Linguistically the Pokot are Southern Nilotes like the Nandi and others whereas the Karimojong, Jie, Dodoth, Turkana, Lotuko, etc. are Eastern Nilotes.

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The Rocks (Peristiany 1951: 294). The successive age-set names of the Rocks generation group were: “Rocks” (the most senior age-set), “Warthog,” “Black-Faced Monkeys,” “White-Striped Oxen,” “WhiteEared,” and “Rats.” The successive age-set names of the Zebra generation group were the following: “Zebras” (the senior age-set), Ngowa (unidentified species), “Bat-eared Fox,” “Eland,” “Dik-Dik,” and “Berries.”10 The nearby and likewise Eastern Nilotic Turkana community is divided into two clan clusters, The Gazelles and The Goats, each sharing a distinctive colourʊred or white, respectivelyʊand wearing garments made from the hide of its emblematic animal (Broch-Due, p. 56-57). The Turkana also had an age-grading system similar in some ways to that of the Karimojong and others. The two basic generational divisions here were The Stones and The Leopards, their respective subdivisions (age-sets) often bearing the name of some animal or insect (Gulliver 1958: 909). An early and casual observer of the Turkana pointed out that the “totemistic” relationship of a man “to his age [set] and its totem is as loose as that of the English youth to a football club” (Barton 1921: 209). Implicit in the “identification” of Nilotic age-groups or territorial divisions to animal or, sometimes, plant emblems was a strong attachment to a particular colour or to distinctive colour markings. Social differentiation was expressed in terms of chromatic variation, just as in the case of favourite oxen. Among the non-Nilotic Bodi—or Me’en, as they call themselves11—of nearby south-western Ethiopia persons, clans, local groups, and age-groups also identify themselves with colours and colour patterns, i.e. those of their own cattle. A few of these colours or colour patterns are likened to those of wild animals such as giraffes, lions, etc. To give a telling example, a one-year-old Bodi child is awarded a “colour name,” so to speak; it is given a bead necklace of that colour to wear and is often sung “colour songs” as lullabies: “Eventually the child becomes intrinsically linked to the colour and pattern it bears and begins to show signs of personally identifying with them in an almost obsessive way” (Fukui, p. 359). 10

The unidentified Pokot designation may echo one of two Jie appellations: ngidewa (a type of grass-snake) and osowa (buffaloes). 11 The Bodi belong to the Omotic branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family whereas the Karimojong and others belong to the Nilotic branch of the same linguistic family. Eastern Sudanic is itself a major division of the larger NiloSaharan linguistic group.

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***** Some of the more symbolically significant animals, notably the lion, the leopard, the hyena, and the pangolin, have received a fair amount of attention on the part of scholars focussing on Sub-Saharan Africa. The author has elected to focus mostly on animals that have not been the subject—somewhat surprisingly—of much ethnological research: namely, monkeys and apes on the one hand, and elephants on the other. Monkeys and apes potentially represent a prime case for exemplifying the porous divide between human and animal forms. The elephant does not appear at first sight to present a good case in that regard but the cultural evidence is definitely there, as we shall see. As primates, monkeys and apes are obviously human-like. Since the theory of evolution has been formulated, Westerners came to believe quite commonly that mankind evolved from a simian background. In other parts of the world, people have seen the connexion in a very different light. In northern Thailand for instance, there was the story of an exceedingly fertile and therefore animal-like woman called Nang Sibsaung (Tambiah 1969: 441): This woman with so many children was too poor to support and feed them. The children therefore had to go into the forest in search of food, and they ate the wild fruits there. In the course of time, hair grew on their bodies and they became monkeys. Monkeys are thus in a sense lost and degenerate human beings; their affinity to humans makes them improper food.

Similar views were heard of in Africa, notably in northern and Saharan Africa. In Upper Egypt, the ape is a metamorphosed man. The baboon, it is generally maintained and believed, was a wicked fellow who stole the Prophet's red shoes, and hid them behind him under his coat. The prophet noticed it, however, and uttered this curse over him: ‘Thief, may your form become a caricature of that of man, and may your buttocks, above which my shoes are hanging, be coloured red like them for all time coming, in memory of your evil deed.’ For the Muslims in general, the world properly begins only with the Prophet, and no one thinks whether the baboon existed previously, though it is frequently figured on the Egyptian monumenta (Klunzinger 1878: 400).

That monkeys have been originally human and that their demotion came as a punishment for their misdeedsʊincest for instanceʊwas a widely

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held Moroccan belief (Westermark 1926, II: 315). Joleaud (1931: 124-25, 139) has documented similar representations for much of Northern Africa. Closer to our major area of interest, the people of Kordofan (Sudan) used to accord to apes “the honour of being animated by those human souls which, for the commission of some crime during life, must suffer punishment after death in the shape of monkeys” (Pallme 1844: 188). Moreover, those Sudanese “never in any way injure these animals, and take care that they do not suffer from want of food. If they see any person ill-treating one of them, they become very wrath, and an old negro once reproached me severely for punishing my monkey for some offence” (Ibid.). In a folktale from nearby Darfur, a young man is capable of changing himself into a monkey and of switching back to his original form at will (Evans-Pritchard et al. 1940: 73-74). The resemblance of monkeys and humans has by no means passed unnoticed in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Mande of Sierra Leone have the following theory: both chimpanzees and humans belong to “an original category of forest-dwelling primates (huan nasta ta lo a ngoo fele – ‘the animals that go on two legs’)” and that the former are those that “remained in the forest (numu gbahamista – literally ‘different persons’, glossed by my research assistant (…) as ‘those animals that look like, but have failed to develop as, humans’) when humans were first discovering civility” (Richards 1993: 150-51). The Himba of southern Angola believe that all apes and monkeys originate from the baboon. In their understanding, The first baboon was actually a man, a social misfit who decided to leave his people and strike out on his own. In his wanderings, he fell one day and dashed his head against a stone. When consciousness returned, the man had forgotten his previous identity and became a baboon. For this reason, some Himba say, it is impossible to distinguish between human and baboon skulls. They also assert that baboons are never hunted for food, for ‘it would be like eating a man’. Hand shape, the manner of suckling infants, and bipedal locomotion are also seen as evidence of a close relationship between human beings, baboons, and other primates. (Crandall, p. 299)

In eastern Kenya, the Kamba used to say that children are sometimes “stolen by baboons” and that “some of them are said to grow up among the monkeys, live their lives and propagate among them” (Lindbloom, p. 328). A local story tells of a girl falling in love with a large monkey, being impregnated by it, and giving birth to a half-human, half-ophidian baby (Mbiti 1966: 61-62). The more common East African theory was similar to the representations of the Mande and Himba. In the early years of the twentieth century, a French missionary was told in central Kenya by some

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Kikuyu that monkeys were humans who in the dim past had fled to the forest and degenerated (Cayzac 1910: 316). A Swiss missionary recorded an analogous account among the Thonga in Southern Africa (Junod 1936: 299). The Nyamwezi of western Tanzania held chimpanzees to be degenerate humans (Carnochan et al. 1937: 281).12 Similar ethno-theories have been recorded in Eastern Africa and elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. In northern Tanzania for instance, baboons and other monkeys were known to the Chagga people as the “children of the curse,” i.e. as the offspring of a disobedient girl who, cursed by her family, had taken refuge in the forest (Dundas 1924: 110-11). The Uduk of south-eastern South Sudan say that “monkeys, rather than being original ancestors, are degenerate human beings derived from a brother and sister who ran off into the bush and grew tails” (James, p. 200). It seems implicit here that monkeys derive from a human incestuous pair. In central South Sudan, the Dinka narrated that the baboon, a creature they “dislike and despise,” had been “demoted from manhood because it was so greedy” (Lienhardt 1951: 306). The Borana of southern Ethiopia use a distinctive term, harka, for both human and baboon limbs because they are so alike (Leus et al. 2006: 365). They claim that a member of one of their original clans “became poor and disappeared into the forest” and then evolved into a baboon (Kidane 2002: 122). Other Borana say that the human ancestor of the baboon was “taking water from a well without stopping,” i.e. greedily; in the process, “he got very hairy all over his body”; moreover he “was very hungry and so escaped to the hills” (Leus et al., ibid.).13 One of the western neighbours of the Borana also hold that baboons have a human ancestor, “a poor and fragile man who (…) turned to a baboon by burning his skin, wallowing in the grass that sticked [sic] to his body and became his coat, and by putting a branch into the anus which became his tail” (Kellner 2001: 59 fn.).14 The Burji viewed the baboon as a “thief” since it was a threat to ripening cereal fields (Ibid.). The story recorded by Kellner shows this humanoid creature to be greedy and “lazy,” eating seeds from cultivated fields instead of working the land. Long ago, according to the Kaguru of east-central Tanzania, newly initiated boys and girls did not stop feasting and rejoicing until thunder 12 Monkeys were believed to be “very fertile” by the related and neighbouring Sukuma (Cory 1946: 174; 1949: 21). 13 In Borana tradition, the lion also was originally a man (Kidane, p. 132). 14 Kellner takes this information from an unpublished manuscript by H. Straube written in 1955.

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and heavy rain forced them to quit; they ran into trees for protection only to become the very first baboons or the parents of the original baboons (Beidelman 1986: 64; 1997: 120-21). These people were keenly aware of both the relatedness and the disparities between humans and monkeys, especially baboons, which were held to resemble humans more closely in both physical and behavioural terms than the other primates they were familiar with (Beidelman 1986: 54, 63-4; 1997: 122-24). In Kaguru perception, baboons were characterised by their hairiness, their shamelessness, and their greediness or insatiability. On account of their unrestrained appetite, they are not content with the food they find within their own sphere, i.e. the bush. Often they “steal food from out of people’s gardens.” Moreover, they do not even bother to cook food. Hairiness and shamelessness were “the most strikingly non-social attributes” of the baboons. These monkeys were believed to be “sexually promiscuous” and to mate haphazardly, kubasa. Their lewdness was in fact correlated with their hairiness. In Kaguru understanding, hairiness evoked “undisciplined sexuality and desire.” Interestingly, pubic hair and body hair were shaved at initiation, the concern apparently being to prevent the young people from becoming baboons, as in the myth. In the past, Kaguru adults also shaved their pubic and body hair, except when in mourning.15 Since the Kaguru correlated “tail” with “sexuality,” the baboon’s immoderate sexual behaviour was additionally signalled by its having a tail.16 In Beidelman’s words (1997: 122), baboons appear as “grotesque mirror images” of humans. Lest they end up being baboons themselves, people would avoid looking or behaving like them.

Box 22 Ape-like, Hairy, and Caudated Human or Divine Specimens In the tradition of the Meru, a Bantu community of north-central Kenya, the original inhabitants of their land, i.e. the Nyambeni Hills, were named mwoko; the members of this indigenous group were said to have had tails (Manher 1975: 407). It has been reported more recently that in some parts of the Nyambeni Hills, certain individuals were known as nkio, a name implying that they had a tail (Peatrik 1999: 160 fn.). The Meru chief ritual practitioner was a type of prophet bearing the title of Mugwe. It was 15 This has been reported of a number of East African peoples. For the Luguru of eastern Tanzania, not far from the Kaguru, the appearance of axillary or pubic hair was “disgusting” (Brain, p. 179). 16 The Kaguru term for “tail,” mukila, is “a slang word for penis” (Beidelman 1997: 122).

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widely believed that he or the founder of his lineage had a tail (Bernardi 1959: 64).17 Some people held that this tail was the very source of his supernatural powers. The implication seems to be that the Meru ritual leader had specific connections with the indigenous stratum of the Meru people. Interestingly, similar representations were made about the great ritual expert of the Maasai (Merker 1910: 283; Galaty 1977: 281). More exactly, the initiator of the il-oibonok “dynasty” was believed to have been equipped with a tail.18 As the story goes, the marvellous boy found by young Maasai warriors in the bush did miracles using his appendage, having green grass and water growing or flowing out of the dry ground. It is implicit that the supernatural powers of the Meru and Maasai religious leaders originated basically from their animalistic character. The only two sites where standing water would be found all year round in the dry expanses of southern Turkanaland in eastern Kenya were holy places located not far from one another at the foot of an escarpment. The Turkana people held that these sites were inhabited by a “deity, whose appearance is that of a man wearing a complete suit of baboon hair” (Penley 1930: 139). Although the spirit-like creature was known to be benevolent, the two sacred places were “looked upon with fear and dread” (p. 140). Of interest is that some 400 km to the north, the Murle of eastern South Sudan thought that the sky god, Tammu, was “like a very small man covered with long hair” (Lewis 1972: 129). In Acholiland (north-central Uganda), nearer to the Turkana, some spirits, jok, were believed to be like “hairy dwarfs” (Grove 1919: 174) or “hairy, large-headed dwarfs” (Seligman et al. 1932: 127). Nearby, “heavenly visitants” were believed by the Lango to be “adorned with a tail” (Driberg 1923: 222).19 Even more interesting is that the Turkana and their immediate western neighbours, the agropastoral Karimojong, Jie, and Dodoth, viewed the small communities making a living out of hunting and gathering in parts of their surroundings unfit for pastoralism, as made up of “monkey 17

The same belief was held among the Tharaka, a Bantu group living to the southeast of the Meru (Bernardi, p. 72). 18 An early traveller was also told that he was hairy (Thomson 1887: 247). 19 Possibly relying on Driberg, Williams (p. 70) mentions that the Lango “believe that the heaven-folk have tails” while adding that the belief was shared by the nearby Teso of eastern Uganda, not far from the Turkana. In West Africa, numerous tales featured men with a tail or children born with one, such extraordinary individuals bringing luck and wealth to their families (Zahan 1987: 421-22).

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people.” The Teuso—Ik, as they called themselves—who are found in the higher reaches of the northern Turkana escarpment viewed themselves as kwarikik, “mountain people” (Turnbul 1972: 47). They were regarded by the Turkana as “monkeys” because they were agile climbers (Gulliver et al. 1953: 98). The Dodoth also saw the Teuso as “monkey men” on account again of their agility (Wayland 1931: 212). Jie traditions sometimes pictured them as “‘worthless people’ who ‘lived in the forest like baboons’” (Lamphear 1976: 65-66). Likewise, the Karimojong viewed the Tepes (Sor, as they call themselves)—a group related to the Ik—as “baboons of the mountains,” adding that they were “not people, but animals” and that mountains were “the home of witches” (Dyson-Hudson 1966: 232-33).20 The Tepes were useful to the Karimojong inasmuch as they hunted baboons, which often raided their granaries, and provided them with valued baboon skins which the Karimojong wore as capes during their religious ceremonies (p. 233). The members of the small Kuliak community who roamed the areas between the mountains of the Tepes and the highlands of the Teuso also appeared to their more powerful neighbours as “‘poor’ ‘baboon-like’ creatures, subsisting on wild things from the bush and possessing an intricate knowledge of honey-gathering” (Lamphear 1986: 240). Somewhat unsurprisingly, the Jie emphasised the “highly erotic and disgusting activities” of the Kuliak (Lamphear 1976: 73 fn.).21 The great ritual leader of the nineteenth-century Turkana was named Apatepes, meaning “Father of the Tepes” (Lamphear 1986: 246; 1988: 3334). Originally, it is said, Apatepes “lived with a pack of baboons.” Once captured by the Turkana, he could not speak “like a person” because he was “only a baboon.” Not only did he learn to talk but he soon turned into a great diviner and leader. Broch-Due (p. 57) reports the same story, describing Apatepes as “a white and hairy baboon.” In the version of the story collected by him, the skin of the ape-like creature was pierced “to let some blood dribble over the fur of a live-goat.” Broch-Due interprets the 20

The Jie also reckoned that mountains were “full of capricious spirits” (Gulliver 1955: 21). Their tribal area lies between those of the Karimojong (south) and Dodoth (north). 21 Likewise, the agropastoral Sotho of Lesotho in Southern Africa disdainfully likened the San hunter-gatherers or Bushmen to monkeys (Laydevant et al. 1951: 237-38). Paradoxically, the mountain-dwelling Teda of the Tibesti (northern Chad) compared themselves to monkeys, the reason being that they were extremely proud of their athletic agility (Le Cœur 1935: 41).

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scene as the “gift of goats”: the “live-goat” must have been a gazelle which thereby turned into a goat. The domestication of the gazelle paralleled the humanisation of the baboon. Interestingly, it has been reported that the leading and awe-inspiring diviner of the Dodoth in the 1960s—named Lomotin—had no human neighbours: “This left as his only neighbours a troop of grey baboons who (…) roamed where they liked in the deserted neighbourhood” (Thomas 1972: 167). The prophet encountered among the Pokot in the same general area by Peristiany (1975: 188) in the 1940s was “a bearded man, naked but for the grey monkey skins covering his shoulders.” The greater a Pokot prophet’s reputation, he notes, “the greater his isolation, an isolation from normal human contact which is shared by his wives and children” (p. 200). Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that Lolim, the priestly officer of the Teuso, wore a baboon-skin cape (Turnbul, p. 91, 205), which was “a symbol of his high office” (caption of photo, p. 128-29). The Dodoth and Turkana credited old Lolim—possibly the last of the Teuso ritual leaders—with superior rain-making power (p. 201). From south-eastern South Sudan, Molinari (p. 199) reports that Lotuko men who wanted to become “sorcerers” went alone in the bush for months, letting their hair and nails grow, and eating herbs and wild fruits “like monkeys.” Finally, the Dinka of central South Sudan feared witchcraft, especially the more dangerous night-witches. Some of these, it was believed, had a tail no bigger than a man’s finger: “The idea of a tail in a man excites horror among the Dinka, and the man with a tail is considered to be something less than a man, like the baboon” (Lienhardt 1951: 306). Worth mentioning is the rumour about tail-bearing people that circulated in the Sudan 150 years ago (Peney 1859: 348-49). We have learnt that baboons were perceived as human-like. We have now become aware that baboon-like individuals were part and parcel of the cultural background of Eastern Africa and that these animalistic individuals were typically credited with supernatural powers, whether harmful or beneficial. Mixed feelings about baboons did not prevent some East African communities from killing and even eating baboons. For instance the Hadza hunter-gatherers of north-central Tanzania still hunt baboons and relish their flesh, including their cooked brains (Finkell 2009: 118). It is said that a man cannot marry before having killed at least five apes (p. 105). Nonetheless, a “myth of origin” recorded by a German writer and taken up

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later by Millroth (p. 41-42) has it that the Hadza were originally baboons who were granted baboon meat and various other animals as food by the divinity while the rest of the original baboons were awarded fruits and other plants, including various crops. The agropastoral Nyangatom of south-western Ethiopia reckoned that baboons were never afflicted by sickness; that is why they sometimes ate baboon flesh at the request of a medicine man in order to sustain their physical health (Tornay 1978: 136). They also viewed baboons as “thieves” while being fully aware of their likeness to humans: an injured baboon pleads not to be killed, just like a human (Ibid.).22 The perception of chimpanzees by the Mende of Sierra Leone, referred to above, echoed somewhat that of baboons by the Kaguru. For the former, chimpanzees represent “a profound biological puzzle” (Richards, p. 149). For the Mende as for primatologists, “the chimpanzee is the animal that approaches most closely the presumed boundary between animal and human forms of life” (Ibid.). Mende hunters know that these apes are toolusers and that controlled sharing and distribution of food is not unknown to them. They claim that mother chimpanzees use leaves as medicine to cure the wounds of their offspring. It is said that these apes have fun, can drum, and dance. Some of these beliefs have been confirmed by primatologists. The Mende also reckon chimpanzees to be cruel hunters and cannibalistic. In their understanding, a chimpanzee is “a creature that is by nature dangerous owing to the combination of its near-human cunning, great strength, and violent disposition towards human ‘rivals’ and members of its own group” (p. 150).23 As mentioned above, the Mende people believed that humans and chimpanzees were originally one people. They tended to fear that “humans might revert to, or be tempted to copy, the ways of the excessively strong, barbaric and cannibalistic chimpanzee” (p. 151). Somewhat like the baboon of the Kaguru, the humanoid forestdwelling chimpanzee of Sierra Leone was made into a counterfeit of humanity.

22

The Nyangatom are closely related both linguistically and culturally to the Karimojong, Dodoth, and other Eastern Nilotes. 23 According to an early report from Sierra Leone, chimpanzees were effectively known to kill and dismember or mutilate children and even women (Migeod 1925: 3). On the other hand, they were also “reputed to do many things, including making little dams of mud to catch fish. When one dies his friends bury him under a heap of grass, leaves or branches, showing the idea of burial not to be peculiar to the human race” (p. 4).

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***** The case of the elephant will now be considered. The Himba of southern Angola “regard elephants and humans as similar, though not genealogically related, in that human females and female elephants have similarly shaped breasts” (Crandall, p. 299). They also point out that, just like hippos and rhinos, elephants “share one anatomical similarity with human females: their genitalia closely resemble a human female’s vulva” (Ibid.). The same representations occurred in Eastern Africa. According to the Arsi, an Oromo group of southern Ethiopia, “the teats and genitalia of female elephants have the same shape as the breasts and genitalia of a woman” (Haberland, p. 633). The views of the Samburu (Maasai) of northern Kenya were convergent: At Marsabit Mountain where elephants abound, I was struck by my companion’s repeated reference to the large beasts as ‘old women’, and later by a warrior’s semi-abusive description of his father’s sister as an ‘elephant’. Asked why elephant is an ‘old woman’, several informants remarked that their similarity was obviously anatomical. ‘The elephant has breasts the same as an old woman, and her vagina is in the same place – no difference.’ When I retorted that the elephant’s trunk reminded of something possibly similar to a man, but a feature conspicuously lacking in a woman, the Samburu were shocked at the suggestion, replying that there is absolutely no relation between an elephant and a man. (Fratkin, 1974: 25)

Likewise the Parakuyo or “Baraguyu” (Maasai) of north-eastern Tanzania would not eat elephant meat because this animal was believed to “resemble” human beings: “its two breasts are between the front legs” (Hurskainen 1984: 200). The women more closely associated with elephants were the wives. The unmarried Samburu young ladies were connected with giraffes; they wore giraffe hide or hair headbands (Fratkin, p. 34). The Samburu viewed the giraffe as a beautiful animal.24 Giraffe meat could be eaten since that animal was considered to be a wild camel whereas elephant meat was believed to have a foul smell, one which, if brought home, would be detrimental to their cattle (p. 25, 34).25 24 Not very far to the west of the Samburu, some Karimojong women used to decorate themselves, as we have seen, to look like spotted giraffes in the context of weddings and other important social events. 25 Comparing the Samburu with the nearby and likewise pastoral Borana will help to clarify this point. The Borana sometimes hunted giraffes, mostly to procure the

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A number of East African ethnic communities, many of which are linguistically and culturally related to the Cushitic Arsi (Oromo) or to the Nilotic Samburu, shared the pattern of correlating married women with elephants. In most if not all the cases, “hut” was the mediating term between “woman” and “elephant.” The connection between women and huts will be taken up first. Throughout Eastern Africa, the identification of women with huts was especially prominent among the pastoral groups inasmuch as the small dismountable huts characteristic of nomadic communities were furnished, put up, dismantled, moved, and owned by married women. All unmarried men would sleep outdoors, wrapped during the rainy season in a cow or camel skin. Among the Somali, “it is women’s responsibility to weave the mats [= coverings] of the aqal [= hut], shape the frames, and undertake all the crafts required for its construction, from its coverings to the smallest pin” (Ibrahim 2004: 29). Indeed, for a woman “creating a fine aqal” is a key way of showing her “worth” or “value as a good wife” (p. 32). According to Mohamed-Abdi (1998-1: 104), “the hut is a female symbol; it is an attribute of the woman; it belongs to her for life and all things in it are hers, except for the clothes and weapons of the husband.” In northern Kenya “her house is a Gabra married woman’s prized possession, her very identity” (Tablino 1999: 313). Her dismountable hut has the “shape of a hemispherical cupola” (p. 314), not unlike that of a pregnant womb. Men and women collect together in the bush the materials required for a new hut; however, “the actual construction, the care, cleaning and repairs of the house are responsibilities exclusively reserved for women, with very useful giraffe skin. They were also fond of their meat as well as of the milk of slaughtered camel cows (Baxter 1986: 46). But hunting elephants was the prerogative of the neighbouring Watta hunters (p. 45 fn.; also 1990: 241). The Borana held that elephant meat was “dirty” (Baxter 1954: 55) or “polluting” (Baxter 1975: 221). Those who had been reduced to eating elephant meat in times of disaster had acquired a “heritable stigma” (Baxter 1966: 236). Those of them whose ancestors had been reduced in difficult times to eating elephant meat were “stigmatised” (Ibid.). Eating elephant flesh being typical of the Watta huntergatherers, it was believed to be detrimental to cattle herding. Ideally pastoral communities only eat the meat of their domesticated livestock. The Samburu were likewise surrounded by small communities which sustained themselves through hunting wild animals such as elephants and picking wild fruits, etc. They tended to “limit their dealings” with these communities, which they considered “sorcererinfested” (Spencer 1965: 285, 286).

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neighbours helping one another” (p. 313). The circumstances among the neighbouring Rendille were the same: Every house in a Rendille community (with the exception of occasional ritual structures) is the property and domain of the woman who lives in it. (Beaman, 1981, p. 160)

As Schlee (1979a: 136) also points out, “all married women possess a hut and, conversely, all huts belong either to a married woman or to a widow.” And “because for a man to have a house requires to have a wife, he is, in effect, dependent on her for the provision not only of domestic services but of his home, the foundation of his family, and the symbol of his rank as an elder” (Beaman, p. 182). Moreover, Although the husband is considered head of household and has a real claim in the house as his residence, the interior of a Rendille house is essentially female territory. If a marriage breaks up before children are born, the husband takes back his bridewealth but the wife keeps the house. A husband cannot rightly send his wife out in order to have privacy to talk with men. Men who want to talk where there are no women must go somewhere else where there are no houses. (Grum, 1975, p. 163)

Amidst the pastoral Borana of southern Ethiopia, where as is often the case in pastoral Eastern Africa, the building of kraals and fences was men’s work (Legesse 1973: 22), “women not only build huts; they also own them and are largely in control of the activities that go on inside them” (p. 20). Not surprisingly, “in the Borana cognitive map of the camp, the hut is decidedly feminine territory, whereas the kraal and the bush are components of the male world” (p. 56). Each wife among the related and nomadic Orma pastoralists of eastern Kenya is “responsible for the building and maintaining of her own home, and fences and corrals, if they exist” (Ensminger 1987: 37). The dismountable huts of the Turkana pastoralists of north-eastern Kenya were also put up by women, as were all other constructing work, including fencing. Outside the homestead women were “quiet-voiced” and “respectful” but “in the homestead [a woman] is able to express herself as she wishes. Her voice rises and takes on a more confident air, even when other men are present. She has and expresses an opinion on all that goes on in the family circle” (Gulliver 1951: 86).26 26

Among the related and more or less sedentary agropastoral Karimojong and Dodoth of eastern Uganda, the realm of the wife was extended to cover her portion, if not the totality, of the husband’s homestead. The “private domain” of a Karimojong woman consisted of the place “where she lives with her children,

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So crucial to the creation of a new family was the construction of a hut that marriage was referred to in Somali as aqal dhisid, “hut building,” or simply dhisid, “to build” (Mohamed-Abdi 1998-2: 425). To wed was also min discho, “hut building,” in Rendille (Schlee 1979a: 136; Beaman, p. 314). Likewise, in the Afar language to set up a hut could also mean “to marry someone” (Morin 1980: 525). A new Afar wife would be offered by her father and husband the saplings and mats needed to build a hut upon her marriage, it being thereafter her duty to set it up and dismantle it when the time to move camp came (Ibid.). The Gabra expression for marriage was mana fuud’a, “taking possession of a hut” (Tablino, p. 313). At a Somali marriage, a nuptial hut is customarily set up in which the newlywed couple consummates their union. From a male perspective, the expression aqal galid, “to consummate the marriage,” literally means “to penetrate in the hut,” implicitly for the first time (Mohamed-Abdi, p. 313). In this case, the hut is clearly assimilated to a womb. Indeed, one of the metaphoric terms used by the Somali for a hut, aqal, is min, “womb” or “uterus” as in the expressions min fiiq, “cleaning of the hut” (Mansur 1988: 14). The expressions used to refer to the first wife and to the last wife are min weyn, “big house” (i.e. “senior womb”), and min yaro, “little house” (i.e. “junior womb”), respectively (Adan 1996: 87; MohamedAbdi, p. 314). The second wife is termed min labaad, “second womb” (Mohamed-Abdi, p. 314). In southern Somalia, the word min may denote the “wife,” the “hut,” or the basic social unit consisting of a woman and her offspring (Helander 1991: 19), i.e. a womb and the children who came out of it.

prepares food, eats, sleeps, and entertains friends” (Dyson-Hudson 1960: 45). In a woman’s closed compound were “one or two sleeping houses, a storage house for domestic utensils, one or more grain storage baskets, an open fire place, and an open-sided shelter for protection from the intense sunshine” (Ibid.). One entered into such a compound through a small gate. Moving in without asking permission was “very ill-mannered” (Ibid.). This place was so private that “even a husband” was “really a guest in his wife’s compound,” having “no specific place of his own there,” the men’s place being “on the other side of the settlement—the aperit, a sleeping place near the corrals” (Ibid.). The situation among the Dodoth was similar: “Lopore spent a good deal of time at home. He would sit amid a pile of boulders near his dwelling. This was his etem, his sitting place. All households have one because each court or group of courts, each house within the uphill portion of a dwelling’s walls is the place of a woman; and the lower portion is for cattle. The man who owns it has no place inside, so sits outside and oversees it all” (Thomas 1972: 17).

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Box 23 Houses and Women in Cushitic Eastern Africa The Somali term min stems no doubt from an old Eastern Cushitic root.27 The very common Oromo cognate term is man or mana. For instance the Gabra term for “hut” is mana (Tablino, p. 313). A married Gabra woman is politely referred to as hada warra, “mother of the household,” or hada mana, “mother of the house” (Wood 1999: 49, 163). Likewise, a Borana woman is called hati mana, “mother of the house” (Legesse, p. 20). The Garre of south-eastern Ethiopia reportedly use the term maun for “house” rather than mana (Getachew 1991: 8). The Garre form a Somali-like group which is also fluent in Oromo. Other than the Somali, some groups know the term min or its variant mine. For instance, although the Orma are Oromo-speakers like the Borana and Gabra, a house is min in their parlance (Kelly 1990: 84). The Somali-like Rendille refer to a house as min, plur. minan (Grum, p. 155). The standard terms for “wife” and “house” among the nearby Dassanech and Hoor are, respectively, mine (Almagor 1978: 66) and min (Peller 2002: 233). The word for “house” in the Hadiyya language of southern Ethiopia is mine (Arficio 1973: 143). Among most of these groups, to have a wife is to have a house, and also a womb to bear his children, all of whom are conceived and born in a woman’s hut. The identification of wives with houses was not restricted to Cushitic peoples. It was prevalent notably among the Nilotic Maasai further south.28 A short description of the Maasai hut and of its construction is useful: The typical Maasai house is a small structure, rarely more than twelve feet wide, twenty feet long and six feet tall. It is constructed by pounding a heavy digging-stick through a pile of fresh cattle dung into the ground to make deep holes into which sapling poles can be inserted to form walls. Opposed poles are then bent over and tied together with bark fibre to form a rounded roof which is later interlaced with smaller poles for strength. This initial structure, which looks like an inverted basket frame, is built entirely by the female owner and occupant of the house usually in a matter of hours. Though the entire frame is later reinforced and plastered with a 27

Somali is itself an Eastern Cushitic language. The Maasai are known to have interacted in the past with Cushitic peoples. Some erroneously believed that their language was akin to that of the Somali (Galaty 1982: 7). A northern group of Maa-speakers, the Samburu or Loikop, were allied to the Somali-like Rendille (Spencer 1973).

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Chapter 3.1 mixture of mud and cattle dung, during the first few days it is covered with cattle hides to provide temporary shelter. (Jacobs, 1971, p. 16)

Århem (1991: 58-61) likewise portrays the Maasai hut as being an “oval or oblong” structure measuring “rarely more than three meters wide and five meters long” and having a single low and narrow entrance. As one may expect, Maasai “women are in charge of and manage the house (enkaji) in which they and their children live” (Talle 1987: 51). A woman is said to be the “owner of the house,” enopeny enkaji, (p. 64) and husbands have restricted access to certain portions of it (p. 65). According to Voshaar (1979: 199), women are “intimately” identified with their houses. Indeed, “elders regularly refer to their wives by the term of the house” (Talle 1998: 132). It is perhaps because the two terms are hardly separable that a husband should not go into a hut in the absence of its owner (Jacobs, p. 16; Århem, p. 61). Although this is not plainly stated in such terms, the act of entering a house is implicitly “symbolic of ‘entrance to woman’” (Voshaar, p. 199).29 A story recorded in the northeastern portion of Tanzania’s Maasailand supports this interpretation: In the beginning humans had their sexual organs in the face. One day, God did as one man wished Him to do: He took off the manly part and put it between his legs. One woman asked God to do the same for her. She was told to come the next day at dawn. She then asked God to make her into a man, but God refused. As God was taking off her womanly part from her face, she ran away towards her house, leaving her genitalia with God. While the woman was stooping to enter her hut, He threw her womanly part between her legs.30

Here the entrance of the hut is almost explicitly equated with the female genitalia and the hut is, by extension, assimilated to a womb. It is significant that the little entrance of a Maasai hut does not afford immediate access to its interior. One has first to pass through a little anteroom appended to a side of the hut known as olopashereka, “the place where it is passed” (Voshaar, ibid.). No mention of it is made in Århem’s paper on the symbolism of the Maasai hut and homestead. Various ethnological accounts—for instance Saitoti (1980: 81)—report that a Maasai girl was circumcised in her mother’s hut. The genital surgery was, 29

Interestingly, the word enkaji (“house” or “hut”) derives from the verb ajing, “to enter,” and literally means “that which one enters” (Dr Sarone ole Sena, personal communication, Montreal, April 1984). 30 As adapted from Beidelman (1965).

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more exactly undertaken in the anteroom (Voshaar, p. 202). This standard feature of the girls’ initiation ritual would seem to suggest that the olopashereka was symbolically equated with the vaginal conduit, the location of the labia minora and clitoris, which were to some extent cut and removed at initiation. Since a newly circumcised girl was soon to be married, she as a future wife and mother was somewhat assimilated to a hut (or womb) needing to be “fixed” prior to marriage. Knowing the intimate connection of huts with wives, the fact that a husband could not enter a house without his wife’s consent subliminally meant that males could not force sex upon wives. The dome-shaped pastoral Maasai hut, its small entrance and its lack of windows and backdoor would seem to reinforce its womb-like character. There are stories about the Maasai house. One of these brings up the connection between houses and elephants. At the beginning of times, men and women lived apart. The badly made huts set up by males were destroyed by severe storms so men sought refuge with women. Contrary to males, the women were not gifted for animal husbandry. They lost their livestock, which turned into wild animals. In those mythical days, elephants used to move the houses of the women (Llewelyn-Davies 1979: 214; 1981: 350). The women did not have to set up and dismantle their huts. These were very happy days since now “the construction and maintenance of the house are recognized by many women as being the most demanding labour tasks assigned to them” (Talle 1987: 65). The mythical connection of huts with elephants has been reported from other East African communities. The pastoral Orma of eastern Kenya for instance recounted that in the distant past, people “took shelter” from the rain underneath elephants (Wakefield 1904: 205). They also had a story about a woman who gave birth in difficult times. She expected her husband to bring her a sheep to slaughter for her, but the man came with a goat, which made her unhappy: She plucked up the hut, and went away, and became (was changed into) an elephant. The pillar of the hut is a tusk, the door (curtain of long hanging grass) is the tail, the mat is the footprints, the ridge-piece is the back bone; the intille (piece of hide which is thrown over the top of the roof) is the ears; the hosingo (hide covering the end of the hut) is the trunk.

(Wakefield, ibid.) Very similar stories were recounted among other Oromo groups, notably the Borana of southern Ethiopia (Haberland, p. 632) and the Arsi of

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eastern Ethiopia (p. 633). In the first case, the parturient asks for a cow but receives a goat. She then trumpets and becomes an elephant, her house becoming her body and its saplings her tusks. The other version of the story has the man bringing earth as food for his wife, and then wood before she turns into an elephant. This story is said to be that of the origin of the elephant. Among the Gabra of northern Kenya, the members of the Okor clan also believed that elephants originated long ago from a woman: The story goes that when the woman, who had just given birth to a baby, was vexed by her husband and children, she abruptly jumped up and ran away. She took her whole house with her on her back, and was turned into an elephant. That is why, the Gabbra say, today Gabbra homes resemble elephants. The house is the body of an elephant. The skin which hangs at the door is its ears and the poles are its tusks. Curiously enough, Gabbra houses do look rather like elephants. (Kassam, 1983, p. 26)

Likewise, the frame of the Somali nomadic hut is called feedho, “ribs,” as if the hut were analogous to a rib cage (Mohamed-Abdi 1993: 150). It may also be termed qabax, a term that may be translated as “skeleton” (Mohamed-Abdi 1998-2: 371, 375). In arid north-western Kenya, the dome-shaped night hut of the nomadic Turkana was also commonly referred to as a “skeleton,” akai (Broch-Due 1990: 44; 1993: 63, 79). This metaphor was especially appropriate in the case of the Turkana since “huts are hung with hides” (1993, p. 77). In all likelihood, the Somali and Turkana analogies point to the bony remains of an elephant.31 Indications from at least two mostly agricultural communities attest to the widespread identification of women and elephants. In various East African groups such as the Iraqw and Zaramo, the initiation of girls entailed their being secluded, instructed, and fattened for months. During her seclusion, the Iraqw female initiate was taught many different things, one of these being never to climb on the roof of her future house “in which case she would have turned into an elephant” (Johnson 1966: 56).32 Elephants are no longer seen in Zaramo tribal area, near coastal Tanzania. However, the elephantine connection remained significant in some of the songs taught to the female initiates (mwali) during their seclusion:

31

The intimate connection between huts and rib cages may explain why the Turkana perceive the maternal womb as “a hard container” (Broch-Due 1990: 48). 32 That women should not climb on top of houses was by no means unique to the Iraqw in the East African context.

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In the olden days, at the time of the grandmothers of our grandmothers, when the girls were closed in for too long, they turned to elephants. (Swantz, p. 47)

The Zaramo people had a high regard for elephants and for a certain tree known as mkole, whose pliant branches were used to make arches, “a female symbol.”33 Elephants reportedly hid within mkole woods “when they had their periods or when their offspring were very young” (Ibid.): They enclosed the area around them by tying mkole branches together. Zaramo women must have known the habits of elephants, dependent as they were on them. They would have known their almost humanlike living habits, their similar life span, long gestation periods, their practice of burying their dead. (Ibid.)

Female elephants may be said to be “maternal” but they are here portrayed as pseudo-women to the point of having menses and building huts. Swantz underscores that the elephant stands in opposition to the python, “a male symbol” (Ibid.). Knowing that the former can trample the latter, the identification of women with elephants indicates in her opinion “the degree of respect” the Zaramo accord to females and female fertility. The ethnologist may be right. Another explanation, and a simpler one, is available: a mwali held in confinement for too long would become one with the seclusion house, which is in line with the identification of women and huts expounded above. And we know that houses “are” elephants. Since women are symbolically equated with huts, they “are” metaphorically on a par with elephants.34 ***** 33 The mkole tree bears red edible fruits and its fibre is known by the nearby Luguru to yield “a soapy substance used as a shampoo and for masturbation” so that “it evidently has wide sexual symbolism” (Brain, p. 181). 34 The female polarity of elephants was acknowledged by various southern Bantu groups (de Heusch 1982b: 441, 448). However, it was far from being the rule in Sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, important men were metaphorically referred to as “elephants” by the Dassanech of south-west Ethiopia (Almagor 1983: 61) and the Bini of south-central Nigeria (Ben-Amos, p. 247). Among the forest-dwelling Mende of Sierra Leone, elephants evoked nativeness since their former resting places were used to set up new villages; the founding of a new community entailed the killing of at least one mighty pachyderm (Richards 1993). The connection with nativeness was so strong here that the members of the founding lineage of a remote forest village were said to descend from elephants and to become elephants at death (p. 154).

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This chapter has illustrated and substantiated the tremendous power of culturally-driven metaphors. It has also shown that men could turn out to be lions and that lions could in truth be men. Apes and monkeys were held to be degenerate humans; by sheer neglect or by giving way to their instincts, humans could turn themselves into ape-like creatures. And to say that women were analogous to female elephants is a weak statement in the East African traditional setting. All this can only generate expectations in terms of potential correspondences and continuities between humans and snakes.

CHAPTER 3.2 OPHIDIAN SYMBOLISM IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A GENERAL OUTLINE

As one may suspect, the symbolic profile of snakes in traditional Africa could hardly be one dimensional. Most of the themes inherent to ophidian symbolism in general, as outlined in chapter 1.3, were represented in Africa. An early study of “animal worship in Africa” states that snake cults were “almost universal in Africa” since they are “mentioned by most travellers” (Weissenborn, p. 173). Decades later, it had become “obvious” to an ethnologist writing a paper on the cultural significance of ophidians in Côte d’Ivoire that there was “no need to emphasise the importance of snakes in Africa” (Hauenstein 1978: 525). The contributions of scholars such as Hambly (1931) and Segy (1954)ʊa museologist and a student of African art forms, respectivelyʊas well as the frequent appearances of the serpent in the African ethnographic record lend support to Hauenstein’s statement.1 Using the somewhat patchy, more or less reliable, but already diverse English, German, and French documentary sources available in his days as well as observations made by himself while visiting parts of Africa, Hambly authored an insightful paper on the cultural import of snakes in Sub-Saharan Africa. It boldly attempts to: (a) classify the beliefs and practices relating to snakes which he could trace; (b) outline their geographical distribution; (c) establish connections between these features; (d) inquire about their areas of origin within and without Africa; and (e) correlate beliefs and practices with zoological or ethological evidence. 1

A recent short note on African animal symbolism pays little respect to ophidians: it briefly refers to the python as the rainbow serpent and provides two instances illustrating the fact that “snakes need not be huge to be symbolically important.” (Willis 1997: 198)

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Leaving aside his conjectures about the origins of snake beliefs and cults, Hambly made a valuable contribution. The analyst highlights a few seemingly wide-ranging themes such as “python worship,” ancestor or spirit snakes “visiting” households and people, the rainbow snake, and curing of or immunity from snake bite. Python cults involving priests or priestesses and ritual sacrifices or offerings were the most developed forms of “snake worship” that Hambly could identify. Python cults were notably prominent in two widely separated regions: southern Uganda and Dahomey, now Benin. In those areas snakes appeared to be strongly associated with fecundity, although the latter theme occurred independently of formal cults (p. 75). Hambly finds the snake to be “generally associated with the sun, rain, guardianship, fecundity, wisdom, evil, sacred trees, reincarnation, the rainbow, the operation of demons and gods through the reptilian body, transformation, totemism, and the use of snake parts in concocting medicine” (p. 57). He also finds the snake often appearing as a symbol of “human productiveness” (p. 22), that is, of “conception, phallicism, and fecundity” (p. 75). The “connection of the snake with conservation of water” and its close association with wells appear to him even more widespread (p. 42). Knowing that water was closely paired with life in traditional Africa as elsewhere, the connectedness of the notions of water, snake, and fecundity becomes somewhat self-evident. Hambly holds Africans to be acquainted “with the most minute habits and movements of animals” (p. 48). That leads him to a major conclusion. Each type of snake belief can be “satisfactorily correlated with a definite zoological fact” (p. 73). For instance the beliefs relating to “the transmigration of the dead into serpents and the power of certain living people to transform themselves into snakes” go along with “the quick noiseless movements of snakes,” with “their power to do an injury in a quick magical way, such as is supposed to be the method followed by ghosts,” and with “the habit of sloughing the skin” (p. 70). Many statements made by Hambly are very much relevant to the present study, notably the following: “casting the skin suggests a rebirth and a bringing forth of new life” (p. 69); and “the most fundamental ideas of all kinds of African snake beliefs are those of reincarnation and fecundity” (p. 75). Apparently unaware of Hambly’s paper, Segy relies on artistic forms as well as on ethnographical data. He also sees a strong connection between snakes and water (p. 105) and deems so-called snake-cults to have

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“generative significance” (p. 114); in other words. to have a lot to do with “notions of fertility.” To substantiate his claim (p. 108), he notably makes use of information from Frazer’s celebrated Golden Bough about an East African snake god, more exactly one revered by the Kikuyu, which was periodically offered a virgin bride: “The priest, as representative of the sacred spirit, consummates the sacred marriage. The offspring is considered to have been fathered by the snake’s spirit.” This divine entity was possibly the Ndamathia “monster” (Kenyatta 1968: 190). Thomas et al. (1969) are among the many scholars who have touched upon the issue of ophidian symbolism in Africa, mostly West Africa in their case. They underscore “symbolic connections” between snakes and trees (p. 62) and find plenty of evidence about the snake as a symbol of the male organ (p. 59). More generally, the snake would be a symbol of power, flexibility, male generative ability (phallus), and rebirth or resurrection (p. 77). In a later publication they highlight the case of python symbolism that points to the immortality of both the ancestor spirits and the rainbow, that is, the bridging of sky and earth (Thomas et al. 1975: 119). Also focussing mostly on West Africa, Hampâté Bâ (p. 362-63) views the snake as an important figure in local traditions: Basically enigmatic and ambivalent, its symbolism may be positive or negative, auspicious or inauspicious. The snake may represent a god or a devil. Some legends feature man and serpent as close friends, almost brothers; others as implacable enemies.

Although the serpents appearing in various Fulani stories are “dangerous and harmful animals,” the ophidians have “by no means a universally negative character, as in European civilisations. Indeed, most African cosmogonies have high regard for the serpent” (Ibid., p. 384). The author of an article on the “serpent” in the Encyclopedia of African Religion also stresses the “variety of views” African communities have expressed about a creature of “mysterious and complex characteristics and symbolisms” (Ogungbile 2009: 607). Two specialists of African mythology appear to be in agreement with both Ogungbile and Hampâté Bâ, not to mention Hambly and Thomas et al., on the multifaceted significance of the snake in African cultures: It is associated with healing, fertility, rain and the rainbow, and the knowledge of secret things. Snakes are often associated with flashes of lightning and feared for their speed and power. Through the shedding of

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The present author’s inquiries on serpent symbolism in Eastern Africa and the Horn broadly corroborate these views, all the while substantiating and expanding them. An attempt will be made in Part IV (This volume) and Part V (Volume Two) to highlight the symbolic themes which appear more prevalent in those parts of Africa and to weave them as much as possible into a coherent whole.

CHAPTER 3.3 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM WESTERN, SAHARAN, CENTRAL, AND SOUTHERN AFRICA

A good way of introducing the core subject matter of this book: the cultural profile of the snake in Eastern Africa, is to review some of the representations held about snakes in western and Saharan Africa as well as Central and Southern Africa. Those regions do offer a variety of instances, some well-known, many not so well-known or largely unknown, of interesting snake-related beliefs and practices. European explorers and scientists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were fascinated by the snake cults they came across along the West African coast. For example the Swiss biologist Büttikofer observed in the 1880s that the people of a Liberian village cared for and fed a large python regarded as the protector of their community against evil influences (Weissenborn, p. 174). Pythons have long been religiously significant in southern Benin where, for instance, various clans or peoples claimed to descend from a python (Merlo et al. 1984: 272; Fourcade, p. 192). The Hweda community believed that the smaller species of pythons (Pytho regius) embodied Dagbe, their primary divinity. The cult of Dagbe was still very much alive in the twentieth century, notably in the coastal town of Ouidah. Nearby, a local dignitary was led by a diviner to build a sizeable temple to Dagbe after a python had wriggled from the bush into his house (Merlo et al., p. 299). In the past, the python god was revered by whole communities at shrines built outside towns in sacred groves, each one being tended by a chief priest, dagbenon, and by priestesses or wives, dagbesi, of the snake god. Dagbe was linked to whiteness and purity (Merlo et al. 1966a: 76), but white was also connected with the sky (Merlo et al. 1966b: 313). It was widely known to be the god who in the mythical past “opened the eyes” of mankind, meaning either that the god shared knowledge or wisdom with the first human couple and/or that he taught them how to procreate (Merlo et al. 1966a). Knowing that the coastal peoples of Benin came under the influence of Catholic missionaries in the seventeenth century (Ibid., p. 83) and the Hweda kingdom used artillery against its enemies in the 1800s (Merlo et al. 1984: 291), it would appear

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that although Merlo and Vidaud are of a different opinion, certain aspects of this particular snake cult, notably the “opening of the eyes,” have been taken aboard from Christianity. The reverence for pythons, dangbe, has been reported of the Fon in neighbouring Togo (Garnier et al. 1951: 28-30, 77) as well as in southern Benin. Parrinder (p. 22) reports a Fon myth from southern Benin according to which, “when the world was created,” a mighty snake “gathered the earth together with its coils and gave men a place in which to live.” Allan et al. (p. 35, 48) have the same story: at the beginning of times, the creator commissioned a great python either to hold the two halves of the universe, sky and earth, together or to support the latter from beneath to prevent it from sinking into the sea; this divine figure was respectfully addressed as “Our King.” The myth of that divinity, i.e. Aido Hwedo, the Rainbow Snake, is discussed at length by Merlo et al. (1966b) in the same coastal environment where the rainbow was believed to serve as a bridge between earth and sky and also to be a celestial reflection of the great terrestrial python (p. 311, 308), Pytho sebae. The first part of the divinity’s name, Aido, bears tellurian connotations while its second name hints at the sky (p. 312), more exactly at the sun (1966a: 76). In the past, humansʊpossibly war captivesʊwere offered in sacrifice to live pythons along the shores of rivers or lakes reportedly in order to ensure good rains, bountiful crops, successful hunting expeditions, and fertility to both humans and domestic animals (p. 316). Those who were initiated into the cult of Aido Hwedo knew that the divine serpent encircled the world and prevented it from disintegration (p. 312). Earthquakes resulted from Aido Hwedo shaking beneath the surface of the earth (p. 310). The divinity was graphically represented as a black-headed, sometimes horned, and longitudinally coloured serpent1 often bearing a necklace and typically biting its tail in oruboros fashion. The altars dedicated to Aido Hwedo as well as the entrance to the palace of the Fon kingdom of Dahomey featured such a representation (p. 302, 304, 306). When horned, the work of art was male; otherwise, it was female (p. 305). The wearing of necklaces was a royal privilege (p. 314). As for the circular shape of the divinity, it may have: (a) represented the fully drawn extension of the rainbow (p. 307); (b) hinted at continuity or at the rainbow’s endlessness (p. 318); (c) implied the bisexual character of the deity, the mouth biting the tail standing for female and male sexuality, respectively (p. 313). It 1

Its three coloured strips, blue, red (middle), and white may have reflected the “triple cosmic serpent” known in the past to the peoples of the Sahara (Pâques 1964: 48, 60).

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may additionally have imaged the rounded posture of the mythical snake upholding the world, itself echoing the coil of plaited grass placed on the head by men or women carrying heavy loads (p. 311). The Ewe of nearby southern Togo, whose language is related to that spoken by the Fon, regarded “living serpents as holy” and “when they meet a python they bow before it and kiss the earth.”2 Moreover, they used to “invoke the snake in excessively wet, dry, or barren seasons; on all occasions relating to their government and the preservation of their cattle; or rather, in one word, in all necessities and difficulties in which they do not apply to their new [possibly Christian] batch of gods” (Welsford, p. 422).3 The Hweda, Fon, and Ewe cases do correspond to full-scale snakecults whereby the python either represents a god or is seen as a creature closely connected with a major divinity. In the same area, i.e. far western coastal Nigeria, a sacred “black” python disclosed the future “through his priestesses in a state of trance” (Merlo et al. 1966a: 80).4 Pythons were also revered in the West African hinterland. A python moving into a Senoufo village in southern Mali or northern Côte d’Ivoire would not be bothered for as long as it wished to remain peacefully around (Clamens 1952: 119). The Senoufo used to propitiate pythons residing in holy groves by offering them food (Holas 1966: 147). Likewise, hens or goats were sacrificed and given to sacred pythons, minian, by the Bambara of Segu in central Mali (Tauxier 1927: 156-57).5 Spitting cobras, ngorongo, electing to live in a house were reckoned to be the protectors of the household against evil influences and were fed with eggs and chicks (Ibid., p. 157-58). The Mossi of Burkina Faso also viewed pythons living in sacred groves as protectors and offerings were made to them (Villiers, p. 60). Like the Fon, the Dogon of eastern Mali and western Burkina Faso are well known for their sophisticated mythology and religious practices. They believed that in the remote mythical past, the creator god Amma begat with the female Earth water spirits known as nummo and described as 2

See Foerster in Bromiley (p. 570 fn.), his source being a book on Ewe religion published in Germany in 1911. 3 Welsford quoted an early nineteenth-century Dutch explorer. 4 Another instance of a snake knowledgeable about the future, in this case from the Segu region of Mali, is brought up by Bazin (1988: 435). 5 The Bambara held additionally that snakes could cure children (Villiers 1963: 60), a belief which was apparently not commonplace in West Africa.

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“twin spirits with human heads and torsos and serpent’s tails” (Allan et al., p. 43).6 The primeval ancestors of the Dogon did not die; they “went down into an anthill” instead of going up to the heavens like the mortal people who came after them (Griaule 1965: 123).7 As reported by de Ganay (1937: 203) and by Abrahamsson (1977: 66, 74) from Griaule and others, the Dogon held that ageing primeval human beings would transform themselves into snakes and then into spirits. Moreover, before leaving their overcrowded cradleland in search of a substitute and prosperous homeland, the Dogon dug to retrieve the remains of their legendary forefatherʊknown as Lebe (Lébé)ʊin order to bring these with them; they found in his grave a large snake which reportedly guided them in their long migration (Griaule, p. 116-17) or followed them (de Ganay, p. 210). The migrants also brought some earth from their homeland to mix with the earth of their new place of residence, which seems to account for the partial identification of “earth”ʊor arable land?ʊand “serpent” in the minds of the Dogon (de Ganay, p. 211). The lebe was part and parcel of the religious sphere of the contemporary Dogon. Every year, in order to ensure good millet crops, a goat was sacrificed at the time of sowing at all the altars dedicated to Lebe (Dieterlen 1941: 211; also de Ganay, p. 208 fn.). The lebe was in fact the “protector” of fields and crops, and it gave the hogon power over rainfall (de Heusch 1991: 435). It was said of a hogon, the ritual head of a village or sub-tribe, that he was visited every night by a lebe snake that came out of its cavern to lick him (Leiris 1934: 107; de Ganay, p. 209 ff.; Dieterlen, p. 210), thereby upholding his outstanding status. Accordingly, a hogon never washed. The circumsised foreskins were reportedly thrown into the cavern where the legendary snake resided (Leiris et al. 1936: 148). In one Dogon village, a lebe snake was believed to watch over the placenta left in a special hole, thereby ensuring the protection of mothers and infants for a critical period of five days (de Ganay, p. 210; Dieterlen, p. 210). Once the Dogon came under French colonial rule, the hogon were no longer visited by sacred snakes (Leiris, p. 118). Somewhat similar to the nummo were the water spirits or domfe (domfé) of the Kurumba in northern Burkina Faso (Griaule 1941), not far from the Dogon. These were said to reside in pools during rainy seasons and in ant6

The snake-with-a-human-head motif brings to mind the naga spirits of India. See Box 12 in chap. 2.3. Such creatures were also heard of in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. 7 The next portion of this book will show that, in Africa as in India, ant-hills are one of the favourite abodes of snakes, notably cobras.

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hills or in the holes of baobab trees during dry seasons. They materialised typically in the shape of a snake and were believed to provide rain and to master the winds. Each village was protected by a particular domfe, which was appealed to for well-being (crops and children) and to repel an epidemic. The emblem of the domfe was a bifid axe, which was sprinkled with the blood of a fowl sacrificed by its priest at the foot of the hill that was identified with it.8 Myths told that the domfe originally came from the sky, bringing millet along with them. They were believed to be the custodians of the “soul” of millet. In their agrarian rites, the Kurumba appealed to land spirits, adidiya, as well as to the local domfe. The domfe (identified here as a serpent), the adidiya, and the ancestors were all called upon to safeguard the health of the boys to be circumcised (Lebeuf 1941: 75-76). In south-western Burkina Faso, the people of a Bobo village feared a certain serpent that came out of its hiding place at night; all who caught sight of it died; the food offerings handed out to the mysterious creature were given through the oldest man and woman of the community (Cremer 1927: 55). Dreaming of a snake was interpreted by many Bobo as a personal connection with a powerful spirit (Ibid., p. 180). In Dogon fashion, the Kom viewed themselves as “people of the snake,” that is, the descendants of those who followed the track of a mythical python “on the journey by which they reached the territory they now occupy” (Shanklin, p. 205). Also in Cameroon, the Ewondo peoples: the Beti and others, recall that a mighty snake known as Ngaan Medza miraculously ferried them dry across a great river, either the Yom or the Sanaga, thereby removing them in the distant past from the grips of a warlike group that was after them.9 Likewise, the neighbouring Bassa did no harm to pythons because “a great boa had helped their ancestors fleeing 8

The bifid hoe of one of ancient Mesopotamia’s high gods was commented upon as being “snake-like” (Bottéro et al., p. 176). 9 See http://www.culturevive.com/betifang/lasocietetraditionnelleewondo.html and http://www.culturevive.com/betifang/origine.htm. According to one Beti tradition, a tribal ancestor using a magic stick had a rainbow come out of the river; the rainbow became a python, mvom, which helped the people across the river. See J. L. Atou (2008), “La symbolique du serpent dans la sculpture des Pahouins du Sud Cameroun”: http://detoursdesmondes.typepad.com/dtours_des_mondes/2008/12/pahouinscameroun-serpent.html#comments. Such stories were also encountered in Eastern Africa. They are all reminiscent of the Old Testament.

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across the Sanaga River” (Garnier et al., p. 48). A similar story was heard in central Nigeria. Having emerged from the underworld, the Tiv people were pursued by a hostile mob and soon came to a great river in flood, their saviour being in this case a harmless tree ophidian locally known as ikarem: “Safe crossing seemed impossible (…) a green snake (…) entwined itself in the branches of trees on either bank and the people crossed in safety” (Downes 1971: 22). As the myth goes, the pursuers quickly followed but “the snake released its coils and precipitated them into the water.” In south-western Cameroon, the Duala people believed that a “magical python” manifested itself in the rainbow, nyungu (Ardener 1970: 148). A person who managed to “capture” the magical snake would enjoy “unusual prosperity” (Ibid.). Also from Cameroon, the Bamiléké believed that anyone who managed to steal the “pillows” used by a snake in its den would become healthy, rich, famous, and would live to a ripe old age (Notué et al. 1984: 100). In Guinea, spirit-snakes would also bring wealth to those who catered to their needs or who dared to make a pact with them (Appia 1944: 38-41). Among the Ibo of southeastern Nigeria, snakes were believed to be emissaries of an earth goddess known as Ala (Parrinder, p. 78). The Bini in south-central Nigeria saw the python as “the king of snakes” and associated it “with the realm of Olokun, lord of the great waters,” i.e. the sea (Ben-Amos, p. 247). It was taken to be Olokun’s messenger, “sent to warn neglectful devotees to change their ways” (Ibid.). Among the Igbo of eastern Nigeria, “the boa constrictor,” i.e. python, and “a green snake widely known as akanyamwu are held to be sacred, and are regarded as agents or messengers of the local divinities” (Ubah 1982: 98). The supreme god of the Yoruba of south-western Nigeria was named Olodumare, a name that may have meant “Olodu, child of the python” (Booth 1977: 160). Other ethnologists see the Yoruba high god Oshumare as the counterpart of Aido Hwedo, the rainbow serpent; connected more exclusively with the sky and shooting stars, the former had the serpent Eré as its special envoy (Merlo et al. 1966a: 75; 1966b: 308, 313). According to Garnier et al. (p. 34), a two-headed serpent was believed by the Bamun of western Cameroon to “haunt the Nschi River” and the boa or python was “sacred” to them. Reportedly named Nue Pet Tu (Merlo et al. 1966b: 319), the two-headed snake was a common feature of Bamun artistic expression (Binet 1952: 403). Indeed, “just as the bald eagle stands

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for the United States of America, so the double-headed serpent stands for the Bamum kingdom.” This has been so since the nineteenth century.10 Illustration 2: The Bamun Double-Headed Snake

Drawing sketched by G. O. Hazel after a photo of a brass ornament made by the royal palace artists. The picture was taken at Foumban by Barbara Allen before 1995.

The two heads remind the Bamum people of [one of their kings’] heroic army which once fought enemies successfully on two fronts at the same time. Inside the snake is a double-gorged bell. This bell’s twin chimes were a call to arms when they rang out (…). The spider symbolizes wisdom.11

The Bamun used to believe that when a person dies, his or her spirit goes to live in some river or turns into a bird or snake (Loumpet-Galitzine 2006: 86), thereby becoming aquatic, celestial, or chthonian entities. A Bamiléké child needing extra care from its mother was believed to be a “snake-child” (Notué et al., p. 98). It brought misfortune to her if she 10

The original photo as well as the quotation below are taken from the same Web page: http://africas-descendants.blogspot.com/2011/05/bamoun-sultanate-cameroon.html. Accessed March 12, 2013. The double-headed snake is more exactly the symbol of Bamun kingship according to H. E. Dr Njiasse Njoya. See www.royaumebamoun.com/downloads/163.doc. The double-headed snake was also the symbol of kingship or chiefship among the nearby Bamiléké (Notué et al., p. 98). 11 For other versions of the story, see Merlo et al. (1966b: 319). The spider was connected with divination in pre-colonial Cameroon.

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failed to attend to its special needs. It could die unexpectedly, only to come back to life as a snake. One of the powerful secret guilds of the Bamiliéké was that of the “snake-men” (Ibid., p. 100-101). One had to pay a fee and then to go through an initiation ritual to be admitted. A “snakeman” had the power to turn into a snake. There were a few other totemic guilds among the Bamiléké. Pythons were reportedly housed in the compounds of some important men (p. 100). Snakes in general were reckoned to be “protectors” of children, and one type of ophidian was referred to as “son of God,” ponok (p. 98). Snakes were at times feared and at times revered by these people (Ibid.). The relationship with snakes was very much stressed in parts of the Plateau State in nearby Nigeria. Although harmful serpents such as a “black and grey viper like snake” were killed “on sight” by the Montol12, a non-poisonous species of snake of up to five feet long was to be seen in or about many compounds: They live generally in the roofs of the small granaries and huts that make up the compound. They feed upon small mammals, and no doubt serve a useful purpose in destroying vermin which might otherwise eat the stored grain. (Fitzpatrick, 1910, p. 30)

However useful these creatures may have been, they were not primarily kept for the purpose of ridding the village of rats. The people believed that “at the birth of every individual of their race, male and female, one of these snakes, of the same sex, [was] also born.” If the wife of a compound-owner gives birth to a son, (…), the snake of the establishment will be seen with a young one of corresponding sex. From the moment of birth, these two, the snake and the man, share a life of common duration (…). Hence every care is taken to protect these animals from injury, and no Montol would in any circumstances think of injuring or killing one. It is said that a snake of this kind never attempts any injury to a man.( Ibid.)

A similar pattern prevailed among the Mossi of Burkina Faso, who believed that the soul of each person was paired with some wild animal species; were such an animal killed in the vicinity of the village, someone was liable to die (Mangin 1916: 194-95). In that case, the connection of souls and animals was not restricted to ophidians. 12

Also known as Montal, Teel, or Baltap, they live in the Shendam Local Government Area numbering about 25,000 souls.

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The Montol and Mossi illustrate a scenario that came up intermittently in West Africa: that of a twinship between humans and snakes. For instance snakes and twins feature prominently among the Guéré and Dan of Côte d’Ivoire (Schwartz 1970; Vandenhoute 1976).13 The Guéré reckoned that were a snake to come by the house of a pregnant woman, she would deliver twins. Such children would later be endowed with healing abilities, notably the power to cure snake bites14. The Dan similarly explained the birth of twins by the penetration of a snake into a woman’s womb. Dan twins were assimilated to snakes and also credited with extraordinary powers. The connection between twins and snakes has also been documented for the Wobé, another ethnic community of western Côte d’Ivoire (Hauenstein 1978: 538-41)15 as well as for the Bamiléké of Cameroon (Notué et al., p. 98). The twin brother of one of the ancestors of the western Fulani was a mythical python named Tyanaba (Hampâté Bâ, p. 363, 372). Allan et al. (p. 45) report a possibly related legend about a Fulani woman who lovingly raised her twins, a boy and a male snake. In the 1870s, as reported by Amélineau (p. 338) from the writings of a French colonial officer, some Fulani and Tukulor individuals of Senegal and Mauritania would protect vipers or pythons. In the Futa Djallon region of Guinea, Marty (1921: 467) recorded that various Tukulor and Fulani clans had totem animals, i.e. wodha (Tuk.) or tanaa (Ful.). In some cases, these were snakes: the python for the Thiam (Tuk.), the speckled viper for the Sosobhe (Tuk.), and the horned viper for the Timbonke (Ful.). A legend explained the special relationship between the Timbonke and the horned viper: the woman who gave birth to the clan-founder had left her baby boy alone in her hut; when she came back, she was terrified to see a dreaded viper coiled next to her child; the snake peacefully took off; the scene was repeated; the horned viper was taken to be a protector of the child; his progeny respected that type of ophidian (Ibid.). Marty suggested a connection between Tyanaba (or Tyamaba, Caamaaba) and the Thiam section of the Fulani-speaking and agricultural Tukulor. The Soninké of 13

The author consulted an English abstract of Vandenhoute’s paper (in Dutch) on the Dan and Guéré. Boulnois (1933: 33) had alluded to the connection between twins and snakes among the Guéré. 14 For another rather rare instance of the healing snake in Western Africa, see chap. 4.4, footnote 1. 15 Among the Dan, Guerzé, Manon, and Kissi the head of a horned viper was a key ingredient in the making of a magical item used for untold purposes and known as the “snake’s mother” (Portères 1949).

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Senegal and Mali have also been reported to have totem animals, tanna (Daniel 1910: 36). It so happened that a Frenchman shot a large and aggressive python. A man quickly rubbed some of its blood between the eyes of a comrade whose tanna was the python in order to spare him from fever (Ibid.) and, possibly, death. Eberhardt (1958) was briefed by Hampâté Bâ on the myth of Tyanaba and related practices.16 Tyanaba and his twin brother Ilo were assumed to have taken part in the emergence of all living creatures as agents of a high god. Ilo displeased his brother by taking a prepubescent girl as his wife; although the young lady was forbidden to behold her husband’s brother, she took him by surprise as he was drinking milk from her cows in his hut; Tyanaba then dived into a river and was followed by all animals, wild and domesticated, except for those Ilo could touch with forked sticks. Since then, the Fulani have offered milk and butter to their ancestor Tyanaba. Moreover, they have cut the head and tail of dead pythons; laid the remaining carcasses in rivers so as to prevent drought; and buried head and tail together to ensure the fertility of both humans and livestock. That appears to allude to the oruboros. The severing of the head and tail of a python hints at yet another theme which, according to Pâques (1964), was wide-ranging in the mythology of the western Sahel of West Africa, that is, the beheading of the primordial python by a man. Its death opened the way to cultivation, agricultural land being assimilated to its body (Ibid., p. 139, 156-57). For some communities, the removal of the head and tail of the legendary serpent foreshadowed male and female circumcision (p. 135).17 The Sahelian myth would seem to mirror the legendary Mesopotamian combat between Marduk and the primordial female dragon Tiamat, whose slaughter paved the way for order and civilisation. In Senegal snakes that visited Serer villages, huts, or ritual sites were spirits (Thomas et al. 1969: 201 fn.). That did not prevent them from using the bitter roots of a certain plant, Securidaca longepedunculate, kuf in their language, to repel snakes (Dupire 1987: 13). Amongst the Birom of the Jos Plateau in Nigeria, pest-eating house snakesʊtypically small boidsʊwere believed to embody the spirit of dead forebears (Bouquiaux 2001: 27). A similar belief was held by the neighbouring Rukuba: in nearby Montol fashion, “The harmless dako snake is regarded throughout the tribe as a 16

Kesteloot et al. (1985) undertake a full review of the numerous versions of the Fulani myth of Tyanaba. 17 The ram sacrificed at Eid al-Adha, the annual Feast of the Sacrifice, had its head and tail cut in some Muslim communities of the Sahara (Pâques 1964: 138).

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special friend and never killed; it is encouraged to live in their huts, where it performs the duties of the domestic cat” (Gunn 1953: 41).18 The Baga of Guinea regarded pythons as “reincarnations of their ancestors” and used to treat them “with respect” (Lynch et al., p. 106, 114). There was an Ashanti clan in Ghana whose members were respectful of pythons: “They must never kill it, and if they find a python that has died or been killed by someone else, they put white clay on it and bury it in almost human fashion” (Parrinder, p. 50). The Tiv of central Nigeria regarded the python, ikume, as “the personation of some supernatural power or as a carrier of mbatsav, that is, living persons in their external souls or others deceased, at any rate in night visitations” (Downes, p. 4-5). In Chad no Moundang would eat snake flesh but one of their clans, Ban Suo, that of the blacksmiths, had as its totem the python, “the mother of all snakes” in local understanding (Adler 2000: 249, 256). All the ancestors of that clan lived in a certain village whose contemporary chief had as his counterpart a python, which resided in his main loft. People feared and avoided pythons; if the chief of the village happened to meet with his double in his own courtyard, he knew that he would soon die. 19 In some Kissi villages (Guinea), snakes were totemic emblems and shrines were devoted to them; in such communities, skin disease was the outcome of, for instance, having inadvertently eaten snake flesh (Paulme 1949: 38). However, as a rule the Kissi feared serpents, which were suspected of being used by sorcerers to pursue their evil aims. Coming upon a rare spitting snake known as koma was believed to spell death in one’s family (Paulme 1954: 124). Among the Igala people of central Nigeria, medicines used to protect a person from witchcraft and sorcery or to induce good luck and prosperity were made by a herbalist, obochi, from a variety of vegetable substances and secret activating “magical” substances, ayibo: “For example the skulls of snakes are a common ayibo and the more

18 It was a good thing to have a snake in the house among the Rukuba (Dr J. C. Muller, personal communication, Montreal, April 17, 2014). In this regard Birom and Rukuba traditions were reminiscent of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman beliefs and practices. As pointed out below in chapter 4.5, notably in footnote 14, house snakes were also to be found in various parts of Eastern Africa. 19 A snake appears in a celebrated Guinean novel as the personal totem or “guiding spirit” of a smith. See Camara Laye, The African Child (Translated by J. Kirkup, London: Collins, 1959), p. 15, as pointed out by Wieck (p. 234) and Willis (1997: 198). Ethnically Malinké, C. Laye was born in north-eastern Guinea. The autobiographic novel was originally published in French in 1953.

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poisonous or dangerous the snake, the greater is the power of the skull as an ayibo” (Boston 1971: 202). Stories about humans unable to take advantage of God’s gift of immortality and involving snakes were told in Sierra Leone. The Limba version as reported by Lynch et al. (p. 34) starts like this: Kanu, the supreme god, once prepared a medicine meant to make humans immortal. Snake was to carry the medicine of immortality to men, but Toad took it instead and spilled it while hopping. Kanu would not prepare more of that medicine.20 In a Kono story, Snake stole from careless Dog the new skins God had set aside for humans and it, instead of Man, ended up being immortal; people have hated snakes ever since (Allan et al., p. 55). In northern Chad, a black cobra residing on a sacred mountain and bearing on its head two white ostrich feathers was reportedly charged with approving through friendly behaviour—or rejecting by a show of hostility—a potential Zaghawa, i.e. Beri, chief at the enthronement ceremony (Tubiana 1964: 93). Nearby, the induction of one of the Darfur overlords was sanctioned by a large cave-dwelling snake representing the “spirits of the mountain” (Cooke et al. 1939: 200-201). The pretenders to the throne of a few other eastern Sahelian kingdoms also needed the approval of a sacred serpent or lizard (Tubiana 1990: 198-99). One such case was reported by the eleventh-century Muslim geographer Al-Bakri.21 A comparable scene involving a python circulated among the Idje of far south-western coastal Nigeria (Merlo et al. 1984: 270). In southern Niger, soon after a woman who had married into certain Hausa lineages gave birth to a child, a viper or a black cobra would interpose itself between the mother and her baby and kill an illegitimate child (Luxereau 1989: 150). Such snakes were regarded as kan gida, “head of the house,” a designation which carried notions of “paternity” or “alliance” of a totemic kind (Ibid.). Tremearne (1913: 119) reported a similar occurrence: “A hunter community of Katsina (…) has a short black snake as its totem (…) it is friendly, and lives in the rafters, and comes down to the floor of the hut if a son be born.” He also recorded the notion

20

Schnell (1949: 97-98) reports a similar story from far eastern Guinea. The legitimacy of a new ruler of the Tama chiefdom, at the outskirts of Wadday (Chad) and Dar Fur (Sudan), used to be consecrated by way of “traditional rites” held at a sacred mountain (Khayar 1983: 256). Such rites possibly involved a great serpent. 21

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of kan gidda, meaning “that which is upon the house,” adding however that most Hausa clan totems were birds (Ibid.). In addition to being involved in the installation of a new ruler, snakes were connected with local and major rain shrines throughout Darfur (Cooke et al., p. 189-90, 193-94, 197, 198). When rain failed, ritual officers would hold a ceremony meant to feed a marvellous rain snake and induce it to return to its lair. Rain shrines combined large treesʊimplying the presence of underground waterʊand deep holes. In one case, the snake’s hole was “formed by the intertwining of the roots” of two trees.

Box 24 The Compass of Ophidian Symbolism among the Hausa A cursory examination of three additional publications on Hausa culture and social organisation brings to light the range of meanings and practices locally attached to ophidians. Not only was the snake associated with a well and thus with water, as in the legend of Sarki,22 but it was also identified with a benevolent tree-dwelling divinity revered by female initiates (Nicolas 1975: 341, 396). A sacred tree next to the western entrance to Tibiri, the chief city of the Gobir Hausa state (southern Niger), was the abode of a male snake deity that was believed to be the consort of the tutelary town goddess (Nicolas 1980: 582-83). Moreover, Hausa potters honoured a snake that lived in a cave from which they extracted clay; the members of their clan called it “grandfather” (1975: 306). Hausa chiefs were believed to transform themselves into wild animals, notably snakes, at their installation or when they died (Ibid. p. 150, 340). A few individuals claimed that they had a snake twin (p. 245 fn.; 439). Bits of the skin of a certain type of snake, apparently the one which was honoured by potters, were held to bring luck (p. 286). Snake charmers were also part of the picture (Isa et al. 1968: 40). And it was said that “if a woman dreams that she has been bitten by a snake, she has become pregnant” (p. 87). Here the phallic connotations of the snake come out loud and clear. ***** In western Sahara, the Moors “treated with much consideration” a snake that ended up in a house or tent, believing it might be “a jenn [jinn] or a

22

See below in this chapter.

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saint” (Norris 1972: 14).23 An undetermined type of snake referred to as “marabout” by the Twareg of central Sahara was “sacred” to them (Nicolaisen 1963: 172). Both Norris (p. 9) and Mundkur (1980: 221; 1983: 306) highlight a local method of divination involving the interrogation of a snakeʊpossibly the “marabout”ʊaccording to set formulae. The method was known as tachchelt, “the viper.”24 As noted by Bissuel (1888: 70), tachchelt is the feminine form of achchelʊthe Twareg generic term for “snake”ʊand it specifically referred to the horned viper. Villiers (p. 165) records two similar Twareg terms: tachil (horned viper) and tachilet (Carpet viper). The language of the Twareg is a Berber dialect. Vasquez Hoys (2002) notes that the Berber term ezram, “snake,” hails from the root zr, meaning “to know.” Two types of large imaginary serpents were talked about among the western Twareg, one being horned like a goatʊperhaps a giant horned viperʊthe other displaying a tuft of hairʊif not feathersʊon its head (Bissuel, p. 71). The final pages of chapter 2.5 provided illustrations of ophidian symbolism from the eastern Sahara. Moving to Central Africa, the dead were believed by the Luba of southeastern DRC to reappear in the guise of some animal either to harm or protect their descendants: “I once shot a big venomous snake, in a tree, in the centre of Mpiana village, where there were children playing quite near. To my surprise,” writes Burton (1961: 45), “the people showed a very marked indignation. They said: ‘He was our guardian spirit. Who will protect us now that you have killed him?’” The Kongo of western DRC believed that those who had been good and honest during their lifetime would dispose of their bodily sheath in their grave just like a snake discards its old skin, thereby becoming nkulu, white spirits (Van Wing 1938: 38). Ogungbile (p. 608) and Charlesworth (p. 260) both report that the Ngala people of north-central DRC recounted that the moon formerly lived on Earth as a serpent. According to the nearby Ngbandi, “twins were believed to be snakes and so a manifestation of the tribe’s toro or supreme god, the serpent” (Allan et al., p. 42). Accordingly, “a twin who killed a snake believed he or she had killed a sibling—even if the other twin was

23

Norris quotes from a paper by E. Westermarck (1938), “The Moorish conception of holiness (baraka).” A visiting frog was likewise treated gently according to the same authority. In the Moorish desert, frogs, snakes, and jenn were all connected with water. See also Westermark (1926, I: 268-69). 24 Norris takes his information from an Arabic publication by Ahmad bin al-Amin al-Shinqiti (1938).

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evidently still alive—and had to mourn to avert illness or catastrophe” (Ibid.). The Ngbandi rated the snake as the oldest of all animals (p. 49).25 Snake cults have also been recorded in eastern and southern Angola (Hauenstein 1960; 1964). The Tshokwe propitiated the spirit-snake Salujingaʊa name deriving from a verb meaning “to coil”ʊbelieved to impede or promote fertility. Among the cattle-herding Humbi (Himba), one of the wivesʊan elderly commoner known as naulambaʊof the tribal chief was also the consort and priestess of a sacred serpent, which reportedly spent its nights in her house. At the enthronement of a new king, an ox was sacrificed and its blood, entrails, and stomach were offered to that snake at its shrine; if it tasted the offering, the would-be successorʊwho had been selected by a council of eldersʊcould be rightfully enthroned; a premature death was otherwise to be expected. The sanction of the sacred snake expressed the consent of former kings, all of whom had been buried next to its shrine. Humbi kings never interacted directly with the sacred serpent. The mediation of its priestess was inevitable. Stories of two-headed serpents have been reported in tribal communities from Angola, notably the Himba and Ovimbundu. The extraordinary creature was known as ongombikuvari in the first case (Crandall, p. 299) and as onjimbavalo in the second (Hauenstein 1960: 230). The onjimbavalo was believed to have a head at both ends and could move forward from its two extremities. When that extraordinary creature was seen, someone would surely die (Hauenstein, ibid.). The Ovimbundu and some of their neighbours also feared flying mountain serpents, i.e. dragons, known to them as ondala (p. 224, 231). The Tswana people of Botswana reportedly clapped their hands when they saw a certain type of snake, as reported by Amélineau (p. 337) quoting an early explorer.26 Werner (1933: 240) reports the case of a Shona “wizard” in northern Zimbabwe, who was said to keep “tame pythons and other snakes” in his homestead. He served in his days as the medium of a spirit named Chaminuka, being credited with “the power to bring rain and to control the movements of game.” Also in Southern Africa, Snook (p. 82) was told by a Swazi elder that “when a chief or one of us diviners passes away, the fluid in the end of the spine turns into a snake.” The ancestors of such distinguished persons, people believed, always returned to “their original snake form” (Ibid.). It is also useful to recall that “the central and 25 26

More will be said about the Ngbandi in chap. 4.14. D. Livingstone, Travels and Explorations in South Africa, 1858.

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most important sacred object of the Zulu”—a large royal coil of herbs known as inkata and somewhat evocative of Aido Hwedo—was “covered in the skin of a python” (Lee 1969: 139). Diving in a pond or river and coming out with a snake around the neck was among the signs attesting that a Zulu person was fit to be taught divination (p. 137, 139).

Box 25 Snakes and Ancestors in Southern Africa Certain types of snakes appearing in huts or at feasts and ceremonies were believed by the Thonga of Mozambique to represent one’s ancestors (MacAlpine 1906: 265-66; Junod, p. 339-40). These snakes were the small blue-green non-venomous chihundje and the large and venomous grey viper. Whenever those serpents showed up in such circumstances, they were not to be interfered with because of what they stood for. Among the “Kaffirs” (Xhosa and others) of South Africa, visiting spirit snakes were known as inyanya or idhlozi and animal sacrifices were offered to them by their living relatives (Schweiger, p. 550). Likewise, the neighbouring Zulu believed in spirit-snakes, thought to be very different from ordinary ophidians (Krige, p. 285). In Zulu belief, all ancestors, male or female, could visit the world of the living in the guise of snakes (p. 174; 286 fn.; also Lugg 1907: 118). Dead kings were represented by certain snakes, which appeared from time to time at the site of their graves; when such an event took place, the spirit-snake was greeted with the royal salute and cattle were sacrificed in its honour (Krige, ibid.). Weissenborn (p. 272) described what happened when a snake visited a Zulu compound: “As soon as one of these reptiles shows itself near the dwellings, they hasten to salute it by the name of ‘Father’, to place pots of milk in its way, and to expel it from the house gently and with the greatest possible respect.”27 As Hambly (p. 29) read in a publication about the Zulu issued in 1904, “If a stranger picks up a stick to attack the [visiting] snake, the people say, ‘Hold! Do you not know that this is our ancestor?’” Here the snake was apparently green or brown and the people were happy with the visit. The Zulu reckoned that “at death a human being may take the form of a snake” (Krige, p. 174). Some members of the Zulu community used to believe that the backbone of a deceased man turned into a snake (Hambly, p. 29). According to others, it was the entrails that became a reptile.

27

Weissenborn quoted a paper from Casalis, a Catholic missionary.

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In an article on the mortuary beliefs and customs of the South-Eastern Bantu, Gluckman (1937: 123) made the following observations: At a Thonga burial [a man] is introduced to the ancestors as ‘dead’, and in the later rites he is himself sacrificed to. Among the Zulu, an old man may be escorted on his way (…) with a sacrifice; and when he dies there is little ceremonial as he has merely ‘gone home’. For a time (…) the spirit is thought to wander after burial in the veld [bush], and then to appear in the form of a snake at a final ceremony some months later. (…) The ancestral spirits communicate with the living through diviners and dreams and by sending illness; they give fertility or barrenness, pestilence, rain, good crops. [By permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd]

Morris provides detailed information pertaining to the Chewa and other Bantu groups from Malawi. Of the more than 40 snake species distinctively identified by the local people (Morris 1998: 145), only a few were associated with some spiritual power: “When the spirits take the form of a snake, three species are usually implied, the python (nsato), the file snake (njokandala), and the puff adder (mphiri, Bitis arietans).”28 Although the latter type is highly poisonous, “when a spirit (mzimu) takes the form of this snake, it is said to be gentle and non-aggressive. People will not kill it, as it is believed not to bite (…). Offerings of flour may be put out for the spirit” (Morris 2000: 235). The dead would also visit the living in the shape of a lion, leopard, or hyena (Morris 1998: 142). The Shona of the Zambia - Zimbabwe borderland avoided the sites where their forebears had been buried; at such places one was likely to encounter snakes, sometimes large ones (Bourdillon 1979: 174). The spirits of the founders of Shona territorial communities used lions, if male, or pythons, when female, as hosts before taking possession of a person earmarked to become a medium; those spirits were reportedly “able to control wind, rain, clouds, and lightning” (Garbett 1969: 114). Bourdillon (p. 180) also reports that “lions were closely associated with chiefly spirits” whereas snakes typically embodied the spirits of defunct commoners. ***** West Africans did not ignore the quasi-universal connection between snakes and water. For instance water-spirits were commonly associated with pythons and rain in southern Guinea and nearby areas (Appia, p. 3428

The python is “the most celebrated” of the three (Morris 2000: 199).

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37). As reported by Hauenstein (1975: 9; 1978: 529), the Baule people of Côte d’Ivoire held that a benevolent python, known to promote the fertility of childless women, inhabited a sacred pond; white animals were offered to it in sacrifice by a local priest. A river-dwelling python, representing in this case the spirits of the dead, was bestowed a white chicken to bring prosperity to the Wobé community (1975: 9; 1978: 531). In another Wobé location, a similar offering was periodically made by a priest to the many snakes, apparently vipers, residing in a—probably damp—cavern (1978: 533-34). Moving north to the Sahelian zone, the Songhai of the middle Niger River valley believed in goru gode, legendary “river-serpents” (Boulnois et al. 1954: 119). These were the lords of surface as well as underground water. When a well dried out, people would say that the local goru gode had deserted the area (p. 120). The Songhai (or Songhoy) also believed that the rainbow serpent, Sadyara, stopped the rain with its back and filled the wells with it (Rouch 1960: 55, 69).29 Among the Hausa of northern Nigeria and south-central Niger, the rainbow was believed to be a great serpent connecting water from above and the wells filled with water from beneath the ground (Nicolas 1980: 594, 596). The founder of the Hausaruling lineages was a stranger who challenged and killed a great snake— known in certain versions as Sarki or Selki—that resided in the town’s well and which devoured anyone attempting to draw water on certain days or after sunset (Tremearne, p. 124-25; Hallam 1966: 47; Nicolas 1975: 6263, 146; Nicolas 1980: 592).30 A similar story was recounted in western Mali and eastern Senegal, notably among the Soninké people. Bida, a mighty serpent, was the custodian of a great well that supplied water to the city of Wagadu, the legendary heart of the ancient kingdom of Ghana. Bida had the power to shower the city once a year with gold, a bounty which, however, was conditional to its being offered at its well the yearly sacrifice of a virgin. At one point, the serpent had its throatʊor its full set of seven throatsʊcut by the very daring and courageous suitor of the 29

For a description of the treatment resorted to by a Songhoy medicine man (songnianke) in case of snake bite, see Boulnois et al., p. 160. 30 The creature was often called Dodo, a designation that applied to various imaginary monsters (Tremearne 1913). Nicolas (1980: 581, 596) sees Dodo notably as a representation of thunder, the divine husband of Damana, the Rainy Season, or as a mythical serpent. Tremearne also referred to a “water spirit” known as Sariki Rafi or Kogi to which a virgin was once sacrificed (p. 111). Sariki or sarki was a common designation for a king, chief, or any leader (Ibid., p. 98; Nicolas, p. 569, 579).

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beautiful virgin who was to be given away to the mighty ophidian. That was reportedly the end of Wagadu’s prosperity.31 The story was known throughout much of the western Sahelian and Sudanian zone. Upstream from the inland delta of the Niger River in Mali, the Tarawure princes claimed a connection with the ancient ruling family of Wagadu; their ancestors, it was said, gained their royal status through the yearly offering to a great serpent of a maiden from their ranks (Bazin, p. 426). Similarly, an epic from the Futa Djallon area of Guinea recounted that the event which in pre-Islamic times paved the way for the foundation of the kingdom of Gabu was the bloody sacrifice to a snake deity known as Dialan Saa of the only and volunteering sister of the young man who was to become the first king; thereafter, the legendary sacrifice was ritually commemorated every year (Kesteloot et al. 2009: 122-37). The Bambara ruler of the Bamako chiefdom was proud of his royal Soninké origin (Pâques 1953: 1645-47, 1652). His palace reportedly concealed a python guarded by a hyena; moreover, a live python had been placed in a vesselʊprobably to keep it dry on account of its solar polarityʊwhich was buried under the gold-and-silver-sheathed royal podium. Both the chief, fama, and the python were connected with gold. The back side of the boubou worn by the fama was decorated notably by an outstanding circular embroidered pattern representing the python, possibly an evocation of the oruboros. Each year a bullock and the first fruits of the harvest were offered to the ophidian protector of his dynasty. Interestingly, a myth recounted by the Venda of north-eastern South Africa features the offering of a maiden to a legendary lacustrine serpent known as Tharu (Eberhardt, p. 16-17). Arguing that “a new phase of comparative studies” should be launched to make use of numerous 31

There are many versions of the legend of Bida. One of the early accounts is that of M. Delafosse in his Traditions Historiques et Légendaires du Soudan Occidental (1913). Frobenius’ African Genesis (1928) provides an early English version. The one presented above is that supplied by the Malian scholar Hampâté Bâ (p. 363). For other versions of the legend, see for example Pâques (1953: 1044; 1964: 137-38), Delafosse (1972: 256-62), Allan et al. (p. 122-23), and Asante’s short note entitled “Dausi” (2009). See also http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/Post/1261392&authorid=238. According to an eleventh-century Arab account consulted by Norris (1972: 9), the people of Ghana “worshipped a certain snake, a monstrous dragon-like reptile which dwelt in a cave in the desert.” Seven-headed dragons were a feature of Mesopotamian mythology (Bottéro et al., p. 345). For the ancient Sumerians and other early Semites, seven represented a “totality” or the “superlative degree” (Ibid., p. 290, 590).

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“individual studies,” Eberhardt insists on the similarities between this myth and the Fulani legend of Tyanaba. Indeed, the Venda story tells that the mythical python had taken a second wife, who soon transgressed the prohibition to see her strange, i.e. cold-blooded, spouse in broad daylight. The serpent immediately disappeared in the depth of a lake. The eclipse of Tharu was followed by a terrible drought and a great famine. The following episodes of the narrative are more in line with the myth of Bida. The Venda diviners asserted that the cause of these misfortunes was the disappearance of the monstrous python in the deep lake, which by then had become the only place where water was still to be found. The diviners also revealed that Tharu desired that his young bride join him in the lake. The young lady, carrying a jar of beer made by other maidens, was escorted by the people into the lake. Soon rain began to fall and the land recovered its fertility. The offering of a new bride to the python god was repeated every year. Likewise in the egend of Bida, the deal between the people and the great python was that the yearly offering of a beautiful maiden that was compensated by a shower of gold, meaning rain and prosperity.32 The consequence of the slaying by an amorous suitor of the ophidian deity at the site of the great well in which it resided was a terrible drought, which caused the downfall of the city of Wagadu and the demise of its kingdom. In the Venda story, a brave suitor never shows up to behead the mighty serpent. As chapters 4.2, 4.3, and 5.1 (Box 44) will show, Eastern Africa also knew of maidens handed out to great serpents, which in some cases were decapitated by brave men. ***** Many connections may be established with ancient civilisations. The legends of Sarki and Bida for instance would seem to evoke ancient IndoEuropean myths. They hint notably at the story of the Greek hero Kadmos, who killed a cruel and terrifying serpent that watched over a sacred spring. In the latter myth, the heroic act was a prelude to laying the foundations of a city. The two Sahelian legends also echo the rescue of an Abyssinian princessʊAndromeda, doomed to be devoured by a water-dwelling monsterʊby another Greek hero, Perseus. Exposing a newly born child to a venomous snake so as to ascertain that it is legitimate, as occurred in 32

The Baule of Côte d’Ivoire used small metal representations of snakes to weigh gold (Villiers, p. 61). The gold dug out of mountain slopes in southern Benin reportedly originated from the excrement of Aido Hwedo (Merlo et al. 1966b: 309). In Ancient Mesopotamia, digging for minerals was an activity carried out on mountains (Bottéro et al., p. 355, 379).

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some Hausa families, is reminiscent of ancient Cyrenaica where, among the Psylli “snake-people,” newborn boys were placed amidst venomous snakes; only an illegitimate child would be terrorised (Canova 1994: 184 fn.). A sacred snake similarly sanctioned in Chad and elsewhere in the Sahel the accession to office of someone from the royal lineage. The holy serpent that blessed a newly selected king in precolonial Angola simply by tasting the food offered to it by its priestess reflects scenes from ancient Greece and Rome in which people were anxious that their sacred snakes partook of the food given them at certain moments of the year. The great serpent sent by the Supreme God of the Fon to hold the two halves of the world together parallels the mighty Egyptian god Sito and the old Indian mythical serpent Shesha, “The-One-Bearing-the-Earth.” In parts of West Africa, as in ancient civilisations, earthquakes were assumed to be caused by the movement of divine serpents supporting the earth and the fertility of cultivated land was determined by agrarian snake deities. The Limba myth telling of a wasted medicine meant to grant immortality to humans appears to be a variant of an old Greek story whereby God gave humans a similar medicine, which, out of thirst, Donkey handed to Snake in exchange for water.

CONCLUDING NOTE TO PART III

Many of the standard thematic constituents of ophidian symbology were clearly represented in Western, Saharan, Central, and Southern Africa: snake and water (including rain and rainbow); snake and agriculture; snake, immortality, and divinity; snake, life, and fertility; snake and death, including ancestors and sorcery; house snakes (guardian spirits?); snake and milk; snake and knowledge: divination, guidance, certification of legitimacy, and omens (implying notably impending death); and even snake and the origin of the world. However, the research conducted in view of these chaptersʊwhich is a very partial exploration of the vast ethnographic recordʊdiscloses few evidence of the healing snake, one of the key aspects of ophidian symbology in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean realms. The strong connection between snakes and twins in western as well as Central Africa would seem, at this stage, to be peculiar to these areas. Over and above the significant continuities between Africa and the old civilisations, Part III has shown in some detail that thanks notably to the analogical mode of thought, the divide between what we have been accustomed to view as the human and animal realms was porous in Africa. This included the man-snake relationship, thereby opening the possibility that some snakes could somehow be humans, that some humans could very well be, in certain contexts, ophidians in human guise, and even that creatures could have mixed human-ophidian profiles.1 In other words, humans could partake of the ophidian identity not only metaphorically but also substantially through some assumed primeval alliance or brotherhood, through some common origin, or otherwise. Nor did Africans operate an absolute distinction between the world of living creatures and that of the spirits. Natural or human spirits could materialise in animal form, notably in the guise of snakes.

1

Similar beliefs occurred in some of the ancient civilisations reviewed in Part II.

PART IV SNAKES IN THE CULTURAL SETTING OF EASTERN AFRICA

No in-depth description or thorough analysis of ophidian symbology have ever been attempted for Eastern Africa or for any other large portion of the continent. Knowing that colonialism and Christianity have had an extremely deleterious impact on snake beliefs across the continent, much of the more telling evidence has been collected in publications dating back to the nineteenth century or the early decades of the twentieth century. Eastern Africa will here encompass the Horn of Africa as well as peripheral areas of Central and Southern Africa. Ophidian symbolism was very much apparentʊone could almost say “rampant”ʊin Eastern Africa in general. This was especially the case in Abyssinia, notably in its southern reaches. That is why Part V (Volume Two) will be devoted to that single portion of Eastern Africa lato sensu. It is important to emphasise that over and above the linguistic divides— mostly Cushitic, Bantu, and Nilotic language families—the peoples of Eastern Africa and the Horn have long been interconnected both historically and culturally. This large area was not made up of wholly unrelated peoples. Many East African communities had more or less mixed origins. Leaving aside the introductory and concluding sections, Part IV is made up of fourteen chapters covering the most significant aspects of the traditionally rich East African snake symbology: from phantasmagorical to sacred or mantic serpents, and from witches to snake-doctors and snakecults. The chapters that are relatively short in extent will nonetheless exhibit significant facets of the regional ophidian symbology. Chapters 4.10 and 4.13 will foreshadow Part V (Volume Two) to some extent. The diverse ethnological data presented will highlight cultural patterns that were common to a number of ethnic groups. It is likely that further research would disclose other ethnographic cases more or less similar to the ones documented below. Although the whole ethnographic record

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could not be reviewed, the researcher has covered a lot of ground over the recent decades. It can be asserted with some confidence that the present study covers all the major aspects of East African ophidian symbology.

CHAPTER 4.1 HUMAN COMMUNITIES AND SNAKES IN TRADITIONAL EASTERN AFRICA

Eastern Africa has long been reputed for the richness of its fauna. This, of course, was even more the case when much of the land was sparsely populated. Like so many other species, snakes used to be more common than nowadays. This comes out quite clearly from the written sources. Long ago, Burton (1856: 159 fn.) reported that “snakes are rare in the cities, but abound in the wilds of Eastern Africa, and are dangerous to night travellers, though seldom seen by day,” that being the case notably in the Harar region of semiarid eastern Ethiopia. In the wilderness of Somalia, harmful ophidians, particularly the saw-scaled viper, were quite commonly met with and very much feared (Révoil, p. 61, 70). There were, according to Mbiti (1966: 117 fn.), “vast numbers of snakes” in eastern Kenya. In the homeland of the Kikuyu of central Kenya, as Cagnolo (p. 13) observed, “the python is fairly represented. Spitting snakes, vipers, and adders of all sizes and colours are to be met with some frequency.” In the arid lands of northern Kenya, “the extremely venomous puff adder and spitting cobra are all too common, and cause injury, often death, to livestock and humans every year” (Tablino, p. 282). In southwestern Kenya, “grass and tree-snakes are very numerous, especially in the hotter [= lower] parts” (Massam, p. 236), the “biggest representative of the family” being the python, mostly to be found in the valleys (Ibid.). Likewise, in central Uganda, “there are a large number of snakes, of which the puff adder (both Bitis arietans and gabonica), the cobra, the black and green mamba, and a thin black viper are the most poisonous. There are also venomous water-snakes in the marshes, and pythons are not uncommon, but do not attain a great length” (Driberg 1923: 47). Lango men used to go around carrying walking sticks “partly for protection against snakes, and partly to probe the path in the innumerable marshes” (p. 63-64). Eastern Uganda was also “infested with snakes,” the three most venomous species being the slow-moving “desert viper” (Bitis gabonica) and two types of swift cobras (Farina, p. 34). Of northern Tanzania, Klima

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(1970: 43) writes that “Snakes are numerous (…) and are of poisonous and non-poisonous variety. Poisonous snakes most commonly encountered are the cobra, the puff adder, the black and green mambas, and various vipers. There is a wide assortment of non-poisonous snakes of which the python is the most mysterious but least frequently seen.” The Egyptian cobra, Naja haje, often all black, was the “most feared” ophidian in much of colonial central Sudan, the more common snake being the less poisonous Carpet or Saw-scaled viper, Echis carinatus (Corkill 1935a: 248, 254).1 In contemporary South Sudan, more exactly in Nuer country, “tree cobras, spitting vipers and puff-adders” have been reported to be quite common (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 68-69). In neighbouring Dinkaland, most of the local species of snakes were said to be “very poisonous,” so much so that in the 1960s “many people were bitten and killed each year” (Akol 2005: 62). However, according to Loveridge (1928: 106), “only thirty” out of the 150 species then recorded in Eastern Africa were dangerous to humans and “only half a dozen species of these poisonous reptiles are really common or come in contact with man.”2 Snakes show little sexual dimorphism but there is plenty of evidence to the effect that East Africans knew that snakes were either male or female. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate this point. Near the western shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda, people revered a male python god named Selwanga, whose sister was known as Nalwanga (Roscoe 1909a: 89-90). She was the wife of Mukasa, the supreme guardian spirit of the Ganda people (MacCulloch, p. 400). A colonial officer was shown serpents by a local snake-specialist in eastern Kenya, some of which were presented to him as males and others as female specimens (Hobley 1922: 200). Among the Oromo and related groups, there were families reputed to “breed” snakes (Baxter 1954: 101-102; Kassam 1983: 25). Both the Borana and Arsi Oromo believed that snakes lived in pairs and that the surviving member of a pair would go after its mate’s killer (Haberland, p. 256, 505). The same representation occurred in parts of Sudan (Corkill, p. 256) and Eastern Africa (Loveridge, p. 112).3 The founding ancestors of the priestly clan of the Tsamako of south-western Ethiopia were a man, the 1

According to the then-director of the Sudan Medical Department, the saw-scaled viper and another type of small viper were accountable for most of the casualties due to snake bite (Pridie 1935: 361). 2 Certain groups, such as the Shi of eastern DRC, reckoned that all snakes were venomous (Chifundera 1992: 40). 3 That theory had some currency in Roman times and in the fourteenth-century Arabic world (Canova 1991: 219; 1990: 198).

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very first human on earth, and a female snake, which bore him a son and a daughter (Jensen 1959: 364). Some people believed that the members of a certain Dinka sub-clan were witches because they were deemed to descend from a female cobra, which had been one of the several wives of the clan founder (Lienhardt 1951: 308). In southern South Sudan, a type of harmless snake was called yakanye, “grandmother,” by the Bari people (Seligman et al. 1932: 275). The snakes so called were reported to “occasionally” visit huts and believed to be the “children of God” (Seligman et al. 1928: 462), or possibly its “daughters.” The members of a Sukuma snake society in north-western Tanzania would affectionately refer to certain snakes as “mothers” (Cory 1946: 168).

Box 26 Snakes and Native Animal Classification Systems It is warranted at this stage to grapple with the sophisticated issue of how ophidians fit in indigenous animal classification systems or in approximations of such systems. The author will barely touch upon this topic since indigenous animal classifications, as far as he is aware, have not received much attention in Eastern Africa and perhaps in Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. The first aspect is that the ophidian category, as Westerners and others understand it, was not necessarily viewed as a unitary group by Africans. The Datog people of northern Tanzania for example made distinctions between what may be characterised as ordinary snakes (ichibooda), pythons (nyashta), and little black snakes, which were not believed to be snakes at all but “spirits,” meang’eanyenda (Blystad 2000: 117; Klima, p. 43). The Murle of eastern South Sudan set snakes, lizards, and mussels apart from all other forms of animal life (Arensen 1998: 214); they also differentiate between snakes, kowatnya, and pythons, oriyanyet, only the latter being associated with “dangerous things” even though kowatnya notably include the highly venomous cobras (p. 191; 197, 200, 214). Among the Dorze of south-western Ethiopia, serpents were neatly set apart from domestic animals, wild animals, and birds (Sperber, p. 9) because they were taken to be close to local or earthly spirits. In south-western Tanzania, snakes, amasoka, were also distinguished by the Fipa people from inyama, a class of animals embracing “all land animals,” whether domestic or wild, including reptiles (Willis 1974: 47). One sub-class of inyama known as ifikaangu designates “all dangerous wild animals.” Even though not part of the inyama class, some harmful snakes such as the

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cobra were reckoned to be ifikaangu (p. 49). The classification system of the Chewa of Malawi is similar to that of the Fipa: all edible quadrupeds are classified as nyama; birds as mbalame; fish and edible crustaceans as nsomba; useless organisms as chirombo; standing apart are the members of the njoka category, comprising snakes and intestinal worms (Morris 1998: 144). The Luba of south-eastern DRC were among the various groups that also viewed the long intestinal worm as a “snake” (Burton 1961: 143). A number of African peoples, notably from Eastern and Southern Africa, connected snakes with fish. As reported long ago by Amélineau (p. 337) and Weissenborn (p. 271), who relied on two different earlier eyewitnesses, some Southern African communities would never eat fish because they were likened to snakes. More recent observers, such as Lindbloom (p. 128, 332), McL Wilson (1952: 41), Newman (1970: 44), and Jellicoe (p. 26, 116), have come upon the same creed regarding the Kamba of eastern Kenya, the Datog of northern Tanzania, and the Rimi (or Wahi, Turu) of central Tanzania. Likewise, the Maasai “refer jokingly to fish as snakes, mi-ki-nya o-sinkir amu il-asuriaa: ‘We do not eat fish because they are snakes’” (Mol 1996: 187). A Fipa proverb seems to imply the same connection: “Don’t hurt the black snake; it may produce a black fish,” i.e. the non-edible black snake may produce an edible dark mudfish (Willis 1974: 102). The snake-fish connection probably had to do with the fact that they are both scaly. Moreover, both show little sexual differentiation and many snake species take to water. Other East Africans, such as the members of the Sukuma and Nyamwezi “snake societies” of central and northern Tanzania, postulated zoological connections between snakes and crocodiles. The latter took the crocodile to be a “water python,” sawaka gamaji (Carnochan et al. 1937: 277) whereas the former viewed the same reptile as “the ancestor of all snakes” (Cory 1946: 175).4 Snakes and crocodiles were also seen as related by some tribal communities of eastern Angola, perhaps because both lay eggs (Hauenstein 1960: 229, 231). As for the Himba of the Namibia-Angola borderlands, their theory was that all snakes, turtles, and lizards derive from the tortoise; they also believed the puff adder to be the mother snake species (Crandall, p. 300). The Rimi of central Tanzania took a legendary python to be the genitor or master of the smaller snakes, notably the 4

In eastern Kenya, the Kamba used to “believe that the python breeds all reptiles” (Lindbloom, p. 330). A Mossi saying from Burkina Faso implied that Snake was Crocodile’s big brother or father (Mangin 1914: 117).

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venomous ones (Jellicoe 1967-68: 45). The Keyo of south-western Kenya ranked the python higher than the rhinoceros and elephant in the animal hierarchy because very large specimens were feared by both as well as by other animals (Massam, p. 183). ***** As one may suspect, snakes were perceived diversely across Eastern Africa and the Horn. In some cases, the perception seems to have been wholly negative. For instance the contemporary Hadza hunter-gatherers of north-central Tanzania are reckoned to “hate” snakes (Finkell 2009: 105). The Kamba of eastern Kenya used to “detest snakes,” to be “afraid of them,” and to “kill them whenever possible” (Mbiti 1966: 117 fn.). For the Rega of the Kivu area in eastern DRC, snakes embody evil and are held responsible for all the problems afflicting the village (Chifundera et al. 1989: 39). From the standpoint of the Dizi mountain peasants of southwestern Ethiopia, snakes are viewed as “unreliable animal[s] attacking when no one expects it” (Abbink 2006: 236). The term used by the nearby Hamar to designate a traitor was the same as that for a snake: guni (Strecker, no date).5 In the 1950s, creeping reptiles were “greatly feared” by the Nilotic Pokot of south-western Kenya (Schneider 1967: 285). The related and nearby Sebei used to “hate snakes” and to “kill them whenever they [saw] them, whether they [were] poisonous or not” (Goldschmidt 1976: 249).6 Both groups have been described as particularly or “inordinately” fearful of death (Schneider, p. 282; Goldschmidt, p. 310; Goldschmidt 1986: 68). The Sebei were wary of ancestral spirits (oyik) since “even the good ones” could turn out to be “jealous and vindictive” (Goldschmidt 1986: 69). The oyik were believed to “dwell in a vague underworld” (p. 113), a realm they must have shared with snakes. The attitude of the Sebei towards snakes was possibly exacerbated by their fear of ancestral spirits. Many groups, however, were not wholly antagonistic towards snakes. The men of a group of hunter-gatherers of northern Tanzania other than the Hadza were skilful killers of snakes but they refrained from the, in their understanding, inauspicious shedding of python’s blood (Maguire 1928: 5 Along the same line, the British and other Westerners have been typified in recent years as “snakes” by the propaganda of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe (Ayittey 2005: 422). 6 In the same area, the Gusii people used to assimilate a “hyper-aggressive man” to a “biting snake” (LeVine et al. 1966: 78).

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265). Similarly, the Gimira of south-west Ethiopia earnestly got rid of all snakes, except for those black ones encountered in cultivated land; such a reptile was believed to be the “master of the field” (Lange 1975: 51, 148, 237). The Nilotic Dinka of South Sudan referred to above would “not touch or go near a dead snake of most types” (Lienhardt 1961: 308). As we shall see below, some members of that community were respectful and even friendly with snakes. In fact, a few Dinka clans had a snake as their totem animal. The eastern neighbours of the Dinka had a similar attitude towards ophidians: The Murle have a good understanding of the varied species of snakes. Each species has its own Murle name and the people know which ones are poisonous and which ones are not. In some other areas of Africa which I have visited, the people are afraid of all snakes and kill them on sight. However, the Murle seldom kill snakes. They say they are somehow related to jook [= a spiritual entity to be wary of] and [a reliable informant] assured me that this belief was inherited from the Dinka. They ignore the non-poisonous types and avoid the poisonous ones when they come upon them in the bush. Only when a poisonous snake takes up an abode near theirs will they make an effort to destroy it or drive it away. (Arensen, 1992, p. 248)

Arensen (Ibid.) quotes Evans-Pritchard (1956: 81) about a well-known and nearby people similarly inclined towards snakes: “While I would hesitate to say that all Nuer have a high regard for snakes, it can be said that they do not go out of their way to harm them.” In far north-western Kenya, the Nilotic Turkana “both fear and respect snakes. Some they hate for good reason, so they kill them if they can. They shout “Emun! Taara inges!” (A snake! Kill it!). With nonpoisonous snakes they are more gentle.”7 In nearby eastern Uganda, as perceived by Farina (p. 71), the related Karimojong “abhor” snakes, toads, and similar creatures so much that they “would not touch them for all the gold in the world.” According to Dyson-Hudson (1966: 128), “all Karimojong, including Ngimuno,8 kill snakes because they are dangerous.” Moreover, none of them will eat snake flesh as it is held to be “unclean food” (Ibid.). Commenting on Dyson-Hudson’s remarks, Knighton states that the Karimojong and related nearby tribal communities such as the Jie and Dodos “will kill snakes with great expertise while 7

Father A. Barrett, personal communication, June 28, 2017. Ngimuno, meaning “The snakes” or “The secret ones” (Knighton, p. 54), is the name of the Karimojong territorial section that has muno, the snake, as its emblem.

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travelling or working if they regard them as dangerous” but they will not harm them if found in a place “associated with an ancestor or possibly a sacred place, which is associated with the elders.” He adds that they “certainly will not eat snakes, however famished they may be, but this could be due more to their spiritual associations than to a phobia.”9 Indeed, Knighton (p. 231) reports that two types of tree snakes, i.e. cobras (ataloupal) and green snakes (ngikoliterak), are connected with the highly respected ngipian, or water spirits, which are related to “lightning, rain, rivers, and ponds” (p. 33). Like the trees they inhabit, such ophidians are never harmed by the Karimojong. In a later chapter, we will return to the circumstances where snakes are taken to be inviolable by these people.10 Some ethnic communities, although wary of them, had a somewhat positive attitude towards snakes. According for instance to one observer (Reece 1963: 195), these reptiles were viewed as “holy creatures” by the Borana of northern Kenya. Other writers were led to believe that in southern Ethiopia the same Oromo community was involved in “snake worship” (Hodson 1927: 44; Wingfield 1948: 361). Paradoxically, at least according to Haberland (p. 256), the Borana and other Oromo communities deemed all snakes, their breath and flesh, to be poisonous. Similarly, Cole (1902: 328, 335), an early European observer, reported that the Gogo of central Tanzania “worship the puff adder as being possessed by the milungu,” i.e. ancestral spirits. Their attitude contrasted sharply with the deep-seated “hatred” experienced for instance by the Sebei.

Box 27 Rulers and Snakes in the Lacustrine Kingdoms of Eastern and Central Africa Serpents were culturally important figures in much of the Great-Lakes Region of Eastern and Central Africa.

9

Dr Ben Knighton, personal communication, September 15, 2017. See chap. 4.5. As mentioned in chap. 3.1, one of the territorial sections of the Karimojong bears the name Pian. Its emblematic animal was the crocodile, a water reptile. The name of this section must be related to the word ngipian (plural prefix ngi- appended to the root pian). The ngipian were also believed to be “water spirits” by the neighbouring and closely related Dodoth (Thomas 1972: 180). Worth noting is that the term for “cobra” is pian in the language of the Nilotic Dinka people (See chap. 4.8). Excellent swimmers, cobras are often found near water. 10

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The major deity revered by the Ganda people was Mukasa, who was described by Roscoe (1911: 300) as the god of Lake Victoria. As such he controlled storms, permitted fruitful fishing expeditions, and protected those who travelled by boat. But he was also a god of prosperity—notably the bestower of twins (p. 299)—and a healer of bodies and spirits (p. 290). Mukasa had temples in various places in the kingdom of Buganda. His chief temple and priest were located on Bubembe Island (Lake Victoria). Only the king and some major chiefs could set foot on the island. Next to this great temple was a smaller one dedicated to Mukasa’s first wife, Nalwanga, a “pythoness” whose “chief function was to assist [local] childless women to become mothers” (p. 301). Another serpent god, Selwanga, Nalwanga’s “brother,” had his temple on the western shore of the lake. He was a provider of fish and a “giver of children” (p. 320-22). Mukasa was originally named Selwanga by his mother (p. 291). Southwold (1973: 163) corroborates Mukasa’s connection with serpents: “The chief god Mukasa was held to bestow human fertility and seems to be often invoked for this purpose. He is associated with pythons and I think the phallic symbolism is quite obvious.” The king of Buganda was additionally connected with pythons through his most important drum, which was known as timba, meaning “python” in Luganda, the local language (Kenny 1977: 728). The drum was beaten on rare occasions: upon undertaking a major war expedition, upon the death of one of the king’s sons, and when the king undertook the yearly pilgrimage to Bubembe Island. Kenny (Ibid.) argues that the timba drum was Mukasa’s voice. North-west of Buganda, the king of the Nyoro “had a special temple at Kisengwa in which a priest dwelt with a living python which he fed with milk” (Roscoe 1923: 44). In Ankole, south of Buganda, the bodies of dead princes and princesses were “thought to produce snakes, which [were] cared for in temples by the priests” (Meldon 1907: 151; MacCulloch, p. 405).11 Further south in the far north-western portion of present-day Tanzania, members of the royal family of Buhaya also had a special relationship with snakes. It was locally believed that “the souls of dead rulers passed into snakes” so the people of the kingdom refrained from killing “certain species of snake” (La Fontaine et al. 1959: 179). Likewise, in nearby Bukoba certain snakes reputed to be “sacred” would not be destroyed; a ritual officer was charged with burying dead sacred snakes that were found in the bush or in villages (Weissenborn, p. 274). In Buha to the south of Burundi, to kill a 11

A more reliable informant states that only the mothers and wives of kings “turned into snakes” after their burial in a sacred grove while dead kings became lions (Williams, p. 68, 74).

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python (nsato) used to be a crime; such snakes were said to belong to the local earth-priests, abateko; as a matter of fact, the people referred to pythons as abateko; the Buha traditional leaders reportedly had the power to convoke pythons and order them to kill (Walsh 1997: 2-3).12 One of the more interesting cases is provided by the people of Bushi, a kingdom bordering south-western Rwanda and north-western Burundi in present-day DRC’s Province of South-Kivu. Bearing the title of mwami like his Burundian and Rwandan counterparts, the Bushi king was mystically connected with a sacred viper of the Bitis family known as Mugashano. It was said that the viper was seen next to one of the mwami’s newly-born sons tasting the porridge served to him. That was interpreted as a sure sign that this particular son would in time become the supreme ruler of Bushi.13 Moreover, the enthronement of a new king necessitated the provision of a skin from a mugashano snake.14 In some cases, perceptions have changed dramatically in the course of twentieth-century colonisation and Christianisation. For instance, as Deng (1972: 157) notes, “snakes, which symbolise divinities among the Dinka, suddenly represented evil among the converts and were killed to the awe of traditionalists who expected evil in consequence.” Likewise, knowing that the snake plays “categorically negative [roles] in Ethiopian Christian eschatology,” the attitude towards snakes was significantly altered once the peoples of southern Ethiopia were absorbed into the Abyssinian empire in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Lange 1982: 285-86). There is no way of knowing how widespread that change of perception may have been. It is likely to have occurred in all the regions that have been more or less thoroughly Christianised in the early decades of the twentieth century such as the kingdoms of Buganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. This brief and preliminary overview already makes clear that the perception of snakes in traditional Eastern Africa was not limited to the recording of objective facts. It was largely shaped by an array of cultural 12

Walsh relies on a publication in Swahili by P. Chubwa issued in 1986. This is reminiscent of Psylli custom in ancient Cyrenaica (Chap. 3.3), of how some Hausa lineages would ascertain the legitimacy of a child (Chap. 3.3), and of how a contemporary Egyptian snake-charmer identified among his sons the one who would follow in his tracks (Box 5, chap. 2.1). 14 The author owes this information to Z. K. Chifundera. Email dated October 11, 2013. According to him (1992: 40), the mugashano “harboured the divine power” of Bushi kings. 13

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or religious representations. As the following chapters will demonstrate, the scope of such representations was comparatively greater in the case of ophidians than, say, in the case of apes or elephants.15

15

See chap. 3.1.

CHAPTER 4.2 FABULOUS, MONSTROUS, OR PRIMEVAL SERPENTS

Our explorations into East African ophidian symbology will begin with a survey of imaginary serpents. Some of the creeds about snakes were fanciful, as this short chapter will demonstrate. The Luo people of south-western Kenya are said to believe in “a huge fertility and harvest serpent” known as Nyang’indi (Owuor et al. 2005: 132). The Arsi of southern Ethiopia told an early British traveller that “huge pythons” as well as other “uncanny creatures” lived in the great caves of the Webi Gesero River (Hodson, p. 97). The neighbouring Borana reckon that when pythons get very big, they grow ears and can even swallow cattle (Leus et al., p. 367). They also hold that “after becoming large some snakes grow nails or claws at the tail end with which they are able to seize things, as with their mouth” (p. 71). Likewise, Cerulli (1922: 108) heard in Ethiopia of a big serpent with a red head, held by some Oromo to have “sixty little claws which the hunters cut off and sell for a great price because [they] believe that these claws are a remedy for many diseases.” The mighty serpent was therefore a healing creature. From an Arab text dating back to the tenth century, Canova (1991: 222-23) reports a somewhat similar story about the Zafqu, a Sudanese people: the men feeling capable of taking over tribal leadership would assemble before a cave and exhort the very large crested snake that lived there to come out of its abode; the snake would then feel the candidates one by one; the man whom it hit with its nose was designated as the next ruler; he would hasten to pick out as many bits of skin and crest of the serpent as he could before it retired into its cavern, knowing that the number of his trophies would determine the period of his leadership. The legendary Ndamathia, a riverdwelling monster known to the Kikuyu of central Kenya, echoed to some extent the representations of the Zafqu and Oromo since it was believed to have “life-giving tail hairs” (Lonsdale 1992: 345). At a major tribal ceremony held every few decades, the monster was lured out of the river

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by a ceremonial horn and a beautiful maiden and rendered harmless by powerful medicines. Since Ndamathia was said to be so long, its tail finally came out of the water after many hours: The magicians and the warriors waited patiently to fulfil their sacred mission. At last the tail came out of the water, they sprung at it and each of them plucked as many tail hairs as he could lay his hands on. Then immediately they returned to the bush and ran as fast as they could to avoid being followed by the angry monster. Because when the hair was plucked, the pain drove the great monster mad, and made it return back to the river at great speed to see who it was that dared to interfere with its sacred hair. (Kenyatta, 1968, p. 191)1 [Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd/Penguin Books Ltd, ©1938]

What differentiated the lengthy Ndamathia from the Zafqu and Oromo monsters was that it evoked the rainbow, a theme that will be dealt with in chapter 4.6. Among the ophidian species known to the Rek Dinka of South Sudan was gut, a black poisonous snake which reportedly had two mouths, one at each end of its body.2 Similar representations were found among some Angolan communities, as noted in chapter 3.3. The Kamba of eastern Kenya believed that the kipi, a short “dark grey blindworm” of the Typhlops type, whose tail is not easily distinguishable from its head, has two heads (Lindbloom, p 331). The Chagga had a similar belief (Ibid.). In Malawi at the southern periphery of Eastern Africa, the Chewa and other ethnic groups also speak of an extraordinary serpent known as Nthonga or Biritsi. It corresponds to the blind snake, Typhlops schlegeli, of the biologists. Although harmless to humans and rarely seen, this small earthdwelling species of snake was believed to be two-headed and venomous. Only very heavy rains would drive it out of the ground. Seeing it was believed to bring “misfortune” (Morris 2000: 200). The belief in twoheaded snakes is reported of the Rega of Kivu Province in eastern DRC (Chifundera et al. 1989: 40).

1

Leakey (p. 1283) was told the same story. In his account, the maiden is covered with so much castor oil that she is rescued from the mythical serpent, which fails to hold its grip on her. Without disclosing the name of the river “monster,” Cagnolo (p. 123) recorded a similar story among the same Kikuyu. 2 See the English to Dinka Glossary (M. Brisco, May 2006), p. 185: http://www.rogerblench.info/Language%20data/Nilo-Saharan/Nilotic/EnglishDinka%20glossary%207%20May.pdf.

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Another type of fanciful representation found in Eastern Africa, more exactly north-eastern Africa, has to do with jewel-bearing or shining serpents. Burton (1856: 159 fn.) for instance heard among the Somali of “a flying snake which hoards precious stones,” which may have hinted at the rainbow. The Somali also recounted the legend of Mas Jawhar, a gigantic cave-dwelling serpent (mas) which vomited a gleaming jewel, jawhar, that attracted its victims (Bader 2000: 134-35). According to another Somali legend, there was a species of serpent with a precious stone on its head, which was very conspicuous at night (Révoil, p. 344). The Afar people similarly recollected the story of a mythical serpent of considerable size known as Gabbay, which projected a dazzling light beam at night while also exuding a lethal liquid (Morin 1997: 154). They more generally believed that the black-necked cobra has a light (goharat) that it uses at night; anyone who attempts to take it away from it incurs its wrath (Ibid., p. 109 fn.). Jeffreys (p. 251, 253) has reported stories from certain parts of Nigeria telling of forest pythons that vomit gleaming stones said to be used as torches by hunters at night. An Ekoi fable, also from Nigeria, may help to trace the origin the “jewel-bearing serpent” theme: Python takes from its head a “shining stone” and sends Crocodile to buy some tasty food from Sheep; the latter is so fascinated by the stone that it willingly exchanges its entire farm for it; its fascination for the bright stone, however, is shared neither by other animals nor by humans; it is finally brought up to the sky people, who marvel at it; and it becomes the moon (Scheub 2002: 275-79; also Lynch et al., p. 106). MacCulloch (p. 409) provided evidence confirming the widespread belief in the “magic stone” carried by some snakes. Now one learns from Éliade (1996: 441; also 271-72) that the blue stone lapis lazuli was regarded as sacred in ancient Mesopotamia because “it stood for the starring night and the god of the moon, Sin.” As we saw in Box 6 (Chap. 2.1), the Mesopotamian moon god was connected with serpents.3 ***** It was mentioned in the first part of this book that the Niger River in West Africa was associated with a mythical serpent in Malinké and Fulani traditions. Similar representations were held in Eastern Africa. In southern 3

As noted in chapter 2.3, cobras were believed by Indians to have shining jewels in their heads. There was possibly a connection with the fabulous jewel-bearing serpents of the Afar and Somali.

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South Sudan for instance, the Nyarkiteƾ clan of the Mandari claimed ownership of a portion of a river, arguing that it had been created by a scary half-man, half-snake creature which had given possession of the river to the clan founder (Buxton 1973: 367). The Oromo of Ethiopia often referred to Boranticha, a powerful and much-feared river serpent or riverspirit. Knutsson (1967: 57) labels it “the divine serpent.” According to Hultin (1990a: 160), it was considered by the Oromo as “the divinity of rivers.” Upon reaching a ford, these people had the “custom of striking the handle of the lance, perhaps in order to exorcise the genius of the river” (Cerulli 1922: 199). De Salviac (1901: 162) and Ambatchew et al. (1957: 20) report a similar ritual. Indeed, rivers were viewed as “the seat of malevolent spirits” (Cerulli, p. 135), including the fearsome Boranticha: “If, when crossing a river, one neglects to offer a tribute to Boranticha (…), he may drag one down into the river” (Knutsson, p. 45). It was also reputedly capable of seizing and impregnating young ladies. In addition to providing a convenient explanation for drowning, the association of large snakes with rivers may be rooted in the perception that, seen from some highland—a common feature in Abyssinia—a flowing stream is not unlike an undulating serpent.4 Likewise, in western Uganda (Bunyoro), “two rivers, the Mazizi and the Kafu, were said to be the abode of sacred snakes. These rivers were subject to rapid rises, which were often caused by storms high up in some part of the country which drained into them. There being no apparent reason for such risings, they were attributed to the sacred snakes” (Roscoe 1923: 42-43).5 Offerings were made to these mighty and mysterious river creatures by a local medicine man on behalf of those who wanted to cross the river so that they were ferried safely to the opposite bank on large rafts (Ibid.). In Malawi at the outskirts of Eastern Africa, “some of the mountains, particularly Michesi, Mulanje, and Zomba, are (…) associated with a mythical being called Napolo who is described as a huge serpent spirit. This serpent is associated with the rains but particularly with thunderstorms and floods” (Morris 2000: 207). The name Napolo was only heard when torrents of mud and water originating from the highlands 4

An early British diplomat posted in Abyssinia compared a lowland stream seen from a high place to “a glittering serpent” (Plowden 1868: 395). 5 The snake believed to reside in the Muzizi River was known as Ateenyi. Some boys from Bunyoro used to proudly wear that name. See “Banyoro: Their magic empaako and marriage traditions.” Accessed October 8, 2012. http://www.ugpulse.com/heritage/banyoro-their-magic-empaako-and-marriagetraditions/565/ug.aspx.

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flooded the plain and the villages below, as it dramatically happened in 1946 and 1991. The local Chewa people tended to view Napolo “as a huge subterranean serpent-spirit, associated with water” (p. 210) and they all spoke of the spirit “as a snake (njoka), that comes together with water” (p. 211). The river-serpents of Bunyoro and the fearsome Napolo would seem to be low-grade realisations of Chinawezi, the primeval “cosmic serpent” of the Lunda, whose lands straddle Angola and DRC. Female and terrestrial, Chinawezi made the rivers swell whenever she heard her thundering husband, Nkuba, Lightning (Scheub, p. 29; also Lynch et al., p. 114). She is sometimes pictured as the “Mother of all Things” and the “Master of the Earth and (earthly) Water” (de Heusch 1982b: 339, 341, 370). Snakes of gigantic proportions were indeed part of the cultural landscape in the areas we are concerned with. For example the Ochollo of southwestern Ethiopia feared a gigantic snake living in a lake and capable of rising and reaching up to the sky at night (Abélès 1983: 152). The nearby Gamo also believed in a great serpent that rose to the sky to catch stars (Bureau 1994: 149). The Maasai likewise believed in Ne-matampo, a legendary snake “so long that it drinks from the clouds” (Mol, p. 39, 305). Not far from the Ochollo, the women of a particular Janjero clan were charged with periodically feeding—notably with milk, butter, honey, and blood from animal sacrifices—a huge snake living in a great cave on Mt Bor; the great serpent could reach the sky and it drank water from the Omo River at the foot of the mountain; it caused earthquakes when infuriated and played a part in the creation of the world (Straube 1963: 357).6 The Ochollo, Janjero, and Maasai representation of a great snake reaching up to the sky corresponds to a myth common to various East African peoples. At the beginning of times, there was direct communication between sky and earth because of a “rope” that hung down from the former to the then proximate Earth. A Maasai informant told Voshaar (p. 116) about an extraordinarily big snake once seen resting on a huge tree on top of a mountain. Similarly, the Sukuma of north-western Tanzania used to believe in “Mputira, a mythical snake of great size reputed to lie on the tops of trees—chiefly in the early morning” (Cory 1953: 22). Interestingly, the nearby Barabaig (Datog) of 6

According to Levine (1974: 50), Mt Bor was a preferred place for offering human sacrifices before the Amhara outlawed that practice early in the twentieth century.

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northern Tanzania respected fig trees, holding that “God sits on a fig tree at the eastern horizon” (Klima, p. 50). In eastern Uganda, the Dodoth also held that their remote high god “sometimes settles in the tops of certain trees” (Thomas 1972: 5-6). Majestic fig trees were sacred to them (p. 138, 124, 72) as they were to the Datog. Large snakes lying on the high branches of great trees seemed to evoke the notion of divinity in large parts of Eastern Africa. Trees would never reach a huge size, a sign of triumphant life-powers, without their roots having permanent access to water underneath. The simple sound of Mbagisaka, a gigantic legendary snake, caused uneasiness among the Nyamwezi (Carnochan et al. 1937: 277-78), the southern neighbours of the Sukuma. The peoples along the northern shores of Lake Victoria believed the lake to be the domain of a huge and divine or monstrous python (Kenny, p. 726-29). The Ganda people named it Lukwata, meaning “The one that seizes.”7 The Gisu of nearby southeastern Uganda held that a sacred pool located on the higher reaches of Mt Elgon was the abode of a great snake (Roscoe 1909b: 186, 188). Much further south, the Thonga people used to talk about “the vast snake Buwamati, dwelling in lakes invisibly and heard crying when rain falls” (MacCulloch, p. 407). Junod (p. 296) also refers to the Buwumati serpent, adding that its name reportedly derived from the sound it made when there was rain. Such representations are somewhat reminiscent of mysterious and giant lake-dwelling serpents or dragons in Scotland and elsewhere. In Ufipa (south-western Tanzania), there was “a widespread story (…) about a gigantic python-like beast called Ingufwiiza, ‘The Destroyer’,” said to be about 120 feet long and reddish brown in colour” (Willis 1974: 49-50). The southern Fipa had a myth about a primeval, fire-breathing, terrifying, trouble-making, python-like serpent known as Zimvi, “Chaos,” which was fortunately killed by a cultural hero (p. 49). In southern Tanzania, the Ngindo and Yao peoples knew of a legendary serpent known as Honhwe or Songo (Crosse-Upcott 1959: 186). According to Morris (1998: 227), the Yao term songo refers to the boomslang in ordinary parlance. The legendary serpent was apparently a magnified boomslang. The Chewa people of Malawi also believed in a “fabulous snake with a red head (…) usually known as kasongo or songo” (Morris 2000: 199). This monstrous “mythical” serpent was described as “a large poisonous snake, dark in colour, with a red crest, like that of cock’s comb (chimodzi 7

The verb kukwata could also refer to spirit-possession (Kenny, p. 729).

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tambala)” and was known to “lie in wait for an unsuspecting victim” (Ibid.). Its call was believed to be like that of a bird from the mountain rainforest also known as songo (p. 200). In this case, kasongo appeared to be “a larger version of the black mamba (Dendroaspis polypis, also known as songo, or songwe)” (p. 199). The Iraqw of northern Tanzania similarly recounted the story of “a giant snake called Slanú” that lived in a lake and was believed to be “dangerous to humans” (Berger et al., p. 105). One Iraqw tale features an unnamed fearsome river serpent that swallows persons slipping or pushed into a river (Hauge 1981a: 44). The Iraqw also knew of “Haaraariyoo (…) a mythological giant snake which is said to have swallowed humans in former times” (Berger et al., ibid.). The western neighbours of the Iraqw, i.e. the Datog, referred to a giant snake called Hararjooda, one which was so great that it could engulf elephants (Ibid.). That legendary monster was known especially in one of the Datog sub-tribe, the Gisamjanga (Ibid.). The latter had especially strong connections with the Iraqw. Indeed, in 1970 Hauge (1981a: 94-97) recorded from an Iraqw boy a Perseus and Andromeda-like tale he entitled “Two brothers killed Harariyoda” and which the boy had heard from his illiterate grandfather. The creature is presented as a water-spirit in the guise of a seven-headed monster that lives in a river and allows people to draw water provided it is offered a beautiful girl once a year. The year had passed. The people could not draw water. Two brothers on a long hunting expedition dropped by and asked an elderly woman for water. She told them about the monster and that, earlier on that very day, a lovely girl had been bound to a tree next to the river. Without hesitation the two hunters drew water and freed the girl, openly challenging the monster, which immediately attacked them. They succeeded in cutting its seven heads with their swords. That was the end of Harariyoda. The elder brother was given the girl he rescued in marriage and another beautiful girl was soon offered to his younger brother. It is said that “to this very day the spot where Harariyoda was slain can be seen. It is near a well on top of a high mountain with many beautiful flowers around, but the top of the mountain is steep and very difficult to reach” (p. 97). Still, according to Hauge (p. 34), the more general Iraqw name for monstrous polycephalous serpents is dayshamo, one instance of which appears in the tale entitled “The two brothers.” The giant snake known as Slanú mentioned above may have been a dayshamo.

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The mountain where Harariyoda was reportedly killed could be Mt Harar, which rises to the south-west of the Iraqw homeland. Said to be “central in Iraqw cosmology,” its volcanic cone was much “feared as a place of the cursed” (Rekdal et al., p. 142). An Iraqw prayer quoted and translated by Kamera (1988: 224) highlights the “curse of the west” or “the curse of Harar.” What adds weight to the possible connection between Harariyoda and Mt Harrar is that the Gisamjanga people, who, as mentioned above, were also familiar with that fabulous serpent, were said to hail from that very mountain (Tomikawa 1970: 11). Moreover, Hauge (1981a: 97) was told a tale about a similar monster by a member of the Nyaturu tribal community, which lives in the vicinity of Mt Harar. The story of Kolelo, another huge but cave-dwelling serpent, has been reported notably by Werner (1933: 97-98; 244-46) from the Zaramo people of coastal Tanzania. The mighty serpent reportedly lived in the mountains of Uluguru and presented itself as a god. It once captured one of two young women who were digging roots in its forest. The other woman ran to her village, frightened by the rumbling beneath the ground. Kolelo took the first woman as its wife and all the members of her clan became his servants, his wife remaining the only person to be allowed into the sacred cave.8 Some East Africa communities believed that their primeval ancestor was a large snake. The Gogo of central Tanzania were one of these. Still believed to be alive, the initiator of their community reportedly resided in a cave on a distant mountain known as Nganda (Schaegelen 1938: 545). Along the southern shores of Lake Manyara, to the north of the Gogo, the Mbugwe shared a similar belief. Their serpent lived in a cave on a local mountain named Ngurui (p. 198-99). In this case, the holy serpent was actually revered or worshipped by the people. As mentioned above, Hoffman (1992: 37) recently heard that the Mbugwe believe in “a large snake (probably a python)” making its home in a cave with a pool at Mbesi Hill—a place name possibly equivalent to Ngurui. The Mbugwe also mention “a large snake that resides at Shauri Moyo along the Rift Wall and another serpent at Mlima wa Mawe near Lake Burungi” (Ibid.). Again among the Nyamezi in the western part of the same country, it appears that the python had been “at one time the tutelary deity or reincarnated spirit of the source ancestor of the people” (Carnochan et al. 1937: 277). Similarly, “at a place called Nyandiwa,” so goes the tale, the 8

As we will see in chap. 4.8, Kolelo would make predictions.

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ancestor of the Gwassi clan of the Abakhero community in south-western Kenya “turned into a big python when he became very old” (Mukhule 2008: 152). In the South African, Zimbabwean, and Mozambican borderlands, the Ronga and Venda peoples recounted that they were the offspring of the head and the tail, respectively, of a great legendary male python-like serpent named Tharu (McNamee, p. 103-104; Lynch et al., p. 106).9 The railways and trains built early in the twentieth century by the British and German colonialists have superseded the incredibly long mythical serpents. East African prophets foretold that it would be useless to fight the white strangers and their great iron fire-breathing or fire-spitting “serpent” (Kenyatta, p. 42; Ambler 1995: 228, 229, 233). ***** It is a fact of nature that snakes keep on growing and discarding old skins until they reach the limit of their species’ life expectancy. Specimens of an impressive size may sometimes be encountered. That may have stimulated human imagination, thus preparing the field for mythical serpents of gigantic proportions. Some of them were assimilated to rivers. Exceptionally, two-headed snakes may also be encountered in nature. Such very rare cases are also liable to arouse human imagination. The analogic bases for snakes as mythical ancestors were their elementary and phallic shape, as well as their association with womb-like places, i.e. caves.

9

On the legendary Tharu, see chap. 3.3.

CHAPTER 4.3 SNAKES, HOLES, AND WATER

The previous chapter, especially in its second part, has evidenced some seemingly widespread correlations between fabulous ophidians and rivers, floods, and lakes. This chapter will add to the “watery” profile of serpents with respect to more “ordinary” snakes. The connection with water will here be mediated by the basically earthly or chthonian nature of these creatures. The ground ophidians were associated with included caves and ant-hills, both of which typically had connections with the underground and water or moisture. ***** Snakes were closely associated with the ground in the minds of people throughout Africa. For instance, south of the Nuba Hills in South Sudan a bow-like trap was used to remove snakes from holes in the ground (Corkill 1935b). In the same general area, the Dinka commonly referred to snakes as ke piny, “thing of the ground” (Deng 1971: 300 fn.). The neighbouring Nuer used to say that a snake “just crawls on the ground” (Evans-Pritchard 1967: 132). In the language of the Afar (Djibouti), a snake is baadó-hála, literally “animal of the ground” (Morin 1995: 94). The Kamba avoided the term nzoka, “snake”; instead, they obliquely referred to ophidians as “animals of the earth” (Lindbloom, p. 93). The Maasai of Tanzania sometimes described snakes as “animals of the grass” (Merker, p. 383). Many peoples, such as the Sukuma of Tanzania (Cory 1946: 176), the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania (Merker, p. 217; Jacobs 1965: 310), and the Guji (Van de Loo 1991: 259) and other Oromo groups of southern Ethiopia (Rikitu 1992: 42), have long observed snakes’ affinities with holes in the ground. Dinka boys hunted rats when they became numerous and posed a threat to the food stored in granaries. Either they set fire to areas around the village and clubbed down the rats running away from the flames or they waited for the rats to come out of their holes: “Sometimes a

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snake came out instead of a rat” (Akol, p. 62).1 The intimate connection between snakes and holes seems to shed light on a tradition in the Kaffa highlands of south-west Ethiopia according to which the ancestors of the seven local aristocratic clans emerged from a hole in the ground (Orent 1970: 143).2 The implication is seemingly that these people were somehow related to snakes. The belief that the first human pair was begotten by snakes has been reported of the nearby Konso (Hallpike 1972: 226). Immediately south of the Sukuma, the Nyamwezi saw a connection between the ancestral spirits and the gentle burrowing snake, simbi (Carnochan et al. 1937: 277). Further afield, the Beri of Chad believed that protector snakes, manda, resided either in holes between the exposed roots of a tree or in rock crevices (Tubiana, p. 85, 190) while the Luhya of western Kenya (Were 1967: 172) and the Manica of Zimbabwe (JacobsonWidding 1992: 5) expected to encounter snakes in pits. That snakes retire in the ground to hide or rest was common knowledge throughout SubSaharan Africa. In some cases, the intimate link between snakes and the ground had deeper implications. The Oromo in general believed that a snake whose tail had been cut recovered simply by eating earth (Haberland, p. 609). For the Borana Oromo, swallowing earth was a cure for snake bite (p. 256). The island-dwelling Gidicho, also in southern Ethiopia, professed the same belief although in their understanding such a treatment was only effective when the bitten person was a member of a group with a totemic relationship to snakes (p. 715). A story recorded by Jensen (1959: 380) among the Tsamako of south-western Ethiopia says that a snake that has been killed and then buried starts swelling in the ground and comes back to life after four days.3 There are many other data indicating that snakes were attributed a thoroughly chthonian nature in traditional Eastern Africa. This notion is fully in line with the ancient Egyptian creed referred to in chapter 2.1: snakes are “offspring of the earth.” ***** 1

Muslim good manners pertaining to answering the call of nature includes the following: “Do not urinate in a hole in the ground, for perhaps it is inhabited by some poisonous animals which may suddenly emerge.” See “Aadaab of Istinjaa.” Accessed June 4, 2012. http://www.islaam.org/Etiquettes/Etiqu-39.htm. 2 Orent relied on information collected by F. J. Bieber, a German scholar who spent time in Kaffa in the early years of the twentieth century. 3 For some East African peoples, the interval was three days. See Box 28 for a similar creed.

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Snakes were equally known to live in caves, that is, in dark and often damp places located in hills and mountains or beneath the ground. East of Harar in north-east Ethiopia, people believed in caves filled with gold but no one dared access such caverns, which were reputedly haunted by jinns and serpents (Azaïs et al. 1931: 34-36). A story from the nearby Afar and Saho featured the snatching of gold from a cavern that was the abode of a great snake (Bader 2000: 135-36). These conceptions were clearly in line with ancient Middle Eastern representations. In south-western Ethiopia, as mentioned by the author in the foregoing chapter, a huge and powerful snake residing in a great cave on a mountain was fed by the women of a given Janjero clan. Also in southern Ethiopia in the country of the Sidama, there is a mountain known as Allo Tullu where people offered bulls to a mysterious serpent living in a cave; the animals were sacrificed by an attendant “sorcerer” who was the only person who could set foot in the cavern and interact with the divine creature (Azaïs et al. p. 226). Known as Shaykh Husayn, a saintly character of the Islamised eastern Oromoʊmore exactly, the Arsiʊwas surprised by a great snake in the grotto down in a valley where he was praying4; his glance petrified the snake—a marvellous event which was the opposite of what was to be expected, thereby implying that the holy man was himself powerfully snake-like; the grotto and petrified snake have ever since been visited by pilgrims (Cerulli 1959: 138). It was said in the nineteenth century that a great southern Ethiopian ritual leader lived “in a cave with some large snakes” (Huntingford 1955: 84). We will hear a lot more about that key figure in Part V (Volume Two) of this publication. Caves were seen by various East African peoples, for example the Teso of eastern Uganda, as “mysterious places often inhabited by spirits” (Wright 1942: 75). In south-western South Sudan the “Azande fear these caverns [short tunnels dug out by erosion], which house snakes and are the homes of ghosts and of the Supreme Being” (Evans-Pritchard 1976: 99). In northcentral Uganda, some of the snake-like spirits, jok, worshipped by the Acholi, were believed to reside in caverns. The following scene depicts the climax of a cult held during the dry season in one of the Acholi chiefdoms. 4

Likewise, in Morocco, “there is a cave containing the mark of a snake which was petrified by a saint when it wanted to bite him” (Westermark, 1926, I: 71). Such scenes are reminiscent of an incident involving the Prophet Muhammad and his party. They were frightened by a dangerous snake in a cavern (See Box 19). For an interesting Upper-Egyptian example of the snake-in-the-cave theme, see the story of Shaykh Haredi in chap. 2.5 above.

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After some prayers, a long rope was tied to the high priest’s waist and he was descended into the cave by his assistants. P’Bitek (1972: 72) was told by the priest that “it was very dark [and] fearful inside” and that “there were large and poisonous snakes, and swarms of bees and hornets hung on the roofs. But, he said, these were harmless on the day of the Jok.” The priest scooped some sacred sand from the floor of the cave “where Jok slept” and was helped back out of the cave by his assistants. The final moment of a Sebei agrarian ritual process was held in a cavern on Mt Elgon, south-eastern Uganda: The kapturin [a ritual specialist] and his entourage go to a cave called Wuyi (…). It is inhabited by snakes of diverse kinds, and these crawl over him and lick his body. After spending most of the day there, he goes to the Siroko River and washes out [a] leather bag [filled with herbal medicines], which concludes the ceremony. (Goldschmidt, 1976, p. 164)

The Sebei ritual echoes an annual ceremony conducted by the Ohobu Ladonge, the “chief priest of the mountain” and “minister of health” among the Lokoya of South Sudan. The stated goal of the ceremony is to ensure the health of the people as well as a good harvest. Dragging with them a black he-goat, the elders climb up a mountain until they arrive at a cave. The goat is sacrificed and its chyme is sprinkled onto the snakes that live in the cave so as to calm them and prevent them from biting any member of the group. The meat of the goat is cooked and some of it is eaten: But the bones are left with plenty of meat on them. The chief then blows the magic whistle, osiribahio. The short snakes, on hearing it, rush out of the cave. They then begin to lick the feet of the people present as well as the blood from the goat. Next, the snakes chew the bones, eating whatever meat is left on them. (Lomodong Lako, 1995, p. 52)

In the course of that ceremony, the Ohobu Ladonge invoked his ancestors: “Do not bite people!” and summoned evil spirits to carry away all diseases and illnesses (p. 53). In central Tanzania, the Mbugwe used to revere a great serpent near or on a mountain that was believed to embody the spirit of their founding ancestor; in the cave reputed to be its abode, water was always to be found either deep inside at the height of the dry season or overflowing when the rainy season was in full swing (Schaegelen, p. 198-99). People came to the cave to make invocations and offerings in times of epidemics, war, famine,

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and drought. Youths desirous of finding a well-matched spouse also went to the cave. Decades later, Hoffman (p. 37) probably referred to the same cult: (…) there is a pool inside of a cave at Mbesi Hill where a large snake (probably a python) makes his home. I have been told that a [Catholic] priest died because he had shot at this snake on one occasion. There are those of the Wambugwe who come to this pool in search of a blessing and to prevent being bewitched.

Other than that, adds Hoffman, the Mbugwe are “fairly free of ritualism and mythology,” having apparently “no sacred groves, shrines, hills, rocks, trees, etc.” ***** Let us now briefly turn our attention to another strong connection, that between snakes and ant-hills. On account of their numerous holes, abandoned ant-hills were ideal resting places for snakes. This has been recorded for instance among the Sukuma (Cory 1946: 168), the Dinka (Lienhardt 1951: 308), the Lugbara of north-western Uganda (Middleton 1963: 265), and the Kamba of eastern Kenya, where “a white ant nest (…) is a favourite shelter for snakes during the heat of the day” (Hobley 1922: 203). In Tanzania, as observed by Loveridge (p. 112), some cobra species “prefer to take up their abode in termite heaps upon which they like to lie and bask in the morning sunshine.” That termite mounds are often resting places for cobras in Tanzania is also mentioned by Hoffman (p. 29). The Bantu of south-eastern Uganda and south-western Kenya (North Kavirondo) held that all ant-hills are the “abodes of the spirits of cobras whose favourite haunts they are also during their lifetime” (Wagner 1949: 331).5 The Hamar of south-west Ethiopia have observed that snakes (in general?) like “to hide or sleep” in ant-hills (Lydall et al. 1979a: 65). They even used to drop the snakes they had killed into such holes, some of which were believed to lead “deep into the earth” (Ibid.). The people disposed of snakes in such a way apparently because they believed that deep holes were snakes’ places of belonging.

5 In Niger, some Hausa called a type of cobra nasuri, meaning “the one of the termite-hill” (Luxereau, p. 150).

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Ant-hills are connected not only with snakes but also with spirits. In southern Ethiopia for instance, the Borana still believe that columnar anthills are “graves of people who lived long ago” (Leus et al., p. 395).6 In Alurland, far western Uganda, the “spirit” of a ruling family on the move in search of a new chiefdom was said to “go into the ground under an anthill,” thereby revealing that it should settle down in that area (Southall 1956: 205, 372). In South Sudan, the Dinka viewed ant-hills as places of “ill omen” (Lienhardt 1951: 308 fn.), no doubt because these people believed that termite mounds lead into an ill-defined and feared netherworld. As for their Nuer neighbours, they believed in biel real, termite-mound sprites (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 98).7 The Dinka have a well-known story about snakes and ant-hills: a man threw a spear at a black cobra that had bitten a cow; the injured snake quickly disappeared into an ant-hill with the spear; the man followed the snake underground to retrieve the spear—one of a man’s most precious possessions—because he had borrowed it from a friend; in the netherworld, he met not only the wounded cobra but also many other snakes, all of whom were human-like; the man finally came back home with the spear, which he soon returned to its owner (Lienhardt 1961: 117).8 This story implies a double homology, one between a deadly snake and the spear, and one between cobras and the spirits of the dead. The 6

It is said in that part of Africa that some snakes are able to enlarge the ventilation shaft of ant-hills (Leus et al., p. 411). 7 Such representations were not confined to Eastern Africa. Among the Serer of Senegal, according to Abrahamsson (p. 130), “termites are considered to be incarnations of the deceased, and the termite-hill is thus the gate of entry to the realm of the dead ancestors.” 8 See also Deng (1971: 302-03 fn.). The same story was heard among the Atwot, who are related to both the Dinka and Nuer (Burton 1987: 105). Further south, the Bari had a similar story, elephant here playing the part of snake (Beaton 1936: 114-15). The Kipsigis and Keyo of south-western Kenya as well as the Iraqw of northern Tanzania knew of similar narratives, the hyena—also believed to be fond of “holes”—substituting for the cobra (Orchardson 1961: 126; Massam, p. 206; Kamera 1976: 68-72). In some Sukuma, Pokot, or Kaguru folktales, the wild pig takes over the role of the serpent or hyena (Cory 1953: 70; Schneider 1967: 307; Beidelman 1964b: 111-12). Two tales from the Kikuyu (central Kenya) and Kamba (eastern Kenya) have the porcupine playing the same role (Hobley 1922: 264; Ndeti 1972: 197). A similar Luhya story from south-western Kenya features the elephant (Were, p. 130). Some southern Ethiopian groups were also familiar with the story of the lost spear thrown at an elephant (Haberland, p. 611-12; Bader 2000: 48-50).

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correspondence between snakes and the “living-dead” was indeed a familiar one throughout Eastern Africa. The narrative from the Dinka and many other East African groups seems to echo an old Indian tale dating back to the pre-Christian era and referred to as “The story of Uttanka”: a Brahman has to give the gold earrings of a queen as payment for his guru’s teaching; he manages to get the jewels but has these robbed from him by a snake-deity in the guise of a beggar; the snake-deity disappears in an ant-hill; with support from some deities, the Brahman follows it in the netherworld and succeeds in bringing the earrings back to this world.9 The Hindu belief that cobras are the masters of the netherworld was underscored in chapter 2.3. That snakes, especially cobras, are often seen near ant-hills in India is mentioned notably by Chandra Sinha (p. 66, 69). ***** In addition to ant-hills and caves, the latter often being damp places, snakes were also closely associated with lakes, swamps, ponds, and wells. This very strong connection, which also embraces rain, can be easily documented. At the western edge of the land of the “Bume”ʊpossibly the Nyangatom or the Toposaʊin the South Sudan-Ethiopia borderland, people revered snakes and made offerings to them in a marsh (Pauli 1950: 133). Among the Lugbara of north-western Uganda, a mysterious snake was said to haunt a sacred pond (Middleton 1963: 94, 98). Not far from there, the Yira people of the Rwenzori massif believed in Ndyoka, “the spirit of the waters.” Held to be dangerous, it would manifest itself in the form of a big black snake or sheep in the middle of a river or lake, or else as a “strong wind that was harmful to human life” (Magezi et al. 2004: 71). It is said that “some families domesticated this spirit for protection and to track down bad elements in society like thieves, wizard sorcerers, and the like” (Ibid.). The name ndyoka appears to be a cognate of nzoka, a common Eastern Bantu root denoting “snake.” The Yira also knew of a halfwoman, half-fish water-spirit reportedly “surrounded by snakes” and “responsible for fertility in women” (p. 72). 9

See Vogel (p. 61-5) for an early version of this Indian legend as well as for a less ancient rendering, the latter featuring in a high-profile work known as Mahabharata.

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The major source of freshwater for the townspeople of Harar in northeastern Abyssinia was a spring known as Burka.10 In olden times, so the legend goes, a newborn baby was offered yearly to the mighty snake that guarded the spring so as to ensure that people could use the water safely and freely (Azaïs et al., p. 23-24). Similar legends were heard in other parts of Africa, as detailed in chapters 3.3 and 4.2. A cultural hero of the Sidama of southern Ethiopia simultaneously discovered a poisonous snake and the source of a river, and he decided to settle at that place (Hamer 1976: 329). In south-western Ethiopia, the Janjero word sawa, “snake,” also refers to a spring (Straube, p. 357). The nearby Konso would not harm snakes near water, fearing that such creatures could be “vehicles of water spirits” (Hallpike, p. 310). Water-spirits were known as ngipian in northeastern Uganda; two types of snakes, the cobra and a green reptile, were especially connected with them, as noted in chapter 4.1. The founding ancestor of one of the clans of the Gabra in northern Kenya was reportedly found “in the tall grasses of a swamp near a well” and “could transform himself into a cobra” (Kassam 2006: 181). The Garre Somali of southern Ethiopia had a myth explaining how humans and snakes became enemies: in a distant past, cows would not drink water between the bare roots of a great tree, fearing the large venomous snake that was often to be seen there; the herdsman tried to kill the reptile while it appeared to be sleeping; the deceitful snake took off and retaliated by delivering a deadly blow to the aggressor’s son (Schlee 1994a: 995-96). The neighbouring Borana (Oromo) recounted a similar tale (Kidane, p. 126). This story, the lesson of which is to be careful with seemingly sleeping ophidians, appears to be a modified version of an ancient Greek tale, which, however, lacks the highly significant connection with water.11 In Eastern Africa at large, snakes, water from the sky (rain), and rainmaking were often interconnected. This may have to do with the fact that very heavy rains chase snakes out of their hide-outs in the ground. In 10

Burqa is an Oromo word meaning “source, spring” (Gragg, p. 70). The author has in mind Æsop’s tale entitled “The snake and the farmer”: a man tried to kill a snake that had bitten his child to death, but missed, cutting only a small portion of its tail; fearing the snake, he offered presents to make peace but the former refused on the grounds that the settlement could only be half-hearted. See tale 75 as translated and commented by L. Gibbs in “Aesopica: Aesop’s Fables in English, Latin and Greek.” Accessed December 21, 2011. http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford. 11

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colonial Sudan for instance, snakes became “obviously numerous during and after the ‘rains’ at which period also the young appear” (Corkill 1935c: 7). A dead cobra’s stomach proved empty: “Doubtless this fact, in conjunction with the heavy rains of the previous evening, had started it wandering abroad” (Loveridge, p. 112). As Mundkur (1983: 66) suggests, the ancient Mesopotamian practice of using charms to protect houses from snake intrusions was “partly inspired by the ravages of serpents seasonally flooded out of their lairs.” More generally, during much of the daytime in the hottest and driest months of the year, the snakes of the African savannah tend to hide in the ground, hollow trees, or ant-hills (Villiers, p. 49). Another explanation for the intimate relationship between snakes and water or rain is that, as noted earlier in the present chapter, snakes were often found in moist places such as caves.12 In the Nuba hills of southern Sudan, the Lafola people believe that the rain-maker of Jebel Tekeim on the Eliri massif is associated with a ‘red’ snake, whose form he is said to assume at will. (…) the Tekeim people, to obtain rain, take milk and put it in a special hole high on a hill, where it is taken by the snake or rain-maker in his snake form. (Tubiana, p. 95, quoting an earlier source)

The ritual filling up of the hole on top of the hill with milk amounted to an invitation sent to the sky so that it blesses the whole country with rain. MacMichael (p. 100-101) heard among the Fur of western Sudan of animal sacrifices made, in order “to ensure good rains for the crops,” over a stone to a local snake deity, reportedly appearing in “the form of a short fat white snake (…) with a large black woolly head the size of a man’s fist and enormous eyes.” The snake was appealed to through the good offices of an old woman from a nearby village. Significantly, the sacred stone was located next to a permanent water hole.13 In other areas of Darfur, the snake cult was not conducted over a stone but at the foot of a tree (p. 101) as noted in chapter 3.3. In South Sudan, Dinka ritual specialists and healers were “called upon to [make a] sacrifice for rain when the sun is injuring people at the end of the dry season”; they would raise a goat above their head, beseech the high god for rain and cut the victim’s throat; those ritualists happened to be protected by or linked to a snake deity of 12 We shall see that some highly remarkable snake species were known or believed to spit. 13 The sacred stone of the Fur was possibly a replica of the sacred Black Stone of the Ka’ba, which itself was associated with both permanent water and a marvellous black-and-white serpent, as we have seen in chapter 2.5.

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the garang variety, zoologically non-identified (Lienhardt 1961: 85). Among the north-western Abiem, Dinka senior elders of the Panyer clanʊwhose divinity was the same snakeʊwould accomplish a similar ritual for the benefit of local communities (Ibid.). The Teso of south-eastern Uganda are related to the Karimojong and other similar ethnic communities. Their diviners, emuron, were probably connected with the ngipian water-spirits, as were their Karimojong colleagues. One of them was reported to act as a rain-maker: he ordered “the people to wash and, when this has been done, all [went] to ‘a big tree’ pointed out by [him], in which [was] supposed to be a ‘big snake.’ He then [climbed] up this tree with the filled milk pot and [threw] the water in all directions” (Ludger 1954: 85).14 In south-west Ethiopia, the two Dassanech clans credited with rain-making abilities could also cure snake bites and protect the community from snakes (Tippett 1970: 203; Elfmann 2005: 162; Sobania 1980: 238). In a rain-making ritual conducted long ago in Sukumaland, south of Lake Victoria, a local chief went into the lake several times along with a snake, which he carried in a basket (Gass 1973: 454). In the highlands west of Lake Victoria, the name given in traditional Rwanda to rain-makers, umu-vubyi, was echoed in Burundi by that of a mysterious and awesome snake, known as im-vubyi, believed to haunt marshes and swamps.15 The Bantu groups established to the north of the Kavirondo Gulf in far south-western Kenya held that “snakes and crawling animals are associated with rain” (Wagner 1954: 38 fn.). In their understanding, the magical ability to cause rain also implied a special relationship with snakes as well as with thunder and lightning (Wagner 1949: 153, 155; Akong’a 1987: 81). Needless to say, thunder and lightning go with rain, especially heavy downpours. The instant zigzag movement of a thunderbolt from heaven to earth and the sudden strike of a serpent appeared homologous, as the two following Nandi folktales imply. In the first story, Thunder is the “keeper” of a lake; every day, he is seen “basking and enjoying the morning sun” (Chesaina 1991: 36). In the second narrative, a virgin is sent to pray to the high god for rain on behalf of her desperate community; it was expected that her life would be taken 14 Driberg (1923: 252) and Hayley (1947: 77) described a similar ritual among the nearby Lango, the ceremonial tree being identified either as a fig-tree or as a sycamore (olam). No mention was made of a resident snake. 15 According to Chifundera (1990: 156), the Rwanda term im-vubyi refers to the black-lipped cobra, Naja melonoleuca.

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by the high god in what amounted to a sacrificial rite; as Lightning was about to strike, “her boyfriend rushed out of his hiding place and cut the animal [= Lightning] into two” (p. 48). In the first case, Thunder is associated with a lake, like snakes often are; moreover, it acts as if it were a snake eager to be warmed up by the morning sun. In the second case, Lightning is characterised as an “animal,” the identity of which could scarcely be other than ophidian.16 The Gogo of central Tanzania provide a telling example of the connection between snakes and rain: It is said that a man who is in enmity with the people of a certain district goes to a mukoma-mvula (rain-killer) requesting him to keep away the rain from the district. The rain-killer takes a black snake, to which he has given medicine to the part from which he wants to keep away the rain and lets it loose. The people of the place from which the rain has departed seek the advice of a magician, who tells them that it is a snake which is averting the rain. A muhimbu (a professional [snake] finder) is called, and he and the people of the district go in search of it, and, if successful in the hunt, the magician takes the medicine from its mouth, and the people offer a sacrifice of a black sheep, when the spell is broken, and the much needed rain comes. (Cole, p. 325-26)

The mukoma-mvula possibly used a spitting cobra and the “medicine” he put in its mouth would have prevented it from spitting, thereby magically preventing rain. 16 The second tale echoes West African myths featuring women-eating serpents such as Bida (Soninké) and Sarki (Hausa) as well as Abyssinian legends (See chap. 5.1 in Volume Two), and ultimately the Greek myth of Andromeda. In a Kikuyu version of the foregoing tale, heavy rains swell the pool; the sacrificial maiden is engulfed by it and drowned, and a rainbow appears above the pool (Beecher 1938: 82; also Cagnolo, p. 240-41). The theme of a “pure” young lady or virgin offered in sacrifice to end a severe drought was sporadically represented in Eastern Africa since it also occurred among the Pokot of south-western Kenya (Peristiany 1975: 172-73) and the Iraqw of northern Tanzania (Hauge 1981a: 67-68). Heard among the Rimi, south of the Iraqw, the story of Sita, a young lady abducted by a mighty rain serpent living in a deep chasm located in a cave (Jellicoe 1967-68: 45-46), appears to connect with the same tradition. A semantic homology is discernible between (a) being refused access to a well (Soninké, Hausa) and (b) being deprived of rain from the sky (Iraqw, Kikuyu, Nandi). All cases feature a snake-like monster associated with water. Next to the Iraqw, Mbugwe medicine men might ultimately resort to human sacrifice by strangulation to end a severe drought (Mbee et al. 1965: 207). In this case, the victim would be a male with a pitch-dark skin.

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In Malawi, further south, snakes and rain were often paired. For instance among the Chewa, the rain-maker Matsakamula—a spirit medium—was associated with a “white snake” known as njokandala [njoka = snake]; the reptile was greatly feared by the people and to kill it was considered “extremely dangerous” (Morris 2000: 199). The faith in Mbona was widespread among the Lomwe people in southern Malawi: it was “invariably” described “as a snake (njoka) or as a spiritual being that takes the form of a snake” (p. 212). Some said that “Mbona was (…) a famous rain maker” and that “when he died he became a snake” (Ibid.). In the rain-shrines of Mbona lived an unmarried woman, a priestess of some sort, who was visited by the spirit of Mbona, a husband in snake-form who possessed her and spoke messages “relating to famine conditions or to the oncoming rain” through her (p. 215). ***** Snakes have been commonly connected with trees or sticks since time immemorial. As elsewhere, snakes were seen in Eastern Africa in trees or amidst clumps of trees. From the lower branches, certain species could bite passers-by on the head. Sacred trees or groves were especially attractive places for snakes because those that were encountered there were never harmed. Junod (p. 335-36) tells of the death of a young man bitten by a venomous snake in or near a sacred grove. The youth was a member of a group of peers that had been heard saying that they did not believe in the local gods or spirits. The event took place in 1895 among the Thonga of southern Mozambique at the periphery of Eastern Africa. Trees can obviously evoke water. In Bunyoro (western Uganda) for instance, Wells or springs were generally found in hollows on the side of hills and as a rule there were trees near them in which tree-snakes were found, awaiting birds and insects which came to the water. These snakes were from two to three feet long and bright green in colour with orange and gold tints on the lower parts. The people declared that they bit, but no person could be found who was ever bitten. They were thought to be the guardians of the water and were regarded as sacred, offerings being made to them. (Roscoe, 1923, p. 43-44)

Offerings of butter, blood, and meat to snakes to be found on or near sacred trees or in sacred groves have been reported of various groups, notably the Dorze of south-western Ethiopia (Straube, p. 198) and the Kamba of eastern Kenya: “If, on the occasion of a sacrifice at the sacred

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tree, the elders chance to see a snake, they say that it is a ngoma, or ancestral spirit, which has taken the form of a snake, and endeavour to pour a little of the blood from the sacrificial ram on its head, back, and tail” (Hobley 1922: 51). Certain snakes, some being held sacred, were associated with special trees or groves as well as with spirits in the mind of various East African peoples, notably the Acholi of central Uganda (Seligman et al. 1932: 126-27), the Teso, Karimojong and Dodoth of eastern Uganda (Ludger, p. 185; Knighton, p. 231; Thomas 1972: 60), the Rendille of northern Kenya (Schlee 1979a: 323), the Konso of southwestern Ethiopia (Jensen et al. 1936: 386, 391), the Borana of northern Kenya (Baxter 1954: 78), etc. A snake known as yuri by the Dinka of South Sudan was identified with the tamarind tree, cuai, as well as with a spirit called Paic, and no Dinka would injure that tree (Seligman et al., p. 186). The snake must have been inviolable as well. Among the neighbouring Nuer, the tamarind tree, koat, was a totemic emblem of the large Ganwaar clan (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 72). In a Nuer creation myth, humanity emerged from a hole—much like ophidians—at the foot of a great tamarind tree in western Nuerland (p. 6).17 In southern Ethiopia, certain large and sacred trees were held to host a venomous snake; Borana people would swear next to such a tree that they told nothing but the truth; if they lied, the resident snake would punish them with a deadly bite (Haberland, p. 231). ***** There is an implicit controversy about the dominant symbolic polarity of snakes in the anthropological circles concerned with Eastern Africa. The “earth-dwelling snake” has been viewed by some analysts as having an “ambivalent” nature (Hinnant 1977: 54; 1978: 236, 240) or even as being a “lowly” more or less female-like creature (Legesse 1973: 226). It is to be noted that the Oromo of southern Ethiopia—whom the two social scientists mainly studied—as well as a host of other East African peoples posited a basic dichotomy between earth and sky, readily attributing a male polarity to the high-lying, rain-providing, and thundering sky, and a contrasting female polarity to the low-lying, rain-expecting, or rainreceiving, and generally peaceable earth. In much of Africa, women were seated on the ground while males stood upright when speaking, blessing, or praying at various social or religious events. That is how the “earth17

Holes may be thought of as “inverted trees.”

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like” snake came to be analogically assimilated more or less to the female dimension of the universe. However, the East African ethnographical record offers many indications pointing to a predominantly masculine polarity for ophidians. Three cases will serve to initially illustrate our point. A story from Djibouti tells of a man who got pregnant soon after being bitten by a viper (Shekh Mumin et al. 1980: 126-29). From the foregoing tale, it transpires that sharp fangs piercing the skin can evoke sexual penetration. A tale from the Murle of South Sudan tells of a woman who goes out into the bush, picks up “a spirit in the grass” and secretively brings it home; the spirit sleeps with her in the night and she becomes pregnant (Arensen 1992: 233). Later (p. 248) we are told that snakes are “somehow related to jook,” i.e. spirits. Thirdly, the Maasai supply a scene exemplifying the male symbolic polarity of ophidians. A young adolescent boy took shelter from the rain in the house of the girl he was playing with; in order to repair a leak on the roof of her hut, the girl’s mother casually undressed and put on old clothes; once done, she undressed again to put back on her nicer clothing; the “thing” between the boy’s legs “stood up”; puzzled by what had happened, the teenager confided in some elders and was told that he had now become “a real little man”; as for the mother, she learnt that, to use her own words, “a baby snake is still a snake” (Saitoti 1988: 10-11). In the language of the Oromo of southern Ethiopia, boola (“hole”) and gollo (“cave”) were synonymous terms (Van de Loo, p. 154). In that language, a snake pit may be referred to as boola bofaa (Gragg 1982: 56). Of interest is the fact that the senior wife of a Guji male bore the honorific—and somewhat crude—title of harda bola, “mother [or owner] of the hole” (Hinnant 1977: 41; 1978: 243). In fact, snakes could be imagined as taking up residence in most unusual “caves” or “holes,” as attested in the myth of origin of the Geledi clan in southern Somalia (Luling 1971: 27-32). The daughter of a sultan remained childless after seven marriages; the woman caused the death of her seven successive husbands because her belly was home to a deadly snake; the astute man who relieved her of that evil married her and became the founder of the Geledi clan.18 Cory (1953: 62) recorded an instance, also in narrative form,

18 The deadly snake in the belly would seem to allude to the clitoris, which is held in various parts of Africa to be harmful or even lethal to babies and men.

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of the snake-in-the-womb theme among the Sukuma of northern Tanzania.19 Snakes were often associated with womb-like objects. For instance a Luo proverb from south-western Kenya says: “A snake has entered the gourd” (Miruka 2001: 80). A folktale from the nearby Nandi features a “big snake” in a “big pot” (Chesaina, p. 86). An Oromo legend tells of a poisonous snake that fell into a pot filled with meat; unaware of what had happened, the woman cooked the meat with the snake and served it to her children, all of whom died (Haberland, p. 295).20 Such examples lead one to reflect that while moving into sacred caves, the male priests referred to above penetrated womb-like domains; the fact that they moved into such places revealed something about their own symbolic polarity. This may help to disclose some of the implicit meanings of a folktale told to Schneider (1967: 307) by a Pokot elder in western Kenya. A man prevented three times a snake from accessing the “mouth” of a cavern because his friend was inside. A few words about the symbolic status of ant-hills are worthwhile at this point. The author will revert to the Karimojong of south-eastern Uganda for useful clues. Just like men, Karimojong women were divided into two classes representing generations, one parental, one filial; one was identified with trees or thickets, the other with ant-hills (Gourlay 1970).21 The respective songs of the two female generations emphasised the “ownership” of their respective emblems. Women cut trees or branches to keep fires burning for cooking or to procure poles for house-building, two female tasks among the Karimojong. Seasonally, all women also used to cover ant-hills with skins to catch termites and then eat them “as a delicacy” (Gourlay, p. 117). Gourlay suggests that in line with their penisenvy theory, Freudians would readily see the ant-hill as a substitute for the male organ. Although he does mention that the columnar ant-hill (akomomua) were chosen as an emblem in preference to the rounded anthill (etipu), the analyst has reservations about an explanation he regards as a simplistic guess. 19 This theme will show up again when this book deals with sorcery in chapter 4.12, more exactly in Box 37. 20 In Sudan it was “common belief that if a snake touches food or drink, it renders them poisonous thereafter” (Corkill 1935a: 258). A Moroccan tale features a snake slipping into a pot (Westermark 1926, II: 353). 21 The corresponding main emblems of male generations were mountains and zebras, as mentioned in chapter 3.1.

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Convincing ethnological evidence can be tabled, however, in support of the symbolically phallic essence of columnar ant-hills. Among the Karimojong as well as with various livestock-herding groups in Eastern Africa, tanning was women’s work. Skin garments were worn more commonly or more extensively by women. These objects were therefore liable to stand for female persons just as sticks or spears could stand for males. Additionally, the catching of termites was done very early morning, i.e. almost at night, and the yearned-for insects flowing out of columnar ant-hills are white in colour. Therefore, the symbolism evoked by the “covering” of a termite-emitting ant-hill with a skin was almost obviously sexual. In stating their ownership of ant-hills, the wives of one of the two generational classes of women were obliquely stating their claims on the sexual appendages of the members of the corresponding generation-set of Karimojong males. The same must have applied for the other female generation whose “erect” emblems were trees. This interpretation should not be taken as far-fetched. On the contrary, it fits nicely within the overall cultural setting. The Konso of south-west Ethiopia have been described for example as “obsessed with phallicism” (Hallpike, p. 4). In the 1960s, a group of people immediately to the south of the Karimojong were subjected to the Rorschach psychological test: “[the Pokot] tended to concentrate upon what are considered to be the phallic features of the blots. Their percepts centred upon almost every elongated projection in all the cards. In this concentration the women, if anything, exceeded the men” (Edgerton 1971: 212). Closely related to the Karimojong historically and culturally, the Dodoth of far north-eastern Uganda referred to “various fantastic rocky outcrops with such graphic terms as penis, vulva, clitoris, rump, and other less interesting parts of the anatomy” (Turnbull 1972: 43). In mentally healthy societies that basically rested on gendered social categories, as were most communities in traditional Eastern Africa, a strong reliance on sexual symbols was something to be expected. As a matter of fact, ant-hills have been coined phallic icons elsewhere in Africa. A well-known analyst of African culture and rituals who studied the Ndembu in contemporary north-western Zambia at the outskirts of Eastern Africa writes that: In circumcision and funerary rites, [ant-hills] have an explicitly phallic significance. The swarming life within them is pointed out as a sign of ‘procreation’. (Turner, 1967, p. 294-95)

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As we have seen, Indian women, especially when desirous of offspring, still hold ceremonies at ant-hills to secure the blessing of the cobras that live there. ***** While following the track of the snake, we have moved from holes and caverns to rain and surface water and from there to ant-hills and trees. Tree trunks were capable of bridging the two poles of the vertical axis, their roots reaching deep into the earth and their higher branches scratching the clouds. As Van de Loo (p. 57) argues, “the serpent is a very old symbol of the integration of the various spheres of creation.” In a paper about animal symbolism among the Samburu of west-central Kenya, another ethnologist explains that snakes have the potential to connect the ground with the sky: the holes into which they slide being viewed as “entrances to a not too well defined ‘other-world’” whereas the trees upon which they climb are deemed “mystical” on account of their “proximity to the heavens” (Fratkin 1974: 28). Moreover, great trees were often associated with water, for instance deep wells, in various parts of Eastern Africa, as in semi-arid areas elsewhere. Therefore, trees and snakes were to some extent symbolically redundant. Although trees grow out of the ground, tree symbolism and ground symbolism are wholly different. Hardwood trees, the branches of such trees, and sticks made from the latter—the making and carrying of which were typically the prerogatives of males in Eastern Africa—were often regarded as icons of men and implicitly of the male organ. An Oromo story tells of a man being punished by God and turned into a tree (Haberland, p. 618). Throughout much of traditional Eastern Africa, fire was produced using two dry fire-sticks, one made of hard wood, the other of soft wood, the first being anchored in a small hole and forcefully whirled over the second, which was immobilised firmly on the ground and virtually identifiable with it. As pointed out by Wood (1999: 150), fire resulted from “the almost sexual interplay of two sticks, rubbed against one another.” Indeed, the Gabra of northern Kenya “saw an analogy between fire, the product of rubbing two sticks, and life, the product of ‘rubbing’ two bodies together” (Ibid.). Across Eastern Africa, the first stick was commonly known as “the male” and the second as “the female.”

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Among the Maasai, the stem of a hard wild olive tree, ol-oirien, was used to pierce a large imaginary hide at the great e-unoto (“planting”) ceremony that opened the way to marriage for the members of an age-set of young men, the il-muran or “warriors” (Sena et al., 1984). The “planting” of the stem into the ground simulated the “piercing” of a womb, i.e. an initial or precursory sexual penetration. Regarding the very strong and basic connection between snakes and ground, an important clarification must be made. If snakes were associated with the female-natured ground, they were more specifically connected with breaches in the ground. Here again the analogy with the male organ, also familiar with “holes,” comes out loud and clear. In southern Ethiopia, as we have seen, the first wife of a Guji man was known as the “owner of the hole,” harda boola. Now the latter term means “vagina” as well as “hole” in the Oromo language (Van de Loo, p. 250 fn.). Just like sticks and trees were evocative of virility, womanhood was somewhat equated with “hollowness.” Indeed, among another Oromo group of southern Ethiopia, namely the Arsi, the spacing between the two upper middle teeth was a sign of female beauty, the word for this type of aperture, karo, being used in songs as a metonym for a beautiful girl (Baxter 1979: 16).

CHAPTER 4.4 SNAKES AND PERPETUAL REJUVENATION

Chapter 4.3 notably exemplified the snake and water connection. The equation implicitly alludes to a deeper relationship, one vividly illustrated by a Gurage tale recorded in central Ethiopia. A girl whose innocent brother had been recently killed saw a snake picking up some herb, spitting on it, and dropping it on its dead comrade, thereby bringing it back to life; she asked the snake if it could help her restore the life of her brother; the snake pulled some grass and handed it to her, telling her to spit on it before laying it on her brother’s corpse; she did as the snake told her and her brother was resuscitated (Leslau 1982: 37-43). That is the concluding portion of a story entitled “Father abandoned us, mother died on us.” An episode of a Gamo tale from southern Ethiopia alludes to the same motif (Bureau 1994: 135).1 In Africa in general and in Eastern Africa in particular, the snake was much more likely to evoke the notion of rejuvenation than that of resurrection. In his ground-breaking “studies in African mythology” on the origin of death, Abrahamsson (p. 66) emphasises that “in virtue of its capacity to slough its skin,” the snake was a key African symbol for “eternal life.” A student of Borana culture in northern Kenya confirms: “Because of their ability to slough their skins and appear gleamingly new born, [snakes] stand for regeneration and continuity” (Baxter 1978: 174). More generally, notes Charlesworth (p. 260), “the human aspires to escape death and has often employed serpent symbolism to articulate this common, but elusive, dream.” The present chapter will document the power of ophidian symbolism in this regard, using material gathered by 1

Tales featuring a healing ophidian such as these evoke to a significant extent the old Cretan legend of Glaukos (See chap. 2.2). In May 2012, the author of this study heard a similar story in Montréal from an elderly African woman hailing from the Moungo region of southern Cameroon: two venomous snakes were wrestling together; one bit its partner and killed it; the surviving reptile rushed into the forest and came back with leaves; these were applied to the wound of the unfortunate snake, which soon came back to life. The lady had heard the story in the 1940s in her native village.

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Abrahamsson and many other scholars and observers. The author has himself tracked down various relevant ethnographic accounts. An array of local tales and myths featuring, on the one hand, snakes and their putative ability to rejuvenate and, on the other hand, human beings and their mortal condition will be reviewed. One of the key motifs of the East African mythological scene is the tilted or unbalanced competition between humans and snakes for immortality. ***** The belief in the ability of snakes to regenerate indefinitely seems to have been widespread in Eastern Africa. Many other African peoples shared the belief in the quasi-immortality of ophidians. The Swazi of Southern Africa for instance held that “because the snake sheds its skin, it is able to renew its youth while, at the same time, it increases its shape, size, and strength” (Snook, p. 81). To stick to Eastern Africa, the Samburu (or Loikop) of western Kenya saw the snake as “a sign of immortality” (Fratkin 1974: 28) while the Konso of south-western Ethiopia believed that “snakes are, unless killed by violence, immortal since they merely slough their skins” (Hallpike, p. 251). Perhaps the more detailed account of this creed is provided by an ethnologist who studies the Gabra in north-western Kenya: By sloughing its skin annually,2 the snake defies death and renews itself. This universal symbolism, however, has deeper, mystical connotations for the Gabbra. The snake is a manifestation of the regenerative principle of finna, a concept which pervades their whole universe. This cosmic force (…) stands for rain, grass, food, fertility of man and animal, tradition and custom, peace and plenty. Gabbra women wear thick aluminium bracelets adorned with the double-headed image of the serpent. This is a materialisation of another associated Gabbra belief: that of the eternal return. The Gabbra concept of time is cyclical, repeating over and over again the same pattern of things. The snake, too, renews itself, sheds its outer form but keeps the inner intact, unchanged, timeless, eternal.

(Kassam, 1983, p. 25-26) Possibly influenced by the nearby Gabra, Borana girls and women also wore on their upper right arm armlets whose angular ends “obviously” resembled “snakes’ heads, hence its (…) name, mataa bofaa,” meaning precisely “snakes’ heads” (Leus et al., p. 560). These ends were

2

A more appropriate term would be “periodically,” i.e. more than once a year, especially in the case of young snakes.

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“hammered in to make the eyes” (Ibid.). The purpose of these bracelets or armlets must have been to promote the continuation of life and fertility.3 Even though they firmly held snakes to be exceptionally lively creatures, East Africans were aware that such reptiles can be killed by other animals, including some of their own kind. They also knew that ophidians may be destroyed by fire. In a tale recounted from the Somali to the Borana of south-central Ethiopia and from the Tsamako of south-western Ethiopia to the Nandi of south-west Kenya (Kirk 1904: 324-25; Kidane, p. 111; Jensen 1959: 383; Huntingford 1953: 125), snakes are eliminated by fire, water then being called upon to do away with the fire. To make sure a snake was really dead, the Borana of southern Ethiopia used to split its head (Haberland, p. 609). Their Tsamako neighbours and, further west, the Baka would cut a dying snake to pieces (Jensen, p. 380, 54). The Torrobo hunters of southern Kenya would use a club to smash its head (Hollis 1905: 266) while the Luhya of south-western Kenya used to cut off the head of deadly snakes (Were, p. 172). In central Kenya, the Kikuyu not only killed most types of snakes but also burnt them to prevent dead ophidians from giving birth (Leakey 1977: 462). The Mongwande of the DRC - Central African Republic borderland did the same (Moen 2005: 19). As the Pokomo of eastern Kenya would say, “If you kill a snake you must cut off its head”; if not, “it will bite again” (Werner 1933: 153).4 Likewise, in the understanding of the Luba people, west of Lake Tanganyika, snakes must be completely crushed to prevent them from sloughing their skins and commencing a new life.5

3

In West Africa the Lobi people, especially those from south-western Burkina Faso, used to wear a “protective bronze amulet with the double-headed snake motif” (Allan et al., p. 54; also Clamens 1952: 119) similar to the bracelets or armlets of Gabra and Borana females. Such bracelets were also found in southern Benin (Merlo et al. 1966b: 315, 317). 4 The same belief was held by the Albanians. (See footnote 1 in chap. 2.2.) For some reason, a Kikuyu who chopped a snake in two parts was required to sacrifice a goat (Cagnolo, p. 181). 5 As written down by Colle (1913: 507) and quoted by Abrahamsson (p. 44).

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Box 28 The Ngonde Legend of Ngeketo6 According to a local tradition, the Ngonde people revered three gods, namely Lyambilo, Mbasi, and Ngeketo. The latter was the “youngest” of the divine triad. He was the first to plant maize in the original homeland of this community. The two other gods became jealous and, along with the elders who disliked the innovation, conspired to kill the junior god. However, three days after his murder, Ngeketo came back to life in the form of a serpent. Lyambilo and Mbasi cut the snake to pieces but the pieces joined together and it lived once more. They again attempted to kill Ngeketo but they again failed to destroy it. Some people say that Ngeketo left the country and went away to the coast to become “the god of the white men.” The fact that Ngeketo comes back to life after three days seems to qualify him as a lunar figure. The new moon reportedly shows up after three moonless nights. The notion of “immortality” may be applied to snakes in the East African cultural context with the specification that snakes are potentially immortal. Quasi-perpetual regeneration would be another appropriate rendering of the East African belief. As we will soon discover, many East African tales took that representation for granted. Middleton (1954) argues that the construction of the mythical African past was typically inspired by the principle of inversion. What applied a long time ago is the opposite of what occurs nowadays. Animals could speak while humans could not; humans did not die; day was night, etc. A number of African folktales recounted that humans were originally immortal and “explained” how they came to meet with death. In other stories, things were somewhat undecided; humans were to be credited with the privilege of rebirth but something went wrong. In a number of cases, the message sent to humans by the high god was distorted or “perverted,” to use a formulation coined long ago by Frazer (1913: 303); consequently, immortality slipped out of humans’ grasp.7 Often another creature: the

6

This story is taken from chapter 3 of Werner’s Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933). The Ngonde are closely related to the better-known Nyakyusa. They occupy an area located to the southwest of Lake Malawi. 7 The few stories that substantiate Frazer’s thesis mostly originate from Asia (Vietnam), Melanesia (Sumatra), and Oceania (Papua New Guinea). He also referred to the East African holawaka story (See below). All these stories feature

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serpent or some other entity, notably the moon, ends up enjoying that unique privilege. Box 6 has already emphasised the age-old analogy between moon and snakes. As Arensen (1992: 165) points out concerning the Murle of eastern South Sudan, “These tales at first sight look simplistic. They are not intended (…) to be giving complex truths, but instead are making one simple statement, i.e. why something is the way it is.” In other words, such stories were meant to provide an answer, if only in unrefined form, to a lingering etiologic interrogation: what caused things to be what they are like these days? The belief in the capacity of the snake to renew itself through sloughing its old skin begged the question formulated long ago by Krappe (1930: 61): “Why are snakes able to do this whilst man is not?” Interestingly, that basic interrogation had already come up in modified form among the Gogo of central Tanzania: “They wonder why human beings don’t come to life again like the moon” (Cole, p. 330). ***** One logically possible answer to the question elicited by Krappe is that long ago people were like snakes, i.e. capable of casting out their old skins, thereby rejuvenating themselves. If so, then, the myth has to figure out ways and means by which that pattern was unfortunately reversed. The East African ethnographic record offers a number of basic or elaborate variants of such a scenario. Some of them implied that human and ophidian identities were initially merged. According to the Nilotic Kipsigis of south-western Kenya, “Long, long ago man was very long lived, for when one was getting old, one cast one’s skin like a snake and became younger again. But finally when death came it was permanent” (Orchardson 1932-33: 159).8 In South Sudan, the Murle, a Surma-speaking community, recalled that long ago people did not die. When they grew very old, they would crawl out of their skin “in the same way that a snake sloughs its skin” (Arensen 1992: 231). The Gogo of central Tanzania recounted an enriched version of the Murle and Kipsigis myths: Man and Snake. For a more detailed as well as more recently collected New Guinean version of the story, see Wagner (1986: 60-61). 8 Physical death was irreversible but thanks to a sacrifice held by the primeval mothers of the tribal community, the human spirits outlived their bodily incarnations and rejuvenated themselves through the children of their offspring (Orchardson 1961: 23).

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In the beginning of time, humans would not die completely. Their bodies would not rot. Once very old, human beings would undergo a transformation and the rejuvenated body would begin a new life. That would have gone on forever, had it not been for the greedy hyena. God had allowed it to devour dead animals, but had prohibited it from laying its teeth on a human body undergoing transformation. The hyena disobeyed. That is how the rejuvenation of humans was lost. (Schaegelen, p. 565)

Cole (p. 312-13, 332) recorded a simplified version of the same story. In a Meru tale from north-central Kenya about the advent of death, the magical power of a mythical hero prevents hyenas from taking away any human child; but because of that, humans become too many; God then sends death to earth; people start to die and hyenas begin to feast on human flesh (Peatrik, p. 191). If nowadays hyenas are fond of corpses, these scavengers did not prey on human bodies when in the distant past people did not really die.9 Among the Dinka of South Sudan, the hypothetical original pattern was preserved but only for a very specific and, at that, a very undesirable category of individuals: “It is commonly said that witches die only to go into the ground and change their scales (roc kuac), and that snakes may turn themselves into witches by sloughing their skins” (Lienhardt 1951: 308). Parrinder (p. 35) reports a myth from nearby Nuerland in which the original snake-like identity of humans is stated in oblique terms: “When men grew old they could climb up the sky by a rope and become young again, and then returned to earth and take up their life afresh.” In this case, while climbing up to the sky or descending from it along a rope, humans are somewhat identified with a snake-like form. More sophisticated variants of the scenario under consideration were to be found in Eastern Africa. Let us first consider a Nyamwezi myth from north-western Tanzania. This Bantu-speaking people also believed that primeval humans sloughed their old skins, thus enjoying immortality. The transformation took place in the ground, that is, once the “dead” had been 9

Hyenas are known to hide during the day in the “holes” they dig in the ground, for instance underneath trees. The manner with which the Nilotic Nandi of western Kenya used to dispose of corpses allows us to contextualise the Gogo and Meru myths. Like many other East African peoples, the Nandi would not bury their dead, with some exceptions. Rather, “when the body dies, it is laid out for the hyenas to eat, and during the process of eating, the mukuleldo [heart or personality] enters the hyena, remaining inside the animal till it goes to earth, when it leaves the hyena and enters the spirit-land” (Huntingford 1953: 137).

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buried.10 The living contributed to the process by watering the grave. Now a man had two wives. One of them died while he was travelling. The cowife neglected the watering of the grave. When the husband returned, he compensated by pouring much water on it: “After some days cracks appeared on the grave and after a time the neck and head of the dead person emerged.” Once again, the man went away and “the other wife took a hoe and cut off the neck and head of the buried woman.” The dying woman then said: “When you yourself will die, never will you rise again from the earth.” This story was taken by Abrahamsson (p. 63-64) from an article authored by a European missionary.11 In a similar myth, the jealousy of the woman—here a first wife—is aggravated by the fact that she has remained barren while her junior wife has begotten four children. The envious wife rejoices at the death of the junior cowife. Not only does she prevent her children from “feeding” her grave with milk and other food but when the vegetable-like head of her “dead” co-wife has fully emerged from the ground, she pulls it out using a rope. Interestingly, that rope is immediately transformed into the first snake on earth. This seems to imply that the potential for rejuvenation is transferred from humans to ophidians. The foregoing story was recounted among the Cushitic-speaking Iraqw of northern Tanzania (Kamera 1976: 57-59), not far to the south of the Nyamwezi. A somewhat different version of the same story was familiar to the neighbouring Datog (Blystad 1999: 197-98).12 Other sophisticated illustrations of the “casting-out-of-old-skins” theme were obtained from the Chagga, a Bantu-speaking group closely associated with Mt Kilimanjaro (northern Tanzania), as well as from the Nilotic Alur from the Uganda - DRC borderland. In these two versions, the ability to discard old skins was to remain the secret of the elderly. The

10 The Tsamako of south-western Ethiopia held that a buried snake swells in the ground before rising again after four days (Jensen 1959: 380). All of this may hint at the female earth’s life-giving capacities (“mother earth’s pregnancies”) but it more likely hints at snakes’ lunar affiliation. 11 F. Bösch (1929), “Schöpfungslegende der Wanañwezi,” Bibliotheca EtnologicaLinguistica Africana 3 (1), p. 77. Cory (1960: 15 fn.) also reports a similar story known to the nearby and related Sukuma. 12 The Uduk of south-western Ethiopia also believed that people would originally rise from graves but they did not smell good; one day, a resuscitated girl was ostracised, thereby “breaking the cycle of death and rebirth” (James 1990: 199).

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Chagga version came to the ears of Dundas (p. 109-10).13 It is part of a larger mythical sequence that is not relevant to our purpose. The key episode is as follows: Ruwa (God) awarded to an elderly and respectful man the ability to rejuvenate himself by slowly casting out his old skin when he became very old. However, his transformation could not be witnessed by any of his children or grandchildren. The very old man was entrusted to the care of a granddaughter. Feeling that his time had come, he sent the girl away to fetch water with a perforated gourd so as to delay her considerably.14 However, the clever girl managed to plug all the holes of the calabash. When she returned with the water, her grandfather’s transformation was half done. He died immediately and henceforth the privilege of rejuvenation was lost for all humans. Translated from Flemish and reported by Abrahamsson (p. 58), the Alur myth is very similar to the foregoing: An old woman asked her grandchild to make porridge while she herself went behind the house to change her skin. The child was told to stay indoors and not to call out for her. The old woman had begun to cast out her skin (…) when the child called her out that the porridge was boiling. The grandmother heard this, and the changing of skin was interrupted. (…) If the child had not called out, she would have changed her skin, and other human beings would have been able to do the same thing when they grew old, and would not have needed to die. Thus the old woman died, leaving death to her descendants behind her. And human beings are not able to 15 change their skin when they get old, but die.

A brief story recorded by Mukhule (p. 152) among the Abakhero people of western Kenya seems to fit in somewhat with the present pattern. The founding ancestor of the Gwassi clan reportedly “turned into a big python when he became very old at a place called Nyandiwa.”

13

Abrahamsson (p. 58) reports two similar versions recorded in German by B. Gutmann in publications dating back to 1909 and 1914. 14 The piercing of the gourd is a theme represented in other East African myths. See for instance Hauge (1981a: 42). 15 Excerpt quoted by Abrahamsson from M. Vanneste (1949), Legenden, geschiedenis en gebruiken van een Nilotisch Volk, Institut Royal Colonial Belge, Mémoires 18, Fascicule 1, p. 15. The Alur myth is also reported by Allan et al. (p. 55-6). Some years ago, while reading about Hinduism, the author of this study came upon an Indian storyʊone featuring a princessʊvery similar to that of the Chagga and Alur. Abrahamsson (p. 144) reported that the Danwar of India recounted stories about “skin-casting humans.”

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The mythical pattern of primeval humans casting out old skins and thus being rejuvenated was not confined to Eastern Africa. The motif showed up notably in Central Africa among the Kongo and Luba (Abrahamsson, p. 60, 61). It is also discernible in the folkore of the Dogon of Western Africa. In mythical times, humans were immortal in the sense that when they became very old, they were transformed into serpents which later became spirits; death came to humanity when for some reason the metamorphosis was disrupted so that the first mortal human died as a man (de Ganay, p. 203-204). The motif showed up loud and clear as far as Oceania. Maranda (p. 113) reports five such Oceanian occurrences. One of these was reported by none other than B. Malinowski in a paper that came out in 1926. In primeval times humans lived underground. When they became old, they would throw away their old skins, be rejuvenated, and this state of affairs went on and on. When they came to the earth surface, they still had this ability but soon lost it on account of a dispute between an old woman and her granddaughter. The two of them went to bathe and the old lady went out of sight to remove her wrinkled old skin: Transformed into a young girl, she came back to her granddaughter. The latter did not recognize her; she was afraid of her, and bade her begone. The old woman, mortified and angry, went back to her bathing place, searched for her old skin, put it on again, and returned to her granddaughter. This time she was recognized and thus greeted: “A young girl came here; I was afraid; I chased her away.” Said the grandmother, “No, you didn't want to recognize me.” (…) They went home to where the daughter was preparing the meal. The old woman spoke to her daughter: “I went to bathe; the tide carried my skin away; your daughter did not recognize me; she chased me away. I shall not slough my skin. We shall all 16 become old. We shall all die.”

16

Malinowski’s paper reappeared in his posthumous Magic, Science and Religion, and Other Essays (with an introduction by R. Redfield), Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954. Some years ago that edition was available online at: http://www.freewebs.com/atheisthistorian/magicsciencereligion.htm. The Beacon Press and Free Press edition is currently available online at: https://monoskop.org/images/4/41/Malinowski_Bronislaw_Magic_Science_and_R eligion_and_Other_Essays_1948.pdf. For the excerpt above, see p. 104 of that edition.

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Thereafter humanity lost the power of rejuvenation. However, continues the myth, the “animals of the below,” i.e. snakes and lizards, were not deprived of their ability to remove old skins and restore their youth. ***** A second logically possible answer to the question formulated by Krappe is the following: God—sometimes a surrogate—gave humans the opportunity to enjoy eternal life but this opportunity did not materialise for some reason. As a rule, humans proved unworthy of such a privilege. There is an array of East African myths or tales featuring a high god putting humans to the test. The author will basically focus on those tales— there are many of them—in which the snake happens to be a protagonist. To start with, here is a story recorded by Jensen et al. (p. 496) among the Guji and Darassa (or Gedeo) peoples of south-western Ethiopia: God once wished to see whether the man or the snake was worthy of immortality, and he therefore arranged a race between them. In the course of the race, the man met a woman and stopped to smoke and chat with her for so long that the snake reached God first. And God said to man: “Snake is worthier than you. It deserves to be immortal. But, from now on, you will die, and so will it be for your posterity.”17

In the early years of the twentieth century, the Acholi of north-central Uganda recounted an analogous myth: After God had made the world, he called together the sun and moon and stars and man that they might eat the tree of life and live for ever. The sun and moon and stars arrived and they all sat waiting for man. After they had waited for some time, God sent someone to look for man and he came back and reported that man had only started and was loitering along the road in no hurry at all. At this God became very angry and gave the whole of the tree to sun, moon and stars, so that when man arrived there was none left for him. And that is the reason why the sun and moon and stars live for ever and man has to die. (Grove, p. 169)

Although the snake is not involved in that tale, the reason why humans are deprived of immortality is the same as in the preceding one: carelessness or foolishness. In that story, man chooses to socialise with woman— plausibly not excluding sexual dealings, thus possibly implying 17 This summary is that of Abrahamsson (p. 16). The present author has translated and added the last sentence.

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reproduction and death—rather than focus on a contest that might confer upon him the invaluable privilege of immortality. Other tales underscore the lack of generosity or selfishness of humans. The following mythical account was widely known in southern Ethiopia among the Cushitic Sidama: “Snakes are said to have been given immortality by Magano, the sky god, because of their obedience, while man lost his chance for eternal life through failure to show sufficient obedience and respect for this creator deity” (Hamer 1970: 61). Levine (1974: 49-50) supplies a more detailed version of the Sidama myth: At a time when the human race lived without troubles and never knew death, Magano, the supreme deity, appeared among them as a tired way farer begging for water; his request was flatly refused by a woman, but the serpent offered him milk. As a consequence, Magano punished humans by subjecting them to afflictions and mortality and rewarded the serpent by granting it immortality.

The Dassanech of south-west Ethiopia recounted a story similar to that of the Sidama (Tippett, p. 200; Almagor 1983: 64; 1985: 10), except that Snake plays no part in it. In the guise of an old man, God begs food from a woman busy stirring milk and sorghum in a calabash; not only does she refuse but she beats him with the stirring stick and hits him in the eyes. The rude and in this case brutal behaviour of a woman causes the withdrawal of God from the earthly world, the end of a period of uninterrupted plenty and happiness, and the appearance of drought and death. The non-respectful woman is implicitly the first human being to die from punishment by the irate God. In this case, Snake is not credited with the privilege of immortality. That may have something to do with the subordination of the origin-of-death theme to a more wide-ranging African mythical theme, that of the separation of earth (humans) and sky (god). The narrative known to the Luhya, a Bantu group from south-western Kenya, is surprisingly consistent with the Sidama story, considering the geographical and linguistic gaps between the two groups. In this tale, Chameleon substitutes for God: While one of the grandsons of the Luhya tribal founder was enjoying an evening meal in his homestead, Chameleon came to beg food. The request was bluntly turned down. The animal insisted and was chased away. It then cursed the man: “You will all die.” Chameleon then went to the snake, again begging for something to eat. Its request was granted whereupon Chameleon issued a blessing: “You, snake, will live forever. When you

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grow old, just cast away your worn-out skin.” (Adapted from Wagner, 1949, p. 169-70; 1954, p. 43-44)

Stam (1920: 979) had recorded among the same people a similar story involving Chameleon, men, and Snake. In a different set of myths, the critical issue is the inability of humans to stay awake at night for a long period of time. The idea behind it is that sleepiness clashes with immortality, as Zahan (1969: 46) explains. The Gogo of central Tanzania used to say that sleep amounts to “a little death” (Cole, p. 327). Likewise, in north-eastern Tanzania, the Pare had the following saying: “Sleep is the messenger of death” (Abrahamsson, p. 35).18 The Rwa of northern Tanzania, often referred to as Meru, as well as the Luo of western Kenya used various euphemisms for dying, notably “sleeping” and “resting” (Harjula 1978: 55-56; Hauge 1981b: 27-28). Possibly because of the weaker breathing of sleeping persons, one would sometimes hear the Rwa say that such persons are half alive and half dead (Harjula, p. 58 fn.). As elsewhere in the world, dying has commonly and euphemistically been phrased by Africans as “going to sleep.”

Box 29 Sleep and Death The connection between “sleep” and “death” comes out sharply in the two following stories, one from the Nuba of south-central Sudan and one from the Lango of south-central Uganda. Heard by Driberg (1923: 102-103), the Lango story is about the origin of beer-making and drunkenness: Once upon a time, there lived a man named Atiri, of the clan called Arakijakum, who was the first man to make kongo [beer]. So pleased was he at his discovery that he sent the first jar to his chief, who drank it and fell at once into a drunken sleep. The men who lived in the chief’s village thereupon came together and cried: “Behold, this Atiri has put poison in the drink which he prepared and has killed our chief. Let us see to it.” So in their displeasure they took Atiri and killed him. Now shortly after this was done, the chief awoke and, being thirsty, asked, “Where is Atiri?” “He is dead,” replied his men. “This is strange,” said the chief, “for he was alive, and well but a short space of time ago. How came he to die?” “We thought,” they answered, “that he had put poison into the drink he sent you

18 The information about the Pare hails from a German publication dating back to 1916.

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Chapter 4.4 and caused your death, so we killed him.” Thereupon the chief was very angry and killed all the slayers of Atiri.

Involving the hare as a trickster, the Nuba myth is about the origin of irreversible death. Originally God told the relatives of a dying person to bring that person inside his or her house for the night and that he or she would waken up the next morning: “But one day when a man died, and before God told men what to do, a hare came and told the relatives to bury the corpse else God would be angry and kill them. So the relatives buried the man and when God came they told him what had been done” (Parrinder, p. 54). This angered the Divinity: “Why have you listened to the hare instead of me?” Thereafter, all human beings died once and forever. A myth from Rwanda goes like this: Imana (God) talked and talked to Man so as to keep him awake throughout the night; but, as dawn was drawing near, the latter fell asleep; the time had come for Imana to confide the secret of immortality to whoever was awake; he called for someone; Man did not respond; Snake—which may have overheard what God was planning to do— showed up; it, and not the sleeping man, was told God’s secret. Man would have received the blessing of immortality, had he resisted sleepiness.19 Abrahamsson (p. 37) reports a more detailed version of the same story, his source being this time a French missionary20: Imana summons Man and Snake to his presence; both are told to stay awake overnight; he tells them that he would call them three times and that, at his last call, he would have something very important to say to them; at his second call, Man is sleeping; at the third call, he is still asleep, contrary to Snake. God then exempts the latter from dying: “You will grow old, but you will cast out your old skin and begin a new life.” The same story was recounted much further south among the Fipa of south-western Tanzania (Lynch et al., p. 114). A similar Fipa story is reported by Abrahamsson (p. 38), who also supplies a tale from the Lunda of south-eastern DRC: God instructs men not to sleep while the moon is to be seen in the sky; one day clouds hide the moon to some extent; believing that the moon has gone, an old man with a poor eyesight goes to sleep; and God takes his life.

19

The story was reported by Werner (1933: 44-45). It was taken from an older publication by a German missionary. 20 A. Pagès (1919-20), “Au Ruanda sur les bords du lac Kivou,” Anthropos 14-15: 961.

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Interestingly, the Rwandese and Fipa myths echo to a considerable degree the age-old Sumerian myth of Gilgameshʊsee chapter 2.1ʊwho twice fails to become immortal because he is caught sleeping. Again the implication is that there is a fundamental mismatch between immortality and sleepiness. Having no eyelids, snakes appear to be awake all the time. Man’s chances of winning immortality in a contest with Snake are rather poor.

Box 30 Snake Fooled by Tortoise: A Puzzling Story from Buganda21 In the distant past, kingship was ruthlessly held by Bemba Omusota, “Scaly the Snake.” Prompted by Pangolin, its friend or master, Tortoise sets out to kill the oppressive king.22 “You must know that we, turtles, live forever or almost. Hear my secret. Every night, we cut our heads off and in the morning we are as good as new.” Tortoise then shows itself in the evening with its head retracted into its shell, and pokes it out again just before dawn. The stratagem is good enough to lure the king into agreeing not only to have its head cut off but also the heads of all the members of his kind. Tortoise quickly seizes the opportunity. The reign of the primeval king and the life of all serpents come to an end, so the myth goes. Inasmuch as snakes were credited then as well as now with the capacity to rejuvenate indefinitely, as Wrigley argues, the king foolishly gambled an effective long lease on life for a hypothetical immortality, the chopping off of its head being the surest way, as a matter of fact, to irreversible death. According to Atkinson (1975), an analyst quoted by Wrigley, the story also implies a four-stage progression: (a) the writhing Snake; (b) then Tortoise, “the reptile with inefficient legs and partial scaly cover”; (c) then the ant-eating Pangolin, “the clumsy, anomalous scaly mammal that sometimes stands on its hind legs”; and finally (d) “erect-walking and scale-free Man.” The progression would be perfect had the lives of the four protagonists been known to scale down in that order from near 21 See Wrigley (1996: 105-10). The Rukuba of central Nigeria (Jos Plateau) recounted a similar story: Tortoise and Snake claimed to be the lord of the river; taking advantage of both its retractable head and legs, the former chopped off Snake’s head (Muller 1973: 246). 22 Snakes, tortoises, and pangolins are “scaly” creatures. The Himba of northwestern Namibia believe that snakes, lizards, crocodiles, frogs, etc. evolved from the tortoise (Crandall, p. 299-300).

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immortality to finite and short life. Large turtles may have been believed to enjoy long lives. Indeed, Wrigley writes that Tortoise was “notorious” (in Buganda?) for its longevity. Its near immortality is alluded to in the story. However, it is not clear whether East Africans viewed the pangolin as out-living humans. It apparently has a life expectancy of no more than 20 years. ***** Since snakes have not disappeared from the real world and have not lost their potential for immortality, the principle of inversion may help to reach a better understanding of the story from Buganda. Let us suppose that the snake-king wished to secure eternal life because, at the beginning of times, snakes were not immortal. This by the way would set the myth in the wake of the old Sumerian story of Gilgamesh. Even though Kintu does not feature as a protagonist in the story we are concerned with, Wrigley tells us that the present narrative was part of the mythology of Kintu, the first man as well as the mythical founder of the Ugandan kingdom of Buganda. The legend has it that once the primeval ruler was slain, kingship was retrieved by none other than the mythical hero.23 It may be suggested that no living creature can be blessed with both kingship and immortality. While losing lordship to Kintu, Bemba Omusota may have secured immortality for itself. ***** A third logically possible answer to the question formulated by Krappe is the following: God—sometimes a surrogate—wished that humans enjoy eternal life and commissioned a third party to deliver that message to them. Unfortunately for humans, the messenger failed to carry out its mission properly. A myth from the Kono of distant Sierra Leone will serve to introduce this section of the present chapter because it tells of skin-changing, a theme seemingly more common in Eastern Africa than in the western portion of 23

Some native mythologists recounted that Kintu himself killed the primeval snake king (Kagwa 1934: 12). That version seemingly echoes an ancient Abyssinian mythical tradition. See Box 44 in chap. 5.1, Volume Two.

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the continent. God wanted humans to “renew themselves,” just like snakes. A bundle of new skins was entrusted to Dog, which was charged with handing them out to humans. Before its mission was completed, Dog took part in a feast, foolishly leaving the precious bundle unattended. It was asked what was in the bundle and whom it was intended for. Snake overheard the conversation, disappeared unnoticed, took away the bundle, and shared the skins with its kith and kin. Since then, goes the myth, snakes have shed their skins and lived on and on whereas human beings have been confronted with unavoidable death. Both Parrinder (p. 54) and Allan et al. (p. 55) provide versions of that myth, the former account being more elaborate. It is to be noted that the Kono myth displays key aspects of age-old legends. In the story of Gilgamesh, Snake snatches the plant of immortality heroically plucked out of the sea bed by the Sumerian hero, but left unattended while he is sleeping or bathing in a pool. In a Greek myth, a thirsty donkey exchanges a load of ill-defined “medicine of immortality” to Snake in exchange for water. The Kono tale gives us a plausible clue as to the actual content of the Greek pharmakon. Recorded among the Orma, an Oromo community of eastern Kenya, the following narrative also features an unworthy messenger, one which, just like the Kono dog, is more concerned with food than with fulfilling his mission: God sent the bird Holawaka (…) to tell men that they would not die; when they found themselves growing old and weak, they would slip off their skins and become young again. He gave this bird a crest (…) as a badge of office, to mark it as His messenger. It set out and had not gone very far before it found a snake in the path eating a dead animal. (…) Holawaka said, “Give me some of the meat and the blood and I will tell you God’s message.” The snake said he did not want to hear it, but the bird insisted that it concerned him very nearly and pressed him till he gave way. Holawaka said, “The message is this: men when they grow old will die, but you, when you find yourself becoming infirm, all you have to do is to crawl out of your skin and you will renew your youth.” This is why people grow old and die, but snakes change their skins and grow young again. God laid a curse on the bird. (Werner, 1913, p. 90-91)24

24

The northern Guji Oromo—also known as Alabdu—believed in a furred, waterdwelling, and five-fingered creature named hola waka, “the sheep of God”

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Compared to the Luhya, Sidama, and Dassanech narratives presented above, the Orma myth appears atypical since the first to be begged for food or drink is the snake rather than a human. But it may be that humans had failed to show generosity in the first place… In various East African tales, notably from the Kamba of eastern Kenya (Lindbloom, p. 253; Mbiti 1966: 14-15) and from the Kikuyu of central Kenya (Beecher, p. 82), the messenger sent by God with the message of immortality is not a bird but Chameleon. As the story goes, the slowmoving reptile takes days to deliver its message to humans, thereby allowing God to change his mind and send a swifter messenger—such as a frog or some lizard—which expectedly gets to humans before the initial envoy or before the latter has finished proclaiming the announcement it was entrusted to deliver. In some versions of the story, Chameleon stammers or, given the many days that had passed, it wonders what message it was sent out to proclaim. The choice of the chameleon may be explained by a torpidity that gave God plenty of time to reflect upon his initial decision but it can be argued that there is more to it than that. Zahan (p. 42) advances an interesting theory about the symbolic status of the chameleon. The proverbial slowness of this reptile was paradoxical in the African worldview, its physical rhythm having more in common with immobility, i.e. death, than with the swiftness of most living creatures. Moreover, it is useful to recall that in some of the myths considered earlier in this chapter, it is Chameleon which utters a death curse to humans. This reptile inspired awe in much of Eastern Africa. It was perceived as a “very repulsive creature” by a number of peoples from that region (Beidelman 1963: 92). According to Lindbloom (p. 331), most Bantu peoples of Eastern Africa, including the Kamba, “hated” and often killed chameleons, as they did with snakes. Ordinary chameleons frightened the Kikuyu, who believed that “if it spat upon a person, that person would waste away and die” (Leakey, p. 460). The Lango of Uganda also “greatly” feared this reptile: “If one bites you in the dry weather when the sun is strong, it will not affect you. But should it bite you during the rains, the place will swell up enormously” (Hayley, p. 176). The Luhya of far western Kenya held the skin of the chameleon to be highly poisonous, no one daring to lay a hand on it (Stam, p. 979). The Chewa of Malawi were also fearful of chameleons (Morris 2000: 199-200). In that part of the world, this type of (Haberland, p. 342). Its skin or fur was reportedly used as a last-resort treatment for sick people who had become skeletal (Ibid.).

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reptile was clearly associated with death. Likewise, in southern Ethiopia, the Borana Oromo fear chameleons “more than snakes, believing their bite to be fatal,” and they “kill them mercilessly whenever they get a chance” (Leus et al., p. 256). All Oromo peoples are reported to dread chameleons (Haberland, p. 505). In central Ethiopia, children were warned not to touch chameleons and even more so avoid being bitten by such creatures (Griaule 1928: 52-53).25 Therefore, the chances that Chameleon could successfully deliver the message of immortality to humans were, over and above its sluggishness, very slim. In a myth recorded in Cameroon among the Wute (or Vute), the two competing messengers are Snake and Chameleon, the second being the clumsy messenger of life, the first the efficacious envoy of death. This story was one of the most ominous of its kind.26 ***** A fourth logically possible answer to the question formulated by Krappe is the following: God let Snake and Man have their say as to which between the two of them was to be awarded immortality. The Borana of southern Ethiopia recounted the following, a story in which both Man and Snake ask God to be freed from immortality: “We have become too many. No one dies. We fight all the time. There is no more respect for old age!” God refused, saying: “How can I kill what I have myself created?” But they insisted and insisted. God finally agreed. He asked Snake to look at him and took its spirit away. Snake was lying on the ground as if dead. Then God turned to Man: “Have you seen what 25 The author experienced the people’s fear of chameleons in Rwanda in the early 1970s. The Mossi of Burkina Faso thought that it was extremely dangerous to see two chameleons copulating. If nothing was done in terms of propitiation or reparation, one’s children were doomed to die (Houis, p. 92-93). Nonetheless, the chameleon was sometimes portrayed in Eastern Africa as a witty character, as in some Gogo and Sanye folktales (Cole, p. 332-33; Barrett 1911: 39). Likewise, the Bini of Nigeria viewed the chameleon as a wise creature on account of its slowness, a feature shared by very elderly people, and also because of its ability to change its colouring according to circumstances (Ben-Amos, p. 250). 26 The tale was supplied by the German Africanist H. Baumann (1936: 269) and summed up by Hauenstein (1978: 526). Baumann must have taken the story from a monograph authored by J. Sieber and entitled Die Wute (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1925). In a version from the Sara of Chad, Chameleon is outrun by a gecko-type of lizard (Fortier 1958: 167).

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Chapter 4.4 happened to Snake? It does not die because it enjoys an endless life, unless someone splits its head open. When it lies on the ground as if dead, it only has to eat soil and its life is restored. Do you want to become just like the snake? But you will die once and for ever. Now you look at me.” Man obeyed and God took his spirit away. (Haberland, p. 609)

According to a tale known to the nearby Tsamako of south-western Ethiopia, God created humans and snakes, and asked them: “What should you be like?” Snake was quick to answer: “Let me be like the common yellow fruit and let man be like a clod of earth.” It took a yellow fruit and dropped it in water: “See, it floats back to the surface.” It then took a clod and dropped it in water: “See, it goes down deep.” The snake added: “If men were like the yellow fruit, they would multiply and, having become too many, they would fight among themselves all the time. So it is better that they be like clods.” Since then, humans die once and for all while snakes, once they grow old, begin a new life (Jensen 1959: 380). It is to be noted here that Man is unable to oppose Snake’s shrewdness and to take a stand. How could he merit immortality? The story also plays down ophidian superior fertility.27 Moreover, it evokes a very unlikely scenario: that of immortal humans involved in sexual reproduction. The Nilotic Atwot of South Sudan told a similar story, except that Fox substitutes for Snake and Man is not involved in the discussion with the high god. The latter and Fox argue about the human condition; God throws a piece of broken calabash into the water while Fox uses a shard of pottery, which sinks to the bottom; Fox then persuades the wellintentioned God that his way is the more appropriate one since sadness does not deter people from laughing and feasting at funerals (Burton 1978: 603; 1987: 102). In the Nuerʊalso from South Sudanʊversion of the story, God does the same and trusts a barren woman to deliver the message of rebirth to men; seemingly dissatisfied with her own life, she corrupts the message, throwing a piece of pottery in a stream rather than the shard of a gourd (Parrinder, p. 54). Linguistically related to the Nuer and Atuot, the Anuak of the South Sudan-Ethiopia borderland have a different version. God, who was not perceived by this people as a well-wishing entity, throws a stone into a river, a piece of which is rescued by the 27 The overpopulation resulting from the multiplication of ever-lasting humans also transpires in South Sudan in Dinka folklore (Lienhardt 1961: 36). These representations may echo Ancient Mesopotamian mythology: divinely created, humans became very numerous and noisy, which prompted one of the high gods to inflict epidemics, famine, and a great flood upon them (Bottéro et al., p. 541 ff).

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benevolent Dog so that humans can enjoy at least a moderate life expectancy (Evans-Pritchard et al., p. 56-57; Lienhardt 1962: 78). ***** In many East African tales, Moon, a celestial body which seemingly casts out “an old skin” every month, plays the part of Snake. In those stories, eternal life is initially intended for Man and irreversible death for Moon, but an unreliable messenger once again distorts the message and, unfortunately for humans, Moon is granted the privilege of perpetual rebirth. A few words about the symbolic status of the moon in Eastern Africa are called for at this juncture. Chapter 2.1 of the present study28 has already highlighted the strong connections between moon, rebirth, and snakes in ancient civilisations. For instance an Egyptian pharaoh of the thirteenth century BCE declared: “I shall be reborn like the moon.” When the Mesopotamian moon-god Sin was not visible in the sky, he was said to be with the dead, i.e. in the netherworld, which is also the abode of snakes. Likewise, according to an East African tradition reported from the Swahili coast by Lynch et al. (p. 114), “a lunar eclipse occurs when a snake swallows the Moon.” The male serpent god Selwanga, believed to be a “giver of children,” was honoured at the new moon by people from Buganda near Lake Victoria (Roscoe 1909a: 89). The Maa-speaking Parakuyo and Maasai used to throw something at the new moon and say: “Give me long life!” (Hollis 1905: 273-74; Fokken 1917: 244). The Nilotic Nandi acted similarly (Hollis 1909: 123). In central Tanzania, the moon was sometimes held to be a divinity: “When the Sandawe venerate the moon they really venerate life, and the moon is its intimate symbol rather than its spirited goddess” (Ten Raa 1969: 51). As Ten Raa (p. 47) argues, “The moon’s phases resemble the stages of a human life much more closely than the sun does in its daily course through the sky.” This explains why “rainmaking is performed under the aegis of the moon, dances of fertility are held under its protection, new-born infants are introduced to the nascent moon” (Ibid.).29 Rain, the very source of life, 28

See more exactly Box 6. Moreover, the Sandawe believed that “the moon’s phases are identified with a woman’s menstrual periods” and that “women are passing through their fertile period during their menses” (Ten Raa, p. 30), a belief which had been briefly noted by Van de Kimmenade (1936: 415). Far to the north in south-western Ethiopia, menstrual blood is poetically called “the rain of women,” irma dezit, by the

29

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was “attributed directly to the moon” by the Kipsigis of south-western Kenya, who reckoned Moon, Arawet, to be the “wife” of the sun (Orchardson 1919: 419). These examples may suffice to illustrate that the moon was firmly associated with the promotion of life in Eastern Africa. Long ago, there were two women, a big one and a small one, each having a child. The child of the small woman got sick and died. Its mother told the big woman: “Take the child and go bury it somewhere.” While burying it, you will say: ‘Man, die and come to life again! Moon, die and disappear forever!’ She went to bury the child but malignantly said: “Man, die and disappear forever! Moon, die and come to life again!” The big woman returned the next day to the place of burial. She saw the ground bulging out30 and stepped forcefully on it to prevent the child from rising again, while repeating: “Man, die and disappear forever! Moon, die and come to life again!” The mother of the dead child asked her if she had spoken the correct words. “Yes,” she replied. Later, the child of the big woman got sick and died. She wisely decided to bury her child herself. While burying it, she said: “Man, die and come to life again! Moon, die and disappear forever!” But her child never rose from the ground. Since then the moon disappears and shines again and again whereas humans die to become spirits intent on killing the living. That story was recorded by Fokken (1916-17: 204-205) among the Nilotic Arusha of northern Tanzania. Just about the same story was heard amidst the related Parakuyo (Maasai) in eastern Tanzania (Beidelman 1968: 87). In the Parakuyo variant, as reported by Hollis (1905: 271-72), the key protagonist is a man named Leeyo. This is one of the names assigned to the first legendary Maasai (Mol, p. 223). The first dead child Leeyo disposes of is not his own child, but the second is. Because of the words uttered at the disposal of the first child, his own child dies forever instead of coming back to life. As for eternal rebirth, it accrues to Moon. The Nilotic Pokot of western Kenya had at least two versions of the same story (Schneider 1967: 288, 305-306). The first one is as follows: In the days when the first man was on earth, one day the Moon said to him: “When I die, will I come out again?” The man answered: “No!” Then the Dassanech (Almagor 1987b: 115), who also believed that women reach their climax of fertility during their periods. 30 We have seen above that for some groups, the process of rebirth could take place in the grave.

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Moon twice again asked him the same question and each time he got the same answer.31 So the Moon said: “I’ll come out again anyway!” And he does come out again every month. Now, if the man had said “Yes” to the Moon, then people would also come out again after they die, but because he gave the wrong answer they do not.

In a tale known by the nearby and related Nilotic Nandi, Dog takes the role played by Chameleon in some of the narratives presented above. A dog came to the first people living on earth and said to them: “All people will die like the moon, but if you give me some milk to drink out of your gourd and beer to drink through your straw, I will arrange for you to go to the river when you die and come to life again on the third day.” The people laughed and did not comply. The angry dog then said: “All people will die and the moon alone will return to life.” (Hollis, 1909, p. 98) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

The Nandi people would never share food or drink with dogs. Similar stories were heard in communities removed from the Maasai and other Nilotic peoples of south-central and western Kenya. In a Konso myth from south-western Ethiopia, Turtle is sent by God to tell humans that “Man will die and live again” whereas “Moon will die and be lost forever”; but here again the messenger corrupts the message (Hallpike, p. 155-56). According to the Sanye (or Boni) hunters of north-eastern Kenya, “formerly human beings did not die until one day a lizard (dibleh) appeared and said to them, ‘All of you know that the moon dies and rises again, but human beings will die and rise no more.’ (…) from that day human beings commenced to die” (Barrett 1911: 37). Among the Rimi or Nyaturu of central Tanzania, the snake takes back the part played by the moon. They were familiar with the following expressions: “Let the snake die and man be born anew,” and “Let man die and the snake be born anew” (Jellicoe 1978: 345-46). The full story has not been disclosed but we learn from Jellicoe (p. 26) that the snake gains immortality because the message was inverted, the messenger being in this case a man rather than an animal. In various parts of Africa, the moon features in myths concerned with the allocation of death and immortality. Abrahamsson (p. 98) provides instances from Central Africa: Kongo and Loango, as well as from Madagascar. Parrinder (p. 67) and Thomas et al. (1969: 99-100) also 31

Moon was apparently a masculine figure among the Pokot.

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supply stories from the Hottentot of Southern Africa and from the Mossi of Burkina Faso, respectively. There must have been many others. To sum up, two broad scenarios prevailed in the East African stories presented above. In some of these, the first humans—or the first human generations—ignored death and would for instance cast out their old skins and be rejuvenated or they would be buried only to rise from the ground alive after a few days, as if awakening from a deep sleep. But some humans proved unworthy of the privilege of rebirth on account of their selfishness, stinginess, carelessness, etc., and their misdeed changed the course of human existence. In other stories, the condition of the primeval humans was undecided to begin with, the options of finite life and irreversible death on the one hand and perpetual rejuvenation on the other both available. As a rule God intended to allocate immortality notably to humans and finite life to some other entities such as Snake and Moon. But either the very first humans proved unworthy of indefinite rejuvenation because of their inability to pass a test—sleeping rather than staying awake overnight for instance—or the messenger sent by God to deliver the message of immortality to humans proved inefficient on account of its slowness, carelessness, stupidity, or inauspiciousness. In the end, mankind unfortunately ended up being mortal. The fact that God selects inappropriate envoys would seem to imply the unformulated truth that immortality could not be considered a serious option for humans, either at present or at the beginning of times.32 ***** There is no way to close the present chapter without considering yet another smaller and peculiar set of tales, ones that are analogous either to the biblical or Judaic story of Adam, Eve, and the Snake, or to the Koranic story of Adam, Eve, and Iblis (Satan). Such stories percolated into parts of Eastern Africa long ago. To the best of this author’s knowledge, local variants of the Adam and Eve story were recorded in southern Ethiopia among southern Oromo groups such as the Borana and the southern Guji, and at least one Eastern Nilotic group, namely the Maasai of Kenya and

32

The Anuak myth referred to above is exceptional in that the non-benevolent God does not wish humans to live but Dog manages to recover a portion of the stone thrown into a stream by the former so that humans may enjoy a fair number of years of life.

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Tanzania, all of whom remained faithful to their traditional religion well into the twentieth century.33 Ancient Arabic influence in deep southern Ethiopia was underscored by Schlee (1994b: 198-99): “On the fringe of the Islamic world, it was Arabic that provided some sort of common denominator for shared categories,” including the naming of the seven days of the week. Indeed, various Semitic groups hailing from the southern Arabic peninsulaʊwhere both Judaism and Christianity were well established before the rise of Islam (Rodinson 1964: 19)ʊcrossed the Red Sea and began to settle along the Abyssinian coast during the first millennium BCE, if not earlier, i.e. long before Christianity and Islam spread into Ethiopia. The Semitic linguistic group is represented in the country notably by the Amharinian, Tigrean, and Tigrinian peoples since that remote period of history. In all likelihood the early Semitic settlers were familiar with some version of the Adamand-Eve story. The names of the two human protagonists in some of the Guji and Borana tales: Adani (Adem, etc.) and Hawan (Hawey, etc., i.e. Eve) are clearly Semitic or Arabic in origin. This single feature bears witness to the provenance of these stories. As for the history of Christianity in northern Abyssinia, it goes back to the very first century of the Christian era. That religion had made inroads into southern Abyssinia many centuries before the incorporation of that multi-ethnic region into the modern Ethiopian Empire towards the end of the nineteenth century. Isolated from Christian Ethiopia by the Oromo expansion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many southern Ethiopian communities reverted to “paganism” (Haberland 1964; also Braukämper 1992: 198-97 and Hodson, p. 102). After the almost successful invasion led by the famous left-handed Muslim leader Ahmad Gran in the first half of the sixteenth century, Islam gained a lot of new ground in eastern and to some extent central Ethiopia. It has been demonstrated that the Sidama community— which is among the immediate neighbours of the southern Guji—has been influenced by both Christianity and Islam (Braukämper, p. 202). East of Maasailand, the coastal towns of present-day Kenya and Tanzania were Islamised many centuries ago. As for the very first Christian missionaries, they appeared at the eastern periphery of Maasailand in the 33 For the Guji, see Hinnant (1977: 31; 1988: 799); for the Borana, see Haberland (p. 619-20) and Kidane (p. 132); for the Maasai, see Merker (p. 270-71) and Galaty (1977: 475). A Burji story from southern Ethiopia features a friendly god, the first human couple (unnamed) as well as Python, which immediately swallows the child Woman delivers each year (Amborn, p. 109).

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second half of the nineteenth century. These early clergymen and those who followed them had a hard time converting the Maasai people to the Christian faith. The Maasai myth, reviewed below, could originate either from the Muslim coast or from Christian missionaries, or from a mix involving both sources. Like most non-Christian and non-Muslim peoples, the Maasai like nice stories. It is also acknowledged that the forerunners of the contemporary Maasai lived in northern Kenya some five hundreds of years ago. These early Maasai were culturally influenced by Somali-like (Rendille, Sakuye, Garre, etc.) or Oromo (Borana, Orma) pastoralists, if not from both sides. It may be that they were acquainted with the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent before they settled in present-day southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. The East African variants of the Adam-and-Eve story are about the making of humanity as we know it now; for instance the origin of suffering, death, procreation, the subordination of women, etc. We will first review and analyse a variant from the Borana. As noted by Haberland (1963), the same story was recounted among the Somali and other tribal communities of southern Ethiopia, some of whom—notably the Somali—professed Islam. The names of the two human protagonists possibly varied from group to group and this may explain why they are not provided by the German ethnologist. Here then is that version in adapted form: The first man felt lonely and aired his feelings to God, who produced the first woman out of his left side. God told the man not to eat the fruit of a certain tree. A snake came up. It told man that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would become immortal (more or less like snakes, discarding old skins). The first man ate the fruit but it got stuck in his throat, choking him. At last he vomited the fruit. God was watching the scene from above and immediately came down to condemn the man to die after some years.

The story does not mention a Garden of Eden but, as in the Koranic story, the woman does not play a leading role in the Fall. Snake, a substitute for Iblis, is a great deceiver in suggesting that the fruit comes from the “tree of immortality.” It is not clear what fruit it is, as in the Quran. However, it does not seem to be very edible since it chokes the first man, implying near death. The reason why the fruit was made taboo by God is not spelled out and remains obscure. It is not clear whether God is a well-wishing figure or not; was his prohibition intended to ensure the well-being of humanity? On the other hand, the taboo may appear arbitrary. Whatever the case may be, it is implicit that the first man and woman were endowed

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with a very long, if not everlasting life otherwise the curse of God would have been meaningless. Even though the first humans were long lived, the proposal made by Snake had the potential to twist their mind. Some aspects of the myth remain somewhat perplexing. For instance what purpose did Snake have in mind when he mystified Man? The present version does not say. In the Ethiopian Coptic tradition, the Snake clearly incarnates evil. In the Quran, Iblis (Satan) is motivated by resentment. In the overall East African context, as we have seen above, Snake cannot be wholly identified with evil. It typically uses its superior cleverness and craftiness or its exceptional ability to stay awake to procure for its own benefit—at the expense of humans—the privilege of perpetual rejuvenation. The Borana-Somali version is also at variance with the East African context in another respect. A body of local myths focuses on mighty trees. An Acholi myth from Uganda featuring the “tree of life” was briefly reviewed above: man fails to eat of that tree on account of his own foolish nonchalance, ruining all his chances of immortality. In the Nuer creation myth (South Sudan) mentioned in chapter 4.3, humanity emerges from a hole at the foot of a great tamarind tree. In central Tanzania, the creation myth of the Sandawe has every form of animal life come out of a great baobab tree (Van de Kimmenade, p. 407). Majestic sacred trees were found almost everywhere, notably among the Oromo. In many of the languages spoken in the area, the word for “medicine” derives from the term for “tree” as the major source of medicinal inputs. So, the “tree of life” was very much part and parcel of East African mythology.34 All these data corroborate both the foreign origin and the atypical character of the Adam-and-Eve story. Indeed, the Borana-Somali version shares a number of traits with the Koranic tradition. Let us now turn to the Guji version of that tale, again presented in adapted form: Adani and Hawan fall from the sky. They are told by Waka (God) to “enjoy the milk and honey of the earth,” but not to eat the small hidi fruit. Bofa the snake shows up and says to Hawan that Waka was joking when he told them not to eat the hidi fruit. Snake induces the first woman to camouflage 34

In two of the examples provided above, the symbolically phallic status of the great primeval tree may have produced the notion of “life-generation” or “creation.”

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Chapter 4.4 the fruit and to hand it as food to Adani. When the latter realises that he is swallowing hidi, he squeezes his throat and the fruit gets stuck in it. The infuriated Waka curses Hawan, condemning her to bleed periodically. The curse of Snake is loneliness: its offspring will depart from it at birth and disperse in all directions. As for men (and women), they will have to work hard and struggle through dry and wet seasons. Since then, men have an Adams apple and the hidi fruit has a bitter taste.

Here again no Garden of Eden is mentioned. The story does not say exactly why the hidi fruit is prohibited, which seems to echo the Koranic tradition. Again, Snake is a deceiver. It is implicit that before the Fall, Hawan could not beget children. Therefore, “bleeding” (menstruation) is less a curse than a blessing inasmuch as it confers fertility upon women. But more generally speaking, blood could also symbolise death. As a matter of fact, begetting is an attribute of mortal creatures: to give birth or to be born implies dying as an inescapable end. It is to be understood from the Guji myth that the hidi fruit was originally tasty, which provides yet another clear illustration of the inversion principle. But why does the myth feature a taboo on eating a specific sweet fruit, knowing that there were many other sweet foods such as honey and milk which could be freely consumed? The bitterness of the hidi is exemplified by the fact that to wean babies, Guji mothers put juice from that fruit on their nipples (Hinnant 1977: 75 fn.).35 Over and above its bitterness, the hidi fruit was highly significant in Oromo culture. The same Guji people hold the “round hiddii” fruits to be “a sign of fertile soil” (Van de Loo, p. 160 fn.). More significant is the fact that the western or Macha Oromo saw in the hidi fruit “a symbol of fertility since the hiddi plant has flowers and/or fruits throughout the year” (Bartels 1969: 418). Cerulli (1922, comment to song 135) noted that this little plant has flowers similar to the lily, and that it grows “in the form of thorny clusters, even in arid places and during the dry season.” We have sufficient information to understand why, as stated elsewhere by Cerulli (1959: 144, 158), the hidi plant was “sacred” to various Oromo communities. Being so closely associated with fertility, the hidi fruit would seem to qualify as the “fruit of ever-lasting life.”

35

The separation of human beings from the fatherly High God caused by the mythical consummation of the hidi fruit seems to echo the separation between mother and child at weaning using hidi juice.

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A Borana version recorded decades later by Kidane does not feature a snake but Shetan (Satan), as in the Koranic variant. In that later version, the fruit is unnamed as in the first variant while the reason for the taboo is understandable, unlike the first and second variants. Here is this second Borana variant in adapted form: The first humans are allowed to eat freely sweet fruits, meat, and honey, but warned never to taste a certain fruit from a certain tree or branch on pain of death. Shetan—whose aim is clearly to have Adem, the first man, disobey God and taste the tabooed fruit—convinces Hawey that the man goes to another woman whenever he parts with her. The devil brings Hawey to a pond, tells her to look down, and easily convinces her that her reflection on the water surface is the other woman. Adem firmly denies the existence of another female on earth. Nonetheless, out of jealousy, Hawey impels him to take an oath by eating the forbidden fruit. Adem submits to the test. When he puts the fruit into his mouth, God seizes his throat before he can swallow it completely.

By doing so, God neutralises Hawey and the devil, and he saves the life of the innocent but thoughtless Adem. He then curses the woman: she will bleed; she will give birth in pain; she will be subordinated to her husband; and she will have to work hard, somewhat as in the Guji version. It is implicit in the tale under examination that the unidentified fruit is not sweet at all but extremely bitter and possibly poisonous, which explains the prohibition. In the foregoing tale, the deceiver surpasses himself in slyness and Hawey appears meaner and more irresponsible. These aspects of the story do not seem to betray Islamic influence. For instance, as mentioned above, the Koranic Eve does not play a prominent part in the Fall and she is not subjected to specific condemnations.36 Adem is submitted to what appears to be a customary ordeal, one which should normally prove his innocence and leave him unscathed. A similar scene of reflection appears in another Borana myth recorded by Haberland (p. 620) about the origin of marriage. In that case, the first woman on earth invites the first man to look at his own reflection and tells him that she has a lover and must leave him. It features no ophidian protagonist and also connects with the clan structure of the Borana community. This last 36

In some Palestinian folk versions of the story, the wife is induced by Iblis to deceive her man, as in the Bible and in Judaism. (See chap. 2.5, fn. 7) The Coptic version of Genesis is very similar to both the Bible’s and the Torah’s.

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version of the Adam-and-Eve story appears more influenced by local cultural considerations than the other local variants. The notion of a short or long life has been completely evacuated. Let us now turn our attention to the Maasai myth Galaty entitles “The origin of evil.” The scene is a lush garden. Snake gives to the woman the only fruit—unnamed—that has been tabooed by God. The woman brings the fruit to her husband, who eats it. God soon comes, asking the man why he ate the fruit. He says that he did not pick it up himself; he only ate what the woman gave him. God condemns Snake to “go on its belly,” as if it had previously stood upright, but endows it with venom. Women are condemned to give birth in pain. Humans will no more be able to avoid death. But God gives them fire, an icon of civilised life.37 The version Merker recorded in the early years of the twentieth century has the first man come from the clouds whereas the first woman emerges from the “womb” of the earth “at God’s command.” They meet at a place similar to a paradise, with many trees and sweet fruits. They are prohibited from eating fruit from a single tree, named ol-oilai (botanically unidentified) by some informants. The primeval Maasai possess some livestock. They live happily until a three-headed snake shows up and induces the woman to eat the forbidden fruit, telling her that she would become as powerful as God. She tastes it and offers it to her companion. When, as expected, Divinity comes down from heaven to inquire about their well-being, they hide in the bush, etc. In this version, Serpent is condemned to live in holes in the ground whereas God chases the first humans out of the lush garden. From that day humans have had to work hard in order to survive. In the version supplied by Galaty, the first man and the first woman are not named while in Merker’s earlier version, they bear native names. The respectively chthonian and celestial origins of the primeval woman and man recorded by Merker make sense in the East African context. However, the notion of “paradise,” which appears loud and clear contrary to the Oromo tales about Adani and Hawa, is unheard of in that context. The two Maasai versions are similar in some respects to the biblical story. For instance as in the Bible, Snake uses woman to bypass the prohibition and the serpent is neither a creeping nor a hole-dwelling creature to start 37 In some East African myths, Dog steals fire from some mighty serpent and shares it with humans. (See above.)

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with. Compared to the biblical story, the version reported by Galaty shows one “improvement”: the notion of divine gifts, fire to humans and venom to snakes.38 These additions would seem to echo the attribution of clothing in the biblical version of the same story, but also in the Judaic and Koranic variants. Even though they do feature some peculiar elements, the Oromo and Maasai stories here reviewed can hardly be taken as indigenous. The comparison of these East African stories with the Semitic tales of Adam and Eve has hopefully proven a useful and interesting exercise.

38

Both being homologous, as Galaty (1977: 475) himself points out.

CHAPTER 4.5 REPTILIAN INTRUDERS OR “VISITORS”

The Gusii of south-western Kenya connected snakes with “spirits” as a general category (Mayer 1953: 6). In the early years of the twentieth century, Weissenborn (p. 270, 272) felt confident to assert that “throughout Africa snakes are looked upon as reincarnations of benevolent household spirits” and that across the continent, the “spirits of the dead” were believed to “have their abode in snakes.” In his authoritative African Religions and Philosophy, Mbiti (1969: 51) writes that “a considerable number of African societies associate snakes with the living-dead or other human spirits, and such snakes are given food and drink when they visit.” Snakes’ liking for holes in the ground and their consequent association with darkness and the netherworld were major features of the serpent’s overall imaginary profile. The primary reasons for the association of the dead with snakes were obviously the following: the dead were often buried and their spirits were believed to live in a realm which they shared with ophidians. Often ill-defined, the underground was believed throughout Eastern Africa to be a spirit-world. The Orma of eastern Kenya for instance buried their dead, who then became ekera, “ghosts”; these were held to stay in the subterranean world; they would sometimes surface in the world of the living and disturb or harm them (Wakefield 1904: 208-10). The Nuer of South Sudan conceptualised themselves—with the notable exception of twins—as ran piny, “earthly persons” as opposed to Niahl, the sky god (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 1, 144). An ordinary Nuer mortuary ceremony would “fix the soul [of the dead] in the underworld of the ghosts” (p. 56). Likewise, the Dinka of South Sudan referred to dead and buried bodies as dong piny, “what is in the ground” (Lienhardt 1961: 155). Among the Karimojong of eastern Uganda, who buried dead bodies, the spirits of the dead, gnipara, were also known as gnipara nguna akwap, “spirits of the earth” (Maconi 1968-69: 849). In the minds of the Murle of eastern South Sudan,

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the sky is thought of as inverted downwards ‘like a hut,’ and there is a similar dome beneath the earth which is the underworld of the spirits, lok, a word ordinarily used for a hole in the ground, a pit. There were said to be various entrances to the underworld, the best being at Gerok, a lake in the Maruwa hills. (Lewis 1972: 134)

The Datog of northern Tanzania believed that a dead person’s spirit leaves the body and “journeys to the nether world, utanyamyid, where he meets his relatives, friends, and all the cattle that had died in his lifetime” (Klima, p. 43). According to the neighbouring Iraqw, “people go to an underground world after death, and good ancestors never reappear in this world nor curse their families” but the unhappy dead, “for example an unmarried woman who died of miscarriage (…) or a murdered man, may reappear in the form of hyenas (…) to haunt their living relations” (Yoneyama 1969: 110). Like hyenas, snakes move in and out of their holes in the ground. Some of these apertures, as noted in chapter 4.3, were held to reach deep into the earth, that is, right down to the spirit-world. The validity of Weissenborn’s and Mbiti’s claims was perhaps more prominent in Eastern Africa than elsewhere on the continent, with the probable exception of Southern Africa.1 Writing about the Bantu peoples of Eastern as well as Southern Africa, Werner (1933: 97) has hinted at “the very common belief that the spirits of the dead come back in the form of snakes.” Snakes, however, were not invariably perceived as representing the spirits of the dead. Some ophidian species, for instance the puff adder, the cobra, and the python, were more likely than others to stand for the dead. As a rule, the connection arose mostly when snakes were met with in sacred groves, near places of burial, and in houses and compounds. Those, wherever they were encountered, whose behaviour appeared strange were also likely to be connected with the dead or, as among the Chiga of southwestern Uganda, identified with other types of spirit: “Ordinarily one may treat snakes with scant respect and even kill them. But if you see a snake which acts in a peculiar fashion, refusing to go away, or snakes which infest a house or lie across the gateway, it is better to be discreet, for these may be spirit snakes” (Edel 1957: 143-44).2 1

See Box 25 in chap. 3.3. A Moroccan proverb fully agrees with this observation from Eastern Africa (See page 175 in chap. 2.5). Firth (1966: 10) makes a similar point about birds in the Polynesian context of Tikopia: “A bird that behaves normally is ‘just a bird’; one that behaves abnormally—as by coming towards a man instead of running from him—is regarded as likely to be a spirit.”

2

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The present chapter will focus on snakes in their alleged capacity to carry ancestor spirits from the netherworld to the living and to bring them back underground, or in their alleged capacity to serve—at times enigmatically—as emissaries of the dead. It will also map out a specific funeral process through which a dead person of some standing was presumably transformed into a snake. ***** Numerous ethnographic sources mention snakes showing up unexpectedly at some important ritual occasion, “resident” serpents in sacred groves, or “visiting” snakes, which people either welcomed or tolerated in their huts or compounds. According to Lindbloom (p. 127-28), a python which comes to a village is not killed, but milk is set out for it, since it is considered to bring good luck and increase to the cattle (…). Some Akamba do not seem to know any reason for the custom. According to others, (…) the ainiu, or spirits of departed kinsmen, sometimes take up their abode in a python or green mamba (ndan), and for this reason these snakes are not killed when they are found in the neighbourhood of the villages. (…). (…) a python which is encountered in the woods is killed out of hand. All pythons are not inhabited by spirits, but only those that, by going into a village, show that they indubitably take a special interest in it.3

Similarly, the appearance of a snake at the ceremonial commemoration of the death of a forebear was interpreted as a good omen by the Afar of Djibouti (Morin 1991: 28). The people held such a snake to be a jinn sent by the soul of the deceased. No one would think of chasing away or harming the serpent. Even after hundreds of years of Afar adhesion to the Muslim faith, a snake showing up in such circumstances would not be connected with the devil.

3

According to Ndeti (p. 115), snakes moving into houses were seen as messengers of the dead rather than as their embodiment. The Kamba did not believe in reincarnation. Likewise, Lindbloom (p 212) commented that these people do not appear to think that “the spirits dwell permanently in these animals; they only occasionally avail themselves of this method of visiting their living relatives.”

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The idea of a “resident snake” was especially noteworthy among the Nilotic Karimojong and related groups of eastern Uganda.4 An early anthropologist was once prevented by a man from the Karimojong tribal community from killing a snake. The native was “genuinely certain that the spirit of one of his ancestors had been reborn in that guise” (Driberg 1932: 183). An ethnologist specialising in the anthropology of religion among the same community recently made the following observation: Those elders who on earth were known to be in especially good communication with heaven may return posthumously to their sacred sites in the guise of a black Egyptian cobra with a white feather rising from its hood. Such snakes must not be killed (…). (Knighton, p. 230)

The nearby and related Jie, as reported by Lamphear (1976: 128), held that “there is at Lokatap Rock a very large black snake that has a white feather growing from its head. That snake is really a great person who lived long ago.” The nearby and culturally related Dodoth had similar conceptions: “Certain very important elders, a few people said, return from the dead in the form of snakes wearing on their heads white plumes like the plumes of a headdress to visit once again the sacred places of their clans” (Thomas 1972: 60). These places consisted of holy trees which the people had “spared (…) for hundreds of years” (p. 139). Among the Nyamwezi of western Tanzania, more than 250 km to the south-west, coming upon a black snake with a white spot on the head was a very auspicious event for the whole community since such a snake represented a former king (Tcherkézoff 1983: 60).5 For a Bantu group of eastern Uganda, “the snake is always (…) the manifestation of some spirit” (La Fontaine 1959: 50 fn.). These people, the Gisu of Mt Elgon, held that snakes, notably those to be found in “ancestral groves,” “incarnated” the spirits of agnatic ancestors: “It is generally believed that the ancestral snakes are harmless and will go into huts to sleep on the beds and watch over small babies that are there asleep” (p. 51). In fact, the Gisu almost took snakes and souls to be the same. They refrained from killing any snake, fearing that such a misdeed would cause the soul of some person to leave his or her body, thereby causing the death of that individual (Ibid.).

4

The attitude of the Karimojong towards snakes in general has been touched upon in chapter 4.1. 5 Tcherkézoff makes use of information provided by Bösch (1930).

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***** Occurrences of “visiting” snakes have been reported about numerous East African groups. The Nilotic Pokot people, whose tribal lands straddle eastern Uganda and western Kenya not far from the Gisu, believed that the spirit of the deceased ended up in snake form (Beech, 1911: 22). If a snake enters a house, (…) milk is poured on to its tracks, and a little meat and tobacco placed on the ground for it to eat. It is believed that if no food is given to the snake, one or all of the members of the household will die. It, however, may none the less be killed if encountered outside the house, and if at the time of its death it is inhabited by the spirit of a dead man, ‘that spirit dies also’. (Ibid., p. 20) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

The appearance in a hut of a harmless green snake known as logwirinun was an auspicious event among the Nilotic Mandari of southern South Sudan. It was granted immunity and offered beer in a bowl (Buxton 1973: 267).6 In the land of the Rimi (central Tanzania), “the ancestors (alungu) may leave Unesuja [the netherworld] and reappear above the earth in the form of animals, especially harmless small snakes which enter houses and should be offered milk or gruel” (Jellicoe 1978: 27).7 Whenever a venomous snake of the species locally known by the neighbouring Gogo as noma—zoologically unspecified8—appeared within a hut, the woman would call her children and tell them that their “grandfather” had come for a visit (Schaegelen, p. 548). The snake was offered milk for as long as it wished to remain in the hut. Such a snake would be killed if encountered anywhere outside of the house. Similar scenes were witnessed among the Sukuma of north-central Tanzania (Millroth, p. 119). According to an unpublished document consulted by Milroth, most Sukuma people would not kill a snake in case it might embody an ancestral spirit. When a snake 6

The Lotuko and Mandari may designate snakes as amunu (Seligman et al. 1925: 9) and munu (Buxton 1968: 38; 1973: 252), respectively. Among the Teso of Uganda, imun refers to snakes and imunwa to a cobra (Wright 1942: 78). The usual Karimojong designation for snakes seems to be muno, a term also meaning “the secret ones” (Knighton, p. 54). Among the nearby and related Turkana, emun (plur. ngimunio) is the general name covering all snakes (Father A. Barret, personal communication, June 21, 2017). It may be that the words amunu, munu, imun, muno, and emun derive from the name given to a major Ancient Egyptian god: Ammon (Amun), which was represented by a huge snake. See chap. 2.1. 7 The Rimi are also known as Nyaturu, Wahi, or Wahi Wanyaturu. 8 The Swahili term or one of such terms for Bitis arietans (puff adder) is reportedly moma (Chifundera 1990: 157).

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was found in a house, it was “given an offering of milk (mabele) or beer (lwanga).”9 The three ophidian species especially connected with the ancestors by the Sukuma were the pythonʊwhich was rarely seen in houses and which was given meat in addition to milkʊthe spitting cobra, and the puff adder, the latter two very poisonous. Very common in Sukumaland, especially near Lake Victoria, the puff adder was the more common visitor. As for the cobra, it was not so welcome, people using various stratagems to drive it away. The members of a specific Sukuma clan, Bwela, were especially liable to be visited by snakes: “The snake does not usually come unless there is something wrong, in which case it would appear near a sick person. The house-owner will asperge it and it would never be harmed. Such a snake need not belong to any particular species.” (Tanner 1959: 118) The Kikuyu of central Kenya killed most types of snakes, notably cobras, nduira, and puff-adders, itahuha, which were reckoned “enemies”; they also speared pythons, itarara, whose skins were prized by medicine men (Leakey, p. 462). Green grass snakes, muraru, were always killed for “good luck” (p. 461). When, however, a snake came into a Kikuyu village, it was treated with respect and offered milk, fat, etc. because people believed that the reptile had been sent by the dead to inform the living that a sacrificial ritual should be held to honour or placate them (Cayzac, p. 312). Hobley (1911: 408) provided the following information about the same Bantu group. Such a visiting snake was known as nyamu ya thi and served as a vehicle for a ngoma, “spirit”; if the snake did not leave after being offered milk or fat, one would have to kill a sheep, cook some of its fat and pour it in the hut; if satisfied, the spirit-snake would leave and mysteriously disappear. However, in some cases, it would remain in place, thereby implying that the woman of the hut and her children were cursed by the spirit. The story has been corroborated in part by Leakey (p. 462): whenever a brown house snake (nyamu ya thi) entered a Kikuyu hut, “it might on no account be killed or harmed, but had to have fresh milk poured over it and then be gently guided to the door of the hut and made to go out.”

9

An interesting illustration of snakes’ assumed liking for milk is provided by a story from the Shu of eastern DRC (Ruwenzori area). The son of Kavango, the founder of the local chiefly family, used to put milk in a vessel for his ageing father; the milk was instead sipped by a snake, which was killed as soon as the son figured out why the milk had disappeared (Packard 1981: 13). Hindus firmly, as noted above, believe that cobras, especially sacred ones, are fond of milk.

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The Bantu peoples of North Kavirondoʊalso known as Luhya or Abaluhyaʊdid not hesitate to kill “small snakes.” However, “when (…) a cobra is seen near a house, the inmate will generally consult the priest, and an offering of a cow or sheep is generally prescribed, to appease the spirit who is supposed to inhabit the reptile” (Stam 1910: 362). In certain circumstances, offerings were made to cobras at an ant-hill because these snakes were held to host a spirit (Wagner 1949: 331-32). This was probably the reason why the Abaluhya were prohibited by custom to kill cobras, pythons, and other large snakes (p. 198). Other than large ophidians, very few animal species were not to be harmed. Voshaar (p. 303) reports similar representations for the southern Maasai, some of whom were known to have house snakes fed by the women: “A black snake, a cobra, is not killed. ‘Perhaps’, it is said, ‘it is the forefathers.’” They respected visiting black cobras, which were said to “have something to do with the dead” and “to bring luck and fertility” (Ibid.). According to Mol (p. 31), a snake species described as grey with a reddish throat (ngiro o-nyokie ol-gos) is “often” seen staying inside houses.

Box 31 The Spirit Snakes of Musambwa Island (Uganda) A small isolated island on Lake Victoria known as Musambwa is a regional breeding ground for birds. Its 100 inhabitants also share the island with more than 2,000 snakes, including cobras, all of which are bird hunters or egg-eaters. The residents believe the island to be “full of spirits, which appear in form of snakes.” Indeed, musambwa means “spirit” in their language, Luganda. The islanders see themselves as “visitors” on an island truly belonging to spirit-snakes. They do not harm snakes and the latter do not bite them. The local conservationist describes the association between residents and snakes as “a harmonious relationship never witnessed anywhere else in the world.” Another expert coins the relationship “habituation.” Interestingly, the people of Musambwa refrain from having sex on the island for fear of punishment by the spirits. “Whoever wants to have sex goes to the main land, which is 10 km away and it takes about one hour by motorised canoe.”10 10

The information in this box is taken from an article by G. Tenywa entitled “Sleeping with snakes at Musambwa” published in the Ugandan New Vision newspaper on January 25, 2008. See

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There are many reports about visiting snakes in the ethnographic literature on the Oromo, often called Galla by Westerners before the 1980s. One early report came out in 1860: “The serpent (…) is considered sacred by the [Shoa] Gallas, and milk is set before him” (Krapf 1860: 77). De Salviac (p. 174) and Conti Rossini (1937: 330) recorded that the visit of a snake was an auspicious event among the Oromo and that the animal visitor was offered milk. Again, according to Jaenen (1956: 184), “if a snake enters a Galla hut it is fed some milk; in this way its spirit is appeased, and what is more important it will probably leave satisfied.” Haberland (1963) reports similar practices among various Oromo groups: Borana (p. 256), Alabdu or northern Guji (p, 342-43), southern Guji (p. 405), and Arsi (p. 483, 505), not to mention the Bayso-speaking Gidicho islanders (p. 715). Interestingly, among the southern Guji, “if a poisonous snake enters one’s house, it is said that an in-law has come to visit. A cloth is spread on the floor for the snake and butter is put near it, just as in-laws are given butter when they visit” (Hinnant 1978: 241). In a number of cases, hospitality was granted especially to dark-coloured snakes such as some cobras. For instance the “black” snake marata was respected by the Lieka, a sub-group of Macha Oromo from southern Ethiopia: Whenever it comes into a house, a very lucky event, the father takes his abatta stick, puts butter on its tip and extends it to allow the snake to lick the butter. If such a snake were to be killed, people and children would die. (Haberland, p. 558)11

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/9/183/608477. South of Lake Victoria Nyanza, the spirits of the ancestors are similarly called masamwa (isamwa, sing.) by the Sukuma people (Milroth, p. 117). 11 The Oromo word marata means “furious” (Cerulli 1922: 18) or “mad” (April 9, 2014 email from Dr I. Elemo, then president of the Oromo Studies Association, OSA, United States). According to Gragg (p. 268), the marata is a highly venomous and dark blue snake; the Amhara people call it ibab. It is said to make a rattling or rasping sound when one gets close to it (Bader 2006: 189). Some species of snakes do make their presence known by rubbing their scales together. In Sudan, the Carpet Viper (Echis carinatus), the Horned Viper (Cerastes cornutus), and the Egg Eater (Dasypeltis scabra) all produce a rasping sound (Corkill 1935c: 7). The Oromo legendary snake with sixty little claws and a red head described in chapter 4.2 was reportedly a marata. Incidentally, in the language of the Turkana (far eastern Kenya), emorotot (plur. ngimorototio) designates the python (Anthony Barrett, personal communication, June 21, 2017). Another significant Turkana term, ekaramit (plur. ngikaram), meaning “good

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Some distance to the south of the Lieka, “each [Wolamo] family” apparently reared “a black serpent which [was] an object of veneration” (Cerulli 1956: 113). Further to the south, in the Hamar hills of southwestern Ethiopia, a large black snake once appeared in the moonlight in front of a house. The people said: “To look at it makes you sick; if it bites you, you die in an instant.” A diviner asserted that the serpent had been sent by the homestead owner’s dead father (Lydall et al. 1979a: 233-34). In his study of the Cushitic Konso in south-west Ethiopia, Hallpike (p. 251-52) observes that there is a thin black snake that is apparently harmless. As I have seen myself, it occasionally comes into homesteads, where it moves about with its mouth closed and finally goes away. A priest will never kill one of these, but respects it as being possessed by a family ghost. Commoner families may also respect such snakes.

A more detailed account of such a visit has been recorded concerning the Nilotic Nandi of south-western Kenya. When the spirits [of the dead] become established in spirit-land, they return to this world to visit their people. By day, they manifest themselves by slight noises (…). By night, which seems to be the favourite time for them to visit people, they travel in the bodies of snakes, moles, or rats, which they use as vehicles to carry them to and from the huts of the living. (…) For this reason, the Nandi say that snakes which appear in huts at night should not be killed because they may be carrying visiting spirits which, if the animal is killed, will be unable to get back to spirit-land without great difficulty, and will be angry with the offender. So when a snake comes into a hut at night, it should not be injured, and the custom is to pour a little beer or milk on the floor and address the creature with the words, ‘Iro cho cheko’ or ‘Iro cho maiyek’ (See this milk – See this beer). A certain Arap Talam who lived near Kapsabet about 1924 became a byword because he killed a snake which came into his hut one night. Soon afterwards he lost many of his cattle from disease. This was considered to be punishment inflicted by the angry spirit who was using the snake he had killed; and it is the sort of things people expect to happen if they kill spirit-snakes. (…) The kind of snake chiefly favoured as a spirit-vehicle is a small black snake called indaret by the Nandi (…). (Huntingford, 1953, p. 138-39)

The Nandi tended to attribute “a large proportion” of their misfortunes to the spirits of the dead (Huntingford 1963: 180). Regarding the same ancestor” (A. Barrett, personal communication, June 23, 2017), also betrays a connection with people of Oromo extraction. The standard Oromo term for “ghost” is ekera.

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people, Hollis (1909: 90) made the following observations about visiting snakes, unspecified ones in this case: Under ordinary circumstances, a snake is killed at sight. (…). But if a snake goes on to the woman’s bed, it may not be killed, as it is believed that it personifies the spirit of a deceased ancestor or relation, and that it has been sent to intimate to the woman that her next child will be born safely. Milk is put on the ground for it to drink, and the man or his wife says: (…) “If thou wantest the call, come, thou art being called.” It is then allowed to leave the house. If a snake enters the houses of old people they give it milk, and say: (…) “If thou wantest the call, go to the huts of the children,” and they drive it away. [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Such a scene as that pictured by Hollis for the Nandi could be witnessed among the neighbouring and culturally related Kipsigis. In this case, the colour of the visiting snake, either black or green, was significant, notably when the woman of the house was pregnant: Such a snake is never killed. It is attended to very courteously. Some milk is poured over it and a hole is made somewhere through the wall and the snake is guided very gently to go through this hole with such words as (…) “Go in peace and then return in peace, if you are an old woman or man of this family.” (Toweett, 1979, p. 38)12

Hollis (p. 86) also reported about the Nandi that “a stick of the legetetuet tree [was] generally fixed in the roof of huts as a charm against snakes.” It is not clear whether the charm was intended at visiting spirit-snakes. In so far as the latter were held to be distinct from ordinary snakes, the charm would not deter them from visiting Nandi houses. According to Huntingford (p. 139 fn.), the name indaret that was applied to the little black visiting snake was sometimes used for the python, which is more commonly known as chelokoiit by the Nandi people. This is 12 Similarly, when a pregnant Datog woman saw a python near her house, she could only rejoice since this was “the best security a woman could have for safe delivery” (Blystad 2000: 117). As Southern Nilotes, the Datog of northern Tanzania are linguistically related to the Nandi and Kipsigis of south-western Kenya. Still more interesting is that among the Cushitic Borana of southern Ethiopia, a few hundred kilometres north of the Nandi, “it is believed that when a snake slithers, crawls under a marital bed, a male child will be born” (Leus et al., p. 71). Commenting on mostly ancient Greek traditions, Róheim (1972: 299) noted that “a peculiar relation is supposed to exist between pregnant women and serpents.”

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consistent with the information provided by Johnston (1915: 482) about the western Maasai, who believed that “the soul of a deceased person of importance enters one or other of the python-like snakes which frequent the vicinity of human habitations in pursuit of rats and other vermin.” Held to be “sacred,” these “usually black” snakes were not killed and, “if a women sees one in her hut, she pours milk on the ground for it to lick it up” (Ibid.). Among the Turkana of eastern Kenya, the small non-poisonous and harmless “grass snake,” lokaleso, is treated like a house guest. Children and even adults may be seen playing with it. “It can be given scraps of food just like an ekaramit,” the spirit of a good person who had passed away (A. Barrett, personal communication, June 28, 2017). In northern Tanzania, as will be seen shortly, the Datog were familiar with a small black reptilian visitor. The little black snake creeping in Konso, Nandi, Maasai, Datog and, no doubt, other compounds could be the African house snake, Boaedon fuliginosus, which has been described as follows: a small dark brown snake, harmless, having the habit of entering houses in search of rodents, which it kills by constriction; up to four feet long; and found in arid and wet regions of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, and Ethiopia as well as in Southern and Western Africa.13 The Boaedon fuliginosus or “house snake” is known as chankusa in Malawi (Morris 1998: 146).14

Box 32 The Symbolic Attributes of Blackness in Eastern Africa It is useful at this point to explore the symbolic connotations of blackness in the East African cultural setting. In some groups, such as the Luhyia of south-western Kenya, the sky was seen as auspiciously white, i.e. “bright and luminous,” while black was associated with sorcery and evil things (Wagner 1954: 44, 51). The Luhyia 13 This zoological information was picked up by the author during a visit to the Nairobi Snake Park in July 1984. 14 The African house snake is identified by Bauchot (p. 16) as Lamprophis fuliginosis. A Ugandan herpetologist interviewed by Tenywaʊsee footnote 10 in this chapterʊnotes that some types of snakes hunt rats and other rodents in houses or industrial sites, and that they are sometimes tolerated by the people on account of that. A small snake reportedly destroys some 40 rats in a year.

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believed in two gods: the white god (benevolent) and the black god (malevolent), the first being fortunately “regarded as the more powerful” (Wagner 1949: 176). Likewise, among the Dinka of South Sudan, “the night-witch not only uses the black cobra, but is closely associated with it in thought” (Lienhardt 1951: 307). Other instances of identification of witches with snakes, particularly black snakes, existed (p. 308). In the case of the Dinka, the positive connotations of blackness were prominent over its negative dimension: Deng—the divine spirit most closely associated with the heavenly divinity—was referred to as “the Black Bull of the Rain” (Lienhardt 1961: 38, 91), the latter being in their understanding a key attribute of divinity (p. 92). According to Bedri (1929:127-28) and Seligman et al. (1932: 179), deng and dengdit meant “rain” and “great rain.” The cows dedicated by the neighbouring Nuer to the spirit of the mighty Nile River were black all over (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 73). Rain and water basically stood for life and the power to give life was closely associated with blackness in various parts of South Sudan. For instance a black ram was customarily offered in sacrifice in Bari rainmaking rituals (Cooke et al., p. 183). The black goat slaughtered at a Lango rain-making ceremony in north-central Uganda was “symbolical of rain clouds” (Driberg 1923: 252 fn.). In eastern Uganda, the Dodoth used to sacrifice black oxen every spring in order to “induce the rain” (Thomas 1972: 62). In western Uganda, an Alur boy who was “as black as a cobra” was fit to succeed his father as chief (Southall 1956: 195). In southwestern Ethiopia, a Dassanech diviner was chosen as tribal leader in difficult times because, like the sky god, he was ikar, i.e. blue-black in skin colour, and because of the circumstances of his birth: a very dark and very rainy night (Sobania, p. 237). Some distance to the north of the Dassanech, the Gimira directly associated “black” and “rain” (Lange 1975: 115). At the installation of the king of a Gimira county, black steers were sacrificed: “If they are red or white, then it will not rain next year” (p. 293). Their lowland eastern neighbours, the agropastoral Me’en, also sacrificed black (koro) cattle when invoking rain (Fukui, p. 374). They believed koro to be also the colour of the gods (p. 368). If the sacrifice of fully black beast proved unsuccessful, the Me’en used bullocks of the bholigaasi coat colour pattern—all black except for a white patch on the side—so as to induce lightning (Ibid.). In the understanding of the Konso people, also from south-western Ethiopia, “there can be little doubt that the auspicious quality of black (…) derives from its symbolic association with rainclouds. They never told me explicitly that they believed black was good, though they were consciously aware why white was bad”

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(Hallpike, p. 281). Whiteness was here associated with death (p. 280), perhaps because of the whiteness of dry bones. Any “black” spirit was held by the Oromo to be “beneficent” (Cerulli 1922: 62). What Westerners call “pure water” is referred to as “black water” in Oromo (Hassen 2005: 142). These people often spoke of the dark god, Waqa guracha, “meaning the dark sky with the clouds that tell of rain to come” (Bartels 1983: 90). The colour term guracha refers to both black and blue in the Oromo language (Haberland, p. 569; Bartels 1994: 6). On important occasions, the political leaders of Oromo communities wore a headcloth or turban combining the two colours and expressing the divine source of their leadership. Not only was it worn on the head, but people said that “it should never touch the ground, just as the sky, the domain of Waaqa (‘God’), does not touch the earth, the domain of man” (Bassi 1996: 158). The paramount magico-religious officer of the Dorze in south-western Ethiopia wore a black skin cape and had a sacred black sheep, which no predator would harm (Straube, p. 197). The demutsa, which was his title, also had a special relationship with “sacred snakes” (p. 198), the colour of which has not been specified. In central Kenya, the ritual leader of the Meru who was known as mugwe wore a black cape made of sheepskin and sacrificed black rams, notably when asking for rain. The Meru never sacrificed rams whose fur was light-coloured or speckled; they would even artificially darken the fur of sacrificial animals (Peatrik, p. 338, 358). Black sheep were also used in the rain-making rituals of the Nandi of south-western Kenya (Hollis 1909: 48; Huntingford 1953: 144). Likewise among the Mbugwe, a Bantu community of central Tanzania, “the normal rainmaking ritual involved the sacrifice of an unblemished black bull” (Gray 1963: 146). In the same general area, Gogo rain-makers used to wear black clothing during the rainy season (Cole, p. 325). Local chiefs (batemi), the custodians of the rain stones, also wore a black cloth (Schaegelen, p. 212). The ox to be sacrificed in order to end a severe drought was invariably a black animal; it was also covered by a black cloth before being sacrificed and all the participants would be given a skin bracelet made from the dark skin of the animal (p. 545). In the colour system of the Gogo, “‘black’ is the ritually auspicious colour (…). Ritual leaders wear it, it is the colour of rainclouds (mavunde) and the sky (wulanga) not only when there are rainclouds, for the colour ‘blue’ is in Cigogo included in the category ‘black’ (wutitu). Black oxen and sheep are slaughtered on all ritual occasions” (Rigby 1966: 9).

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Immediately to the north of the Gogo, rain-making rituals inevitably involved the sacrifice of a black ox or sheep “because, the Sandawe say, this is the colour of the dark clouds of gathering rainstorms; if a lightcoloured animal were sacrificed there would be no rain.” Such animals would only be sacrificed “to produce a clear sky” in order to protect growing crops from very heavy downpours (Ten Raa, p. 28). Next to the Sandawe, the “cool” black colour was exclusively recommended in the context of the rain-rites or near the rain-shrines of the Rimi (Jellicoe 1978: 25). Likewise among the Sukuma and Nyamwezi of central and western Tanzania, the colour black was closely associated with rain or rain clouds (Carnochan et al. 1937: 282; Cory 1949: 20; Tcherkézoff, p. 58) and a black bull and/or sheep were or was used to invoke rain (Carnochan et al., p. 208; Cory, p. 21). In south-western Tanzania, the main duty of a Kimbu chief was to secure rain for his people; he wore white and black cloth, “symbolic of sunshine and rain-cloud” (Shorter 1969: 236). Among the Nilotic Maasai, black stands for seniority (Gulliver 1963: 146; Hurskainen 1984: 225), solemnity (Jacobs 1965: 300), and fertility (Hurskainen, Ibid.). Dark-coloured garments were worn by older people and women, that is, by subdued, quiet and dignified persons (Voshaar, p. 111). Included are ritual experts, il-oibonok, who wear a black cloak on ceremonial occasions (Mol, p. 348). Mixed and light colours are, wrote Merker (p. 77), “the symbol of fickleness, frivolity, children, and childish sentiments; they are not proper for adult men and women with a serious conception of life.” Although the sky god may be said “red” or “black,” i.e. “angry or benevolent,” black would seem to be “the more prominent of the two” since “God himself is invoked as Papa lai orok, My Black Father.”15 Indeed, black or dark-blue clothes and items “denote the holy state of persons at various stages of their lives”; for instance a newly-born baby or a newly circumcised boy or girl, or else presiding elders at major tribal ceremonies (Mol). One of the three secondary meanings of a-rok, “to be black,” is “to be pure; spotlessly clean” like water.16 Galaty (2014: 45) sums up the evidence for the Maasai: black is a “good” and “fruitful” colour since it is identified with rain whereas white stands for drought and sterility, as with the close-by Mbugwe and Sandawe.

15 Quotations from F. Mol, “Tanzania – Symbolism among the Maasai.” Accessed April 8, 2010 and July 1, 2014. http://www.southworld.net/tanzania-symbolismamong-the-maasai/ 16 See Maa (Maasai) Dictionary by D. L. Payne and L. Ole-Kotikash: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/Maa%20Lexicon/index-english/main.htm.

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Throughout Eastern Africa, the more ritually significant colours were black, red, and white. In the case of the Maasai, black was commonly opposed to red, like elders (placidity, seniority) to youth (impetuousness, juniority). From a southern Maasai (Kisonko) perspective, black and red were, respectively, “senior” and “junior” colours (Gulliver 1963: 145-46). Whether accidental or not, the killing of a snake in a sacred grove or the destruction of a spirit-snake in the domestic setting was a very inauspicious event for a community or a family since it was said to activate the wrath of ancestors against the living. In some cases, the killing of such a snake reportedly amounted to the destruction of the spirit using it as a vehicle. That being granted, East Africans were not without ways and means to get away with such unfortunate events. If for instance a Kikuyu man causes the death of a snake he must without delay summon the senior elders in the village and slaughter a sheep, which they eat and cut a rukwaru [a ritual bracelet] from the skin of its right shoulder for the offender to wear on his right wrist; if this ceremony is neglected he, his wife and his children will die. Even accidental destruction of snakes must be expiated. (…) The story goes that a long time ago [a Kikuyu of the Mumboi clan] killed a snake and fell ill at once. Before he could get well, he had to sacrifice seven goats under the instructions of a medicine man (Tate 1910: 243).

Leakey (p. 166, 1237) also reports that the killing of a snake within the confines of a homestead entailed “uncleanness,” thahu, and required a purification ceremony. As noted by Cagnolo (p. 185), if a woman being with child kills a snake, “the child will be called Njoka, ‘snake’; if she sees other snakes she will no longer kill them, for that would be like killing her son.” Among the Abaluhya, the destruction for instance of a python, even in self-defence, would interfere with a man’s ability to beget children; a purification ceremony was required (Wagner 1949: 198-99). Whenever in the land of the nearby Kipsigis, a snake had been killed in a hut, it had to be “removed through a hole in the wall and not by the door” (Orchardson 1961: 89). Any implement such as an axe or a panga used to kill a snake, whether inside or outside a hut, was smeared with fat from a ram’s tail (p.

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98). Such a cleansing or “cooling” procedure ensured the tool’s safe and efficient continued use.17 ***** We are fortunate that the funeral practices of the Nilotic Datog people have been extensively described by ethnologists such as Klima and, more recently, by Borgerhoff Mulder et al., Rekdal et al., and Blystad. Thanks to their works, the stages of a transformational process that blurred the divide postulated by Westerners between humans and snakes, as well as between life and death, can now be put together. According to Blystad (1999: 194-95), (…) spirits, both female and male, are far more closely involved in people’s lives than Aseeta [the High God]. [They] are called upon every day and in a number of ritual settings, and they are continuously ‘fed’ milk, oil, butter, meat, honey mead and tobacco in people’s compounds and at sacred sites. The spirits’ voices are heard in dreams and through spirit mediums, and they can make themselves manifest to the living in the form of a small black snake.

The Datog name for the little black visitor was ichihod bunged, “snake of the funeral” (Klima, p. 44).18 The people did not “consider it a snake at all, but merely an ancestral spirit in the outward form of a snake” (p. 43). Blystad witnessed the following event: “My husband discovered that a black snake had made its home in a fruit basket. He grabbed a stick to beat it, but was stopped by two men present. Datoga, who were commonly so eager to kill snakes, at this point warned him vehemently that this was not a snake but a spirit, meang’eanyenda. They got it out without harming it” (Blystad 2000: 195 fn.).19

17

The uncleanness, ngwanindo, resulting for instance from the birth of twins was likewise removed by sacrificing a ram and anointing the mother and other women present at the delivery with its fat (Orchardson, p. 29). If the cleansing ritual did not take place or was carried out improperly, the mother could not work in her field, nor access the cattle and goat enclosures (Ibid.). 18 In Rekdal et al.’s spelling, it would read ichibooda bung’eed. 19 Driberg experienced the same reaction among the Karimojong in the 1920s. (See above in this chapter.) Box 25 features a similar event witnessed in the initial years of the twentieth century among the Zulu of South Africa.

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This type of snake was specifically associated with the few priestly Datog clans, those which were “regarded as earthly guardians of Datooga moral order” and endowed with “healing and prophetic powers” (Rekdal et al., p. 140). Such clans were perceived as “the mundane extension of the Datooga meanga” (Ibid.), i.e. the spirits of the dead, in the first place departed members of priestly clans. They were sometimes “referred to by the same term,” i.e. meanga (Ibid.). Knowing that such spirits were exclusively represented by the little black snake of the funeral, the members of priestly clans were to some extent equated with that crawling reptile. Normally, spirits should keep to the netherworld, their place of belonging. The irruption of one ichihod bunged into a homestead made the people concerned uneasy. They became very worried when it stayed there for some time. The interpretation of the event depended on the affiliation of the head of the homestead to a priestly or to an ordinary clan. In the second case, it was taken to be a threatening “evil omen,” especially for the head of the family: In return for a magical anointment and assurance that the snake will disappear and not revisit the homestead, the home-owner pays a fee of one female calf to the ritual specialist. (Klima, p. 44)

In the first case, the house-holder took it as a sign that something was going wrong in his own compound: Perhaps one of the wives has been committing repeated acts of adultery. He calls all his wives together and confronts them with the evidence. He tells them that he has tried to feed the snake with some butter placed at the end of a stick, but that the snake refuses to eat [and to go away]. (Ibid.)

Either out of respect or because some ancestral spirits could be “vengeful” (Klima, p. 99), a new bride quickly learnt the substitute names of her husband’s ancestors in order to avoid “the evil of arbitrarily calling the dead spirits back from the underground world” (Tomikawa 1978: 22). As with so many African peoples, very senior persons were traditionally shown the utmost respect by the younger people. Among the Datog pastoralists, they would be offered milk, meat, honey-beer, or tobacco, and the person at the receiving end of the relationship would typically respond with a blessing. Visiting snakes were therefore treated like very elderly and honourable guests.

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We may now turn to the actual making by the Datog people of spirits, meanga, or spirit-snakes through ritual action, more specifically by way of their elaborate funerary process, whose fulfilment was said to be the “‘birth of the spirit’ (jeta meangenyeanda)” (Blystad et al. 2007: 341). Burial was the privilege of highly esteemed male and female elders who had led an exemplary life, been at least moderately wealthy, and begotten many children. Such exemplary burials were clan affairs requiring the participation of many people during a period of several months. All other corpses were “placed out in the surrounding bush where they [were] consumed by the hyena” (Klima, p. 102). As Rekdal et al. (p. 139) comment, “the transformation of a human being into a spirit at death by means of the bung’eed ceremony is a prominent feature in Datooga ritual life.” When the elder to be buried was a woman, the funeral process was less elaborate, the burial mound being smaller and fewer people participating in the ceremonies. The following description sums up the information collected from key sources on the burial process for a man who had been a respected elder.20 Although a number of explanatory ingredients or remarks have been grafted on the descriptive framework, no claim is made that the explanation is complete: - Clan elders decide on a burial. - Permission is granted by the traditional tribal chief. - A grave of some depth is dug inside the deceased’s homestead, for instance in the centre of his cattle kraal. - A black ox is sacrificed, its skin being used as a shroud for the deceased. Black oxen are “generally used as sacrificial animals during a number of major rituals, such as funerals (Klima 1970: 43). Being in high demand for ceremonial purposes, they are “a scarce and most valued animal” (Blystad 1999: 206). - The deceased’s head is abundantly anointed with butter by his sons and wives. Made from milk, the staple food of the pastoral Datog, butter is “believed to be sacred and is used on special occasions as a ritual anointment” (Klima, p. 48). Brides were anointed with butter (p. 71) as well as men at the inauguration of a new age-group (Blystad 2000: 82 fn.). Blystad (p. 98-99) sees butter “as a transformer, and as a metaphor of blossoming and fecundity.” Moreover, according 20

See Klima (p. 102-103), Borgerhoff Mulder et al. (1989: 32-33), Rekdal et al. (p. 139), and Blystad (2000: 195-201). It is likely that only leading members of priestly clans were originally entitled to an exemplary burial.

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to the same ethnologist (2005: 114), being plastered with butter creates “intimate relationships” with the spirits. Commonly applied on bodies and skin clothing by all pastoral groups of Eastern Africa, butter was used to prevent desiccation and was therefore a life-enhancing substance. Wrapped in the black skin, the body is placed in the hole, facing east, in a sitting and foetus-like position. The foetus-like position is obviously symbolic of rebirth. The scene may also be reminiscent of the mother-earth theme.21 The Datog understand that “God sits on a fig tree at the eastern horizon” (Klima, p. 50). The corpses not to be buried are carried to the east of a village so that the High God could “take them back” (Blystad 2000: 136). In contrast, west is associated with “danger, enemies, death and dying” (p. 96). The earth is replaced in the grave in the opposite order of its removal. This procedure implies a reversal of the normal sequence of time, that is, from death to life (rebirth). Young men protect the grave to prevent hyenas from digging up the corpse; the meat of the black ox is cooked and eaten by the former on the spot. During the first month, a mound of more than one metre made of poles, mud, and cow dung is built over the grave. Honey-beer is brewed for the people in attendance. Cow dung is used “as a binding agent in the construction of huts and funerary monuments” (Klima., p. 13). Since honey-beer was a beverage with “magico-religious significance” (p. 14), young people were not fit to drink it (Blystad 2000: 13). Over a period of eight or nine months, three different layers are added, resulting in a cone-shaped mound of 3.5 to 4 m high, some 2.5 m thick at the base, and about 1 m wide at the top. At each stage of the building process, honey-beer is brewed and drunk in quantity. The Datog funeral pyramid seems to have been a magnified replica of the more common and modest burial mounds of the nearby Iraqw: the graves of all elders were covered daily with a layer of mud and cattle dung (Fukui 1969: 72 fn.). In any event, Datog funeral mounds were similar to columnar ant-hills, a feature of the

See chap. 4.4 above.

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natural environment often believed in Eastern Africa to communicate with the netherworld.22 Throughout that period, the deceased is “fed” with milk and beer through holes left open in the sides of the mound. The milk and beer would seem to be directed at the “spirit-foetus” growing up within the monument. During the last month or so, several hundred clan members, relatives, and neighbours come regularly to dance and feast. Many cattle are slaughtered and large quantities of honey-beer are brewed. On the final day, a very large crowd builds up. A black ox is sacrificed, which should be willing to give up its life. Women gather near the monument and sing religious songs to God and the ancestral spirits. Datog women are key ritual actors. Their “high social status” may have been linked, according to Klima (p. 89), “to their important ritual contributions.” Indeed, “certain magico-religious rituals are carried out exclusively” by women:

In their singing of religious ‘hymns’ to solicit aid from God, Aset, by communicating with the spirits of deceased ‘priests’ from ritual clans, intermediaries between God and the living, the women display a ritual competence acknowledged by the men as essential for the general welfare of the society in times of disease, famine, and drought (Ibid.).

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A thick slice of moist soil with tall green grass is brought from a distance by young men and set on top of the monument. Humidity stands for life here. In a Datog myth recounted by Blystad (1999: 197-98), a man and his two children are told by Divinity that their dead wife or mother would rise from a “patch of grass” showered each day with milk by the children. The eldest son of each of the deceased’s wives, starting with the first son of the first wife, climbs on the mound and plants a fresh branch in the top layer of soil. Finally, a male relative of the younger wife places the stick and sandals of the deceased on top of the mound.

Datog funerary mounds are similar to the structures put up by the southern Somali to honour their rulers, i.e. clan heads: “Chiefs of tribes are buried with some ceremony. Their followers build huge mounds of earth about 20 feet high above their graves, and they then surround it with a strongly built fence, made of logs of wood placed horizontally between heavy upright posts” (Dracopoli 1914: 155-56).

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In the evening, while the place is deserted, two naked old men tie at the base of the mound a “magic vine.” What Klima describes as a “magic vine” was termed sabochka, a term used for the twisted fibre belt fashioned by girls and offered by them to brave and successful hunters or warriors. It was also metaphorically termed a “rope” (Blystad 2000: 91 fn.). The rope happens to be connected with birthing: Datog women delivered a child while “placed in a half sitting, half hanging position, holding onto a rope (gheelooda) which hung from the ceiling” (p. 123).

Harmony and peace within the clan of the deceased is needed throughout to ensure the efficiency of the ritual process. On the concluding day of a nine-month sequence, people say that “the spirit is born,” meaning that the deceased is reborn in the spirit-world. And the corpse wrapped in a black skin was apparently believed to turn into a little black snake. In Blystad’s view, the funeral mound is symbolic of a pregnant female body. She may be right, although building the mound, climbing on it, and tying the “rope” around it are all done exclusively by males. Whatever the case may be, “immortality is believed to be conveyed to the man buried under the monument” (Klima, p. 105). After a few rainy seasons, the funeral mound falls apart. However, some of the poles begin to sprout and grow into a cluster of trees which soon becomes a sacred grove visited by the descendants of the deceased as well as by people of his or her clan seeking the blessing of the illustrious deceased. Such pilgrimages would continue for generations. Of course, once “born,” a spirit is believed to live more or less forever, like the sacred grove which may never be cut in any way, and perhaps like the snakes which are likely to be found in it and which should not be harmed either. Just like gorges and cracks in the earthen cover, the “mouths” of funerary monuments, ghuuta bung’eed, were deemed “passages” through which the spirits moved back and forth between their primary place of belonging, i.e. the netherworld, and the land of the living (Blystad 2000: 195). Here the funeral mound again appears like a man-made ant-hill. Indeed the holes left for feeding the growing “spirit-foetus” may have enticed some snakes, black or otherwise, to reside for a time in the funerary mound. According to Rekdal et al. (p. 139),

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the reborn spirits (meanga or fuguuta ng’yeanyida, literally ‘ancestors of the land’) become the guardians of Datooga fecundity and well-being, but may also act punitively towards individuals or towards the community as a whole, as a response to immoral behaviour.

Moreover, despite the fact that it is solely moral individuals who may become spirit guardians, the Datooga know very well that human beings are never entirely moral, and so, neither are the spirits. Envy, quarrelling and anger also form part of the ‘world below’ (Blystad 1999: 202).

We now have a better understanding of the uneasiness created in Datog homesteads by visiting spirit-snakes. ***** It is in our view enlightening to compare the Datog with the nearby and likewise Nilotic-speaking Maasai. Here also most corpses were left out to the hyenas some distance from the village, in this case west of it; and some people were buried, only males in this case. However, the burials that took place in Maasailand were in no way comparable to the grandiose funerals of the Datog, and pilgrimages to places of Maasai burial were exceptional, if not totally unheard of. As commented by Llewelyn-Davies (1979: 212), a very elderly Maasai man blessed with wives, children, and grandchildren, and possessing a large herd of cattle (…) is believed to be immortal. Such a man will never die, but merely go to sleep; his name will not be forgotten quickly, unlike those who die young or poor, whose names must never be spoken in the presence of their descendants. The ideal is achieved only in old age, and only by a few.

A successful man such as one described by Llewelyn-Davies ended up in a grave: With the exception, however, of the medicine men and rich people who are buried in shallow trenches, burial is unknown amongst the Masai. (Hollis, 1905, p. 246) (…) a rich old man, or an old medicine-man, he is not cast away, he is buried. When he has been smeared with [butter] and new sandals have been cut for him, he is carried into a nice shady place, and a hole like a trough is dug, and he is buried in there. Stones are brought and he is

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Chapter 4.5 covered with them. And all people who pass in the neighbourhood of his grave throw stones, and the grave becomes heaped up big. (Mpaayei, 1954, p. 58)

Merker (p. 202) provided a brief and similar description of a traditional burial among the southern Maasai. The stone heap on the shallow grave was notably meant to keep hyenas away. Important elderly ritual specialists were amongst the few to be buried.23 According for instance to Fosbrooke (1956: 28), there was a place in Kenya’s Maasailand known as Engurare e Mosegha, “the grave of Mosegha.” That person had been a ritual or religious leader for the Laikipiak Maasai.24 In normal circumstances, the Maasai did not hesitate to slay snakes. If, soon after the burial of some important person, a member of his family saw a snake at a place the deceased was familiar with, the reptile was treated with respect and offered milk (Saitoti 1980: 195). The reason for this was simply that, as noted above, Maasai held that the souls of the very few buried men would be transmuted into black snakes (Hollis 1905: 307; Stigand 1913: 219; Fokken 1917: 246; StorrsFox 1930: 456). In the specific case of the elders of the Il-Kiboron clan, all of them were buried and the bones of their dead reportedly turned into snakes (Merker, p. 210).25 It may be noted here that a body without breath and life was often referred to as “bones” by the Rwa people of northern Tanzania (Harjula 1978: 67 23 Likewise, among the Hehe of south-central Tanzania, only paramount chiefs and their descendants “had the right to be buried” (Brown et al. 1935: 36). 24 The Laikipiak were an important northern Maa-speaking tribal community that was fragmented and dispersed in the late nineteenth century. The Maa term for grave is en-kurare. En-gumoto, “hole, hollow space, depression, well,” may also refer to a grave. See Maa (Maasai) Dictionary by D. L. Payne and L. OleKotikash: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/Maa%20Lexicon/indexenglish/main.htm 25 The Il-Kiboron clan will be returned to in a later chapter. A curse which used to be common among the Arsi Oromo of south-eastern Ethiopia alludes to similar conceptions: “May the bones of your father prick you!” (Azaïs et al., p. 210). The Nilotic Keyo of south-western Kenya held an intriguing belief about bones and snakes. A man named Kimugung had his severely wounded right forearm amputated: “He now keeps the arm in his hut where it will remain till he dies, when it will be buried with him. It is believed that he will die if the arm is thrown away. Further, if Kimugung were buried without it he would become a snake and not a spirit.” (Massam, p. 226)

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fn.). Interestingly, the Maa term for “bones” is il-oik (sing. ol-oito), a word also meaning “guilt, taboo” according to Galaty (1977: 40). Now the standard Nandi term for “spirits” was oiik, sing. oiindet (Huntingford 1953: 136). The nearly perfect equivalence between il-oik (Maa) and oiik (Nandi), i.e. between “bones” and “spirits,” is not fortuitous. Maa and Nandi are two related languages, both being Nilotic.26 Perhaps more importantly, the two peoples have closely interacted for two or three centuries, if not more. Needless to say, such a representation would fit nicely in the funeral complex of the nearby and also Nilotic Datog. The bones—perhaps more specifically, the longer bones and even more so the curve-like spinal column—of the dead provided the material basis for an effective transformation of a dead person into a spirit-snake. In this scenario, the snake stands for a lot more than a mere material vehicle for the spirit. It becomes an after-life and almost perennial physical extension of the deceased person. In having a vertebral column, all humans are implicitly— not to mention other vertebrates— snake-like... This would seem to hint at a possibly fundamental dimension of ophidian symbolism: the primordiality of the snake-form. Snakes may have been viewed, if only in an implicit way, as the back-bone of humanity.27

26 Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language whereas Nandi is part of the Southern Nilotic branch. Keeping in mind that ol-oito is the singular form of il-oik in Maa, it is tempting to postulate a relationship between the term oiik (spirits) and the standard Nandi term for python or pythons, chelokoiit. 27 The connection between the spinal column and the snake-form also appears in Hinduism, more exactly in a variant of Vedic Hinduism. In the philosophy of the Tantra, kundalini, meaning “The coiled one.” i.e. serpent (Combe, p. 459), is the potential energy resting at the base of the spinal cord. Tantric yoga aims to uncoil or “awaken this cosmic energy and make it ascend through the psychic centres (…) that lie along the axis of the spine” (Ibid.).

CHAPTER 4.6 PYTHONS, CHIEFS, RIVER SERPENTS, AND RAINBOWS

According to the Keyo of south-western Kenya, rhinos and elephants are frightened by large pythons (Massam, p. 183). From the standpoint of the Alabdu, the northern section of the Guji Oromo of southern Ethiopia, “the lord of all beasts” was a very large snake called dudufa—meaning “the big one” and undoubtedly a full-grown python—that intimidated lions and elephants (Haberland, p. 306). A Somali folktale also tells of Lion and Elephant being terrorised by Python (Shekh Mumin et al., p. 154-59). Throughout Eastern Africa, the python is by far the greatest ophidian in size, weight, and power. Its symbology can only connote powerful entities. Moreover, it is well-known that such snakes, as many others, are connected with water. As we have seen for instance in chapter 4.3, large pythons were associated with ponds and caves in central Tanzania. It is therefore to be expected that the symbology of the python featured aquatic elements. This chapter will illustrate that trend. It will also show that the python was sometimes correlated with fire. This paradoxical connection was notably motivated by the yellowish outlook of such reptiles. Additionally, pythons like to bask in the morning sun, like many other snake species. It is also useful to remember that the ancient Egyptians likened the burning heat of a sunny day to the bite of a poisonous snake. An old myth told that while rising from the earth, the sun was bitten by a mighty venomous serpent; thereafter, its rays became annoying. A most likely explanation of the connection between fire and snake is the burning pain caused by the bite of poisonous ophidians. The image of pythons has possibly been contaminated by that of snakes in general, especially those types whose bite inflict a “burning” pain. ***** Pythons were respected, if not honoured, by various East African peoples. Many of them took pythons to be the material form taken by defunct

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chiefs or kings. As we saw in Box 27, pythons were designated as “earthpriests” by the people of Buha in north-western Tanzania. Among the nearby Sukuma, a “royal isamwa [ancestor spirit] can appear in the form of a python (sato). Ng’wanilanga, the ntemi [chief] of Itilima, kept one in his house, and called her Milembe” (Milroth, p. 119), the name of a deceased wife: “Each day he gave her milk to drink, and from time to time a goat to eat. She was honoured by the royal family” (Ibid.). Another Sukuma chief, Nkondo from Bulima, kept “several pythons in his ‘holy hill’” (Ibid.).1 The slayer of a sacred python was “punished as severely as if the killer had murdered a member of the royal family” (Ibid.). Cory (1953: 52) has the story of a great chief in southern Sukumaland who, after his death, became a very large non-poisonous and non-aggressive serpent “which was in the habit of lying with its head on a stone and its body twisted round several rocks.” Seemingly a python, the mighty snake was reportedly killed by the first Westerner to come by: “For this reason, the Europeans easily defeated and subjugated the natives” (Ibid.). Weissenborn (p. 274) reported the case of a British hunter witnessing in Unyanyembeʊa portion of Unyamwezi, to the south of Sukumalandʊ“his men driving slowly out of the village a boa ten feet long, which had found its way into a hut. They would not hear of its being killed, as it was a pepo or spirit, and its violent death would bring misfortune on the inhabitants of the village.” Among the Winawanga and Wiwa peoples who live in the Tanzania-Zambia-Malawi borderland, “no one is allowed to kill the python” (Chisholm 1910: 375). One paying a visit to a village was “allowed to take anything, as sheep, fowls, or dogs” (Ibid.). Such tolerance rested on the belief that chiefs were held to “become pythons at death” (Ibid.). This was corroborated by Johnston (1912: 146-47), who visited the same area: In one of the rest-houses on the Stevenson Road lived a tame python, which waxed fat on the sour beer and fowls offered to it by the Winamwanga (a native tribe), who reverenced in it their ancestral spirit, Chief Kachinga.

A German cattle dealer came by one day. He wanted to use that resthouse. The sacred snake was immediately silenced by his rifle.

1

Gass (p. 396) also heard about Nkondo, “who hosted and fed a snake—possibly a python—in his house.”

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In some cases, the python stood for local earth spirits rather than deceased chiefs. Among for example the Fipa of south-western Tanzania, the reptile was “credited with mystical power such that no hunter would dare kill it without immunizing himself with appropriate ‘medicines’. Otherwise, it is said, the ‘spirit’ (unsimu) of the animal would, in revenge, visit the hunter with grave and possibly fatal illness” (Willis 1974: 48).2 More importantly, “in Fipa religion particular pythons were frequently identified with named territorial spirits, imyaao nkaandawa. These creatures and other pythons which might be encountered in the bush were customarily greeted with the title of kingship, Mweene” (p. 49). Adds Willis, “Fipa folklore recognizes both a good, or positive, aspect of ‘pythonhood’ and an evil, negative aspect. The former occurs in the revered animals which incarnate the territorial spirits, and the latter in stories of dragon-like, antihuman creatures” (Ibid.). As elsewhere, a number of sacred pythons were destroyed by the British, including missionaries (Willis 1968: 155, n. 19; 1974: 113 fn.). Pythons were, in still other cases, assimilated to gods or messengers of a high god. As reported by Wipper (1970: 401), the Luo people of southwestern Kenya held that their supreme god could manifest itself through large snakes and other “awe-inspiring objects of nature.” According to Owuor et al. (2005: 132), the same people have a “totemic veneration of huge boids (pythons).” Some of them still believe that “divine forces can be present in totem animals, thus snakes straying into homesteads should be unharmed until they leave the house” (p. 132-33). Similarly for the Meru of north-central Kenya, the water python was the symbol of the supreme divinity (Peatrik, p. 303-304). Among the Sidamo of southern Ethiopia, the python was “thought to be an incarnation of a divine being,” “an object of worship,” and “reared in the huts and fed on meat” (Cerulli 1956: 129). The people claimed that it became fond of its patrons and would defend them against strangers attempting to enter the house without being invited in (Ibid., p. 129-30). ***** The Datog people of northern Tanzania differentiated sharply pythons, nyashta, from all other snakes, ichibooda (Blystad 2000: 117). The Torrobo hunters of nearby Maasailand held the shedding of python’s blood 2

The great eland was the only other animal believed to wield such power in Fipaland (Ibid.).

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to be inauspicious (Maguire, p. 265). Not far from the Datog, a Rimi would never destroy a python (Jellicoe 1978: 26). It is not clear to what extent the Datog “respected” pythons, nor why the Il-Torrobo hunters avoided spilling python’s blood. Jellicoe does mention the Rimi prohibition in relation to a great snake reportedly living in water and controlling the rain. A story from the Iraqw, a group that interacted regularly with the Datog, told of a large python that lived in a deep well (Berger et al., p. 110). One of their customs is worth reporting: “Near the White Father’s mission of Mbulu is a small lake in and around which live many pythons which are held in veneration by the Wambulu [i.e. Iraqw]. The natives in the vicinity have the curious custom of carrying back to this lake any python that is found any distance away from it” (Barnes 1923: 186). The Iraqw obviously felt that a python found some distance from water was a stray creature, that is, one which had wandered away from its place of belonging. In their perception, a situation where too many pythons wandered away from water in the dry bush would be unconducive to abundant rain. If a python were to be killed near a water hole, the latter would dry up completely according to the nearby Sandawe (Van de Kimmenade, p. 412). These beliefs echo a creed of the Oromo of Nakamte in distant western Ethiopia, who used to feed regularly with goat or sheep flesh and blood a snake, in this case unidentified, but possibly a python, at its den. It was believed that preventing the snake from being exposed to the sun, i.e. keeping it “cool” in its hole most of the time, was the surest way to foster rain at certain months of the year (Ambatchew et al., p. 20). Similarly, the taboo on killing pythons used to be restricted to the rainy season among the Kuba of eastern DRC (de Heusch 1982a: 47) and Venda of northeastern South Africa (Eberhardt 1958: 17). The South-Eastern Bantu: Venda, Thonga, Zulu, etc., considered the python to be a “cool” animal, its fat being used to treat burns and as a protection against fire; moreover, a python carcass was laid down in a stream so as to prevent drought (Eberhardt, ibid.; de Heusch 1982b: 374). The same convention prevailed among the Chewa of Malawi: “People (…) do not kill the python. If one is killed and left unburied, it is believed that god (…) may withhold the rains (…). In such a case, the python must be ritually buried on the bank of a river, and the feathers of a black chicken and pieces of black cloth placed on its burial mound” (Morris 2000: 199). Black was possibly the colour attributed to rain, as in many East African tribal communities.

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One of the more fascinating imaginary serpents in Eastern Africa was closely related to a Rimi tribal rain shrine known as Tita and located to the south of the Iraqw and Datog (Jellicoe 1978: 35).3 A permanent stream originated from a spring at the base of the rocky outcrop of Tita (Jellicoe 1967-68: 43). In a cave under a smooth round “rain stone” called Nkhoma was reputedly a “chasm,” which was the abode of “a great serpent [which] begins to stir at the beginning of the wet season” (Ibid.). The “stirring” of the mighty ophidian was believed to cause the onset of the rainy season in the initial form of “wet earth thrown up” from the deep cave as if the humidity of rain clouds originated from the underworld. When rain failed to come, the wet earth was said to have “hardened.” Animal sacrifices were then held at the rain shrine. The rain-making ritual of the Ihanzu described by Sanders (2002: 296-99) interestingly features “an enormous ancestor-snake (usually described as a python)” that reportedly resides in a sacred cave located on a small mountain in north-central Tanzania. The serpent was seemingly connected with the founding hero of the tribal community. The ritual involved notably the sacrifice in a clearing, midway to the top of the hill, of a black sheep born at night, the offering of sacrificial meat to the spirits, the tossing of chyme from the sacrificial sheep at the entrance of a cave housing ancient sacred drums, the anointing of these drums with castor oil, and lastly the anointing also with castor oil of the mighty serpent said to reside in a second sacred cave close by. The two caves are associated with departed members of the Anyampanda royal clan (p. 295) and the women taking part in the rituals are also related to that clan, mostly as wives. Elders perform ceremonies along with the women in one of the two sacred caves. Only a restricted number of women can access the serpent’s cave. The tossing of chyme was meant to “cool” down (kupola) the spirits residing in the first cave, itself a “cool” place. The dark-coloured sacrificial sheep was no doubt believed to enhance the cooling effect of the chyme. Anointing the drums as well as the great serpent with oil protected them from dryness, implying drought and death. This appears to echo the Iraqw custom of bringing stray pythons back to their lake, also a wet and cool place. The ritual or mundane use of castor oil has been reported in various parts of Eastern Africa. Among for instance the Giriama of south-eastern 3

Majestic evergreen sacred fig trees were named tita by both the Iraqw and Datog.

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Kenya, various rituals feature anointing with castor oil “as a metaphor for enhancing procreative powers” (Udvardy 1990: 143). Likewise in more private circumstances, Kaguru women from east-central Tanzania are said “to lubricate men’s penises with [castor] oil before intercourse” (Beidelman 1997: 198).4 That the final episode of the Ihanzu rain-making process, i.e. anointing the old drums and the sacred python, was embedded in sexual symbolism is made quite clear from the following features: (a) the women selected to move up to the sacred caves dance and sing “blatantly sexual” songs (Sanders, p. 296); (b) they enter the caves naked. Once replaced in its regional context, the “stirring” in the deep “chasm” of the mighty Rimi rain snake must be viewed as a cosmological sexual intercourse, in other words a formidable discharge of “wetness.” In the Rimi as well as in the Ihanzu rain-making process, the mythical snake represents a great phallus.5 The phallic overtones of ophidian symbols in Eastern Africa come to the fore, as in chapter 4.3. Clearly, snakes’ affinities with dark and damp places beneath the ground, including the netherworld, were echoed in the human realm by the physiological connection between the elongated sexual organ of males and the hollow sexual organ of females. ***** Chapter 3.3 underscored the python notably as the “rainbow snake.” Likewise, in the understanding of many East African peoples, Bantu and non-Bantu alike, the rainbow was connected with rain as well as perceived as a great python. But the rainbow python was not seen in the same light by all. An anthropologist emphasises the eternal conflict between Rainbow, represented by Python, and Lightning, represented by Eagle, which he understands to be the two surviving links between earth and heaven after their mythical separation (Wrigley 1988: 371-72).6. Especially for various 4

See also footnote 33 in chap. 3.1. Manual stimulation of the penis with oil-based solutions was also practised in ancient Sumer (Cooper 1997: 92). 5 As pointed out on page 227 in chapter 3.1, the python was “a male symbol” in the cultural universe of the Zaramo people of coastal Tanzania. 6 This legendary theme was echoed in ancient India by the mythical struggle between Naga, the great cobra, and Garuda, the mighty foe of the serpent race, i.e. Eagle. For a different rendering of this mythical theme in Africaʊmore exactly in Ethiopiaʊ, see Azaïs et al., p. 23-24. In central Tanzania, the sighting by the

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Bantu peoples, Rainbow was an emanation of a great water snake: “When it rears into the sky it holds apart the waters of earth and the waters of heaven, and must therefore be severed, beheaded, to release the rains.” In Wrigley’s understanding, “the complementary opposition of these divinities [i.e. Rainbow and Lightning] guarantees the proper alternation of the seasons and, beyond that, the inescapable rhythm of life and death.” After a great flood, “the lightning-god decreed that neither rain nor drought should last forever, but he also decreed that man should have a finite life” (Ibid.). That the rainbow was an emanation of a great water snake was clearly a common idea in much of Eastern Africa. For instance Hauenstein (1960: 226) reports the Luba belief according to which the rainbow results from the sexual embrace of two great river snakes, one male, one female, living in different rivers.7 In the South Sudan-DRC borderland, the rainbow snake of the Zande, Wangu, was said to be the reflection of a great snake living in ant-hills along rivers (Lagae 1920: 148, 149, 155). The connection of the awesome Ndamathia of the Kikuyu with the rainbow was alluded to in chapter 4.2. According to Kenyatta (p. 191), the Kikuyu believed that the mighty serpent “caused the rainbow to appear in the sky.”8 Lonsdale (p. 371, 345) similarly describes the great river serpent as a “rainbow dragon” or as a monster “in its rainbow guise of mkunga mbura, the ‘rain gatherer’,” which both “gave and withheld rain.” Importantly, the rainbow serpent was to be found near waterfalls (Lonsdale, p. 371). The nearby Kamba similarly told that a gigantic serpent lived in a pond on top of Mt Mutitu, “which sometimes sets the water in motion and rises up in it” (Lindbloom, p. 274).9 The ethnographer believed that it was “of the type that is called mukugga-mbua, one of the monsters of the popular imagination, a serpent of supernatural proportions, which devours human beings and cattle” (Ibid.). He suspected that this was a rainbow snake because the Kamba word mbua means “rain.” His theory was confirmed when he learnt that the Kikuyu and their northern neighbours, the Tharaka people, call the rainbow mukugga-mbura (Ibid.), Nyamwezi of a black-headed eagle, known to be “a snake-eating bird,” was for them a sure sign that an ophidian was nearby (Carnochan et al. 1937: 28). 7 Hauenstein uses a piece of information collected in south-eastern DRC by D. P. de Pedrals, La Vie Sexuelle en Afrique Noire (Paris: Payot, 1951), p. 179. 8 See also Cagnolo (p. 197). 9 Mountains were places the Kamba people were loath to ascend because mountain tops were believed to be the abodes of the spirits of the dead (Hobley 1910: 87; Lindbloom, p. 211).

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the second term, mbura apparently meaning “rain.”10 Among the nonBantu Mongwande of northern DRC, “Bekpwa was the spirit of the waterfalls and he revealed himself from time to time as a rainbow and was called Congo” (Moen, p. 36). The rainbow python was also connected with waterfalls by the Gonzelo, an Angolan Ngangela sub-group (Hauenstein, p. 225).11 It appears that the waterfall rainbow was seen by a number of East African peoples as a reflection of large river pythons and that the great celestial rainbow was viewed as a magnified waterfall rainbow. Waterfall and celestial rainbows are, as we well know, produced by sunlight from behind the viewer when the air is saturated with humidity. Another anthropologist to focus on the status of the rainbow and its connection with the python is de Heusch (1982a, chapter 2; 1982b, chapter 9). He analyses the case of the Luba, a Bantu people from south-eastern DRC, and of related groups: all believed in Nkongolo, a divine serpent associated with the earth and dry seasons—but also with terrestrial waters—and opposed Nkongolo to Lightning as well as rain, i.e. water from above. The Luba and others equated Nkongolo’s “burning” and “coloured breath” with the rainbow (1982a: 54). They feared the rainbow and made noise to drive it away. Likewise, the non-Bantu Zande people reckoned that Wangu appeared where it rained and feared it when seen nearby because it could burn houses; possibly to frighten it, drums were beaten and people would rush into the bush (Lagae).12 According to Werner (1933: 231), many of the numerous Bantu peoples of Eastern Africa “have been struck not so much by the beauty of the rainbow as by its strangeness, and they nearly always look on it as malignant and dangerous.” Moreover, “it is a common belief that [the rainbow, often assimilated to “a many-coloured snake”] stops the rain, and this is quite enough to constitute it an enemy. Its colours are sometimes said to be the glow of a destroying fire.” This is the antithesis of the view that the python is a “cool” animal whose coolness must be safeguarded, notably in the rainy season.

10

Rain is imvura in Kinyarwanda, the langage of the Rwandan people. The Bamiléké of Cameroon similarly believed that rainbows and mist were created by a type of small snake living near waterfalls (Notué et al., p. 100). 12 Wangu was sometimes seen in dreams (Evans-Pritchard 1976: 231). Another strange beast known to the Zande was Gumba, the “lightning-beast that strikes with ‘blinding death’” (Philipps, p. 174). 11

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But de Heusch also reviews cases from the DRC where the mighty water serpent is dissociated from the rainbow, lacks a “burning breath,” and is seen as the “master of rain” rather than as the adversary of celestial water. The Ihanzu and Rimi rain serpents discussed above are in accord with the latter cosmological pattern. So are the representations shared by many Bantu peoples from Malawi concerning the “serpent spirit,” which is usually identified as a large variety of python (nsato), is seen as a manifestation of the power of the supreme deity, and is closely associated with rainfall. It is thus closely identified with the evergreen (cloud) forests that clothe the larger mountains, especially evergreen thickets (nsitu), with deep holes and river gorges, with rivers (…) and with the winds, thunder, and rainbow that accompany the rain storms. It is a concrete manifestation—whether as a snake or as an atmospheric phenomenon, which are closely identified in Malawian thought—of the powers of divinity. (Morris 2000: 218-19).

***** The representations held by some of the Bantu peoples of Eastern and Central Africa and by the non-Bantu Zande showed up in south-eastern Ethiopia. The Surma-speaking Me’en believe in Orome, a much-feared supernatural creature. The Orome reputedly looks like a python that “breathe[s] fire from its mouth” (Fukui, p. 379). As the Me’en people see it, the rainbow is “the breath of the Orome” (Ibid.). On preliminary examination, the Orome seems to correspond to the fantastic kutel of the Murle, a related group from nearby eastern South Sudan. Associated with thunder and lightning, dreaded by the people, these serpents are described as: “enormously long, like an immense python, with a body as thick as a human being” (Lewis 1972: 133); living in mountain areas; red in colour and iridescent; spending daytime in deep caves and emerging at night; laying eggs like snakes but breast-feeding their offspring like mammals; having at the end of their tail a great claw and on their head “two tufts or plumes of feathers resembling horns.”13 Lastly, kutel are held to emit a “fire-like” substance (Ibid.). Arensen (1992: 247-48) corroborates that description while adding a few features: their body is covered with scales; people refrain from looking at these rarely encountered creatures and keep away from the areas where they are 13

This is reminiscent among others of the plumed serpents of the Karimojong and related groups of eastern Uganda (See page 327 in chap. 4.5). We have also heard of large legendary serpents whose tail was equipped with a great claw.

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said to reside; they have wings and can fly; the body of a kutel becomes iridescent “in the right light”; such serpents breathe fire so that “if a person sees a strange fire at night, he or she goes out of his or her way to avoid it since it might be a kutel”; their fiery breath is “thought to leave a gold nugget” whenever it comes in contact with the ground. The Murle kutel are clearly associated with fire but Lewis views them paradoxically as “rain serpents.” In fact, their connection with rain is but lightly substantiated. Arensen seems to have reservations with such a characterisation. However, kutel are connected with thunder: the accidental hurting of such a creature would immediately unleash a thundering sound that would drive any offender mad. According to Lewis (p. 129), the kutel are “of less significance than the rainbow.” The latter also had something to do with fire inasmuch as it was “the source of the chief’s sacred fire” (p. 151; also p. 128). It was also recounted that long ago Rainbow “handed a lighted brand to Dog” (p. 128). Dog then turned wood into a combustible matter and brought fire to humans. A fuller account of the Murle myth, in adapted form below, is provided by Lewis (1947: 135) and Arensen (p. 245-46): In those days people used to eat food cooked by the sun. Orodh (Dog) located the mountain cave where Rainbow used to hide. Creeping into the cave Orodh found Rainbow, immensely long, lying asleep in coils round a fire. It stepped very cautiously between the coils of the sleeping divinity, took a small ember using its tail, crept out as carefully as it had come, ran away, and swam across a river with its tail holding up the ember above water. Rainbow woke up and went after Dog, but could not find it. Dog gave fire to all the trees so that if you rub them together today they produce 14 fire. And it gave fire to humans who were then shaking with cold.

Arensen puzzlingly reports that the rainbow “shows itself in the sky before rain” (p. 241). According to the detailed version of the story reported by Lewis (1947: 135), it was raining when Dog saw Rainbow; it ran after it, “trying to find where it ended”; it came to its hiding place when it rained no more. The rainbow is usually associated with the terminal stage of a shower. It is more a “stopper” than a precursor of rain.

14

The related Surma-speaking Me’en or Bodi of south-western Ethiopia also recounted that after crossing a river with its tail holding the lighted stick above water, Dog brought fire to humanity (Haberland 1959: 413). The original holder of fire is not specified in the Bodi narrative.

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Kutel and rainbows share many characteristics, most of which also apply to pythons. The first two features are their great length and iridescence. The third is the association of kutel and the rainbow with earthly cavities: “When the rainbow is not stretched out in the sky, it lives in a cave or hole” (Arensen, p. 246). The fourth lies in the association of both kutel and rainbows with fire. One feature, however, sharply dissociates kutel from rainbows: the former are only active at night. In the understanding of the Murle, the rainbow is the “visible manifestation of Boroi”ʊa notion encompassing thunder and lightningʊwhich is itself believed to be the “messenger” of Tammu, the high god (Arensen, p. 241). Since there must be an end to rain, the earthly but divine rain-stopper is a good character. As the original owner of fire, it also opened the way to civilisation. All in all, the rainbow is therefore a positive entity. As for the kutel, which were also connected with thunder, they appeared in the Murle worldview as a nocturnal and fully malevolent version of the rainbow.

Box 33 Snake, Dog, and Fire In some stories from Eastern Africa, Serpent plays the part of the primeval owner of fire. An Oromo tale from southern Ethiopia about the origin of fire features a great snake: assimilated to its breath, its “fire” is robbed by a fearless man (Haberland, p. 610). Rikitu (p. 42-44) provides another version of the Oromo story. In this case, Dog plays the role of the snatcher, which recalls the Murle myth. A very similar narrative was interestingly heard among the Nuer of South Sudan (Huffman 1931: 8889) whose homeland lies to the north-west of the Murle’s.15 The theme of the ophidian master of fire possibly hails directly from ancient Egypt. The sun started to burn after being bitten by a mighty “burning” reptile. Dog was credited with a civilising role by other peoples from the same general area. This was the case for instance of the Mandari, to the south of the Nuer and Dinka: “Primal dogs also had the power of speech and so were (…) able to warn humans of impending dangers; the dog also taught the use of fire, enabling man to become a social being” (Buxton 1968: 37). East of the Dinka and Nuer, and north of the Murle, Anuak mythology has 15 The Bamiléké and Bamun of Cameroon also believed that pythons keep a fire in their dens (Notué et al., p. 98).

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Dog diverting to human beings some “cultural possessions”—such as spears and possibly fire—which God intended for wild animals (Lienhardt 1962: 78). Likewise, the nearby Uduk recounted that Dog taught humans to use language, fire, and spears (James 1988: 36; 1990: 200).16 Not necessarily related to Snake, the “dog-and-fire” connection quite clearly has to do with sexuality. In fact, a different version of the Anuak story has Dog lighting the very first fire for the benefit of the single woman who was kind enough to shelter it from heavy rain; a heap of dry grass caught fire in the house when Dog urinated on it (Evans-Pritchard et al., p. 57-58). As seen above, some tales recounted that Dog snatched fire from Snake using its tail. In Eastern Africa as elsewhere, the “tail” is sometimes used to hint at the male organ. Dogs were commonly reputed to be zealous “copulators” and copulation was evocative of the traditional method of fire-drilling. ***** Across Eastern Africa, snakes were commonly associated with water. In some parts of that area, the python was very closely identified with water and the rainy season; in others, it was predominantly connected with fire and rainbow, the latter being perceived as the impeder or “stopper” of rain. The overall picture may appear contradictory. The two faces of the python were actually the opposite sides of the same coin. In both scenarios, the python is strongly related to rain, either positively or negatively. The contradiction also pertained to cobras in India—as we saw in chapter 2.3, notably in Box 12—and probably elsewhere. In Morocco for instance, the rainbow usually indicated that the rain would cease; but the contrary opinion prevailed at Fez and Tangier (Westermarrk 1926, I: 117). The large python has often been perceived as the snake par excellence. As such, this type of ophidian potentially carried with it more or less the full array of symbolic connotations attributed to snakes, including the venomous or “burning” types.

16 The Uduk did view Rainbow as an immense python (James 1988: 33, 60). Its association with fire has not been recorded, as far as the author is aware of.

CHAPTER 4.7 SNAKES, OMENS, DIVINATION, AND KNOWLEDGE

We have learnt from chapter 1.3 that the ever-open eyes and persistent “awakeness” of snakes tend to evoke superior awareness and knowledge. That is, snakes would be familiar with things unknowable to humans or at least unknown to them, including future events. Chapters 2.2, 2.5, and 2.6 taught us that snakes were involved in prophesying or divination in ancient Greek and Roman times: sacred snakes auspiciously tasting or inauspiciously disregarding food offered by virgin priestesses; in ancient Arabia: diviners, snakes, and jinn; and in medieval or even contemporary northern and southern Europe: more or less as in ancient Greece and Rome, but in a domestic setting. The question that must be asked at this juncture is not one to which may be given a ready-made answer: to what extent was East African ophidian symbology familiar with mantic considerations? Actually that question was formulated some years ago by Hauenstein (1978: 532-33, 549-50) concerning two areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. He notes that in Angola Tshokwe diviners used to invoke the mighty serpents of the land at every divination session.1 He finds similar evidence of connections in Côte d’Ivoire: for instance a Guéré diviner acting as a medium between two spirits, that of a python and that of a leopard, and persons confronted with misfortune. On the whole, he came upon very few such cases, while adding that his limited experience may misrepresent somewhat the wider African cultural scene. This author’s own research agrees with Hauenstein’s preliminary conclusion inasmuch as evidence of a connection between snakes and prophesying and/or divination is by no means overwhelming in the East African context. Nonetheless, it does prove significant enough to merit a specific chapter. 1

These diviners invoked first the names of five great kings of the past, then the eagle and a type of hawk, and finally two undetermined types of serpent, ombuta and yenge (Hauenstein 1960: 229).

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***** Africans used to be on the alert for omens whenever planning or accomplishing something important: a rite de passage, marriage negotiations, a war expedition, installation of a new chief, etc. Omens were a minimalist way of reaching out to or “knowing” about things to come. Of course, the range of occurrences which were traditionally decoded as auspicious or inauspicious varied considerably from community to community. Animals, including birds: owls, crows, etc., commonly featured in such meaningful events. In Eastern Africa, the sudden appearance of a snake was widely taken as particularly significant in that regard. In some cases, its colouring was the key factor. Such occurrences were meaningful when happening in certain places, such as a house, or when someone was out in the bush for some important purpose. In central Tanzania, “to meet a black snake on a journey is counted as a bad sign” in what used to be Gogo reckoning (Cole, p. 326). Likewise, in eastern Uganda, when a Teso traveller saw a snake that disappeared quickly, he or she would anticipate that the journey would not be prosperous (Lawrance 1957: 176). In eastern South Sudan, “to come across [a python] curled up asleep is considered dangerous [by the Murle], and probably a warning that disaster will overcome the traveller or his family” (Lewis 1972: 133). Moreover, “to meet a python on the move is worse still, and thought to presage a death in the family, or to the individual concerned” (Ibid.). Another ethnologist was more recently told by a reliable Murle informant that, “if an individual sees a python fleeing, it can bring bad luck, illness, or even death” (Arensen 1992: 249). A python or a hyena seen in daytime was interpreted as a bad sign by the Gusii of south-western Kenya (LeVine et al. 1966: 57). In the same area, the sighting by a young Marakwet woman of a snake crossing her path while she was on the way back to her parents for the first time after her marriage was so inauspicious that such an event might entail the cancellation of the union (Kipkorir et al. 1973: 51). The Acholi of central Uganda considered the sighting near a stream or on a hill of a jok (“spirit”) in snake form was always ill-fated (Seligman et al. 1932: 127). Their southern Lango neighbours believed that “to dream that a snake bites one is a very bad omen. Immediately on waking one bites a piece of charcoal and spits it out, and pricks oneself with a thorn. This will avert the omen and even if one meets a snake, as one surely will, it will not bite” (Driberg 1927: 142). Among the Zande of south-western South Sudan, witchcraft

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was seen as the cause of bad dreams, including one in which a person is attacked and entwined by a snake (Evans-Pritchard 1976: 231). The mlinga, described as “a short, stubby, blackish, non-poisonous snake,” was ill-fated in the minds of the Thonga people of southern Mozambique, southern Zimbabwe, and the north-eastern provinces of South Africa: “If it crossed the path of anyone on a journey, the traveller would return home on the instant, considering that some spirit whom he must obey, was opposed to his proceeding further then” (MacAlpine, p. 265-66). Among the Bemba of the Tanzania-Zambia-DRC borderland, snake-related events were meaningful notably when men were on the war-path: Particular attention was paid to the omens encountered during the first day’s march (…) if the thick, brownish snake called the mboma—of the boa-constrictor family—were found gorged in the path, the King was called, and rejoiced at the clear sign given by such a portent that the chief of his foes would be slain. On the other hand, did a snake bite any warrior the fact was of most evil omen. The medicine-man would divine on the spot which of the ancestral spirits had caused this evil thing (…). When the medicine-man stated that the spirits were appeased, the march was resumed. (Sheane, 1911, p. 26)

Coming upon two snakes that were fighting or mating was not an event to be taken lightly in south-western Kenya. Seeing two snakes entwined was a bad omen for a Marakwet on a journey, just like the falling of a branch “across the path ahead, or if there is fire along the route” (Kipkorir et al., p. 41). When a Gusii man was faced with two snakes fighting or copulating, he knew that the event was dictated by the spirits of his ancestors and quickly took “the proper action” in order to avoid being afflicted by impotence (LeVine et al. 1966: 57).2 An account by Massam (p. 191-92) concerning the nearby Keyo gives an insight into what “the proper action” might have been. A Keyo man witnessing the same inauspicious event needed to kill both snakes to avoid his own death. If he missed one, he went through the same “formalities” as when escaping death by swiftly moving away from or deflecting a large branch falling from “a healthy green tree”; that is, he sought protection from the “devil” that had “obviously tried to kill him” by asking some very old men to

2

Mayer (1973: 135) also reports that a Gusii male might become impotent after seeing snakes mating in the bush.

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perform a specific ritual—whose description would not be very useful— for his benefit.3 In some cases, the colour of the snake was the more significant factor. In northern Tanzania for instance, the appearance of a dark coloured snake in a Sukuma house was considered an unlucky event, the implication being that the ancestor spirit embodied in it had evil intentions towards the living; if the snake was brightly coloured, it was taken to be a “bearer of good fortune to the family” (Milroth, p. 119). The related and nearby Nyamwezi apparently had opposite views: a non-venomous white snake seen at the grave or in the hut of one’s deceased parent was thought to serve as “a warning of impending misfortune” (Hambly, p. 30). In this community, white was the colour associated with the relatives of the father’s side (Tcherkézoff, p. 57).4 Chapter 4.5 has already referred to the reactions to the visit of a small black snake in a Barabaig homestead. It was usually interpreted “as an evil omen” while members of anyone of the priestly clans believed it was “a sign that something [was] wrong in the household” if the ophidian visitor refused to taste the food or drink offered to it by the head of the household. As mentioned in Box 4, the linguistic record shows that the Nilotic Datog—to which the Barabaig belong—and the Sukuma Bantu interacted significantly in the past before the Datog moved south. The black snake of the Barabaig is clearly perceived as overseeing the behaviour of the members of homesteads, notably the wives, affiliated to some priestly clan. The snake “sees” and “hears” what goes on and by “refusing” to taste food offered to it, it is communicating to the owner of the homestead that something is wrong. Presumably when it accepted the food that was handed to it and when it left the place on its own, the event was perceived as auspicious. Over and above the colour of the reptile, the key factor now is what the snake does or does not do. This is interesting inasmuch as it echoes ancient Greek and Roman practices.5 3

In Upper Guinea (West Africa), the breaking of a green banana leaf under one’s foot was a very bad omen for a Kissi or his kin; so was the sighting of a spitting snake (Paulme 1954: 124). 4 Milroth, Hambly, and Tcherkézoff all make use of information provided by early Catholic missionaries: Gass (unpublished), Bösch (1925), and Bösch (1930), respectively. The Maasai know of ol-asurai o-ibor, “the white snake,” and this snake—perhaps an albino ophidian—is said to be “seldom seen” (Mol, p. 305). 5 Similar procedures have also persisted up to modern times in northern Africa (Probst-Biraben 1932: 771; 1933: 202; 1947: 103).

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The little black ophidian was not the sole serpent to communicate something to the Datog of northern Tanzania. As mentioned in chapter 4.5, a pregnant woman seeing a python near her house would rejoice because the event foretold that she would give birth safely (Blystad 2000: 117). In fact, neither the little black snake nor the python were categorised as a snake, ichihod (Klima) or ichibooda (Blystad), by the Datog: the first was a spirit, meang’eanyenda, in the outward form of a snake (Blystad, p. 195 fn.); the second was exclusively known as nyashta (p. 117).6 It is useful to recall that other East African instances of snake omens related to birthing have been reported in chapter 4.5. ***** In a number of instances, some from Tanzania, others from Ethiopia, the reaction of a sacred serpent attested to the veracity or falsehood of a statement. In other cases, augurs were drawn from the behaviour of certain snakes on behalf not of restricted family units but of whole communities. The first Tanzanian case involves the Rimi (or Nyaturu) of central Tanzania. When their mighty rain serpent, a magnified python, wriggled in its deep cave at the beginning of the rainy season, it would throw sacred mud out of its shrine: “From the inspection of this earth, the guardian elders predict the events of the coming year: whether there will be a good or a poor harvest; as, originally, they also predicted war and invasion. After this the rain emerges and gathers into black clouds over the rocks” (Jellicoe 1978: 35).7 Our first Ethiopian case, reminiscent of ancient Mediterranean practices, relates to the Agaw people of central Ethiopia: “The Agau (east of Lake Tana) have a great respect for snakes, feed them, and draw auguries for the future from their eating or refusing food” (Weissenborn, p. 275). The four other Ethiopian instances the author is aware of occurred in the southern and south-western portions of the country. One hails from the Kaffa highlands: Mes-tato is the name of a black snake which lived in the mineral water hole near the Gumi River. The mineral water hole is called Mese. It was the only snake at this water hole. Whenever the snake vomited milk, it was 6

Klima (p. 43) agrees that the Barabaig “do not consider [the little black snake] a snake at all,” adding that they call it “ichihod bunged, ‘snake of the funeral’” (p. 44). 7 The imaginary serpent was somehow associated with a sort of spirit named Magheme, “The Thinker” (Jellicoe 1967: 27).

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good for Kafa. Many years ago, a European came by and took this snake away. (Lange, 1982, p. 285)

The three other cases that could be tracked down are of the “truth test” kind. The Gamo have a tale entitled “The serpent’s verdict” (Bureau 1994: 121). A man brings his unruly son to “someone” who “knows the law.” That entity happens to be the dead snake they soon come upon. The father asks his son to tell the truth. “Father,” says the son, “you speak first.” The father says: “I think of marrying my son and of bequeathing to him my land and my livestock.” The dead snake then “moves.” Thereafter, the son says: “Father, I wish you a long, healthy, and prosperous life.” The snake “dies again.” Then the son confesses his duplicity and pleads for forgiveness. Similarly, as noted in chapter 4.3, certain large sacred trees were held by the Borana to host a deadly snake; people would go next to such a tree and swear they were telling the truth; if not, the resident snake would punish them with a lethal bite (Haberland, p. 231). Another case hails from the Bukoba area in far north-western Tanzania: The invocation of a sacred snake, accompanied by certain ceremonies, is also practised as an ordeal. After a lapse of a certain time, either the accused, or (if his accusation were wilfully false) the accuser, dies; and the relatives of the deceased have to propitiate the snake with sacrifices. (Weisssenborn, 1906, p. 274)

This Tanzanian case echoes southern Ethiopian beliefs and practices. The number of instances of snake-related ordeals that could be tracked down is not very significant. This, however, is not to suggest that such practices were not very common in Eastern Africa. Similar occurrences may have remained unnoticed. In all likelihood, others have been recorded but remained out of the author’s documentary reach. ***** The final section of this short chapter will focus on snake-related mantic occurrences of a more sophisticated character than those reviewed above. The three of them were spread out in Eastern Africa proper and all highlight more or less oracular ophidians with their human mediums. The first example relates to the Fipa of south-western Tanzania. This community revered imyaoo nka-andawa, i.e. “spirits of the bush” or “territorial spirits” represented by pythons (Willis 1968: 140). These were housed in shrines. Now, “the most highly esteemed of all diviners were the

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spirit-mediums, the aka miyaoo, the so-called ‘wives of the territorial spirits’” (p. 142). The medium uses a long string of white beads (ukasi) and some small gourds, in each of which a grain, usually of maize, is put. (…). Branches of a tree called umuluunji are burnt near the door of the hut. Those about pray. If the medium agrees to attempt divination, he goes and puts the beads round his neck and takes up the gourds. He then goes to a suitable spot and shakes the gourds, calling on the spirits (imyaoo). He begins to tremble violently. The audience remove his beads and take away the gourds. He then begins to pronounce. (Ibid.)8

The Fipa case seems to parallel scenes from Angola alluded to above where Tshokwe diviners invoked the serpents of the land at every divination session. This also brings to mind a passing remark from Knighton (p. 224) about a Karimojong female diviner, amuron, who claimed to be in touch with spirits represented by “small, dark snakes” which “give access to the personal wills hidden from the eye.” The second example is taken from south-western Uganda, some 150 km north of the Bukoba area. The scene to be depicted took place after the moon’s appearance. The devotees gathered in a large conical hut built of poles and thatched with grass, which served as the python’s temple. The hereditary priest received offerings, made a plea to the snake-god, and dressed the medium for the possession: (…) the spirit of the python then came upon the man, and he went down on his face and wriggled about upon his stomach like a snake, uttering peculiar noises, and speaking in a tongue which required an interpreter to explain to the people. The people stood around and looked on while the drums were beaten and the python gave its oracle. The interpreter, named Lukumirizi, stood by listening until the medium ended his speech; when he finished his talk, he fell down or lay down like a person in a sound sleep for a long time, utterly overcome with his exertions. Lukumirizi the interpreter then explained what had been foretold, and told the fortunate persons whose request had been granted what they were to do in order to obtain their desire, and what was the medical treatment which the wife was to undergo. This ceremony was repeated each day during the seven days feasting [following the new moon]. The people were then free to return to their homes and look forward to the fulfilment of the promises. When children were born according to the promise of the python, the parents had 8

English translation by Willis of an excerpt from J. M. Robert (1949), “Croyances et coutumes magico-religieuses des Wafipa païens,” Tabora, p. 147-48.

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to take an offering of either a goat or fowls to the temple (…). (Roscoe 1909a, p. 89-90)

In far south-eastern Uganda, the Gisu similarly used to worship a serpent known as Mwanga and associated with a medium. The snake god was believed to have power over disease and people would be told through the medium the causes of their ailments and the cures to apply (Roscoe 1909b: 188). The third and last case features a huge and mysterious cave-dwelling serpent. Known as Kolelo, it reportedly lived in a mountain range in Uluguru near the land of the Zaramo, not far from present-day Dar es Salaam in eastern Tanzania (Werner 1933: 244-46). As the legend goes, Kolelo captured a young woman who was digging up wild tubers near its cave. She later returned to her people, wearing beautiful ornaments and telling them that she had become the wife of the mountain serpent-god, and that it would issue admonitions to which all must adhere as well as prophesies about things to come. Other than its female caretaker, only two persons could enter the cave. These were two mediums, whose task was to interpret the sounds that came out from deep inside the cave. One of the better known of Kolelo’s admonitions was that people were to refrain from eating cassava leaves, possibly on account of its recent introduction by the colonial authorities.9 Most of Kolelo‘s exhortations had to do with agricultural matters. However, the fortune-telling serpent became involved to some extent in the maji maji rebellion against colonial rule in the early years of the twentieth century. Kolelo, it is said, foretold that the German colonialists would be overrun by rebels armed with mere millet-stalks. After the maji maji interlude, the people apparently continued for some years to follow the agricultural instructions of the legendary serpent.10 ***** The superior knowledge of snakes about things hidden from ordinary humans is further illustrated by an outstanding story collected by Huffman (p. 90-92) from the Nuer of South Sudan: a snake transfers to a man the

9

Some varieties of cassava are poisonous if not processed properly. When the crops prospered, according to one of Iliffe’s sources (1967: 504), the Zaramo did “not think of Kolelo.” The data collected by Iliffe indicate that the involvement of Kolelo’s ritual caretakers in the rebellion was exceptional. Another local prophetic and snake-related figure took the lead (See chap. 4.14). 10

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ability to hear the talk of mosquitoes, rats, etc.11 while urging him to keep it secret; as one may expect, the man soon discloses his talent and meets with death as a consequence; the snake, however, is kind enough to restore him back to life.12 The Nuer story could be a distant and diluted echo of a Greek legend: Cassandra’s twin brother Helenos could predict the future by interpreting the sounds and movements of birds because, when very young, his ears had been licked by snakes in a temple. Alternatively, the Nuer story was possibly a spillover from Christian Abyssinia where some holy menʊnot unlike Italy’s thirteenth-century St. Francis of Assisi talking with birdsʊwere said to “experience the ability to converse with or understand the speech of animals” (Kaplan 1985: 244). These solitary ascetic monks removed themselves from civilisation and lived in caves in the bush. Caves as we know are among the favourite abodes of snakes. And caves were often taken by Africans as entry points to the netherworld… Another interesting illustration of the mantic character of ophidians will be offered in Volume Two, chapter 5.3, Box 53. It relates to the Hoor of southern Ethiopia.

11 In southern Uganda, people believed that “animals speak a language which they understand themselves” and “at one time men could understand it” (Williams, p. 69). 12 Some among the Nuer believed that cobras in particular have “medicine,” wal, in their bodies (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 68).

CHAPTER 4.8 SNAKES AND CLANS IN NILOTIC SOUTH SUDAN

Some of the Dinka tribal groups identified as a whole with a totem. Such was the case with the “Twij” (probably Twic), one of the northern Dinka communities. According to Wyndham (1936: 105), “As we approached Wun Rog, the giraffes, which I had thought tame farther south, did not even trouble to get out of the way of our car, for in this district they share with other animals the security of being the tribe’s totem.”1 Another large Dinka sub-tribal grouping was called Niel, possibly implying some connection with nyeel, python. More importantly, each and every patrilineal clan of the Dinka and Nuer, two related Nilotic communities of South Sudan, “respected” a natural object, often a river or river-side animal, tree, or plant. Their “totem” was connected to what Lienhardt (1961: 130) terms “a clan divinity,” which was felt to be “the source of the life of the clan.” In a number of cases, the totem of a clan and its human founder had reportedly been twins (Seligman et al. 1932: 143; Evans-Pritchard 1956: 66-7, 132).2 A Nilotic totem was the “symbol of the clan spirit” (Deng 1972: 124); it was regarded as presiding “over fertility in humans and cattle” (Lienhardt 1961: 82) or as representing “qualities and strength which a man derives from his agnatic descent” (p. 110). In the words of Bench et al. (2006), a Dinka clan totem (yath) stood for “the protecting spirit of a clan [that] abides in animals or plants or other things, and [that] was given by God to the ancestors to conjure (through them) good for their clan and evil for their enemies.”3 Nuer clan totems were “creatures and things which (…) 1

The likewise Nilotic Karimojong of eastern Uganda also “protected” giraffes, as noted above (See chap. 3.1, fn. 7). 2 The same type of totemistic connection was common among the related Atuot (Burton 1979: 103; 1981: 149). 3 See English to Dinka Glossary (R. Bench & M. Brisco, May 2006), p. 212: http://www.rogerblench.info/Language%20data/Nilo-Saharan/Nilotic/EnglishDinka%20glossary%207%20May.pdf.

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evoke the idea of Spirit”; they were chosen on account “not of their intrinsic nature but in their character as symbols through which Spirit manifests itself to human intelligence” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 81, 82).4 According to Burton (1979: 103-105), what is to be understood from the Atuot standpoint is that the “spiritual essence” of the totem and that of the people who identified with it were the same. In other words, the spiritual essence of a clan totem and the moral identity of the specific group of people that “respected” the earthly representations of that totem were believed to be one. The totemic relationship between (putatively) related people and their natural symbol was much more significant than what prevailed among some other East African peoples. Among for instance the Amba of western Uganda, totemic prohibitions were taken rather lightly. Men who were supposed to keep away from leopards would not hesitate to kill a big cat that attempted to prey upon their goats. A man with a totemic relationship towards a certain type of poisonous ophidian would kill one that had found its way into his house, except that he would ask someone else to take it away. As summed up by Winter (1956: 193), “There is no feeling of kinship with the particular species; it is merely that men have been forbidden contact with it by their ancestors.” In contrast, the totem and the clan founder were commonly said among the Dinka, Nuer, and Atuot to have been twins.5 In destroying or even harming a particular specimen of one’s own clan totem animal, tree, or plant species, a Dinka or Nuer person would put his own essence, moral identity, or life in jeopardy. When a totem creature or plant was accidentally harmed, a propitiatory ritual had to take place so as to avert illness or misfortune. Some totems, notably snakes and lizards, were not deemed edible (Burton 1981: 73). Whenever a totem happened to be an edible plant, fish, or animal, the necessary “respect” owed to one’s own totem implied a food taboo, that is, a privation.

4

In an earlier publication, Evans-Pritchard (1935: 67) had characterised Nuer totems as “minor” or “earthly spirits.” 5 The distant Mijerteen Somali recounted the following myth: known as Mahmud Saleban, the newly-born founder of three Mijerteen clan segments was found with his twinʊa poisonous snake, masʊlying next to him (Cerulli 1957: 78-79). All the descendants of Mahmud Saleban respected and even protected mas snakes from fellow tribespeople, and the snakes would do no harm to them. Were a descendant bitten by a mas, the bite would prove harmless (Ibid.).

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Importantly, the “respect” was believed to be “reciprocal” (EvansPritchard 1956: 79): inasmuch as “we” (people) respect “you” (crocodile or lion for instance), “we” are entitled not to be molested by “you.” The totemic relationship amounted to a pact of non-aggression. When the totem was normally not dangerous to humans, which was often the case, such a pact could amount to a mutual assistance treaty of some sort. Nuer families went a step further in building a special relationship with the totem-spirit. One cow was dedicated to it. The milk from such a cow was sometimes offered in their natural habitat to actual representations of the totem. Such cows were never slaughtered for food. Therefore the totem spirit was not only shown respect by way of non-aggression and noningestion, it was also offered the best of food: milk and the most precious possession the people had, i.e. the cow as outright gifts. One would also find in Dinka herds cows dedicated to “clan-divinities” (Lienhardt 1961: 96), to the “ancestors” (Deng 1971: 45), or to “mythical participants” (Deng, p. 229). In addition, some cows were dedicated to Deng (Lienhardt, p. 96). Deng was a divinity of higher rank associated with rain (Lienhardt, p. 91-92). The spirit Deng was especially connected with chiefly families, many of whom were credited with rain-making abilities. The totemic character of the Dinka society has been pointed out with reference to various Dinka sub-groups, notably the Agar, where clans were identified either with an animal or a plant seen as “spiritual ancestors” and therefore venerated. For instance, the Patiop clan has a special relationship with the fox and each member of that clan keeps intact the long woolly tail of a sheep, thereby symbolizing a fox tail. A Dinka especially reveres the totem of his or her own clan. If the totem is an animal, it will never be killed or eaten; if it is a tree or a plant, it will never be cut or burnt. (Ryle, 1982, p. 47)

The totem of the Pacuar clan of the Agar was the lion, cuar (p. 47-48). The alliance between these people and the mighty feline came to be in the distant past when the founding ancestor bravely succoured a wounded lion. Whenever a lion was seen close to the villages, the people from other clans went to a Pacuar elder for advice. The bride-wealth given to the male kin of a young Pacuar bride comprised a bull of the colour mayen, that of the lion; the animal was left by family members tethered on a tree in a nearby forest as an offering to their totem or clan-spirit.

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Among the Nuer, many lineages or sub-clans honoured the crocodile-spirit, “the Cany major lineage of the eastern Gaajak being one of the largest” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 66). It was believed that the members of such groups enjoyed “a special immunity” from the attacks of real crocodiles (Ibid.). Moreover, those who lived in the vicinity of such lineages needed not be very fearful of the local crocodiles. They were held to be more or less “benevolent” as opposed to the “savagery of crocodiles in other districts” (p. 67). When people had to have their herds and flocks cross rivers and streams infested with crocodiles, the elders of crocodile-respecting lineages were called upon to hold a ritual to close the jaws of the river-dwelling reptiles (Ibid.). We know from Evans-Pritchard (1940: 177) that “there are a number of totemic specialists whose ritual connexion with lions, crocodiles, weaver birds, &c., enables them to influence the behaviour of these creatures. A totemic specialist is a possessor (gwan) of the spirit (kwoth) of his totem” [By permission of Oxford University Press]. ***** Many Dinka and Nuer clans or lineages had a snake as their primary totem or clan-divinity. Snakes in general were known as ke rac (plur. ka rac), “bad thing,” by the Ngok Dinka and as ke piny, “thing of the ground,” by other Dinka groups (Deng 1971: 300 fn.).6 The standard Nuer designation for snakes was apparently nyarec jok, “feetless people” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 89)—the term jok normally referring to spirits. Among the Dinka, various snake species featured as clan totems and therefore many ophidians were regarded as “‘relatives’ who must not be harmed, just as they too must not harm their relatives” (Deng 1972: 176). As far as the author could find, the following snake species have been formally recorded as Dinka totems: - anong, a poisonous snake (totem of an unidentified clan of the Cic Dinka); - nyeel, the python (totem of the Niel clan, unspecified tribal group; also the name of a Dinka sub-tribe); - aro (unspecified snake and unidentified clan); - gor (totem of the Ramba clan among the Niel Dinka); two other unidentified snakes, one of which was the totem of the Mariak clan of the Ngong Nyang Dinka7; 6

In the English to Dinka Glossary (p. 187, 188), kerac is listed as a general designation for snakes whereas kepiny is reported to be a euphemistic denomination for snakes used by the south-western Rek Dinka. 7 Seligman (1931: 17) and Seligman et al. (1932: 142-45).

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garang, unidentified species, “red” with “white,” one-yard long and “rather thick” in shape: totem of the Panyer clan of the northwestern Abiem Dinka as well as that of the Pajook clan among the neighbouring Twic Dinka (Lienhardt 1961: 85); pian col, black cobra, the totem of the Pajieng clan among the Rek Dinka8; although not a chiefly clan in that tribal group, it was endowed with very significant supernatural powers (Lienhardt 1951: 307).

According to Lienhardt (1961: 308), the Dinka more commonly chose red or green snakes as totems rather than dark coloured ones, most of which carried “evil associations.” The term gor, listed above, does designate a green snake—possibly the tree-dwelling and poisonous green mamba.9 Few Dinka would injure another type of snake of unknown species, locally called yuri, which was associated with both the tamarind, cuai, and the spirit of that tree, Paik (Seligman et al. 1932: 186). In Nuerland, people tended to despise reptilian totems, “things that creep and crawl,” “as something Dinka” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 83). Those lineages with reptilian totems were small and reportedly of Dinka origin. Nonetheless, according to the same authority, “all Nuer seem to regard [snakes] as being in some sense manifestations of Spirit” (p. 81). The following snake species have been recorded as Nuer lineage totems (p. 67-69): - nyal, the python10; - lualdit or rir, brown in colour and apparently a “tree cobra”11; - thatut, the “spitting viper”; 8

As briefly mentioned in chapter 4.5 (Box 32), the black cobra was otherwise associated with night-witches among some Dinka groups. The English to Dinka Glossary, p. 46, lists pien instead of pian under the headword “cobra.” The Rek Dinka also have a designation for what they call the “water cobra”: kereu (Glossary, p. 221). 9 See the English to Dinka Glossary, p. 185. 10 According to some sources, the word niel —“python” in Dinka—means “rain” in Nuer. 11 Lual is a Nuer term used for “brown” (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 69 fn.). Lualdit would seem to mean “The great brown one.” This brown or red-brown snake may possibly be the red spitting cobra, Naja pallida, apparently known as buk among the Dinka (See below). That species of venomous snake is not reported to be common in South Sudan.

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-

gur, an unidentified snake possibly identical with the gorʊgreen mamba?ʊof the Dinka12; - dengcek, the puff adder; and - lou, said to be a huge creature found in streams and to have “a comb like that of the crested crane and hair on its head which waggles from side to side as it swims in the water.” The “presumably imaginary” lou serpent was the totem animal of the Cuor lineage, a group of Dinka origin living among the Leek Nuer.13 All other Nuer lineages with a snake totem were left unidentified by EvansPritchard. When a group honouring the python was to hold a sacrificial ceremony on behalf of its spirit, the sacrificial victim, a goat for instance, was not stabbed with a spear, which was the standard Nuer method of sacrificing; rather, it was strangulated (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 67, 217). The Nuer code of conduct towards snakes, especially totem snakes, was the following (Evans-Pritchard, p. 68): All Nuer say that if any snake enters the homestead of a man who respects that species, he will offer it milk and rub its scales with butter. They say that a snake which has been treated with these courtesies may enter the [cattle] byre and sleep there and, when it wakes, crawl among the cattle in the kraal, paying friendly attention to the cow or beast of the flock dedicated to its spirit. [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Although the Nuer reportedly despised reptilian totems, most of them “do not go out of their way to harm” snakes and would not kill such creatures “whether they belong to lineages which respect snakes or not. They leave them in peace unless they are threatened by them or suddenly afraid of them” (p. 81). All Nuer “seem to regard them as being in some sense manifestations of Spirit” (Ibid.). Howell (1954: 204) is more specific in his appreciation: “a particularly vicious snake may be a manifestation of kwoth,” “spiritual power.”

12 Among the Murle whose country lies east of the Nuer and of the (Bor) Dinka, agoor refers to a “green water snake” (Arensen 1992: 60). 13 Lou also happens to be the name of a large territorial section of the Nuer tribal community. Among the Dinka, the designation malou was applied to a dull grey ox (Lienhardt 1963: 87 fn.; Coote 1992: 266), ma- being a prefix for a male bovine.

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In his first visit to Nuerland, a British anthropologist shot a cobra that entered into his tent: Later in the day a man of the cattle camp where I was residing came to complain that I had killed his kwoth, totem, when I might easily have sent to ask him to remove it from my tent. He demanded compensation, which I made with a lump of tobacco. (Evans-Pritchard, 1956, p. 68) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Evans-Pritchard was also told, probably by non-snake-respecting Nuer, that if one manages to kill a cobra without being seen by it, one would “find wal, medicine, in it” (Ibid.). But whenever it sees its aggressor, it spits out the wal before being killed. Those among the Nuer who “respected” cobras may have been credited with the ability to use such “medicine” for the benefit of the community or for their own ends. ***** The following passage is a particularly illuminating illustration of the Dinka attitude towards snakes. The Dinka have an especial regard for serpents, for in nearly every house some of them are to be met with, generally pythons, boldly reposing themselves and coiled up. The tameness of the reptiles, which are fed with milk, even reaches the point of answering the calls and signs of the housewife. (Burton, 1979, p. 97-98)

Here Burton quotes Jackson (1923), whose source was a nineteenthcentury European explorer.14 One finds in Hambly (p. 20) a similar quotation taken from G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (Vol. I, 1874, p. 158). The latter reported that pythons were welcome in Dinka huts: “I was informed that the separate snakes are individually known to the householder, who calls them by name and treats them as domestic animals. The species which is the most common is the giant python.” Weissenborn (p. 275) brought up similar information, his source being another German traveller.15

14

H. C. Jackson, The Nuer of the Upper Nile Province (Khartoum: El Madara Press, 1923), p. 177. 15 Namely A. Kaufmann who authored a publication entitled Das Gebiet des Weissen Flusses und dessen Bewohner (1861).

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There is little, if any, exaggeration in these descriptions. In Bunyoro (north-western Uganda) also, according to Roscoe (1923: 44), “a few men kept pythons in their houses, taming and feeding them on milk with an occasional fowl or goat.” Moreover “it was said that these pythons did not kill children or animals in their own villages but went further afield for their prey.” Other reliable writers have corroborated the special relationship the Dinka had with snakes. That evening, while we were talking to an old chief outside his hut, I saw a snake slither from the door towards us. (…) The old man pointed to it. It came nearer and, in spite of its beauty, I instinctively looked for a stick. Aginejok stopped me: ‘For god’s sake, don’t kill it; he says it’s his grandfather!’ Later, I saw a bowl of milk put for grandpa’s supper. (Wyndham, p. 105)16 It is said that snakes, when they come to live in the huts of their human clansmen, are given bowls of milk, and sometimes anointed with butter, and they will not injure those who are their kinsmen. (Lienhardt, 1961, p. 121) [By permission of Oxford University Press] Snakes, some of which are deadly, are frequently accommodated by the Dinka, given butter to lick, anointed and patted on the back, carefully persuaded to enter a basket and moved by the elder members of the family, who declare that it is for the snake’s own protection from accidental injury that they are returned to the forest. (Deng, 1971, p. 300) Such snakes have been known to sleep in the same bed with people, even rest their heads on human beings, and not harm them. (Deng, 1974, p. 26)

Himself an anthropologist, Deng (1972: 124) recalls that his own maternal grandfather “used to pat dangerous snakes like puff adders with his bare hands, give them butter to lick, persuade them to get into containers, and then take them away from home.” Of the Pajieng clan of the Rek Dinka, one also reads from Lienhardt (1951: 308) that “their cobras came to them to be fondled and anointed with butter.” When a Dinka man of a certain clan saw in a forest an individual snake whose species was the clan totem of his mother-in-law, he would sprinkle dust on its back to propitiate it (Seligman et al. 1932: 143). We learn from Deng (1971: 300) that if a 16 A footnote by the same traveller and concerning the same Dinka tribal group, the “Twij” (or Twic), reads: “These totem snakes are often fed by hand, the natives pushing grease down the throat with their fingers. They will also grease the skins of the snakes. I could not discover the reason for this.” The intention may have been to protect them from becoming inauspiciously hot and dry.

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totemic animal, including a snake, harms someone related to it, “The matter is explained in terms of a wrong committed by that person or any other member of his kin group. Propitiation of the creature and ritual atonement must be done.” Were a Dinka man to be bitten by his totem snake, “the wound would give him little trouble, and he would certainly not die as would men of other clans” (Seligman et al., p. 144-45). According to Burton (p. 98), and again quoting Jackson, “If one of the snake totemic people is bitten by a snake, he has only to spit on the affected part and it is expected that the man will recover from an injury that would have proven fatal to another.” This immunity from snake bite is reminiscent of the fearless stance towards crocodiles that was typical of crocodile-“respecting” groups among the Nuer. The intimate connections between the Dinka and their totem animals have led a social science specialist of this people and their religion to frame their way of thinking as follows: A person human in outward appearance may therefore be in his nature an animal of some kind. It is of some importance for an understanding of Dinka thought about the animal emblems of some of their clans, to recognise that they do not always draw a sharp dividing line between the human and the animal as we draw it. (Lienhardt, 1961, p. 117) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

A Nuer story implicitly makes the same point. The founding ancestor of the Lek clan was a “man” who possessed no cattle and who lived in a hole he had excavated out of an ant-hill; he used to kill elephants, buffaloes, and other animals and to live on their flesh; he was once invited by another man to come with him and to lead the “life of a man” (Evans-Pritchard 1934: 36). We know that snakes are hunters and often hide in holes in the ground, notably in ant-hills. It is implicit that the primary identity of the Lek clan founder was ophidian. Another story concerning the origin of a chiefly clan heard among the western Dinka may be relevant (Lienhardt 1961: 108, 170-71; also Bedri 1929). The Pagong clan was founded by a mythical hero known as Aiwel Longar. His father had been killed by a lion, leaving a wife but no male heir. The widow had grown old when she was impregnated by a “riverpower” known as Malek or Maleng. She gave birth to Aiwel Longar. It is useful to know that the Bor Dinka name for the Nile River is Malek.17 But 17

See www.madingbor.com/articles/article/3293338/129615.htm.

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the term malek designates first and foremost a colour pattern, especially for cattle. According to Seligman et al. (p. 169), lek is reddish with white spots. However, in some Dinka dialects, malek represents either a “brown and tawny bull” (English to Dinka Glossary, p. 81) or an ox with a hide covered with small brown patches (Ryle, p. 92). The malek colour pattern also evoked a grey spotted fish (Glossary, ibid.). For both the Dinka (Lienhardt 1961: 85) and Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1933-35: 627), it was evocative of giraffes, which are obviously spotted animals. Many reddish or brownish snake species display spots or patches, the python presumably being one of them. It may therefore be that the identity of the mysterious legendary river-spirit was ophidian. The mythical begetter of Aiwel Longar would not be the only Dinka divine entity connected with snakes. A “power of the sky” known as Garang was associated in some Dinka tribes with the snake garang (Lienhardt, p. 84-85), whose species could not be specified. The spirit patroness of women and of gardens, Abuk was believed to be closely associated with rivers and in some parts of Dinkaland with a river snake (p. 50, 90, 204) whose species has not been disclosed. The name Abuk is made out of the root buk plus the feminine prefix a. Now the Dinka word bok refers to a spitting cobra (Grunnet 1962: 13) or to a “reddish spitting poisonous snake” (Glossary, p. 185). The Nuer also knew of a female riverine spirit known as Buk (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 81). The black and white pied-crow was said to be Buk’s bird (Ibid.). Interestingly, the socalled black cobra (Naja nigricollis) was usually called pien magak by the Dinka (Glossary, p. 46), magak being the local term for the pied-crow (Glossary, p. 54). ***** South Sudan is home to an array of tribal communities. There was no way to gather information about all of them. At least one of these has also been described as a “totemic” community, namely the Nilotic Lotuko. One of their thirteen clans had the snake amunu or minok as its totemic emblem (Seligman et al. 1925: 9; Molinari, p. 176). The Lotuko believed that “at death everyone becomes the animal associated with his clan” (Seligman et al., p. 3). This creed was also reported by Molinari (p. 175-76). While some people were held to turn after their death into lions or crocodiles, the fate of others was to become a snake. Here again there was no insuperable divide between animals—notably snakes—and humans or spirits.

CHAPTER 4.9 SNAKES AS TUTELARY SPIRITS AND FAMILIARS IN NILOTIC AND CUSHITIC KENYA

The case of the Nilotic Maasai, who belonged to the same linguistic subgroup as the Lotuko and Karimojong, i.e. the Eastern Nilotes, will now be reviewed. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Maasai and the related Parakuyo were characterised by a mild form of totemic system, in this case an ophidian variety of totemism.1 There are five major clan families or phratries among the Maa- or Maasai-speaking pastoralists: Laiser, Lukumai, Molelyan, Tarosero, and Makesen. According to Hollis (1905: 307-08), There is a black snake, which is sacred to the Aiser clan; and if a person of another clan were to strike the snake whilst the owners were present, they would tell him to desist as it belongs to them. The Tarosero family have their own particular snakes, which are of many hues; and when a member of this family fights with someone and gets the worst of the combat, he calls upon his snakes, and says: ‘The avengers of my mother’s house, come out!’ If the man with whom he is fighting does not run away, the snakes will come and bite him. The other clans and families have their sacred snakes as well. Some are white in colour, others red, and others green. [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Another early observer concurred with Hollis: “Some clans are associated with snakes as under: L’Aiser [with] ol orasume orok (the black cobra?), Lughumai [with] ol asurai rongai orok (the thin black snake), Il Darosero [with] ol asurai sero (the brown snake), Il Molelian [with] all snakes” (Storrs-Fox, p. 458).2 According to Johnston (1902: 832), who was referring mostly to the westernmost branch of the Maasai people, the IlUash-Inkishu, these snakes were supposed never to bite a member of a clan that respected them; and a new wife was soon “introduced to the 1

Maasailand extends into present-day northern Tanzania. The Maa-speaking Parakuyo have historically moved into north-eastern Tanzania. 2 The thin black snake dear to the Lukumai may have been exactly the same as the visiting snake reported previously concerning the nearby Datog (See chap. 4.5).

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tutelary snake of the clan and rigorously ordered to recognise it and never to harm it.” According to a contemporary student of the Maasai, “snakes of this kind are said to bring luck and fertility” and “they have something to do with the dead” (Voshaar, p. 303). The standard Maasai term for snake is ol-asurai (Mol, p. 36).3 As can be deduced from the quotations above, snake types are commonly distinguished in Maa, the Maasai language, by combining the generic term with a colour marker. For example, ol-asurai o-rok, “the black snake,” olasurai o-nyori, “the green snake” (many varieties), ol-asurai o-nyokie, “the red snake,” and ol-asurai sero, “the greyish snake,” the latter being “a type of sand snake common around Magadi, Kajiado District” in Kenya (Ibid.). These snakes are sometimes referred to simply as ol-o-rok, “the black one,” ol-o-nyori, “the green one,” ol-o-nyokie, “the red one,” etc. (Ibid.). A related Maa term is ol-arasume, rendered above as ol-orasume by Storrs-Fox. Merker (p. 383) stated that this other designation for snakes had become obsolete. In fact, according to a reliable authority, ol-arasume (plur. il-arasumen) means “serpent, type of black snake” (Mol, p. 31).4 This type of snake is “also known as ol-asurai o-rok, (plur. il-asuriaa oorook): the-snake-which-is-black, the black snake” (Ibid.). Mol also gives “the grey snake of which the throat is reddish” as ol-arasume ngiro onyokie ol-gos (Ibid.). In addition to designating a clan grouping, the word il-tarosero refers to a type of ophidian, according to Roumeguère (1995: 318). Roumeguère3

The word ol-asurai may not be an Eastern Nilotic term, having little to do with the common root for snakes in various Eastern Nilotic languages: munu (Mandari), muno (Karimojong), imun (Teso), and amunu or minok (Lotuko). The Lotuko language is more closely related to the language of the Maasai. There could be a connection between the Maasai word ol-asurai and the name of one of the subclans of the Dubsahai clan among the Eastern Cushitic Rendille: Asurua (Schlee 1979a: 173; 1989a: 12) as well as the clan-name Arsuruwa—also known as Arsuwa and Asurua—of the nearby Eastern Cushitic Sakuye (Ibid., 1989a: 21, 275). The Rendille Asurua clan was a lay clan while the males of the Sakuye Arsuruwa clan were endowed with blessing and cursing powers—abilities closely connected with snakes, as we shall see in an up-coming chapter—and they used a stick as their ritual insignia. The Rendille Asurua section possibly originates from the latter, the offshoot having lost or foregone its ritual powers. 4 Mol (p. 314) also has ol-orasume (il-orasumeni) standing for “cobra,” more exactly the Egyptian cobra.

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Eberhardt (1988: 118) associates the Il-Tarosero with cobras. The word is indeed a combination of two terms, one of which is easily discernible: sero, i.e. “grey.” The other term must connect with the term en-tara (plur. in-tarai), which designates the python and other large snakes, such as cobras and puff adders (Mol, p. 382).5 There is no such thing as a “grey python.” The type of snake so designated could be a greyish cobra or puff adder. Or, as Payne and Ole-Kotikash state, it may have been some sort of spotted ophidian. Whatever the exact species of snake alluded to, we end up with a major Maasai phratry clearly bearing a snake name. As a rule, the Maasai refrained from talking directly about dangerous animals such as lions, leopards, and snakes, “lest the mention of these animals by name should provoke a visit from them” (Mpaayei, p. 49 fn.).6 It was apparently safer to use only the less specific colour marker. Snakes in general are also referred to as in-keenta en-kop, “straps of the grounds, straps on the ground” (Mol, p. 305). Some of the substitute expressions the Maasai used for snakes have been recorded by an early observer: en gen en gob, “the leather strap of the earth,” or oljanito l’on godjit, “the wild animal of the grass” (Merker, p. 383).7 In addition to the fear of venomous snakes, the concern about uttering specific snake names possibly had to do with the prevailing connection between snakes and the dead, a connection which, as we have seen, was not unfamiliar to the Maasai. These people usually refrained from mentioning the names of dead relatives, most of whom were soon forgotten.

5

In its adjective form, tara means “spotted and colourful” (See Maa [Maasai] Dictionary by D. L. Payne and L. Ole-Kotikash: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/Maa%20Lexicon/index-english/main.htm). Designating an even distribution of black and brownʊor black and redʊspots, the term may apply to giraffes, felines, cattle, etc. (Ibid.). The nearby Kikuyu term for “python” is itarara (Leakey, p. 462). See chap. 5.2 (Volume Two), footnote 16 for plausible connections with the Oromo. 6 Compare with this excerpt from Things Fall Apart (1958), the celebrated novel by the Nigerian author C. Achebe: “Darkness held a vague terror for these people [the Ibo of south-western Nigeria], even the bravest among them. Children were warned not to whistle at night for fear of evil spirits. Dangerous animals became even more sinister and uncanny in the dark. A snake was never called by its name at night because it would hear. It was called a string” (Chap. 2, parag. 2). Likewise, according to Moges (1997: 129), “In Wello [south-western Ethiopia], the serpent is referred to as sim aitere (the one whose name is not mentioned).” 7 Merker’s spelling of Maasai words was approximate. In his wording, “strap” or “rope” is en gen rather than en-kene.

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Some hundreds of years ago, the Proto-Maasai lived in southern Sudan. Presumably while migrating south into north-western Kenya, these people switched from a Dinka or Lotuko type of totemism to sort of an ophidian totemic system. An interesting question is what brought about such a dramatic change. The answer probably lies with the close contacts the Maasai have had in areas of what is now north-western Kenya with Eastern Cushitic peoples like the Gabra, Rendille, Dassanech, and Sakuye, to whom we will now turn. ***** Nowadays the camel-herding Gabra live east and north-east of Lake Turkana. Their community is made up of five semi-endogamous groupings of clans, each occupying a customary grazing area and following its own ceremonial cycle. Termed “phratry” in the technical language of ethnologists, each clan family comprised one clan endowed with supernatural powers; it also had a common sacred site where people congregated periodically to make sacrifices to a mythical ancestor or to celebrate some important moment of its ceremonial calendar. In most cases, these sites were mountain areas. Indeed, the name of the ritually senior Gabra phratry, Gara, actually means “mountain” (Kassam 2006: 180).8 According to Kassam (1983: 26), each of the Gabra phratries was linked to some species of poisonous snake. All the members of a given phratry reportedly abstained from killing a snake that was associated with their group and even from harming it in any way. In return these snakes would do no harm to them. Moreover, “if someone is bitten by a snake to which he is not associated, he consults one of the K’allu clans. A member of this clan has the power to cure the bite by spitting potent saliva into the wound” (Ibid.). The K’allu (or Qallu) clans were those endowed with supernatural powers. The ethnographic record of the Gabra evidences some group-specific traditions. The mythical ancestor of one of the clans making up the Galbo phratry was “found” in the tall grasses of a swamp near a well in southern 8

Concerning the Oromo language as spoken by the neighbouring Borana, Leus et al. (p. 236) connect the word gara with gaara or gaaroo, “luck, fortune, having divine powers.”

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Ethiopia: “He was very hairy and could transform himself into a cobra” (Kassam 2006: 181). Every eight years, the Galbo people as a whole trekked to their ceremonial site on the Kenya-Ethiopia border: No hunting or cursing can take place there, and no vegetation can be taken out of the sacred area. The Galbo believe that a sacred python, jawe, the brother of their human ancestor, lives on the mountain by a large rock called the nabo (sacred enclosure). (Stiles, 1986, p. 28)

Schlee (1990: 48) offers a more comprehensive account of the pilgrimages periodically made by separate Gabra phratries, including the Galbo people: It is a journey home because the localities are associated with origin myths and with the time of the phratry constitution from diverse elements. The most important of these myths is about the ancestor of the Worr Farole segment of the Barawa lineage cluster [of the Galbo]. This ancestor was seen in the past by herdsmen in the bush in the company of a brother. The future clan ancestor was caught and integrated into human society, while his brother fled away and reached the top of Mt Farole, where he is believed to continue to live in the shape of a giant snake with long fur that is dripping with water. The firstborn male of a given age-set of the human part of this lineage has to sacrifice a female sheep on the top of the 9 mountain to his reptile senior relative in every age-set promotion year.

In 1986, after such a sacrifice, “the party [of four] returned the following morning and announced to the whole phratry that their ancestral python was alive and well” (Kassam 1987: 66). Tablino (p. 307) also mentions that “a particularly potent python is believed to live on Forole” and that periodically “men from the abba-Forole family [Worr Farole of the Galbo] climb the mountain to make ritual offerings of milk” to jawwe, “python.” On the mountain top, next to one of two large boulders to be found there, they also sacrifice an animal and leave it there as an offering to the great python (p. 81).10 9

Held by some to live in a cavern (Tablino, p. 81), the great mountain-snake of the Galbo is somewhat reminiscent of kutel, the mighty mountain rain-snake of the Murle of southern Sudan (Lewis 1972: 133). Isolated mountains would seem to appear in people’s imagination as magnified coiled snakes. 10 According to Tablino (p. 81 fn.), “it is said that a similar huge serpent lives on top of Abbo, the mountain that towers over Sololo” and that only Waata people, i.e. hunters living among the Borana and Gabra pastoralists, can reach to the top and make sacrifices to the great serpent. All the other peoples of that area “fear to go up the mountain.” Sololo is located about 50 km west of Moyale immediately to the south of the Ethiopia-Kenya border.

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We are already acquainted with most of the underlying themes: (a) the unending life of the snake, in this case symbolizing or even guaranteeing the durability of a human community; (b) the ophidian twin, implying that the human member of the original pair was himself snake-like in some ways; (c) the offering of milk to snakes as ancestors; and (d) the association of snake and water, that is, of snake with life. In the dry and flat expanses of northern Kenya, mountains were often crowned with mist; springs would flow out of some of them on occasion. In the absence of permanent surface water, mountains were seen as repositories of the lifegiving humidity, a representation further reinforced by their erect and phallic-like shape.11 According to Haberland (p. 143), the name Galbo could also be pronounced Golbo. Now, the vast dry plain stretching to the west of Mt Farole towards Lake Turkana was itself known as Golbo, thereby suggesting an ancient relationship between the Galbo or Golbo people and a specific geographical area.12 The phratry known as Alganna had Mt Gobso, which is located in southern Ethiopia about 125 km north of Farole, as its sacred site (Tablino, p. 276). It also had a ritual house in which many snakes of a species known as buti were reportedly kept and fed (Schlee 1979a: 263, 342).13 The founders of the senior and ritually potent lineage of the Gaara phratry were a man and his son. According to the legend, the former once found his boy in a cave while rain was pouring down; at a later stage, the son disappeared in a termite mound (Schlee 1989a: 168-69). As we very well know, caves and ant-hills are snake-related places. Kassam (2006: 180) has another story about the origin of the principal qallu of the Gaara: he was “discovered on Mount Heessa Guddo in Ethiopia, he was wearing a

11 The large deep wells yielding water without interruption in north-eastern Kenya and southern Ethiopia had the potential to be thought of as inverted mountains. 12 In ordinary Gabra parlance, the term golbo refers to “a type of trough” (Stiles et al. 1991: 20). 13 Schlee (1989a: 185) has argued that the core group of the Alganna originates from the Borana Oromo and, more specifically, from a high-profile lineage of the Karrayu clan family. That lineage, as we shall see later, was intimately connected with snakes. One of the two ritual leaders of the Alganna was “believed to be a were-lion, to grow fur in certain ritual circumstances and to rub cheeks and shoulders with lions and pythons” (p. 203).

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checkered turban and kept a snake, which are symbols of priesthood.”14 Additionally, the Odoola phratry of the Gabra was “closely linked” with the homonymic Odoola section of the nearby Eastern Cushitic Rendille people (Tablino, p. 319; also Schlee 1979a: 332). The point to be made here is that the Rendille Odoola clan had an “alliance with snakes” (Schlee, ibid., p. 323). The data available in published form on the remaining Gabra phratry: Sharbana is rather scarce. Kassam’s statement may be recalled: all Gabra phratries respect some species of snake. ***** The contemporary tribal lands of the Eastern Cushitic Rendille lay immediately to the south and south-east of the Gabra, east of Lake Turkana. Rendille society rested on an ancient alliance between interdependent clans which were endowed with special ritual attributes and the magical powers necessary for the welfare of the community as a whole. There were nine Rendille clans, the small, late-coming and tenth Odola clan being set apart from the rest.15 A clan typically comprised two types of sub-clans, some made up of ordinary people, others holding special abilities to bless or heal fellow tribespeople as well as to curse them, if need be, or to harm tribal enemies. Here is a list of the powers reportedly wielded by the male members of the Rendille clans, in most cases by their ritually potent subclans16: — Dubsahai ability to cause a debilitating disease and to cure it; — Matarba unknown, possibly none; — Nahagan ability to send lions to kill people and to cause or cure bodily illnesses; — Rengumo ability to send lions, rafle (puff adders), and another venomous species known as ebeseyo17 after people18; 14 Similar stories were heard among the Borana, as will be seen in Volume Two, Part V. 15 The Odola originate from the Garre, a Somali group of north-eastern Kenya (Schlee 1989a: 100). Other ethnic groups in the region had nine clans, notably the Konso of south-west Ethiopia (Otto 1994) and the Kikuyu of central Kenya (Kenyatta, p. 8). 16 Main source: Schlee (1979a: 191-93, 237-43). See also Schlee (1979b). 17 Compare to ebesa, “a small viper” (Schlee 1979a: 305). The Gabra word eeba means “prayer, benediction, blessing” (Tablino, p. 292). Incidentally, the Somali term or one of the local terms for “viper” is abeeso (See www.redsea-online.com;

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special relationship with axes; ability to cause and heal headaches19; ability to command rhinos to attack people; ability to send elephants after people20 and superior ability to curse the food someone eats; non-specific or diffuse magic or religious power21; ability to cause horses—i.e. enemy horsemen—and even motorcars to kill people22; special association with venomous snakes, implying immunity as well as an ability to order them around.

According to Schlee (1979a: 323), the Odola are feared for their curse and have a special relationship with a type of tree frequented by snakes. Were a person to harm one of these trees, he or she would risk a curse from an Odola elder. A number of men from the Odala clan as well as a few elders belonging to the senior lineage of other clans enjoyed the status of ritual elders, dabel. These elders were capable of the most potent blessings or curses known to the Rendille people. Their emblems of office were a turban (dub) and a wooden drum (jibanjib) made from the tree of the Odola. The initiation process of a dabel was conducted secretly. When an initiand was conferred the dub, snakes, notably puff adders, vipers, and godaʊan unidentified type of venomous ophidianʊreportedly congregated around him. These were killed by some of the persons present at the ceremony. Their teeth were taken out, some being put in his dub, others in his jibanjib. A dabel was also administered a mix of two types of poison: arrow-poison and see also Shekh Mumin et al., p. 126-27). According respectively to Larajasse (1897: 2) and Mohamed-Abdi (1987: 2), abeiso or abeeso designates “a kind of (short) poisonous snake” or refers to “a type of venomous serpents.” A sheep bitten by a snake of the abeso type dies with a swollen neck (Swayne 1895: 282 fn.). 18 Schlee (1979a: 441) has the story of a boy bitten by snakes after having stolen the walking stick of a Rengumo elder. The stolen stick was returned to its owner and the boy was left in peace. 19 Uyam is one of the four original Rendille clans. A Uyam girl is said to be the ancestress of all Rengumo (Schlee 1989a: 186). 20 In Spencer’s understanding, the members of the single Tubcha sub-clan endowed with that power had “a totemic relationship with elephants” (Spencer 1973: 65). He also coined rhinos and Sale men as “totemic brothers” (p. 64). 21 An Urwen sub-clan was among the few groups blessed with prophetic abilities (Schlee 1979a: 200; Beaman, p. 126). 22 Supplementary information (= motorcars) provided by Schlee (1989a: 178).

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snake poison, which he touched with his tongue or lips. It is said that when someone was rude to a dabel, the latter would take a snake tooth between two fingers, hold it before the mouth and blow over it. The same night the offender would be bitten by a deadly snake.23 The sub-clans or lineages endowed with especially fearsome or much sought-after cursing or blessing abilities were collectively known as ibire (Schlee 1979a: 181; Beaman, p. 102). According to Spencer (1973: 62), “there is a general tendency to associate ipire [= ibire] and their curses to poisonous snakes—it is commonly said that ipire lineages and snakes were once twins although only certain ipire lineages are totemically associated with snakes.” According to Schlee (Ibid., p. 323), Rengumo and Odola were the only Rendille clans to have a special relationship, in other words an alliance, with snakes. The Rengumo clan is fully ibire whereas, although endowed with superior magical power, the Odola men were apparently not rated as such, possibly on account of their being outsiders. Rated as ibire, a sub-clan of the Galdeilan clan named Galora also had a connection with snakes. The mother of one of its founding ancestors woke up one morning pregnant and with a puff adder lying on her chest; the snake was offered milk and moved away from her to drink it; she adopted it and stored it in a bag or basket every evening (Schlee, ibid., p. 260; 1989a: 182). To a large extent, writes Spencer (Ibid., p. 61-62), the association of the ibire people with their “totemic” animals, objects, or diseases formed “the basis of their power.” In particular, an ibire “should avoid harming his totemic animal while at the same time he would claim to have power to coerce it: by cursing an adversary, he would be in effect coercing (or invoking) his totemic species to come to his aid.”24 The Rendille-type of totemism was reminiscent of the Dinka or Lotuko inasmuch as several animals were used as clan or phratry totems. Even though the Rendille are Cushitic-speakers and not Nilotic-speaking like the Dinka or Lotuko, the two linguistic groups may have interacted at some point in the past in south-eastern Sudan. As a matter of fact, the Rendille were among the very few Eastern Cushites to abide by the common Nilotic practice of extracting some of the lower incisor teeth. 23

The information about the Rendille dabel is taken from Schlee (1979a: 297-306; 445). 24 Likewise, as seen above, Maasai men, notably those from the Tarosero clan, would call upon their snakes to avenge them.

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***** The camel-herding Rendille had with the cattle-keeping Loikop—a northern Maasai community also known as Samburu—an alliance that went “back much further than any vaguely remembered history” (Spencer, ibid., p. 149). Beaman (p. 12) holds that the Rendille had an “edge” in this relationship over the Loikop on account of what she perceives as a cultural “supremacy.” About a third of Loikop clan segments claimed descent from the Rendille (Spencer, p. 148). The Eastern Nilotic Loikop community was organised into eight phratries subdivided in clans and named subclans and lineages. Originally there were nine phratries. The historically most senior phratry was almost wiped out by enemies, the remaining members becoming a section of another phratry (Spencer, p. 122). In the past, the number of Loikop clan families was therefore the same as with the Rendille. A set of Loikop sub-clans or lineages were endowed with special talents. Some of them claimed “totemic relationships” with fire, with thorn bushes, with monkeys, with elephants, with snakes, with various kinds of infections or with madness, each of such relationships generating a distinctive “power to curse” (Spencer, p. 118).25 A few Loikop sub-clans or lineages—all of them apparently hailing from Rendille ibire groups— were known to possess a type of supernatural power known as laisi (p. 116). The laisi elders would utter “highly moral” curses for the benefit of the community and the prayers of such “holy men who speak to God” were known to be “particularly powerful” (Fratkin 1991: 330, 319, 330). Possibly on account of their potent prayers, the laisi elders were “believed to protect and preserve people and cattle from any kind of enemy” (Wymeersch et al., p. 357). Spencer (1973: 121, 123) identifies two laisi groups: (a) the Kurtunketa, a section of the Mosiat clan of the large Masula phratry; and (b) Rendille immigrant families of the Loimusi phratry reported to have “bad” laisi. One of the six sections of the Loimusi phratry bore the name Laisi (Spencer 1965: 72). Two more laisi groups belonging to two different clans of the Lokumai phratry have been listed by Wymeersch et al. (p. 357). Therefore at least three out of the eight or nine Loikop phratries: Masula, Loimusi, and Lokumai had a laisi component. 25

See Wymeersch et al. (1993: 358) for the identity of the two groups believed to hold power over fire and elephants. As noted above, one Rendille clan: Tubcha was connected with elephants.

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The Loikop, writes Spencer (1973: 117-18), were “less specific than the Rendille as regards the totemic relationships of different lineages of laisi”; still, there was “a general association with poisonous snakes.” Indeed, according to Fratkin (1974: 28), the Mosiat clan of the Masula phratry had a “totemic relation” with snakes: their men—or perhaps those belonging to a specific segment of that clan, namely Kurtunketa—would never kill serpents, contrary to most Loikop people, who used to kill all snakes “on sight” (Ibid.).26 As stated by Spencer (p. 121), the Kurtunketa clan section originated from a Rendille section related to venomous snakes, namely the Rengumo clan. Another Loikop kin-group belonging to the Maraato clan of the Masula phratry was related to snakes in so far as it was credited with the ability to cure snake bites; this group, however, was not amalgamated with laisi people (Wymeersch et al., p. 358).27 The notion of laisi was also familiar to the Maasai. As pointed out early in this chapter, all Maasai clan families were ritually associated with certain types of snakes. That being said, the notion of laisi applied more specifically to some of their constituent clans. The Tarosero phratry consisted of two clans, one of which was named Lais (Fosbrooke 1948: 41) or Ol-Aisi (Galaty 1977: 277).28 The Laisi clan was believed to be a “ritually auspicious” group; it was sometimes associated with the dove, a highly innocuous creature (Galaty 1998: 231-32). Laisi elders were relied upon when “ritual cleansing” was required (Galaty 1977: 298). According to Berntsen (1979a: 141), the Maasai designation of il-aisi referred more generally to “men reputed to have a powerful curse.” Accordingly, one of the clans making up another phratry, Makesen, was “sometimes referred to 26

A leading Samburu ritual diviner and healer whose forebear originated from the Laikipiak Maasai used burnt remains of cobra and other creatures when preparing his protective and destructive medicines (E. Fratkin, personal communication Jan. 11, 2018). He may have killed cobras for such purposes. 27 The clan name Maraato could relate to marata, an Oromo word designating a type of snake. The large Masula phratry to which that clan is affiliated is known to have integrated in the past a number of Orma or Wardai Oromo people (Lamphear 1986: 253; Wymeersch et al., p. 334). The link with marata is therefore likely. Additionally, given the connection between Maa- and Oromo-speakers, the name of one Laikipiak sub-tribe: Enkang Lema, “The House of Lema,” may have had something to do with snakes. The Oromo words lemo and leemani relate to a type of snake (See chap. 5.3 below). Lema was also a subdivision of two Maasai clanfamilies: Molelian (Hobley 1910: 124) and Laitayok (Fosbrooke 1948: 41). 28 Laisi is the plural form of lais (Spencer 1973: 116). Judging from an early chart of Maasai clans, the Laisi clan was also known as Lomishir Olengoili, after “the black mark on the flank of the Thomson Gazelle” (Hobley 1910: 124).

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as Il-Aisi” (Galaty, p. 124). The Makesen sub-group concerned was IlKiporon (or Il-Kiboron). The peace-loving Kiporon clan was very closely connected with snakes, blessing, and cursing, as the next chapter will document. Historians suggest that prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, the Kiporon clan was the religiously prominent clan of some Maasai communities. According to Voshaar (p. 313), the Kisekon clan of the Laitayok phratry was said “to be at peace with snakes” and was expected to protect cattle from attacks by wild animals, presumably including venomous serpents. Therefore, out of the five, six, or seven clan families of the Maasaiʊdepending on the classification of their numerous sub-clansʊthree had a laisi component. An authority on Maasai culture and social organisation refers to the large Laiser phratry as Laisir (Spencer 2003: 98). The leading priestly sub-clan of the contemporary Maasai is affiliated to one constituent clan of that same clan family. Long ago, the Laiser or Laisir group may have had a laisi profile. As mentioned earlier, a certain type of black snake was reportedly “sacred” to the Laiser people as a whole in the early years of the twentieth century. A major northern Maasai-speaking congregation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries known as the Laikipiak also had a laisi component (Hollis 1905: 261). ***** As briefly outlined above, in addition to ordinary people, Gabra phratries comprised one or more segments credited with a supernatural power— known as eebiftu (Tablino, p. 292)—to bless or, conversely, to curse. From the standpoint of the Eastern Cushitic Gabra and Rendille as well as from that of the Nilotic Loikop and Maasai, the ideal or original tribal pattern would have been one peaceable, life-protecting section— eebiftu, ibire, or laisi —within each and every major clan division.

Box 34 The Power over Snakes Among the Dassanech The Eastern Cushitic Dassanech are linguistically related to the Rendille and were seen by them as “sharing something of a common heritage” (Beaman, p. 73). They live immediately to the north of Lake Turkana, not far from the Gabra, Rendille, and Loikop. Some members of two of their eight or nine clans, i.e. Turnyerim (the original clan) and Fargaro were ritually important as nyerich, i.e. fire-makers and rain-makers (Sobania, p. 238). Those among them reckoned to be nyerich were endowed with special blessing and cursing abilities. The Turnyerim as a whole or those

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among them reported to be nyerich prayed to the high god. The Turnyerim were credited with the gift to cure snake bites whereas the Fargaro, in addition to their ability to cure snake bites with their spittle, could protect the whole community against snakes (Tippett, p. 203; Elfmann, p. 162). The Dassanech notion of nyerich appears to approximate the concepts of eebiftu, ibire, and laisi.29 A somewhat similar paradigm prevailed among the Eastern Cushitic Sakuye of northern Kenya. Like the Rendille, Maasai, and others, they were organised into moieties and clans. Each moiety comprised one clan credited with eebiftu power (Schlee 1989a: 21). One of the two outstanding clans was Asurua, a designation approximating, as we have noted, the standard Maa word for snake, ol-asurai. While highlighting the connection of eebiftu, ibire, or laisi sections with snakes, some of the writers quoted in this chapter tend to focus on the ability to cause people to die through the curse. The supernatural power is likened to the bite of poisonous snakes. However, they were outstanding not only on account of the potency of their curses but equally on account of their life-enhancing and fertility-promoting blessings. Snakes were also icons of life in Eastern Africa as well as in other parts of the world.

29

There are no major discrepancies between the sources consulted: Almagor (1983: 63), Carr (1977: 110), Elfmann (p. 162), and Sobania (p. 237-39). Still, the profile of the Dassanech as depicted by these sources seems incomplete and not fully consistent.

CHAPTER 4.10 MAASAI SNAKE-RELATED PRIESTS AND PROPHETS

What is known, thanks especially to Merker, about the Kiporon clan of the southern Maasai fits nicely with the placid personality of the Tarosero Laisi as well as with some of the supernatural abilities of the Loikop laisi and of the Kisekon clan of the Maasai Laitayok phratry. “Especially favoured” by the sky god Ngai, the Kiporon were “the bearers of the religious traditions”: Corresponding with their position with Ngai, they are distinguished by a relative peacefulness. (…) God rewards them for their virtue by protecting their herds against predatory animals and thieves. It is supposed not to have yet happened that one of their cattle was killed by a lion or otherwise stolen. (Merker, p. 22)

While other Maasai married men did not pray much, Kiporon elders would “pray morning and evening more or less regularly” (p. 207). They were credited with a powerful blessingʊGalaty (1977: 318) coins them “exemplary blessers”ʊas well as an unescapable curse, notably “against those stealing their cattle” (Berntsen 1979a: 124). When a Kiporon elder happened to curse a fellow tribesperson, it was always with “good reason” since he would reportedly never take advantage of his power to curse or bless “as a means of obtaining wealth from neighbours” (Ibid.). The Maasai 30-day month comprised four il-kiporon days: the 20th, 24th, 25th, and 26th days, all of these days being “days of cursing and blessing” (Voshaar, p. 314).1 The Kiporon elders received only milk and honey for their ritual services (Berntsen, p. 138). That feature differentiated the laisi Kiboron neatly from the laibons (il-oibonok), who later became leading and wealthy Maasai ritual specialists.

1

The “days of cursing and blessing” were “dark” days in Maasai reckoning. The months were divided into fifteen “bright” days and then fifteen “dark” ones (Sankan 1971: 66).

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The first Western observer to devote a book to a Maa-speaking pastoral people portrayed “the members of the family called Il-Kiporon” as both “rain-makers” and “snake-charmers” (Hollis 1905: 260 fn.). As reported by Merker (p. 22), the Kiporon were “particularly esteemed by all the other Masai on account of their ability to cause rain.” Forde (1937: 301) provided the following depiction: “When the droughts are severe and prolonged [the rain makers] are called upon to invoke rain and mutter incantations as they lie concealed beneath a large hide.” That description was possibly taken from Merker, who had the opportunity to witness a Kiporon rain-maker at work. He was lying on the ground under a big leather apron such as is worn by the old men, so that one could see only a slight movement of the arms and now and then hear a soft murmur. After a while he stood up and explained that rain would ‘soon’ come. (Merker, p. 22)

Galaty (1977: 326) echoes Merker and Forde. Il-kiporon elders used to pray God for rain under the cover of a hide in the middle of their cattle yard.2 Other authorities, for instance Berntsen (p. 124), mention the rainmaking abilities of the Kiporon clan. The diet of Kiporon elders was restricted to milk and honey, the only solid food they accepted being roasted goat liver; any other food allegedly impaired their powers (Merker, p. 21, 192).3 Again according to Merker (p. 147; also p. 21), contrary to most Maasai men, Kiporon males would not pluck out their beard hair “because they would lose their power, in particular the supernatural one that enables them to bring or conjure rain.” The power over rain that was attributed to them must have had something to do with their peacefulness or, in Maasai phrasing, with their “coolness.” Rain and milk are “cool” and “sweet” in Maasai reckoning. As opposed to the young warriors, all Maasai elders were expected to behave as eventempered and dignified persons. Therefore, Kiporon elders were elders in capital letters. The “coolness” of Kiporon elders is substantiated by their 2

The ritual may have mimicked persons shielding themselves from heavy rain. It may have echoed the mythical circumstances of the advent of the Oromo ritual leaders. See Volume Two, chap. 5.2. 3 Among the Zanaki of north-central Tanzania as well as with the Somali, liver is “the most favourite piece of meat” (Bischofberger 1972: 27) or “the best or the most important part of meat” (Farah Aidid et al. 1994: 235). In the early part of the first millennium C.E., Arab sacrificers would eat the liver of immolated animals, which was believed to be full of baraka as well as the seat of the vital principle (Chelhod 1964: 155).

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unwillingness to associate with the fire-related blacksmiths (p. 111). They reportedly used “powdered medicine,” entasim, made from the il-kiporon tree (Galaty, p. 300). Their healing abilities were probably correlated with their “cool” ritual status. As pointed out in chapter 4.5, dead Kiporon elders were among the very few Maasai persons to be buried, and their bones reportedly turned into snakes. That was but one facet of the affinities of the members of that clan with cold-blooded ophidians. Indeed, the peace-loving Kiporon men were not fearful of snakes (Ibid., p. 312). Merker had more to tell about their connection with serpents: They (…) do not kill these animals, like other Masai, but are happy about their presence in the kraal and by the huts and, as soon as a snake appears, set on to the ground a shallow dish with milk and honey as food for it. Snakes in and near El Kiboron kraals are not rare. Allegedly they never bite the El Kiboron people; on the other hand, the latter often use them as frightening devices against both Masai and Negroes. (Merker, p. 210)

The following words of Voshaar (p. 303) about some Maasai families would seem to apply nicely to the Kiporon people: “People are reported to have house snakes. They are fed by the women. Some say: ‘Kiboitare oshi ake’, i.e. ‘we always live together.’” It is not clear whether the Kiporon were associated with all snakes or with one or a few specific types of ophidians. It is likely that whenever they saw on the ground a dead snake of the type they felt related to, the Kiporon would improvise some burial ceremony. Whatever the case may be, from the above quotation by Merker and recalling information picked up from Berntsen, we are to understand that what the Kiporon offered to their ophidian visitors was exactly the same as that which they expected from fellow tribes-people as payment for their ritual services. The intimate connection of Kiporon elders with snakes was fully congruent with their rain-making abilities. As noted in chapter 4.3, rainmakers and snakes were often paired in the East African cultural environment. Interestingly, Kiporon elders enjoyed a special relationship with the moon. According to Merker (p. 61 fn., 66 fn.), male and female Kiporon youths were circumcised respectively on the twentieth and the twenty-fourth day of the month, two of the four Kiporon days, and Kiporon elders were reportedly “able to divine which movements of the moon are good and prosperous for them” (Voshaar, p. 43). Their affinity

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with the moonʊas opposed to the sunʊwas quite possibly a corollary of their “coolness.” It is good to know that, for some East African peoples such as the nearby Kipsigis, rain was “attributed directly to the moon” (Orchardson 1919: 419). In being connected with snakes, with the dark days of the moon, and with a certain type of “medicinal” tree, the ideological profile of Kiporon elders did fall in line with ancient Middle Eastern representations.4 Early in the twentieth century, the Kiporon clan was depicted as a “small and now very dispersed lineage” (Merker, p. 207). In his days, Krapf (1857: 440) was told that a senior Kiporon elder—which he termed Orlkibroni—acted as “the political leader” of a Maasai community named Enkang Lema, a group which collapsed in the following decades. As securers of rain and custodians of internal peace and cohesion in a warlike society, the cool-headed Kiporon elders had been, prior to their downfall, the backbone of the tribal community. Two historians of the Maasai peoples agree on the likelihood of early tribal leadership by the Kiporon clan (Berntsen, p. 127-29, 141; Jennings 2005: 103-05). The leading members of that group appear to have served as the highest moral and religious tribal authorities prior to the emergence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the more individualistic, ambitious, and charismatic il-oibonok (sing. ol-oiboni) visionary or prophetic leaders.5 In all likelihood, the debacle of the Kiporon clan was caused by the “catastrophic” droughts that occurred across much of Eastern Africa in the nineteenth century (Anderson 2016). ***** Known as il-oibonok, those who superseded the Kiporon as paramount ritual officers of the Maasai belonged to the En-kidongi sub-clan, whose name was taken from the horn they used for divination: en-kidong. The iloibonok appear to have followed the tracks of the Il-Kiporon to a 4

The status of the Il-Kiporon seems to correspond to that of the Odola clan of the Rendille, which although marginalised, was strongly associated with an unidentified type of tree as well as with snakes. 5 The position of high-profile il-oibonok medicine men among the contemporary Maa-speaking peoples was somewhat ambiguous. Over and above their muchneeded abilities to heal and protect, they were suspected of harming and killing people whom they disliked or of accepting fees for serving the private interests of people who had grievances against fellow tribespeople (Fratkin 1991).

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significant degree. They distributed entasim medicines made from various trees and bushes, in this case. Their young men were not known for their aggressiveness (Berntsen 1979b: 137). They refrained from plucking out their facial hair and their diet was restricted to milk, honey, and roasted goat liver (Cardale Luck 1926: 132, 133). Deceased il-oibonok were buried and their souls or bones were said to turn into snakes, especially black ones (Hollis 1905: 307-308; Storrs-Fox, p. 456). It was said of them that they “had” snakes “which they [kept] in their bags” (Hollis, p. 308). Their main badge of office was a club: “Should a medicine-man strike anybody with his iron club that person sickens and dies” (p. 329-30). As reported by Mol (p. 214), the blackish iron club, ol-kuma orok, was a symbol of authority in Maasailand.6 It is useful to recall that “sticks” and snakes were somewhat interchangeable items in the East African cultural setting. Upon his death in the closing years of the nineteenth century, the then-paramount ritual leader of the Maasai, Mbatian, asked one of his sons to “kiss” or “suck” his tongue (Sankan, p. 81; Galaty 1977: 284), thereby transferring to him his superior power to bless and curse.7 Obviously the tongue of an ol-oiboni had strong ophidian connotations. Maasai “medicine-men spit when they wish to heal people” (Hollis, p. 315). Many minor medicine men belonged to the En-kidongi sub-clan. Known as ilkoiatik, they used to draw “snake symbols on the ground” while doing bad magic (Voshaar, p. 214). The special relationship of il-oibonok with snakes was widespread in the Maa-speaking world. Among the Loikop of northern Kenya for instance, “there exists a strong esoteric association between the ritual diviners (iloibonak) and snakes, particularly cobra” (Fratkin 1974: 28). The people believe that dangerous snakes can be directed at someone through their sorcery, that protective medicines obtained from them protect someone from other people's curses, including snake bites, and that cobras may be embodiments of dead diviners.8 The first orkoiyot or ritual head of the Nilotic Nandi in south-western Kenya hailed from a Maa-speaking community, the move having taken place in the nineteenth century. In Bernsten’s opinion (1979: 152-53), the founder of the Nandi orkoiyot lineage was a man from the Losekelai Maasai, a tribal community that broke down in that same century. Other 6

The stick similarly “symbolized the qualification of a medicine man” in northcentral Tanzania (Wada 1975: 50). 7 Such a scene was not specific to the Maasai, as we shall see in the next chapter. 8 E. Fratkin, personal communication, Jan. 11, 2018.

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authorities hold that the founder originated from the Uas Inkishu, another ill-fated Maasai community. An interesting legend circulated among both the Nandi and the related Kipsigis about the ancestor of the first Nandi orkoiyot. One day, while fetching water, a childless woman saw a python with its child; she implored it to entrust the little snake to her; the python agreed; she nursed and raised the little snake, which soon became a miraculous boy (Mwanzi 1977: 133).9 According to Hollis (1909: 51), a Nandi orkoiyot never prayed to the high god, “but only to the spirits of his deceased ancestors” and his magical powers derived “from certain snakes which he is believed to carry about with him in his bag.” These snakes may have been connected with the orkoiyot’s ancestors. In any case, a male belonging to this lineage was believed to be “able to bewitch people from the very day of his birth,” people drawing a parallel with “venomous snakes (...), saying that the bite of a baby snake is just as dangerous as that of a full-grown one” (Huntingford 1953: 51).10

Box 35 Maasai and Nandi Ritual Leaders: Shifting Designations While the Nandi and Kipsigis used the term orkoiyot (plur. orkoiik)ʊsome scholars write orgoiyotʊto name their leading ritual experts, the related and nearby Pokot, Sebei, and Tugen used for the same purpose similar words, respectively werkoyon, plur. werkoi (Peristiany 1975: 196), worgoyandet, plur. worgoiyot (Weatherby 1963: 179), and chepsogoyot (Kettel et al. 1973: 419). These words seem to be related to the Maa word for minor medicine men, il-koiatik (sing. ol-koiatiki).11 Such a suggestion has in fact been made by an authority on East African languages, i.e. C. Ehret, as reported by Berntsen (1973: 109). The term used for the contemporary Maasai paramount ritual experts, oloiboni (plur. il-oibonok), has a verbal form, a-ibon, which shapes a few other related substantives such as en-aibon, “magic,” “charm,” 9

The story has also been recorded by Huntingford (1927: 421) and Komma (1998: 196). As will be shown in Volume Two of this publication, some of the top traditional religious officers had been reportedly sired by an ophidian in southern Ethiopia. 10 Likewise, the Rendille believed that the curse of a little boy born into a ritually powerful clan was to be feared (Beaman, p. 265). 11 As spelled by Voshaar (1979). Merker (p. 22) wrote ol-goiatiki (sing.) and ilgoiatek (plur.) whereas Berntsen (1979a: 185) puts it down as ol-kuyantiki and ilkuyantik.

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“divination.” Mpaayei (p. 38) informs us that the verb a-ibon means “to prophesy or to perform magic rites.” According to Galaty (p. 290), the verbal form refers more specifically to prophesying using the en-kidong divination horn. These terms are therefore fully incorporated in Maa, the language of the Maasai. The Maa word ol-oiboni and the Lotuko term lebwoni (plur. lebwonok) must be related. The Lotuko people occupy a portion of territory in south-eastern South Sudan. Separated by hundreds of kilometres, Maa and Lotuko languages nonetheless form together a distinct sub-group within the Eastern Nilotic linguistic family. Now a Lotuko lebwoni was a healer using plant medicines as well as a diviner working with a fixed number of small river pebbles of various colours, which he carried in a pouch or gourd (Molinari, p. 199-200). Among the neighbouring and related Lokoya, medicine men making use of herbs and prayers were likewise known as ohoibwanak (Lomodong Lako, p. 9).12 The Maasai and the Kalenjin-speaking Nandi and Kipsigis have interacted closely during the last two or three centuries. The author suggests that oloiboni is cognate to the standard Kalenjin word for “sorcerer” or “witch.” Huntingford (1963: 175) lists the following Nandi designations: ponindet (plur. ponik), meaning “witch”; ponisiet, meaning “witchcraft”; and pondit, which denotes “the materials used in casting a spell.” SmithOboler (1985: 51) writes bonindet rather than ponindet. The term for sorcerer is rendered as ponindet (Orchardson 1935: 510) or bonindet (Manners 1967: 269) by the Kipsigis. The Keyo word for a malevolent witch-doctor is pwoinin (Massam, p. 174) whereas in the idiom of the nearby Marakwet, the word for “sorcerer” is bonin, plur. bon (Kipkorir et al., p. 17, 89). All these Kalenjin terms carry evil connotations. The overall profile of the prominent Maasai ritual experts was benevolent. Nonetheless, people were fearful of their curse. As noted above, the iloibonok have not been as fully benevolent and disinterested as the Kiporon elders of times past.

12 Interestingly, a word similar to the en-kidong divination horn of the Maasai iloibonok was heard of in southern South Sudan. The term kidong referred to a type of drum emblematic of a political community among the Didinga and the related Murle (Driberg 1922: 222; Lewis 1972: 46, 130). The latter speak Eastern Sudanic languages distantly related to the Lotuko-Maa sub-group.

CHAPTER 4.11 A CULTURAL PROFILE OF SPITTLE

Among the Nandi in south-western Kenya, “Spitting is principally used to avert ill luck or to bring good luck. It is also used to express astonishment at anything phenomenal, as a form of blessing, and in making agreements (…) When (…) shooting stars or a comet are visible, or when there is an eclipse of the sun or moon, the Nandi spit and pray for good luck.” (Hollis 1909: 78-79) [By permission of Oxford University Press] Additionally Nandi elders used to spit in their hands before shaking hands with others, especialy young men or warriors (Ibid., p. 79). This was possibly because such individuals had been involed in fighting and bloodshed. The following example makes it clear that spitting was notably a means of blessing: “A dying [Nandi] father, uncle or elder will spit in a boy’s hand when the latter come to bid him farewell and the boy will rub the spittle on his face” (Ibid.). The Kikuyu of central Kenya, for whom a shower of saliva was “an excellent medium for a blessing” (Cagnolo, p. 297), shared many of these conceptions. Indeed, if two people who have not seen each other for a long time meet, both spit on their palms and shake each other’s hand, gripping alternatively their palm and their thumb. Saliva corresponds to a blessing; if the hand contained poison the saliva would neutralize it. (Ibid., p. 209-10)

Throughout Eastern Africa, including the Horn, mystical or magical properties have long been ascribed to spittle and to the discharge of breath that goes along with it. Jellicoe (1967: 29) suggests that such an act of blessing combined male and female “elements of life,” i.e. breath and water. However, the symbolic polarity of water is not that clear. Rain for instance is locally thought of as being poured down from the male sky onto the female earth. In Bunyoro (north-western Uganda), spitting was used in several contexts to “convey blessing and goodwill” (Beattie 1963: 43). Among the nearby Lugbara, expelling saliva “with a loud and breathy ‘pa’” amounted to an

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“anointment” (Middleton 1960: 105), the implication being that breath carries with it “something of soul and life” (Ibid.). The people of the southern Kenya Matapato section of the Maasai regard the chest as the source of both “towering anger and the spittle of a blessing” (Spencer 1988: 241-42). Other forms of spitting could raise suspicion of witchcraft in that community. Our notions of “life” and “breath” were expressed through the same term by the Nilotes of southern Sudan: wei in the language of the Dinka (Lienhardt 1961: 206)1; yiegh in that of the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 213); and yei in that of the Atuot (Burton 1987: 103). Another key Nilotic notion expressing the breathing out of air is conveyed by the Nuer term kwoth, pl. kuth (Evans-Pritchard, p. 1), a word also referring to the spirits, i.e. major as well as lesser divinities. For instance kuth nhial and kuth dwanga are “spirits of the above” and “spirits of the air,” respectively (p. 28). Among the Konso of south-western Ethiopia, nesa, “breath,” was given to the first man by God, who claims it back at the death of every person ever since the passing away of the first humans (Hallpike, p. 160, 226). The connection of human spittle with the venom of poisonous snakes will become clear while reviewing its alleged harmful effects. To begin with, let us concentrate on its assumed life-promoting virtues which would seem to derive from the merging of various representations: the act of spitting, the male reproductive organ in action, so-called spitting snakes, and the pouring of rain from above. The ethnographic record profusely shows that combined with benevolence, spittle was culturally endowed with the ability to protect people from harmful agencies and circumstances, and with a power to heal injuriesʊincluding in some cases relief from snake bitesʊand to cure a range of illnesses. That was notably true of the spittle of old men and medicine men. The spittle of female healers and long-lived women was also held to be effective while mothers’ spittle was thought to be beneficent to their young children. Spittle is one of the forms of moisture emanating from the human body. The other common forms are sweat, urine, blood, and sexual fluids. There 1 Wei means “soul, respiration, spirit of life” according to the English to Dinka Glossary, p. 189.

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is an immediate and obvious analogy between the act of spitting and ejaculation. Anyone can spit, but only grown-up males extrude semen. In traditional Eastern Africa, as men aged and lost stamina, they typically became endowed with superior spitting cum blessing abilities.2 Since in this portion of Africa, blessing took the form of spitting and since very elderly males were no more sexually active, the spittle of blessing came as a substitute for the life-generating seminal fluid. ***** The continuing review of the ethnographic record will proceed with the Me’en of south-western Ethiopia where ritual leaders, komorut, blew milk from special cows with their mouth so as to confer fertility upon plants, animals, and people: “The komorut sprays sour milk over his cattle every morning and evening, and also over members of his following in certain ritualsʊfor example before leaving to fight and after killing enemies, they are purified in this manner” (Fukui 1988: 789). According to Schaegelen (p. 547), saliva was considered “sacred” by the Gogo people of central Tanzania. His opinion was upheld by the following observations: an ox spat on the head by an elder was to be immolated; upon seeing the rising sun, men would spit at it while invoking its protection for the day.3 More insight has been provided by an ethnologist: Bad ritual states are explicitly associated by Gogo with “heat” and “fire” (moto). Hence ritual action to restore a good state involves “cooling” (kupoza), and this term is often used. The “sprinkling” of water (kuminza) is directly linked with ritual “cooling.” Thus, at domestic rituals for propitiating the spirits of the dead, the officiant takes the ritual beer in his mouth and spits it out in a fine spray over the assembled company (kufunyira). Mothers bring their children forward so that the spray may reach them. (Rigby, 1968, p. 175)

In south-eastern Kenya, spitting was a key feature of the Taita’s ritual system. It was their “basic religious act”: Kutasa was usually performed in a squatting position with the arms held loosely across the knees, one hand holding a container of sugar cane beer, unfermented cane juice or water. Spraying out mouthfuls of liquid, the

2

So were often women past child-bearing age, such persons not being clearly rated as females anymore. 3 Some of the nearby Maasai reacted exactly in the same way to the rising sun (Fokken 1917: 244).

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Likewise among the Kikuyu, the spraying of ceremonial beer on junior persons by seniors was “the most solemn form of blessing that it was possible to give” (Leakey, p. 617). Known as Mugwe, the ritual leader of the nearby Meru, north of Mt Kenya, was a man of blessing: The rite of blessing consisted usually in sipping a mouthful of honey-beer and gently spitting it on to the people. The rite was observed by the Mugwe, but it is not really different from the old mode of salutation observed by the elders. A similar form of greeting by an elder was always an expression of esteem and of special love. This rite could be performed on its own, or it could conclude a prayer or open a sacrificial ritual at which a beast was killed. (Bernardi, 1959, p.110) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

The Nilotic groups of Kenya professed similar beliefs. Persons in need of ritual protection were “mouth-sprayed” by their seniors among the Marakwet, such a gesture expressing “a powerful act of blessing” (Kipkorir et al., p. 60). The opening sentences of this chapter have emphasised that the related Nandi were often seen spitting. Among the Nilotic Keyo, whose country lies east of the Nandi on the other side of the Rift Valley and south of the Marakwet, spitting was also a “prominent” way of doing away with “evil spells.” The afflicted person was sometimes spat at by a medicine man, sometimes the two of them were made to spit. But as with the Nandi, spitting was also resorted to to protect oneself from “evil influences”: Should a man, whose wife is expecting a child, pass near a young baby, he spits on it, lest his shadow cause it to die. An expectant mother passing a sick person spits near him, as she fears his shadow. Natives meeting a person with a very bad sore spit as they pass. (Massam, p. 183-84)

The belief was that the sore would swell if the onlooker failed to spit. The Maasai or Parakuyo Maasai used to spit to express disgust (Merker, p. 109, 121) or upon hearing bad news, such as the death of someone (Hollis 1905: 316). However, the act of spitting had a totally different meaning to them in other circumstances: Spitting is a greeting and brings good luck. One is asked to spit on a newborn baby. I have sometimes been spat on in a similar way by very old men

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and women—a somewhat trying ordeal which had to be patiently endured. (Storrs-Fox, p. 462)

Early visitors had been struck by the importance of spitting among the Maasai and the related Parakuyo: When a [Parakuyo] Masai sees a baby that he has never seen before, he spits on it slightly several times and says: “Grow, become accustomed to the eyes of people.” (Hollis, p. 315) In marked contradistinction to the prejudice against expectoration as a polite custom in European societies, not only among the Masai, but in the allied Nandi and Suk [i.e. Pokot] peoples, to spit at a person is a very great compliment. The earlier travellers in Masailand were astonished, when making friendship with old Masai chiefs and head-men, to be constantly spat at. When I (…) met the Masai of the Rift Valley for the first time, every man, before extending his hand to me, would spit on the palm. When they came into my temporary house at Naivasha Fort they would spit to the north, east, south and west before entering the house. Every unknown object which they regard with reverence,4 such as a passing train, is spat at. Newly born children are spat on by everyone who sees them. (Johnston, 1902, p. 833)

The Maasai term for blessing is e-manyianata. According to Voshaar (p. 180), “spitting gives the words life. It gives the words their inner meaning and efficacy. It is wet; it is life-fluid. The word for efficacious blessing is nkamulak, spittings.”5 A blessing was believed to be more effective when the spittle was mixed with milkʊthe basic food of the pastoral Maasaiʊor honey-beer and when the blessing was issued by persons reputed to “have nkamulak, spittings,” i.e. venerable elders (p. 83). A Maasai youth or child blessed and spat at by a person endowed with blessing power would gain additional moisture and his/her health would thereby be enhanced. A person in good health was said by the Maasai to have “a moist head” (Fokken 1917: 244), implying repeated spit-blessings. In addition to promoting health, as mentioned above, spitting was a means of promoting well-being through protecting oneself from unknown and possibly evil influences or, to use a Gogo expression, of “cooling down” a situation.

4

As with the Nandi above, “apprehensiveness” may be a more appropriate term than the notion of “reverence” used by Johnston. 5 According to Mol’s dictionary (p. 25, 170), the Maa term for spittle or saliva is enk-amulaki (pl. ink-amulak), also rendered as en-kamulaki (pl. in-kamulak). Rain is poetically referred to as ink-amulak e Nkai, “the spittle of God.”

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***** Among Nilotic communities living far to the north-west, spitting and blessing were closely connected. To relieve someone of misfortune Acholi villagers of northern Uganda and southern Sudan were called to spit in a bowl of water and the afflicted person was anointed with the mix (Grove, p. 175). Most Acholi ceremonies staged to free people from curses, evil spirits, etc. featured at some point a ritual spitting at the afflicted person’s face (p. 181). Likewise, to the south of the Acholi, a Lango healer (ajoka) “takes some of the root of oreme, and having crushed it and chewed it, spits it on to the patient.” According to Driberg (1923: 402), the plant used by Lango healers had “magical healing properties.” A blind elderly Dodoth woman was presented with a gift: “She asked to feel me. I gave her my hands. She held them with a solid grip and spat four times in my face” (Thomas 1972: 97). A frail old Dodoth man also took the hand of the Western writer and discharged “a misty blessing” over her face (p. 240).6 About the funeral practices of the nearby Turkana people of north-western Kenya, Barrett (1987: 43) makes the following comment: While meat is said to be eaten here (akinyam ngikaram), I never saw it being eaten in our sense of the word. It is chewed and then ‘spat out’ in a ritual way. Spitting in this fashion is a blessing. When a person is ill, you “spit” on the person. I have often observed elders, male and female, spit on children. Older people spit on them to make them better.

In Nilotic South Sudan, further north, the Mandari make a neat distinction between plain spitting, such as when ridding the mouth of tobacco juice, and spraying out blessings: In ritual blessing, the blesser does not in fact spit in the ordinary sense. He narrows his lips and with the tongue between the teeth emits a fine spray with a blowing action which falls on the recipient’s head. (Buxton, 1973, p. 188) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

The standard Dinka term for “spittle” is lueeth,7 the Nuer equivalent being ruei (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 171). In Nuer understanding, the ruei has “a special virtue and is said to benefit the yiegh, the life, of the person who receives it” (Ibid.).

6

The Dodoth live in north-eastern Uganda. They are culturally related to the Karimojong, Jie, and Turkana. 7 See the English to Dinka Glossary, p. 190.

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In the land of the Atuot, a group related to the Nuer and Dinka, the ritual extraction of the lower incisors was sometimes attended by a maternal uncle who spat “into the mouth of his sister’s child as a rite of blessing, thereby easing the task and lessening the pain” (Burton 1980: 150). An elderly Nuer would bless a younger person “by spitting on his head” (Evans-Pritchard, Ibid.). Likewise, among the Dinka, “fathers bless their sons by spitting on their heads, applying the spit over their heads and chests, and pouring dust upon them.”8 The doll healers of the Rek Dinka would spit on infants to cure them; these male or female healers conspicuously wore a large number of finger rings received from grateful mothers (Titherington 1925: 194-95). Among other Dinka groups, the “men of Garang” also had their fingers and wrists covered with rings and bracelets, “gifts made by mothers” of children whose fever those healers had successfully treated using their spittle (Lienhardt 1961: 84-85).9 The Dinka also made use of their spittle to ward off evil as the three following cases illustrate: a mother taking her child away from a European in the 1940s and spitting in his or her face (Lienhardt 1951: 303); a fishing spear presumably left in a homestead by a night-witch being collectively spat at (p. 310); senior members of chiefly clans spitting “in the direction in which a snake or a scorpion [had] disappeared” or “on a dead snake” (Ibid.). Finally, for the members of a Dinka clan whose totem was a venomous snake, spittle was effectively used as an antidote so that the person soon recovered “from an injury that would have proven fatal” to anyone else (Burton 1979: 98, quoting Jackson 1923).10 The analogy between spitting elders and snakes was sometimes acted out very graphically as MacDermot (1972: 87) experienced when he came upon a Nuer “prophet” in far western Ethiopia: This strange sinister-looking priest of the pagan religion stared at me for some time with his one bleary eye, then hissed and spat at my face.

Both the hissing and the discharge of spittle displayed the ophidian character of the ritual officer. That out-of-the ordinary person was 8

See http://folkloria.net/genre/rituals-beliefs/42-dinka. Accessed Nov. 6, 2013. These healers were also involved in rain-making (See chap. 4.3). It is worth noting that the Arab communities of modern Sudan shared the obviously ancient belief that saliva has healing power (Al Safi 2006: 283). 10 In ancient northern Africa (Cyrenaica), the Psylli would cure snake-bites by spitting on the wound. 9

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seemingly half-man, half-snake. It was believed in Nuerland that the spittle of great medicine men, or prophets, was especially effective in curing barrenness (Seligman et al. 1932: 232; Evans-Pritchard 1956: 171). According to Evans-Pritchard (p. 68-69), “spitting vipers” were common in Nuerland. ***** The ethnographic record on the Oromo of Ethiopia is especially useful for the purpose of establishing a regional cultural profile of spittle, hancufa in their language. Writes Knutsson (p. 59), “an action particularly fraught with blessing is that of spitting after wishes for prosperity have been made.” At their naming ceremony, children were spat upon “for propitious life” (Nadhabasa 1996: 276). Older people blessed children by spitting on their heads while adults received their spittle in the hands (Bartels 1983: 93). When a person had been generous to another, the latter used to spit on the open hand of the former (Tablino, p. 292). “In an important form of blessing,” write Dahl et al. (1990: 26), “[Oromo] elders, parents or special ‘spitters’ convey fertility through the medium of saliva.” Among the Guji, a special type of blessing known as maltu was conducted for the benefit of sterile women: leading elders would spit honey-beer on their wombs so as to make them “wet and fertile” (Van de Loo, p. 271-72; also Berisso 2000: 56). Knowing that brewing honey-beer was man’s work (Van de Loo, p. 224), the maltu blessing implicitly amounted to a symbolic impregnation. The underlying assumption was not always tacit, as in a major Sayo blessing ritual (Triulzi 2005: 127-28): a female gave milk to a senior male ritual officer who drank it, spat it on undressed barren women while beseeching each time the high god: “Let her womb give a child!” An interesting observation has been made about the southern Oromo of eastern Kenya: Spitting is done (...) “for luck,” or as a “blessing” and token of good-will. It is frequently reduced to a mere symbolic action (a sudden emission of the breath after closing the lips (…). When drinking dadi [honey-wine] a man will “spit” (in the fashion here described) into his cup and hand it to a friend, uttering a wish (or prayer) for his welfare and that of his family. I am told that a chief [hayu, leading elder], if he sees a snake within the house, he spits gently at it (…) “as if blessing” (…) and it will forthwith depart. (Werner, 1914a, p. 273)

As Van de Loo (p. 271) comments, moisture was a “symbol of life and fertility.” Indeed, water was consubstantial with life in Oromo philosophy.

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A dead person was spoken for instance as “having gone dry” (p. 62). Through blessing with spittle, an elderly person would share his or her “own abundance of life with the younger ones” (p. 63). Cerulli (1922: 136) noted that the Oromo bless by spitting beer or honeywine, a gesture termed tufa. Azaïs et al. (p. 103) gave two terms: tufa and bifa for the act of blessing by way of emitting a fine spray of saliva upon a person whom one wanted to bless. There were in fact two types of misty blessings among the Oromo: through the ordinary act of spitting and by way of a sprinkling of saliva reminiscent of light rain, the former being labelled tufu, the latter biifu by the Macha people (Bartels 1983: 93). The type of spitting executed at all solemn oaths (Jaenen, p. 185) was presumably of the first variety. Gragg’s Oromo Dictionary (1982) provides more or less corroborative evidence. The verb biifa means “to rain intermittently,” but also “to spit,” “to spray” and “to sprinkle” (p. 46, 454) whereas the substantive biifa stands for “rain” and biifi for “spitting snake” (p. 452, 46).11 There are other terms for “rain,” such as rooba, bokkaa and, of more interest to us, tiifa, “drizzle” or light rain (p. 452). The latter word is quite possibly a cognate of tufa, “to spit,” but also of tuffee, “penis” (p. 378). According to Haberland (p. 254), tufan could mean “spittle” as well as “misty blessing,” just like the Maasai term nkamulak. Both tufa and bifa evoked the fine stream of saliva directed at the persons being blessed among the Oromo of Harar (Azaïs et al. p. 103). The indications provided by Leus et al. (p. 64, 622) about the Borana of southern Ethiopia partly corroborate the synonymy. For instance the phrase Hancufa tante naa tufi means “Spray me with your hancufa (saliva)” and when the spit-spraying is done with honey-beer, one uses words featuring the core term of biifa (p. 309, 473). That being said, the specialists believed to cure wounds and illnesses by chewing resin and spitting itʊrather than spraying itʊon patients were known by the Borana as tuftuu (p. 542). In southern Ethiopia, the Hoor term toof, a likely cognate of tufa, was used to designate snakes (Miyawaki 1997: 723). The Hoor language is closely related to that of the nearby Borana, i.e. Oromo. The Borana used to 11 As we saw above, snakes and rain were intimately connected in Eastern Africa. It has been mentioned that a substance known as gaafo, the venom of a large snake, was used magically by some Oromo specialists to bring or stop rain (Gragg, p. 156). Bader (2006: 149) also refers to a piece of python skin known as gafoo that is used by some sorcerers to induce drought.

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consider the Hoorʊalso referred to as Arboreʊas their “junior brothers” (Haberland, p. 151). The northern neighbours of the Hoor are the Hamar, whose dialect is very different from both the Hoor and Oromo languages. Nonetheless, write Lydall et al. (1979b: 178), One form of blessing is the spraying (bifa) of coffee, milk, honey wine, or beer. This is to be distinguished from spitting (patsina). The liquid is sprayed out of the mouth from the lips so that it forms a fine spray, reminiscent of rain, which falls upon the ones who are being blessed.

***** Everywhere in Eastern Africa, the power to bless was commonly paired with the ability to curse. In south-western Ethiopia for instance, “blessing and cursing are linked through the sun with the rising sun associated with calling blessing and the setting sun with cursing evil” (Pankhurst 2006: 263). In fact, all depended on the intention, benevolent or malevolent, of the person acting out his or her power. Among various East African peoples, the power to curse was highly socialised. Curses were not to be uttered for one’s personal profit. That would have amounted to sorcery. Socialised curses were levelled against wrongdoers, whether a fellow clansman or miscreants from another clan or even against outsiders, especially enemies, in the case of the ritually more powerful elders. The Oromo have a general term for praying: eba (Gragg, p. 451; Tablino, p. 292; Haberland, p. 253; Leus et al., p. 190), an activity usually done as a litany and commonly associated with blessing. The religious leaders of the Oromo were also said to “have” eba, “blessing” (Legesse 2000: 118). A highly significant notion was encapsulated in the term of ebiftu: “person with the power of blessing or, conversely, cursing” (Tablino, ibid.). Although in some cases such a power could be gained, it was generally owned by some lineages, sub-clans, or clans. The division between ebiftu and non-ebiftu groups was a major feature of all Oromo communities (Schlee 1994b: 204).12 This also applied to two northern Kenya camel12 Most Oromo communities were made up of “pure” Oromo groups and of groups who became Oromo by assimilation (See Volume Two, Box 45). Among the Macha tribes, the families and lineages known to be of pure Oromo ancestry were assumed to be closer to god, it being said of them that they were “people of blessings,” nama eba (Hultin 1988: 814). As for those segments of the Oromo

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herding and Oromo-speaking communities, namely the Sakuye and the Gabra. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the concept of ebiftu was equivalent to that of ibire (Rendille) as well as that of laisi (Maasai). Among the Oromo, Gabra, and Sakuye, the notions of praying, blessing, and cursing were sometimes expressed by the same term: a Borana ritual leader “spat” (= prayed) to allow a group of former cattle herders to raise camels and eat camel meat (Schlee 1989a: 200). The “prayer” (= curse) of such paramount ritual officers was capable of exterminating a whole community (p. 184). As a matter of fact, the distinction between clans endowed with superior blessing abilities and clans made up of more ordinary people better suited to wage war and assume political leadership was also characteristic of the Somali-like Rendile and of the various Somali peoples. As Schlee (1994b: 204) observed, “even Muslim Somali claim lineage-specific powers to heal, pray for, curse and miraculously harm or kill othersʊalthough such powers are hardly compatible with orthodox Islam.” The division was obviously an ancient principle of Eastern Cushitic social organisation. Hanjuf, the Rendille word for “spittle” (Schlee 1979a: 181), is a cognate for the standard equivalent Oromo term: hancufa (Gragg, p. 199, 430; Leus et al., p. 309). Early in the twentieth century, Maud (1904: 577) witnessed the following scene, the main protagonist of which was an old Rendille “chief”: “One of the boys placed a necklace round the old man’s neck. This attention called from him the most sincere thanks, to which he gave expression by blowing a fine spray from his mouth on those round him.” When called upon, elders of the Rendille Uyam clan used their spittle to cure all possible head-related ailments (Schlee 1979a: 243).13 Of far greater importance was the ability to bless or curse held by a number of Rendille clans or sub-clans known as ibire. As we saw in chapter 4.9, some of these groups were closely connected with poisonous snakes. Their inordinate power to bless and curse was believed to rest in the spittle of their elders, who were said to “have spittle,” hanjuf akhabta (p. 181). The ibire power to bless or curse was transmitted to baby boys in the course of a ritual known as “The suckling of the tongue,” harab lanugiche; among other things, the young child was spat at in the mouth by a man from an ibire clan other than his own (p. 181-82). “His tongue was suckled,” as Schlee noted in another publication (1989: people which provided religious leaders credited with superior blessing power, they were “people of blessings” par excellence. 13 As noted in chapter 4.9, people cursed by Uyam elders would suffer from headaches.

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182, 260), was “the usual way to refer to the ceremony of transmitting the ibire power.” The ritual has been reported, albeit in fewer details, by Spencer (1973: 62) and Beaman (p. 263-64), the latter commenting: “The tongue and the spit are the locus of the power.” The emphasis on the tongue was in all likelihood evocative of snakes. The similarities between the Rendille and the Maasai in those regards must be emphasised. The expression used about the ibire: “They have spittle” was equivalent to what was said of Maasai venerable elders: they “have nkamulak,” i.e. spittings. The laisi groups of the Maa-speaking Loikop were also called loo nkamelak, i.e. “those of the saliva,” those individuals making use of spitting both to bless and to curse (Wymeersch et al., p. 357). When still a boy in the 1930s, the nephew of a then-leading Loikop diviner and healer was asked by his uncle to “suck” his tongue in order to have his powers passed on to him (Fratkin 2014: 2). Upon his death in the closing years of the nineteenth century, the then-paramount religious leader of the Maasai, Mbatian, requested one of his sons to “kiss” or “suck” his tongue (Sankan, p. 81; Galaty 1977: 284), thereby transferring to him his superior power to bless and curse. The affinities between the Rendille and Maasai should not surprise anyone since, as mentioned in a previous chapter, the Rendille and the Loikop, the northernmost Maaspeakers of recent times, had a long-standing alliance. Another northern group of Maa-speakers of the nineteenth century, the Laikipiak, had an alliance with the Kiriman, a Rendille-like community. ***** The Maasai ethnographic record is especially rich. Many observers have, for more than a century, been curious and have written extensively about them. According to Hinde et al. (1901: 48), the significance of the Maasai custom of spitting was not only to be found in warding off evil: “when cursing they spit copiously. If a man while cursing spits in his enemy’s eyes blindness is supposed to follow.” Among the curses to be heard were the following: “May the lion devour you! May the snake bite you!” (Merker, p. 109). In order to express contempt, “one spits before the person concerned or at him” (Ibid.). Likewise, to show contempt for another man, a Maasai would expectorate “a small stream of saliva

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forcibly through the hole in his teeth into the man’s face” and say “You are a dog!” (Hollis 1905: 315)14 It is to be noted that the Maasai, like a number of East African communities such as the Rendille and Nandi, removed the two middle lower incisors of children so that all men and women showed a gap in the mouth. Merker (p. 152) recorded the following observation: Most often given as the reason for this was “so that in drinking milk and honey beer one can spit in a long stream through the gap in the teeth (em buata),” which is part of good breeding.

Decades earlier, Krapf (1857: 462) had heard a similar explanation. Merker felt that the true reason had fallen into oblivion. Hobley (1902: 41) witnessed an interesting scene either among the Maasai or the neighbouring and also Nilotic Nandi: If a son does not obey his father in some serious matter, the father strikes his son with his skin cloak; this is equivalent to a parental curse, and it is believed that a son thus cursed by his father will die a short time after. It is removed by the son begging forgiveness and bringing an offering of a goat to his father, and the animal is killed and eaten.

Interestingly, Maasaiʊmore exactly Parakuyoʊperceptions about snakes were as follows: “Some are white in colour, others red, and others green. Some have a hood like an old man’s cloak, others again have white heads like very old people” (Hollis, p. 308). The caption of a picture opposite page XVI in Hollis’s book reads: “Masai elder wearing a fur cloak which is supposed to resemble a cobra’s hood.”15 To recapitulate, the more significant indications collected about the Maasai are the following: (1) Spitting in a man’s face while cursing was believed to cause blindness. (2) The gap in the mouth facilitated expectoration.

14 Similarly among the Marakwet, the saliva is “ambivalent.” Although it is believed to have “cleansing” powerʊmost probably a “cooling” effectʊand “spitting may be used to remove a curse or the effects of the evil eye,” “to spit in front of a man is to show the greatest disrespect or contempt and thereby to provoke or challenge” (Kipkorir et al., p. 24). 15 The same picture is to be found in a book authored by Johnston (1902: 831). In this case, the elder is identified as Terere, “chief and medicine man.”

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(3) Striking a son with one’s fur cloak was supposed to precipitate death. (4) The skin cloak worn by elders and covering their back, shoulders, and belly made them look like hooded cobras. A rather coherent picture of the symbolic identity of Maasai elders is emerging. The opening in the mouth was indeed reminiscent of the large gap between the fangs of venomous snakes. In striking a non-respectful son with his skin cloak, an elder acted as if he were a cobra dealing a lethal blow.16 While expectorating a curseʊor even a blessingʊ, elders acted as if they were spitting snakes, especially dark-coloured cobras known to direct their spittle at the eyes of intruders. As a matter of fact, the Maa term for the spittle of the cobra and that of an elder were the same.17 The powerful analogy between cobras and elders was extended to the field of procreation, one of the elders’ major concerns. Hinde et al. (p. 75) were perhaps the first to note that a Maasai woman would not cohabit with her husband from the time she became pregnant until her child was weaned at the age of up to two years. In the case of a stillbirth or of the birth of a deformed baby, the woman was suspected of having had sex recently with her husband and was beaten by the women living nearby while the husband was abused by the elders of the neighbourhood (Merker, p. 51). When one detected the presence on the skin of a new-born of a white jelly-like substance, the freshly delivered mother was thrashed and had to confess with whom she had had sex during her pregnancy (Voshaar, p. 172). Hinde and Merker have recorded the reason behind this taboo on sexual intercourse between spouses. It was held to be injurious to the foetus or, after delivery, to the unweaned child. As Llewelyn-Davies (1979: 226) also explained, “the seminal fluid is believed to enter into the foetus through its orifices, and to cause it to be stillborn or deformed at birth.” An ethnological interpretation of “the violation of the rule that forbids pregnant women from having sexual relations with men” has been 16

This is reminiscent of a scene depicted in a previous chapter: an irate ol-oiboni ritual leader using his iron club to deal a deadly blow. 17 The sentence οtunutaka olasurai inkamulak is translated by Payne and Ole Kotikash as “The snake has spit on him.” The words ol-asurai and in-kamulak respectively mean “snake” and “spittle.” See Maa (Maasai) Dictionary, http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dlpayne/Maa%20Lexicon/index-english/main.htm.

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suggested by Llewelyn-Davies (p. 221). The rule is explained as the counterpart of a taboo on sexual relations with a girl who is the daughter of a member of one’s own age-group or age-set. All the members of a given Maasai age-set considered each other’s wives to be “theirs”; accordingly, some degree of wife-sharing occurred between age-mates. According to Llewelyn-Davies, the two taboos were equivalent in that “both offences bring a man into sexual contact with his offspring” (Ibid.). Importantly, the first taboo was echoed in Eastern Africa by other representations. Haberland (p. 232) reported that the Borana of southern Ethiopia shared with many other Ethiopian peoples the belief that, were a pregnant woman to make love, her child would be born with big eyes. Baxter (1954: 211 fn.) wrote about the same Borana that the mother of a newborn child was “expected not to have sexual intercourse” for a number of months; otherwise, the child would “develop crossed or rolling eyes.” Husbands among the Macha Oromo of western Ethiopia refrained from sexual intercourse with their wives once they had completed about six months of pregnancy: “Amongst other reasons, it was believed that ‘the sperm would make the child blind’” (Bartels 1969: 408). One of the roots of the belief in the injurious effect of semen on the foetus would seem to be the analogy between “spitting” penises and “spitting” snakes. The “big eyes” referred to by Haberland seemingly allude to irritated and swollen globes. As reported earlier in this chapter, some Maasai believed that “if a man while cursing spits in his enemy’s eyes blindness is supposed to follow.” In the case of a stillbirth or of the birth of a deformed baby, the Maasai midwife would massage the “stomach” of the mother “to find evidence of seminal fluid distending it” (Llewelyn-Davies, p. 226). East African physicians know very well that the cytotoxins found in the venom of some species of dangerous snakes cause the swelling of the more directly affected part of the body. If the proposed interpretation is valid, then we have the penis of a man— more exactly when he is acting unlawfully or reprehensibly—imagined as a harmful serpent. As will be seen in Part V (Volume Two), a spitting snake could reciprocally act as a surrogate for the reproductive organ of a man, and impregnate a young virgin or an elderly childless widow.

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Box 36 The Circumcised Penis as a Spitting Cobra The overlapping identities of the penis and the snake may very well connote the peculiar form of male circumcision practised in parts of northern, central, and western Kenya. The foreskin is pulled out and cut ahead of the glans penis; then a short lateral slit is made by the circumciser on the top of the remaining part of the foreskin just above the glans; the latter is pushed through the slit so that the remaining upper and lower portions of the foreskin form a small bundle of skin underneath the glans. The two stages of the operation were carried out in one or two sessions depending on local custom. Various observers and anthropologists have referred to or described this very special type of ritual surgery: Bagge (1904: 168-69), Merker (p. 62), Spencer (1973: 87), Galaty (1977: 30), and Voshaar (p. 299) for the Maasai and related Samburu (Loikop); Hollis (1909: 54-55), Peristiany (1936a: 13; 1936b: 34), Kipkorir et al. (p. 46), and Langley (1979: 34-35) for the Nandi and related Kipsigis and Keyo; Schlee (1979a: 158) and Beaman (p. 457) for the Rendille; Tippett (p. 25 fn.) for the Dassanech; Bugeau (1911: 621-22), Browne (1913: 138), Kenyatta (p. 327), Leakey (p. 621), and Droz (2000: 216-17), among others, for the Kikuyu or related groups. The bundle of skin was known as ngwati, mahal, and ndelelia by the Kikuyu, Rendille, and Maasai, respectively.18 The author has no way of knowing to what extent these terms were meaningful. Schlee notes that the skin flap did not mean much to the Rendille. However, according to Tippett, the simpler or standard form of ritual cutting, one leaving no skin flap underneath the glans, was not seen as “valid” by the Dassanech of north-western Kenya and south-western Ethiopia. The Dassanech and Rendille are linguistically and culturally related. The Kikuyu—as well as Maasai—reportedly hold that the bundle increases the sexual delight of the female partner during intercourse (Droz). The explanation cannot be ruled out even though seemingly paradoxical since women were traditionally circumcised before marriage among the Maasai, Kikuyu, Rendille, etc. and because female circumcision has been widely held to curb female libido. 18

In the case of the Maasai, the information is provided at “Maasai circumcision rites.” Accessed June 12, 2013. http://www.circlist.com/rites/maasai.html.

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Taking stock of the wide-ranging ophidian symbolism in the East African cultural setting and notably of the facts that Maasai elders wearing their skin cloak reportedly resembled cobras and acted as if they were deadly snakes, one can argue that the bundle of skin decorating the male organ subliminally evoked the hood of a spitting cobra. It is good to know that in north-western Zambia, freshly circumcised Balovale youths were instructed to spit whenever, in the course of the healing and instruction process, the word for “vagina,” suni, was uttered (White 1953: 54).

***** By way of conclusion to this chapter, it is opportune to underscore the “cooling” effect of spit blessings in the whole of traditional Eastern Africa. Other liquids were commonly used to “cool” persons or situations, notably water, milk, and chyme from a sacrificial victim. Rain was itself perceived as “cooling” the land, especially after days of torrid and dry weather. For instance the Rimi of northern Tanzania are described as “almost obsessed” with the dread of remaining in a state of emotional “hotness” and the need to restore the state of “coolness” for persons who for example have been carried away by “anger without reason” (Jellicoe 1978: 36). Familiar to Westerners, the notions of “purity,” “impurity,” and “cleansing” have been used time and again by observers, including anthropologists, to describe the ritual status of individuals in Eastern Africa. Those notions, howeer, were not readily applicable in that cultural environment. Ritual “coolness” (security and fruitfulness) and ritual “hotness” (implying danger) were a lot more relevant. There was a continuum between the two extreme poles of the scale: at one end, soft-spoken and benevolent elders, especially when offered a sacrificial meal; at the opposite end, one who had killed a fellow tribesperson intentionally or by accident, or one who had spilled the blood of an enemy. The killer had to be isolated and “cooled down” before any social interaction with the community could be resumed.

CHAPTER 4.12 SORCERERS, SNAKES, AND HEALERS

On account of their ability to cast away old skins and to presumably regenerate themselves, ophidians exemplify an extraordinary life potential. We heard in chapter 4.10 of the superior blessing power of elders belonging to snake-related clans. But in Eastern Africa as perhaps elsewhere, the magical power to kill imputed to certain categories of persons was perhaps more commonly assimilated to that of venomous serpents. The analogy between the seemingly staring eyes of snakes and so-called evil-eyed witches was an additional factor. As we saw in the same chapter, the respect to which the predominantly benevolent snake-related elders were entitled in northern Kenya was in part caused by the inordinate fear of being cursed by them. The Chiga (or Kiga) diviners known in the highlands of south-western Uganda as omufumu wesiriba represented a different variety of powerful snakerelated individuals. As described by Edel (p. 143), the sheep’s horn that these men carried with them was believed to hold spirits (esiriba), which those diviners released by uncovering their ritual container whenever they sought to punish evildoers: Spirits of this type have special connexion with snakes and often manifest themselves in that form. When the spirits the magician has sent out have done their work and killed a victim, they may infest the grave which is dug for him. Then his relatives will have to summon their master [i.e. the omufumu] to take them back. No family would risk burying a man in such a grave until the snakes had been driven forth, lest they too should be killed by the spirits. (Edel, p. 143) [By permission of Oxford University Press]

The esiriba spirits were apparently not connected with the diviners’ own ancestors or clan founder, nor with those of any other living person or kin group. It is useful to note that, in the Chiga case as well as in northern Kenya, the powerful snake-related men were major upholders of local customs and of the social order. We will hear a lot more along these lines in Volume Two of this publication, which is devoted to southern Ethiopia.

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Among the Mandari of southern South Sudan, to be found sleeping next to a poisonous ophidian or with such a creature wound round one’s neck— implying friendliness with snakes—was a clear sign that a youth would become a true healer (Buxton 1973: 286, 289).1 Mandari healers, however, would not usually cure snake bites since such treatments were administered by a specific type of “medicine owners,” ƾutu ko winiko, (p. 314). The present chapter will focus on witchcraft and sorcery inasmuch as witches and sorcerers were often believed in the East African context to have dealings with or work through dangerous wild animals, notably venomous ophidians. In an effort to lay out the full picture, the highly interesting case of those healers credited with the ability to cure snake bites will also be considered. Some of those medicine men or women were also acquainted with serpents, somewhat like snake-charmers. ***** Among the Gogo of central Tanzania, according to Culwick (p. 35), “all snakes are supposed to be either dead witchdoctors or even dying ones.” The nearby Sandawe feared snakes on account of their harmful fangs but also for their alleged connexion with sorcerers (Newman, p. 44). In southern South Sudan, a Mandari witch or sorcerer was said to strike “like a snake,” that is, to attack people with “swiftness and deadliness” (Buxton 1963: 113). Perishing from snake bite was interpreted by the Zande of south-western South Sudan as being targeted by a witch (Evans-Pritchard 1976: 25, 32-33). Even a lesser damage inflicted by a snake would be attributed to witchcraft or sorcery, as with the Amba of western Uganda: Although [the man] realizes that the intense pain is due to the venom from the fangs of the snake, there remains the question of why the snake bit him and not the man who was walking along the path directly in front of him. Witchcraft provides an answer. (Winter, 1963, p. 289)

The mere sighting of a snake could be a sign of sorcery. While going to his fields, a Sukuma peasant came upon “the largest snake he had ever seen” (Tanner 1967: 49). That very night he became very feverish; in the morning he was voiceless. He was told by a diviner that he had been struck by “the sticks of sorcerers” (Ibid.).

1

This is reminiscent of Zulu custom. See chap. 3.3.

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Snakes, witchcraft, and sorcery often went together in Eastern Africa. In previous chapters,2 we have come across Dinka witches who were believed to slough their skins like snakes and regenerate themselves. Such evil persons were typically associated with black snakes, notably cobras. In Dinka thought, as we have also seen, dark snakes could inversely turn into witches in the process of discarding old skins. This chapter is concerned with less extreme forms of connections between evildoers and venomous snakes. Among for instance the nearby and likewise Nilotic Shilluk of South Sudan, All the evil medicine men keep snakes, but usually they have them in a gourd or den in the fields, though a few of the most powerful have kept them in their houses. To deceive the people, they pretend to fear snakes. (Oyler, 1919b, p. 135)

Sorcerers were widely believed in Eastern Africa to be experts at preparing and administering harmful medicines or poisons to be used against those they viewed as their enemies or against the enemies of those who secretly came to them to take advantage of their unlawful abilities. Unsurprisingly, snake venom, fangs, and snake heads were among the chief ingredients said to be used by such sorcerers in the preparation of “bad medicine.”3 This has been reported of sorcerers from the Bunyoro kingdom in west-central Uganda (Beattie 1963: 37), the Lugbara community in western Uganda (Middleton 1963: 264), and various other East African groups. Among the more telling cases are the sorcerers of the Marakwet of southwestern Kenya and those of the Luo in northern Uganda. The Marakwet made a distinction between two types of sorcerers (bon). The medicines prepared by sorcerers of the first type were made from “bits of skin (…), spittle, urine, faeces, blood, snuff belonging to the victim, or earth taken from his footprints” (Kipkorir et al., p. 17). A sorcerer of the second type used instead a snake, kibusia (perhaps ‘adder’), which he tames in order to obtain its vomit. This is mixed with roots and placed under the houses or roof-thatch 2

Chap. 4.4 and chap. 4.5 (Box 32). East African sorcerers were also known to use various other ingredients than snake heads or venom, notably an array of harmful plants and the gum or resin of certain trees.

3

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of victims. It is possible to buy maleficent charms from bon; and their children are expected to follow the parent’s trade. An apprentice of the second type learns to suck the snake’s vomit. (p. 18)

The traditional punishment met by proven practitioners of both types of sorcery was death. In north-central Kenya, Samburu sorcerers were believed to harm people using mystically powerful powders “ground from certain plants and animals such as snakes and chameleons” (Fratkin 2004: 210). Likewise, Luo sorcerers from Uganda used snakes in the preparation of their more powerful poisons. It was believed that terrible women sorcerers went into dark forests or in caves, and ‘charmed’ the uyu (cobra), ororoo (mamba), and some other poisonous snakes by giving them beer. And when the snakes were drunk, they chopped off the heads and removed the poison bag. (P’Bitek, p. 13940)4

P’Bitek (Ibid.) also reports that in 1947 a man was seen skinning a large ororoo snake killed next to his house. He removed the poison bag, saying that he would use it for healing his elephantiasis. Few people apparently believed him. According to Driberg (1923: 370, 431), the nearby Lango word for a drug “said to be prepared from the poison of snakes” was awula, a term no doubt related to wulo, “poison” (verb), and possibly to atwola, “characteristic of a snake,” excluding the python. Known as achudany, Lango sorcerers of the worst type were feared on account of their evil eye; they were also credited with “a wonderful sense of scent” and said to haunt new graves like hyenas; significantly, they pointed a “bent forefinger to kill” (p. 242-43). It is reasonable to assume that the crooked finger represented the fang of a deadly snake. Grove (p. 177-78) heard of a sorcerer among the related Acholi of northern Uganda named Lajok, “a person with the evil eye, believed to have a snake in his stomach ‘which 4

The author is aware of another instance of intoxication of a snake with beer (Roscoe 1909b: 186). This case however has little to do with sorcery. The venomous snake happened to be the guardian of a sacred pool in the land of the Gisu of south-eastern Uganda. It was offered beer by senior elders from a nearby village. Once the snake became drunk, it was seized, its fangs were broken and the newly initiated boys and girls of the area could wash themselves safely in the sacred pool.

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has been seen crawling out of his mouth on his death’.” In southern Tanzania, the appearance by the grave of a recently deceased Hehe person of a snake that people attempted in vain to kill was taken “as certain evidence that the deceased was a witch” (Winans et al. 1964: 760). Snakes featured in many other ways in the work of East African sorcerers and witches. For instance LeVine (1963: 228) writes that a Gusii (Kisii) sorcerer would “leave a dead snake, rat, frog, or civet-cat near the victim’s house as a sign that he is being bewitched.” As mentioned above, minor Maasai medicine men known as il-koiatik were capable of bad magic, for example through “the drawing of snake symbols on the ground” (Voshaar, p. 214). It is reported that snake bite was believed by the Maasai to be one of the possible outcomes of a curse (p. 188).5 In the language of the Kamba of eastern Kenya, the verb uma was used to mean either “to curse” or “to bite” (Lindbloom, p. 165 fn.). Being cursed was implicitly assimilated to being bitten by a venomous snake. In various communities, sorcerers were believed to work directly with or through live venomous snakes in a way reminiscent of a Chiga omufumu wesiriba. Among for instance the Luo of south-western Kenya, “some individuals are believed to be especially endowed with the power to manipulate snakes for evil purposes. It is a common belief that snake bites result from malevolent magic by some practitioners who keep snakes as pets and send them to bite victims” (Owuor et al. 2005: 132). In eastern Kenya, a Kamba man was convinced that an elderly person with whom he had quarrelled was “sending snakes” to his home in order “to kill his family” (Mbiti 1969: 196). Likewise, the Sukuma of north-western Tanzania believed that spitting snakes were sometimes sent by sorcerers to harm people (Gass, p. 431). In north-western Uganda, Lugbara nightwitches were reportedly capable of causing sickness or even death to others by coming into their victims’ compound “in the guise of certain animals,” notably snakes (Middleton 1963: 262). In north-eastern Tanzania, Kaguru witches were held to “have familiars such as lions and snakes, which attack their victims” (Beidelman 1963: 65). They reportedly hid their familiars “behind food storage bins or in hut lofts where grain is stored” (Ibid.). Some Kaguru claimed that witches could take “the form of 5

The enactment of a Maasai curse could also entail “a subsequent fall” or “other misfortune including death” (Voshaar, p. 188). To curse a person, a Maasai could say: “May the snake bite you!” (Merker, p. 109) or “Be dead!” (Voshaar, p. 187). “May a snake bite you so that you die!” was a common Zande curse (EvansPritchard 1976: 189).

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such an animal” (Ibid.). In the Tanzanian interior, mchawi or mlozi, i.e. sorcerers, “whose profession is to harm other people by ‘magical’ means” often use “poison” and associate with hyenas and owls (Van Pelt 1982: 71): Other animals used by sorcerers are the night-swallow, also used for calling colleagues; the spitter snake, sent to kill, the crocodile to snatch people who then will be turned into zombies, to serve the sorcerer. The lion and the leopard are used for metamorphose, after which they kill people who have insulted them or done any other wrong to them.

In central Tanzania, a woman finding a snake in her house while returning home suspected that she had been bewitched (Jellicoe 1978: 91). A subclan of the same community, the Rimi, reportedly stems from a foreign woman who had fled from her homeland where she had apparently been convicted of sorcery. Her name was Nyamwiru, meaning “the mother of the cobra” or “the mother of the black one” (p. 117-18). The Nandi believed that a witch would cause a snake to enter the body of his or her victim (Huntingford 1963: 179). The little black ophidian visitor, indaret, referred to in chapter 4.5 could be used “by witches when they put spells on people” (Huntingford 1953: 139): even “the orkoiik [high ranking medicine men, as we have seen] are said, inter alia, to be able to kill a man by putting a small black snake, called indaret, into his stomach, after which the man dies and the snake issues from his body and disappears” (Huntingford 1927: 422). Among the nearby and related Kipsigis of south-western Kenya, Orchardson (1935: 511-12) heard of an uncommon type of sorcerer known as pik ap iriaset, an expression which seems to mean something like “the one of the iriaset.” The iriaset is a type of snake believed to live in the sorcerer’s house. The mere sighting of that creature was enough to deprive the unfortunate witness of his breath and life, those catching sight of the iriaset never surviving to describe it. A similar pattern was also found in the also Southern Nilotic Keyo community, where it was held that venomous snakes were “commonly used by sorcerers” to harm people (Massam, p. 183). Massam (p. 182) offered a vivid illustration of this. A person suspected of sorcery waved a long piece of skin similar to a whip as someone was walking by. The passer-by asked him what his actions signified. Suterr, as usual, maintained silence. Soon afterwards, the man’s wife was bitten by a snake as she was climbing the escarpment. Suterr’s actions were at once understood. He had handled the whip to symbolise the snake he intended to use later.

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One morning not very far from the Keyo, an ethnographer found his tent “encircled by small mounds”; digging them out, he turned up “a number of dead mambas and scorpions” that had been laid there by a Pokot “warlock” who wanted to kill him or have him lose his mind (Peristiany 1975: 188, 186). Such connections between snakes and sorcerers were by no means limited to Eastern Africa. In the eastern portion of the DRC, not far to the west of the regions we are primarily concerned with, the Rega people held that sorcerers attended to the needs of the snakes they sent out to kill people (Chifundera et. al. 1989: 39, 42). Likewise, among the Zulu of Southern Africa, every “wizard,” umthakathi, had familiars, such as snakes, owls, and baboons, that assisted him in his evil undertakings and which he sent out to harm people. The Zulu sorcerer went to the bush to find the animal he wanted. In the case of a snake, he neutralized it by spitting all around it, till at last he [spat] on the snake itself. Then he [doctored] it with medicine and insila (dirt) of the person to whom he [wished] to send evil (…) and finally he [sent] the snake to the village in which his enemy [lived]. As soon as this snake [entered] his house, that person [became] ill. (Krige, p. 324).

Zulu sorcerers were even believed to create by magic a type of snake capable of entering houses whose doors were tightly closed. Whenever such a snake was found, “it [was] killed and taken out through a hole in the back of the hut, for if (…) carried out through the door, it [would] return” (Ibid.). All the persons inside the house went out together to throw away the snake in a hole. They were immediately treated with protective medicine. Further afield in Western Africa, Kissi witches might place a serpent in the ground under the sleeping quarters of an individual they wanted to harm (Paulme 1954: 209). An unexperienced sorcerer attempting to harm a strong person was likened to a snake trying to engulf a prey larger than what it could handle (p. 213).

Box 37 Bellies Harbouring Serpents or Enclosed by a Snake The connection between snakes and bellies previously alluded to is evidenced to some extent in the East African ethnographic record.

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According to an old Kamba belief recorded by Lindbloom (p. 316), “each person is created with a snake in his stomach.” As mentioned above, an Acholi sorcerer was believed to have “a snake in his stomach.” Far to the south among the Nyakyusa of the Tanzania-Zambia borderland, the power of both witches and “defenders” (abamanga) stemmed from their having a snake—a python, to be more exact—in their belly (Wilson 1951: 97). In those cases, the snake evokes supernatural power. We have also seen that a Nandi witch could cause an indaret snake to enter someone’s body. Among the related Keyo, it was not unusual “for a native to feel the movements of a snake inside his head or his stomach” (Massam, p. 183). He then knew that “a curse [had] been put on him” (Ibid.). Moreover, a snake was sometimes seen “to leave the body” of a dying bewitched person (Ibid.). The Lugbara of north-western Uganda were among the peoples to believe that a witch could place a snake in someone’s belly (Middleton 1963: 112). Further north in South Sudan, “a black magician can blind his victim, cast snakes into his stomach, and perhaps mortally pierce his heart. A benevolent magician can open the eyes, remove the snakes, and perhaps save a pierced heart” (Deng 1974: 27). The Dinka anthropologist writes out of experience. As a boy, he was struck by an acute stomach trouble a few days after school celebrations. The local medical assistant could do nothing to relieve his pain so his mother and uncle sent for a well-known medicine man whose therapy proved successful: He divined that my performance at the show had invited the envy of a magician who had cast into my stomach a black cobra. He asked for a black ram (…). He anointed my lower belly with oil; the ram was held across my upper belly while the magician pressed his eyes on my lower belly and massaged it (…) After some time, the ram, without any obvious cause, bled from the nostrils and died. (Deng, 1972, p. 129-30)

The evil snake, explained the medicine man, had been transferred into the ram. Also in South Sudan, Arensen (1992: 257-58) witnessed a curing session conducted among the Murle by a female nari healer.6 The patient was a teenage girl “who wished to become pregnant.” The healer took or caught things in or around her patient, beating some and burning others. She notably got hold of what she called a “kowat o Tammo, ‘snake of Tammu’ 6

The term nari is derived from the verb naryin, “to pray or intercede with higher powers when divining or healing” (Ibid., p. 275-76).

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[Tammu = God],” commenting that “it was a very bad thing which she had taken out of the girl’s stomach.” On inspection with a torch, it looked like “a six-inch strip of wet skin kneaded with soft mud.” The healer burnt it on a bed of hot coals. In Luba country (south-eastern DRC), trichinosis was a common ailment: “The long worm, called a ‘snake,’ [gave] rise to the popular idea that many abdominal pains are caused by snakes inside. A witch-doctor will sometimes hide a small snake in the palm of his hand, and at an appropriate moment he will profess to extract this from the stomach of his patient” (Burton 1961: 143). Snakes could nonetheless be envisioned positively in relation to bellies, especially female wombs. Among the Luguru of eastern Tanzania, a girl experiencing her first menses was obliquely referred to as being “encircled by a snake” (Brain, p. 179). The Manyika of Zimbabwe believed that “snakes” protect the abdomen of pregnant women (Jacobson-Widding, p. 18). In the cultural idioms of various Tanzanian communities, when a woman was about to give birth the husband and any other male present were told by the attending woman to leave immediately since the future mother had “the snake of the women,” nyoka wa wanake (Van Pelt, p. 146). Indeed, a Venda myth from north-eastern South Africa told that at the beginning of times, humans and all living creatures were “seated in the stomach of the Python” which eventually vomited them out (Eberhardt, p. 19). As the Venda understand it, “a snake within the womb of a woman is responsible for the moulding of the foetus” (p. 20). They believed that babies were “vomited out” of women’s bellies by a python coiled into the womb and tied to the navel (Roumeguère-Eberhardt, p. 121). It is good to know that in much of Eastern Africa, unmarried and prepubescent girls traditionally wore a belt under their garments. In Southern Africa, that item was “emblematic of the security to which women are entitled” (Ramseyer 1928: 62). It could be imagined as snakelike, which would account to some extent for the bellies “encircled” and thus protected by a serpent. As a matter of fact, that is precisely what a narrative from northern Somali had in store. A wise elder advised a young man who wanted to marry a high-ranking maiden: “The town has a Sultan, and the Sultan has a daughter, and the daughter’s sash [a band or ribbon worn around the waist] is a snake, and the snake eats people. (…) And for the snake, which is tied round the girl’s waist, take this stick, and place it on the snake’s head, and the snake will die. After you have done this, enter the house and go to the girl, and then marry her” (Kirk, p. 322). A Somali girl who absolutely wished to marry a young man whom she fully trusted

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would undress before him, untie her ribbon, give it to the young man, and say: “Marry me!” (Mohamed-Abdi 1998, 2: 478). The snake-like belt would seem to hint at a major theme in ancient civilisations, that of the protecting or guardian spirit. It may be relevant to recall that back in the fourth and third millennia BCE, the Sumerian goddess of fertility, Inanna, was invoked in hymns as “womb-snake” (See Box 17). ***** However much truth there was in the widespread belief about sorcerers using snake-related ingredients to make poison, let us now turn to the healing practices traditionally used by East Africans and to the healers who were called upon by those suffering from snake bite. Leaving aside the comfort issuing from the patient’s faith in an indigenous remedy, the efficiency of some of the cures reported in the ethnographic record was limited, if not minimal. For instance, for the Taita of southeastern Kenya, the milk of a nursing mother was taken to be an appropriate cure for envenomation (Harris 1978: 163) whereas a Nandi bitten by a snake was given an egg locally believed to “take away the ill effects of the poison in two days” (Hobley 1902: 41). Among the nearby Keyo of southwestern Kenya, When a sheep is killed, the undigested contents of the stomach are saved. They are dried and kept handy in the huts for the treatment of snake bite. When needed, a little is powdered, mixed with sheep’s fat, and then rubbed on the part bitten, after the limb has been tied tightly above the puncture. (Massam, p. 226-27)

The Kamba treated the wound with urine in addition to sucking out the venom “to prevent circulation of the poison” (Ndeti, p. 139).

Box 38 The Method of the Tourniquet: Recent or Traditional in Africa? As described above, Keyo healers were familiar with the tourniquet method. Not far from the Keyo, ligaturing was used by the Abakhero as described by Mukhule (p. 142): “The victim was laid down to allow slow circulation of blood and so slow down the spread of the poison. A piece of cloth was firmly tied around the affected part so as to slow down the absorption of poison into the blood system.” Here is how in western

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Tanzania a Nyamwezi medicine man treated a youth whose foot had been pricked by a black cobra: “He (…) first applied a ligature above the knee and then made from nine to twelve horizontal incisions above the site of the fang mark, i.e. between the bite and the heart, and into these rubbed some ‘medicine’” (Loveridge, p. 113). Likewise, at the southern edge of Lake Malawi, “a ligature is applied above the bite of a small snake, mphiri; the limb is said to drop off below the ligature” (Stannus 1910: 295).7 In southern Sudan, ligaturing, scarification as well as the taking of medicinal mixtures and raw eggs were commonly used against envenomation (Corkill 1935a). Ligaturing, cutting, and dressing the wound with herbal medicine were also resorted to in central Ethiopia (Griaule 1928: 59). The method of ligation was also used among various Saharan tribal communities to treat the limbs of persons harmed by a scorpion or a horned viper: “Natives often apply tourniquets to keep the poison from spreading through the system, but they are inclined to leave them on much too long thereby provoking gangrene, and so this treatment often does more damage than the poison it is intended to control” (Briggs 1960: 259-60). The question to be asked is the following: did the Keyo, Nyamwezi, Abakhero, and others learn the method from European colonial physicians or was it part of their cultural heritage? Judging from two nineteenth-century testimonies, it would seem that the second answer is the right one. The explorer Burton had a first-hand experience in Somalia in the middle of that century: “Scorpions, especially the large yellow variety, are formidable in hot weather; I can speak of the sting from experience. The first symptom is a sensation of nausea, and the pain shoots up after a few minutes to the groin, causing a swelling accompanied by burning and throbbing, which last about twelve hours. The Somali bandage above the wound and wait patiently till the effect subsides” (Burton 1856: 159 fn.). In South Africa, an early Dutch settler described the treatment given by a Hottentot medicine man to a boy who had been bitten by a cobra: “Old Janse (…) at once applied a tourniquet with a thong of leather. (…) he then proceeded to open up the punctures, making deep cuts over the fang marks (…). By controlling the flow of blood with a tourniquet, Janse from time to time allowed it to flow freely from the veins of the child’s legs. This exercise, he manipulated with 7

As evidenced in Box 25 (Chap. 3.3), the puff adder is known as mphiri in that region.

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wondrous skill and dexterity until his patient was out of danger” (Snook, p. 102). The medicine man then applied a powder made “from the root of a plant mixed with desiccated snake flesh and herbs” to the wound (Ibid.). The use of plants to tie the limb above a snake bite wound has also been reported long ago for Western Africa (Forbes 1904: 372; Schnell, p. 93). This would seem to give substance to the claim that the ligature method was more or less widely resorted to in traditional Africa. Ligaturing the limb above the wound has also long been practised in the Arabic world (Canova 1991: 233, 234). Some of the cures listed above were possibly based on the assumption that the undigested stomach content of a ruminant as well as human milk were attributed a “cooling” action capable of remedying the “burning” pain caused by snake venom. The cooling effect imputed to chyme is a recurrent theme on the East African cultural scene. As for the Taita conceptions about the cooling effect of a mother’s milk, they possibly echoed those of the Manyika of Zimbabwe, as reported by JacobsonWidding (1989: 29): The remedy for fever is coolness. According to the Manyika, only the mother of the child has an effective coolness to offer. She gives it in the form of a liquid, with which she dabs the child’s forehead every morning while it still has fever. The name of the liquid is madonjo. It comes from the mother’s own womb and is sometimes called mukaka (milk). Like the mother’s breast milk, it is said to be lukewarm: ‘not hot, but not too cold’.

On the Ruwenzori mountains of western Uganda, Yira individuals bitten by a snake would be brought to a “witch-doctor” (omuthawa) who cured people “with the help of the spirits, abalimu” (Magezi et al., p. 77). The treatments used by the omuthawa against envenomation are not provided. We are only told that the position of omuthawa was hereditary among the Yira and that these high-profile medicine men also knew ways and means to counter witchcraft, etc. It is reported of the Hehe in south-central Tanzania that “one cure for snake bite must be bitten into the wound by the practitioner” (Brown et al., p. 177).8 The healer’s bite seemingly obliterated the effect of the snake bite as if the healer was a “countersnake.” 8

A “maker of medicines” was known as mukofi, “digger” since “nearly all Hehe medicines are made from roots, although a few are made of twigs, leaves, and grasses” (Brown et al., p. 175-76).

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Traditional healers wore charms which reportedly protected them from venomous snakes. For instance Lindbloom (p. 288) depicts a Kamba medicine man wearing a bracelet from which “hung two small pieces of wood on a short cord” held to keep harmful ophidians at bay. ***** Plants were typically used to cure snake bites. The Gogo of central Tanzania served an infusion of tobacco juice to a victim as quickly as possible (Schaegelen, p. 522).9 Interestingly, among the “tips” offered by a contemporary Ugandan journalist to prevent snake bites, one has to do with tobacco: it is said to be among the few plants whose “bad smell” repels ophidians (Tenywa 2008). The people of central Ethiopia planted a creeper, amyera, botanically unidentified, along hedges to repel serpents from their compounds (Griaule 1928: 61). Likewise, the Me’en of south-western Ethiopia make use of Campuanulae sp., a plant with trumpet-like flowers, as zibu-te-kono, “snake medicine.” Abbink (1993: 10) supplies more information: “This bush is planted near homesteads to prevent snakes from entering. Also, its fruits are crushed and applied to the place of the snake bite.” The application on the bitten limb of the crushed fruits of that bush appears to be a commonly known practice among the Me’en. Likewise, among the nearby Dime, “everyone knows how to use” the highland roots and berries believed to cure snake bites (Todd 1977: 191). Oromo healers used the bark of certain trees as medicine against serpents (Cerulli 1922: 105). In south-western Kenya, Abakhero medicine men or women would treat snake-bitten patients with herbs: “When a snake bit a person, it was very important to know the type of snake to enable proper traditional herbs to be (…) applied on the affected part” (Mukhule, p. 141-42). Not far from the Abkhero, the cure administered by healers among the highland Okiek hunting-gathering communities of western Kenya was the following: “The gum of the tiinet tree [botanically unidentified] is used, mixed with the honey of a species of bee, called kosomyot, and ram’s fat. This concoction is rubbed on the affected part, and a little is also eaten” (Huntingford 1929: 351).10 The Kikuyu of central Kenya believed that the root of the ndonga plant, an Annonaceae, was effective in drawing out the poison if rubbed on the site of the bite shortly after the injury (Leakey, p. 936). In central

9

Gogo healers knew more sophisticated cures. See chap. 4.13. In a later publication on tree and plant names, Huntingford (1976: 436) notes that this unidentified type of plant or tree was “used for medicine” by the Okiek. 10

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Tanzania, a Sandawe would chew the twigs of the lobokha, Strophantus eminii (Newman, p. 182), a shrub of the Apocynacae family. While his elder brother had died from snake bite in South Sudan, a Dinka youth witnessed the recovery in extremis of another brother bitten by an adder. A relative left immediately to get medicine from a renowned healer living many kilometres away: “He returned the following afternoon with dry roots of a strange plant. This was ground into coarse powder, dissolved in water and then forced down Angui’s throat. Shortly after, he vomited a really gooey stuff, so sticky that even the great green fly could not free itself from its grab” (Akol, p. 63).11 Likewise, only minimal information is provided by Buxton (1973: 314) concerning the practices of the Mandari specialists skilled in the treatment of envenomation in southern South Sudan: “Curative snake medicines are pounded and bounded on the bites.” The local “owners of snake medicines” were also capable of repelling snakes: “Prophylacties are cooked over a fire and inhaled before journeying at night” (Ibid.). The ethnographic record allows us to build a clearer picture of the skills and practices of East African healers with regard to the treatment of snake bites. Evans-Pritchard (1976: 196-97) for example12 provides a vivid description of a “magical and empirical” snake-bite treatment administered by a Zande medicine man not far from the Mandari. (…) a boy who formed part of my household was bitten by a snake which was said to be very poisonous. One of our neighbours who was known to have a vast knowledge of drugs was immediately sent for and said that he knew exactly what was required. He brought with him a knife and some drugs (a piece of bark and some kind of grass). He first chewed some of the bark and gave the remainder to the boy to chew. After swallowing the juice both spat out the wood. They did the same with the grass. The leech told me afterwards that he partook of the medicine himself so that were the boy to die he could not well be accused of having administered bad medicine to him. He also told me that he had addressed the bark, saying that if the boy were going to recover let him belch, that if he were to die let him refrain from belching, so that the drug had an oracular action. Having administered these drugs he made incisions on the boy’s foot, where he had been bitten, by raising the skin between his fingers and drawing the blade of his knife across it with several light strokes. As soon as blood began to ooze out of the cuts he took the foot in his hands and raising it to his 11 12

By permission of Paulines Publications Africa. The book was originally published in 1937.

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Chapter 4.12 mouth, sucked at the incisions forcibly and for some time. He then said that the boy was to be kept quiet and admonished him not to move about. After a while the boy began to belch on account of the drugs he had eaten, and on seeing this happy augury the leech no longer had any doubt that he would speedily recover. [By permission of Oxford University Press]

Zande practices echo the Western African healing traditions of cutting the skin at the place of the bite and then forcibly sucking blood from these cuts while having medicinal plants in the mouth, as described by Schnell (p. 94, 96). Among the Marakwet of south-western Kenya, The bark of Euclea divinorum and roots of Tragia brevipes are used as antivenom. They are crushed and the resultant preparation applied into an incision made on the area that has been bitten by the snake. The juice from the fruits of Solanum incanum combined with the crushed bark of Lannea fulva are then applied on the bitten area. The sap from the leaves of Sansevieria intermedia is used to kill snakes. The leaves are squeezed and juice applied on the opening of the hole where snakes reside. (Kipkore et al., 2014, p. 19)

Euclea divinorum was also used against snake bite by the healers belonging to the related Sabaot of nearby Mt Elgon.13 Harjula (1980: 155-57) reports that a full-time medicine man from the Rwa of north-central Tanzania used a plant locally known as lungurushashe (Barleria mucronata Lindau, Acanthaceae family) to cure bites from all kinds of venomous ophidians. Its leaves were “chewed and then rubbed between palms into a ball which [was] applied to the bite.” Nearby, Parakuyo healers reportedly used the bark of one plant they call kabuyea to cure snake bites (Hurskainen 1994: 138). The medicine was also used on cows bitten by snakes. The plant’s botanical name is not provided. In eastern Uganda, Karimojong medicine men treat snake bites with compresses of Cissus rhodesiae (Bader 2008: 208). It is not clear whether they use its leaves, roots, or otherwise. The efficiency of such treatments is not documented. Owuor et al. (2005, 2006) interviewed sixteen Luo and nineteen Kamba healers of envenomation who were locally well-known, and more than 175 13 Kipkore et al. here refer to S. V. Okello et al.’s paper on the medicinal plants used on Mt Elgon in Kenya (2010).

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persons from the same ethnic groups. All the indigenous health specialists were connected in some way—notably through dreams—with the spirits of their ancestors, the spirits of the land, or the high god, and they were also knowledgeable about plants. They had either learned the trade from a senior relative or had paid an established healer to be trained. Curing was a full-time occupation for all the senior healers. In the opinion of Owuor et al. (2006), many of the healers interviewed by them were “exceptionally skilled” (Ibid.). According to them, “direct testimony from victims confirms success of their treatments.” Indeed, “in both study areas, cases of deaths in victims attended by traditional healers were very rare (less than 3%)” when a patient was brought to a practitioner shortly after the bite (Ibid.).14 No fewer than 28 indigenous plant species belonging to almost 15 different plant families were used to treat snake bite by these 35 healers: 21 plants by the Luo and 7 by the Kamba health specialists. On both sides, two exotic plants were additionally used. Learning about medicinal plants was therefore an ongoing process. Only in a few cases would the healer combine two or three plants in one treatment. Except for two plants of the genus Combretum—but of different sub-species—known by some of the Luo and Kamba healers, the medicinal plants used to treat snake bites were different in those two far-apart areas of Kenya. The regions inhabited by Luo and Kamba communities are ecologically different. That being granted, the diversity of medicinal plants in use also indicates, as Owuor et al. (2006) point out, that the Luo and Kamba pharmacopeial heritages developed independently. As a rule, a given plant is used whatever the identity of the biter. Some Luo healers resort to one of two specific plants when they are told or find out that an individual has been bitten by a puff adder, one of the more common venomous species in Kenya. One Luo healer uses a combination of two plants to neutralise the effect of the venom ejected by a spitting cobra onto human eyes.15 Some Luo medicine men are also consulted to provide medicine to prevent snake bites to persons embarking on a long journey through bush and 14 Twenty years before Owuor et al., Chifundera (1987: 22) wrote: “The observation of real recovery cases suggests that antivenomous principles can be found in some plants” in the DRC context. 15 The Nyamwezi “snake-doctors”—with whom the next chapter will deal—also knew of a treatment for such a painful event (Loveridge, p. 108).

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forest: “One such treatment involves scarification with mikinga ash (etymology of the name alludes to a shielding effect) derived from mweny, Ocimum gratissimum” (Owuor et al. 2005: 138). That plant is not among the 21 indigenous plants used to cure snake bites by Luo healers.16

Box 39 Medicinal Plants as a Cure for Snake Bites The words of Morris et al. (p. 87-88) betray the minimal consideration generally attributed a few decades ago to so-called “medicinal plants”: “So many different kinds of plants have been recommended for the treatment of snake bites, it would seem that to qualify as an antidote, a plant has only to be readily available when required. (…) As methods of animal experimentation were perfected, plants were shown to have no remedial value in cases of snake poisoning; but they still retain something of their former popularity in folk medicine.” Nowadays, medicinal plants traditionally resorted to in Africa and elsewhere to counter envenomation are the object of a growing interest from biochemists and others. According for instance to Owuor et al. (2006.), “though medicinal plants remain largely unnoticed and neglected, the protective activity of plant extracts”—in terms for example of venom inactivation, analgesic and anti-inflammatory action—“has been confirmed in biological essays.” Long ago, African and other tropical hunters discovered that when coated with the strongly poisonous substances extracted from certain plants, their arrows became deadly weapons, even for large mammals. Similarly, some West Africans used to believe that venomous snakes became even more deadly after having tasted a highly toxic plant used to make arrow poison (Schnell, p. 93). There is no doubt that way back in time, would-be healers have asked themselves: “If the forest can be the source of such lethal substances why would it not provide powerful antidotes for snake venom and other poisons?” Of the 32 indigenous and exotic plants used by the Luo and Kamba healers to cure persons afflicted by envenomation, only 23 appear in a recently enlarged list of 141 plant species used in Eastern Africa as antidotes for 16 The Somali used to wear amulets made of the bark of the galool tree, a type of Acacia, to ward off snakes and other evils (Révoil, p. 307, 343).

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snake bites (Kokwaro 2006: 372-73). The updated list therefore remains incomplete. Over and above the absence of 8 of the species used by Luo or Kamba healers, the following plants—among many others—are missing in Kokwaro’s listing: - the single plant used by the Rwa healer whose pharmacopoeia was studied in depth by Harjula (1980); - the plant with trumpet-like flowers, Campuanulae sp., used by the Me’en as “snake medicine”; - the two plants used by the Suei hunter-gatherers living on the Mathew’s Range in west-central Kenya (Ichikawa 1987: 42, 44); - the two plant species used by herbalists as antidotes among the neighbouring pastoral Samburu (Fratkin 1996: 80).17 Likewise, one of the three plants used according to Getahun (1976) as antidotes in Ethiopia, more exactly the one used in the Kaffa highlands, does not appear in Kokwaro’s list: Cassia cf. floribunda car. The same can be said of Emilia coccinum of the Asteraceae family, which is used to cure snake bites in Central Africa (Eyong 2007: 126). But Ethiopia is not part of Eastern Africa proper and Central Africa is even more ecologically removed from Kenya, Tanzania, or Uganda. The intention here is not to pass judgement on Kokwaro’s research results. The fact is that East African healers used a wide spectrum of plants to treat cases of envenomation. Decades ago, Schnell (p. 95) reached a similar conclusion for Western Africa. To reinforce the general conclusion, one may point out that out of the 109 plants species used by DRC healers to treat or prevent snake bites (Chifundera 1987: 26-33), fewer than 11 are to be found in Kokwaro’s list while 11 others belong to a different subspecies of a species listed by Kokwaro for Eastern Africa. This can be set against the botanical knowledge of whole communities. The Suei hunter-gatherers for instance could identify close to 575 different plants, of which 231 were regarded as lcheni, “medicines” (Ichikawa, p. 10). The Suei were regionally reputed for their “rich knowledge of herbal medicines” (p. 9). Further north in Kenya, the Watta hunter-gatherers were likewise known by their neighbours, the Gabra pastoralists, “to be very learned in the use of plant medicines” (Stiles et al., p. 31). The Loikop (Samburu) pastoralists know some 120 species of trees and shrubs that are 17

However, Kokwaro’s list comprises a sub-species (B. grandicalyx) of the species Barleria different from that used by the Rwa healer. It also comprises a subspecies from the species Jasminum apparently different from that used by the Suei.

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“employed as purgatives, emetics, analgesics, poultices, and salves” (Fratkin, p. 67). Further afield, the likewise Maa-speaking Parakuyo pastoralists of north-eastern Tanzania could identify up to 289 different plant species (trees, bush, herbs), “most of which are used for some purpose” (Hurskainen 1994: 125). According to Okello et al. (2010), some 107 medicinal plant species belonging to 102 genera and 56 botanical families were attributed medicinal value by Sabaot herbalists on Mt Elgon in Kenya. Given this context of extensive botanical knowledge, it can only be expected that East African herbalists resort to a wide range of plants to cure snake bites as well as many other ailments The next chapter will also deal, among other things, with the plants used to treat envenomation in a given portion of Eastern Africa.

CHAPTER 4.13 SNAKE-CHARMERS AND SNAKE-DOCTORS IN CENTRAL AND WESTERN TANZANIA

A degree of familiarity with snakes has been a major theme in previous chapters focussing on various parts of Eastern Africa, notably chapters 4.3, 4.9, 4.10, and 4.12: rain-makers, respected ophidian totem animals, prophets, and sorcerers. The fifth and last portion of this publication (Volume Two) will provide further illustrations from southern Ethiopia. It is clear from the ethnographic record that snake manipulation was especially prominent in large parts of what is now central and western Tanzania. One can only be struck by the neat connection between curing snake bites and “snake-charming” in the specific part of Eastern Africa the present chapter will now be concerned with. That region included notably the Nyamwezi and Sukuma, two peoples whose “medical knowledge and magical practices (…) are acknowledged as the leading school in a considerable part of the [Tanganyika] territory” (Cory 1949: 13). To give an example, at least two leaders of the Iramba had been trained in “rain” and “protective” medicines by Nyamwezi experts (Kidamala et al. 1961: 68). The relationship between curing snake bites and snake-handling or snakecharming within these two communities has been well documented. The first to have highlighted the connection appears to be Spelling (1927: 62), a German who lived amidst the Nyamwezi between 1910 and 1920. Some men locally labelled wayeye are described by him as Schlangenzauberern, i.e. “snake-sorcerers” or “snake-magicians.” The wayeye made a strong impression on the people on account of their ability to handle snakes freely, including venomous ones—creatures no other Nyamwezi would touch. They staged frenetic drumming and dancing performances. Spelling also noted that they were not that many, that junior initiates were coached by senior wayeye, and that the latter were highly appreciated because of their ability to cure people bitten by snakes. Amulets reportedly protected them from envenomation.

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The second European to report about the Nyamwezi wayeye was Loveridge, a British scientist who studied the snakes of Eastern Africa from the late 1910s to the 1920s. In Tanganyika, the biologist came upon a few Nyamwezi “snake-catchers” known as wayeye, a designation referring to some local guild or association (Loveridge, p. 107, 117; 2-3). As commented by him (p. 3), “the fearless way in which they handled Egyptian and spitting cobras was not a little astonishing.” The third early witness was an American zoologist who took part in a SmithsonianChrysler expedition to collect animals, birds, and reptiles for the National Zoological Park in Washington. With a co-writer, Carnochan published two books, the first of which is entirely devoted to the Nyamwezi Snake Guild (Carnochan et al. 1935; 1937). He never used the term wayeye (or bayeye) but referred all the time to the Kaioka or Wakaioka, perhaps a more specific or internal designation for the “Snake People.” Just like Loveridge, he was very much impressed by how the Nyamwezi “SnakeMen” fearlessly handled deadly ophidians: Nyoka and Sefu [two members of the Kaioka] stuck their bare hands into that pile of crawling death, caught a reptile by the neck and yanked it out. I was, to say the least, startled. I have handled all kinds of snakes in all sorts of places, but I have never dared, nor met anyone who did dare, stick bare hands into boxes filled with dozens of poisonous reptiles. (Carnochan et al., 1935, p. 12-13)

Loveridge (p. 107) and Carnochan et al. (p. 17; 1937: 146) both noted that the Nyamwezi snake specialists always grabbed fleeing ophidians by the tail. In a note on the Sukuma “dance societies,” Hall (1936: 95-96) wrote a few lines about the Bagoyangi, a “drumming, miming and acrobatic” association also devoted to “general medical practice with special reference to the curing of snake bites.” The Bagoyangi were also experts at catching snakes and they publicly engaged in “playing with snakes” (p. 95). According to Hall, there existed a Bagoyangi “sect” known as Buyeye. Malcolm (1953: 41) briefly alluded to the Bagoyangi, saying that they knew “a great deal about snakes, their poisons, and the antidotes.” Cory authored a full article on the initiation process into the Buyeye guild of the Sukuma (1946) as well as a book on the wall-paintings made by its members in their initiation houses (1953).1 Carnochan and Cory were 1

Cory (1953: 13) states that the Buyeye society was known as Bugoyangi in southern Sukumaland. According to Malcolm (1953), the Bagoyangi were sometimes referred to as Badirilili.

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more than mere observers since they were both granted the unique privilege of being fully initiated, the first into the Nyamwezi Kaioka in the late 1920s, the second into the Buyeye “secret society” of Sukuma “snakecharmers” in the 1940s. The scope of the wayeye or Kaioka was not limited to the Nyamwezi and Sukuma communities. Van Thiel (1906: 58) mentioned the existence of bageye snake-doctors in areas to the west or north-west of Sukumaland. Schaegelen (p. 555), another Catholic missionary, heard a few things about the wayeye “snake-charmers” among the Gogo of central Tanzania. And according to Shorter (1972: 28), the Kimbu of south-western Tanzania used to have a “Snake Society” whose name was Uwuyeye. Schaegelen does not provide a hint as to why he saw the wayeye as “snake-charmers” instead of, for instance, “snake-catchers,” “snakehandlers,” or “snake-doctors.” His perception of the Gogo wayeye may have been similar to that of the Buyeye guild by Cory: “They use snakes in their dances as a very useful means of propaganda and keep snakes in their houses for this purpose” (1946: 175). Tanner (1959: 118; 1967: 33) also reports that the Sukuma bayeye, i.e. members of the Buyeye guild, kept a snake or a few snakes in their houses. Loveridge (p. 113) came upon “a weird old snake-charmer” in Mwanza District, which is part of Sukumaland: For a small consideration, he elected to become a camp follower and perform daily for the benefit of the natives as a preliminary to my offering rewards for snakes, lizards, etc., brought in. A few days later, when holding his daily display, tying the [68-inch] cobra [which he kept in a small bark basket] round his naked waist or wrapping it two or three times round his neck and flinging its head over his shoulder, so that it struck his back with a resounding whack, my curiosity was so piqued that I bought it from him and chloroformed it. The poison teeth and bag were intact! There was a little charcoal in its stomach similar to a handful which he kept at the bottom of its basket and which he said constituted its food.

Loveridge remarked that the idea of snakes feeding on charcoal was “nonsense.” But it is a fact that snake-handlers in other parts of Africa fed venomous snakes with plant substances that reportedly rendered them harmless (Forbes, p. 373; Schnell 1949: 91, 93, 98; 1958: 207 ff.; Villiers, p. 64). All the communities so far named are next to one another. Unyamwezi, i.e. Nyamweziland, is located to the north-west of the Gogo while Ukimbu

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extends to the south-west of Ugogo, the land of the Gogo. As for Sukumaland, it borders the southern shores of Lake Victoria immediately to the north of the closely related Nyamwezi. On account of their relatedness in terms of language, cultures, and political organisation, the Sukuma, Nyamwezi, Kimbu, and two other smaller groups—but not the Gogo—formed what Abrahams (1967) termed “Greater Unyamwezi.” ***** It is useful to know that among most of these communities, there used to be other “societies,” some more prominent and secret than others. One of the more important was the Porcupine Society, called Bununguli (Sukuma), Wanunguli (Nyamwezi), or Uwununguli (Kimbu). In Nyamweziland, hunting, killing, and in this case, cooking and eating porcupines were the exclusive privilege of the “Porcupine-Men” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 27), just like the “Snake-Men” of the Kaioka had “an absolute monopoly on the catching and killing of serpents” (p. 2). When “Porcupine-Men” or their young apprentices found a snake into a porcupine hole, they had to bring it out alive (p. 207). Of the other societies mentioned for the Sukuma by various sources, we have notably Mabasa (all parents of twins), Bufumu (worship of male ancestors), Bumanga (female association worshipping female ancestors), Buswezi (healing through spirit possession), Bagika and Bagalu (dance societies open to male and female youth), the so-called Bukonikoni (for “wizards”), and formerly Busenga or Bukango, guilds for female snakehandlers. The Nyamwezi had three guilds other than Kaioka and Wanunguli: Bogota or Bugota (female twins and their brothers, and other women, especially midwives),2 Kasanda (diviners’ guild),3 and the socalled Limsasi (black magic). According to Carnochan et al. (1935), the diviners as well as the rain-makers were more like senior orders of the Kaioka than self-standing guilds. The Nyamwezi Bogota echoed the Sukuma Mabasa inasmuch as the “mabasa people” were also called bugota in Sukumaland (Cory 1944: 40). 2

According to Lång et al. (1973: 227), the term bugota simply means “medicine” in Sukuma. Brandström (1990: 175-76) argues that bugota, i.e. bu-gota, is an “impersonal” and “magical” power within reach of human knowledge in the cultural setting of the Nyamwezi and Sukuma peoples. 3 The guild was named after the “sacred divining-rod,” kasanda, used by its members (Carnochan et al. 1935: 166).

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As with the Mabasa (p. 38-39), the Bogota guild was notably concerned with the birth of twins, wapasa, and of babies born feet first (Carnochan et al., p. 213). Membership of Bogota was restricted to women, except for the male counterparts of female twins.4 Leaving aside the possibly imaginary sorcerers’ guilds, many Sukuma or Nyamwezi men belonged to one society of their choosing and sometimes to more than one (Abrahams 1965: 171). No Nyamwezi, however, could belong to both the Snake and Porcupine guilds (Carnochan et al., p. 202). It was possibly the same with the Sukuma. There existed in Sukumaland a degree of commonality between the Buyeye and the Mabasa societies: their dances were similar and it was “customary for the bayeye [= wayeye] to beat the drum of the Mabasa” (Cory 1946: 161). At one stage in the initiation process, a wuyeye candidate consulted the omens; “such twins as occurred amongst his forebears” could then and there manifest their opposition to his admission into the Snake Society (Ibid., p. 174). It is significant that in the late nineteenth century, the ageing mutemi or leader of the Nyamwezi Kaioka guild selected and trained as the person to succeed him a young uterine nephew of his who had a twin sister (Carnochan 1937: 19, 32, 210-13).5 This would seem to imply a connection between “twinship” and “snakehood,” as underscored a few times in previous chapters. The “Snake-People” and “Porcupine-People” shared two important features. Although it was “only of secondary importance,” the latter knew how to treat snake bites (Cory 1946: 160). In fact, this knowledge had to do with the fact that the wanunguli firmly needed to protect themselves from snake bites inasmuch as while hunting porcupines armed with a short 4

The Nyamwezi designation for twins, wapasa, and the name given to the Sukuma guild, Mabasa, would seem to be cognate terms. Among both the Nyamwezi and Sukuma, the birth of twins implied a dangerous “excess of fertility” according to Brandström (p. 182): “In twin rituals, the women assume the superior and active role while the role of men becomes subordinate. The women are the officiants of the worship of twin-ancestors and the guardians of the ritual secrets” (Ibid.). Among the Rimi of north-central Tanzania, the birth of twins was liable to cause someone to be struck by lightning unless a sacrificial ceremony was held at once (Jellicoe 1978: 17). Inordinate fertility created a state of danger for a whole Rimi community. 5 Nyamwezi majomba, senior maternal uncles, played a key role in the marriage of their nieces and nephews (Carnochan et al. 1935: 63-64, 154, 163, 248).

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spear down into their burrows, they were very much liable to come upon deadly ophidians (Carnochan et al. 1935: 205).6 The second feature is interwoven with the first: “Like the Snake-Men, the Porcupines make medicine or lukago that is supposed to have strong supernatural powers” (p. 147). That medicine was precisely “designed to prevent injury from snakes or other animals which may be hiding in the porcupine’s hole” (p. 205).

Box 40 Pricking Snakes and Stinging Porcupines, Northern Tanzania Carnochan et al. (1935: 46) argue that the snake was “definitely known to represent the male” in Nyamwezi thought. This led the self-made ethnologist to suggest that the porcupine was “the female symbol.” However, it is clear from his account that the true female symbol was not the porcupine but the turtle. This was the animal emblematic of the Bogota female secret society and which represented, to use Carnochan’s own words, “the female organs of reproduction” (p. 212; Carnochan et al. 1937: 274).7 In other words, the shape of the turtle shell was seen as analogous to that of a pregnant womb. It is useful in order to grasp the symbolic status of the porcupine to bring into account the steps in the initiation process of “Snake-Men” leading to the “Ordeal of the Little Bed.” First, the young initiate had to spend almost one day and one night with “a six-inch thorn belt braided tightly around his waist” (1935: 111). At the end of the ordeal, his waist was covered with “countless punctures and rivulets of blood where the barbs had pressed through the skin” (Ibid.). Some time later, his back was bathed and coated with strong medicine after which he was ordered to lie on his back onto a layer of freshly cut and very hard thorns. His fears were soon dismissed when he realised with astonishment—so was the reaction of the crowd since this was a public event—that the thorny mattress did no harm to him (p. 122-23). Carnochan was told that once applied to the human skin, the medicine made it “as tough as the hide of a giraffe.” Indeed, the members of the Kaioka put it on their hands and arms when they went 6

Some Kikuyu would also go after porcupines in their holes: “sometimes poisonous snakes also inhabited the burrows, and occasionally a hunter never reappeared” (Leakey, p. 456). In West Africa, Bobo hunters would smoke porcupines out of their burrows (Cremer, p. 32-33, 69-70). 7 The leading members of that society were possibly the only persons permitted to kill—if not to eat—turtles as well as make medicines out of these reptiles.

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snake-hunting: “Not even the sharp teeth of the mamba can go through it” (p. 123).8 The members of the Nyamwezi Kaioka were reportedly protected by Lindimi, a “god of storm” who permitted them to catch whatever animals they needed and who was believed to be the source of all cures to snake bite (1937: 89, 91, 95).9 The python was his messenger (1935: 114). Interestingly, Lindimi was said to sleep “in a nest of snakes” (1937: 95). The imaginary nest was clearly reminiscent of the thorny “little bed” of the Kaioka and vice versa. And the initiate was somewhat identified with the god. The python was also “an important element” in the rituals of the “Porcupine-People” (1935: 202). As noted above, they coated their hands and arms with protective medicine when they hunted porcupines. If fangs driven into a hand, arm, or leg were phallic-like, the symbolic value of the sharp spines of the porcupine could only be similar. Such medicines as “Snake-Men” and “Porcupine-Men” used to harden their skin must have remained an unfathomable mystery, notably for women other than initiated mothers of twins. Membership in a given guild was known to all and some of the ritual performances of these associations were public events. All associations had their own stories, idioms, emblems, symbols, rites, songs, and dances.10 It is because of the secret character of their “knowledge” and of 8

In Sukumaland, parents of twins were also submitted to the “Ordeal of the Little Bed.” A thorn-bed was made with the branches of two trees known as vambangoma (a type of acacia) and mgunga (a type of Balanites): “They rub the backs of the parents with the leaves of mtundulu and one after the other of them is made to lie upon the thorns” (Cory 1944: 36). We will hear again of the mtundulu plant below. The initiation process of Porcupine Men probably involved a similar ordeal. 9 Ndimi was the name of a traditional god of the Sukuma people. He did play a part in the initiation process of the Sukuma bayeye. It was held that Sukuma children were sometimes abducted by a whirlwind and later returned to earth by Ndimi only to become great practitioners of magic or divination (Cory 1953: 20). As commented by a Nyamwezi “Snake-Man,” “When you see a dust-spout, that is the Lindimi and it is a good omen if it touches you” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 114). 10 The Nyamwezi Kaioka also spoke a modified form of their kinyamwezi language, that only its members could understand (Carnochan et al. 1935: 256; 1937: 34). The Sukuma Buswezi guild also had a “secret language” of its own (Cory 1955: 947).

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many of their rituals that most of these congregations have been labelled “secret societies.” Their secrets could not be disclosed on pain of severe magical punishment, such as insanity. Some of their secrets had to do with the preparation of “medicines” that were advantageous to their members and which could in some cases be used, subject to payment, for the benefit or welfare of third parties. Many of the mysteries of a “secret society” were experienced or learnt at initiation when a youth was admitted into a given association. One of the secrets of the local snake societies may have been that serpents are mortal creatures just like any other animal.11 Another secret must have been that most ophidian species are totally harmless. The more esoteric notions were learnt in the course of a more or less expensive and demanding period of training, lasting from four to seven years in the case of the Kaioka (Carnochan et al. 1935: 40). Not only did the initiates have to pay a fee to be initiated, they would also have to prove worthy of the secrets of a given guild by overcoming painful ordeals (Carnochan et al. 1935: 111 and 1937: 96; Cory 1946: 168). That must have also been the case with the Gogo wayeye initiates who were reportedly submitted to “torture” (Schaegelen, p. 555), like their Nyamwezi and Sukuma counterparts. All these guilds had a hierarchy of members, the younger ones not always being fully initiated because they could not afford the full cost while their easily recognisable leading officials knew most of the secrets of their guild, especially the more esoteric and potent ones. These leaders were highly respected by the less senior and the junior members of their guild as well as being influential in their community. The supreme leader of the Kaioka reportedly used to act as an adviser to Nyamwezi chiefs or kings in the late nineteenth century (Carnochan et al. 1937: 33). Early in the following century, his successor claimed to have been instrumental in preventing the Nyamwezi from joining the revolt against German colonial rule (p. 251-52).12 Abrahams (1967: 64), however, has reservations about the centralized character of the Nyamwezi Snake Society. In his opinion, all Nyamwezi and Sukuma secret guilds consisted of self-regulated local lodges. *****

11

This is a piece of knowledge shared by the members of some of the snake guilds of West Africa (Schnell 1949: 97). 12 The Nyamwezi Bogota and Bununguli societies were also headed by a supreme leader, according to Carnochan et al. (1935: 201, 212).

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In the course of their initiation in Sukumaland, the would-be members of the Buyeye were referred to as nhoboko—a term denoting the “very poisonous black mamba” (Cory 1953: 96)—while the master of ceremonies was likened to an indeterminate type of snake, shana (Cory 1946: 176). The long black and red figure painted on one of the walls of the initiation hut represented the cobra, swila; it stood for the Kaioka (Carnochan et al. 1935: 114). Upon meeting the leader of his guild, a Kaioka initiate would prostrate before him and be told: Ondoka swila! – “Arise, Cobra!” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 119, 130, 260; 1937: 90).13 At one stage in his initiation process, a young man chose for himself a “snake-name” (Cory 1946: 169; Carnochan et al. 1935: 120-21; 1937: 92, 276-77). This is the name through which he would thereafter be known by his Snake Society fellows and more widely. As commented by Carnochan et al. (1935: 79), “In this country you insult a person if you call him a snake, but among the Wanyamwezi, where the snakes hold an honoured religious position, it is a name of honor.” The young Kulwa, who was to become the ultimate great leader of the Kaioka, selected as his snake-name ya Lakolola, “(Snake) of the lakolola kind,” an undetermined species. Carnochan was given the name Ndilema, meaning “The Young Python,” by the master of the Kaioka.14 One young Nyamwezi wuyeye “snakecatcher” met by Loveridge was named Gurukesi. In ordinary Nyamwezi parlance, the term ngurukesi designates a type of parasitic tree but in the secret idiom of the Kaioka it meant “snake” or, more specifically, a type of boomslang (Carnochan et al. 1937: 34, 277).15 Carnochan did come upon a “Snake-Man” nicknamed Ngurukesi (1935: 99). The companion of the Nyamwezi youth met by Loveridge named himself Kifinda. This term designated within both the Kaioka and Buyeye a “master of ceremonies” in the initiation process. One of the young “Snake-Men” with whom Carnochan often interacted was named Kifinda. In all likelihood, it was a standard snake-name. Another more or less common snake-name was Nyoka (Carnochan et al. 1935: 12, 260), a term very similar to the 13

The Nyamwezi term koboko also referred to the mamba while swila denoted the spitting cobra (Carnochan et al. 1937: 277). In the terminology of the Sukuma Buyeye guild, swira was the black spitting cobra (Cory 1946: 166). In various Bantu languages of Eastern Africa, the consonants l and r are not differentiated. 14 Cory does not disclose the snake-name he received at his initiation into the Buyeye. 15 In the special idiom of the Kaioka, the “red boomslang” was known as yamolinga (Carnochan et al. 1935: 138) whereas the term yangalukui referred to all types of the highly poisonous boomslang (Carnochan et al. 1937: 279).

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standard Nyamwezi word for “snake,” nzoka.16 Nyoka seemed to echo the Nyamwezi name for the whole guild: Kaioka. In some Bantu languages, the prefix ka- is a diminutive. Kanyoka would mean “Little Snake.” Kayoka was possibly a shortened rendering of Kanyoka. ***** Cory states that over and above “snake-charming,” the Buyeye society was “concerned with the treatment of snake bite” and that “all knowledge concerning snakes and the treatment of snake bites [was] acquired in the course of the few years” following initiation (1946: 160, 176). He mentions that “ikingo, knowledge,” was one of the “main features” of Buyeye (p. 167), but discloses little about both the Buyeye knowledge of ophidians and the methods it recommended for treating snake bites other than that its members resorted to an esoteric “collection of plants” for that purpose (p. 175). Cory’s vision of the Buyeye may have been somewhat narrow or else the scope of Buyeye workings may have been severely reduced after decades of colonisation and Christianisation. Sukuma initiates were told that they would “receive knowledge of many medicines” (p. 168), which appears to corroborate the statement that the Bugoyangi and Buyeye were involved in “general medical practice,” and not only in the curing of snake bites (Hall, p. 95). A song learnt by the Buyeye initiates implied that they would have to combat “wizards” (Cory, p. 168). At one point in their initiation, they were warned never to use any of the Buyeye medicines “for evil purpose” (Ibid.).17 The Sukuma believed that the sorcerer as a general category of people was the “prime instigator of accidents and the cause of death” (Tanner 1956: 439) or the principal agent in the disruption of an ordered and harmonious social life (Brandström, p. 178).18

16

Nyoka was the standard designation for snakes in some other Bantu languages of Tanzania (Loveridge, p. 113; Van Pelt, p. 146) as well as in more distant Bantu languages such as Lingala (Moen, p. 24). Before it became DRC’s lingua franca, Lingala was mostly spoken in the north-central areas of the country. 17 Some Buyeye traditions recalled that there had been unfortunate exceptions in the legendary past (Cory 1953: 74, 92). 18 Tanner (1958: 225) additionally emphasises the Sukuma belief that “misfortune in all its forms is the result of sin which turns back on its perpetrators and spreads through his family.”

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The first step of the Sukuma initiation process was a private affair known as igonzi, a term referring to the coiled posture of ophidians.19 Incisions were made on the skin round the initiate’s belly and a medicine called lukago, consisting of the powdered roots of some trees and magical ingredients, was rubbed into each of the cuts (Cory, p. 162-63). The whole operation was meant to “protect the initiate against evil influences” (p. 163). It is said that the scars of initiation were “the distinguishing mark of the Buyeye” (Ibid.).20 Knowing that the wayeye were involved to some extent in combatting “wizardry,” the igonzi ritual must have been designed to shield the Buyeye initiates notably from witchcraft, black magic, and sorcery. In fact, at the initiation of a person into the Buswezi guild, lukago medicine was used to curb “the influence of hostile spirits and forces” (Cory 1955: 928). Another authority on the Sukuma people assumes that lukago medicine shields one from sorcery (Tanner 1967: 52). That lukago protected from a variety of threats is made clear by the ultimate incisions received by Carnochan under the guidance of the paramount leader of the Kaioka: As he filled in each series of cuts with lukago, the Old One recited the protection for each part of the body. The theory was that no evil spirit or poison or disease could pass one of these marks. If it entered at the fingertip it would be barred by the marks on the hand. If it entered from the ground, it would be blocked out by the marks on my feet, and so on. (Carnochan et al., 1935, p. 278)

The lukago medicine was said to be “black” in colour among both the Sukuma (Cory 1946: 169) and Nyamwezi (Carnochan et al. 1935: 96; 1937: 97, 211). It was in all likelihood the ultimate protection against urogi, “the black medicine that curses and kills” (1937: 30). It was in any case more powerful than ordinary ufumu, “the medicine that cures” (1935: 23), which was administered by medicine men to people suffering from an array of ailments. That the Sukuma bayeye were not only “snakecharmers” and snake bite curers is further implied in the following information. One of the figures the wayeye likened themselves to was Sana, the personification of dawn. He or she was “supposed to have great medical knowledge and to be able to cure any disease” (Cory 1953: 48). In 19

In the vocabulary of the Nyamwezi Kaioka, the term gonzi referred to a specific type of snake (Carnochan et al. 1937: 276). 20 Many Sukuma guilds had their peculiar type of bodily scarification (Hall 1936). All members of the Nyamwezi tribal community used to show “a line of minute scars down the forehead to the tip of the nose” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 11).

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the initiation hut, this divine figure was depicted “holding a medicine bag in one hand” and “a magic wand in the other” (Ibid.). As for the Nyamwezi “Snake-Men,” they had “built up an extensive pharmacopoeia” that put to good use “a truly bewildering variety of herbs, roots, dried flowers, barks and leaves” which were turned into “hundreds of prescriptions” for “the cure of ordinary ailments,” such prescriptions being often “highly” or even “amazingly” effective (Carnochan et al. 1935: 49, 199; 1937: 32), as Carnochan was able to personally experience. That the Sukuma wayeye were also herbalists is evidenced by the fact that the initiation of a new member required the use of eighteen different plants (Cory 1946), if not more, one of those being the emblem of the Buyeye society: a type of euphorbia called ndulansongo (p. 163).21 The considerable knowledge about medicinal plants accumulated by the senior members of the Kaioka was obviously one of the reasons why Carnochan commonly referred to the members of the Kaioka as “medicine men” rather than, say, “snake-charmers.” In addition to plants, animal substances were used as ingredients in the preparation of medicines by both the bayeye “snake charmers” and the wakaioka medicine men. As noted by Cory (1946: 175), “the bayeye kill snakes if they need them as ingredients for medicine.” We know that the Nyamwezi “Snake-Men” had a monopoly on catching and killing serpents. It is probably because they needed snake parts to make some of their medicines that the bayeye volunteered to kill snakes that ventured in people’s houses (Ibid.). Cory also reports that the crocodile—which the Sukuma bayeye viewed as “the ancestor of all snakes” and as “the great mother of the snake-charmers” (Ibid.; also 1953: 20)—was “not their taboo” (p. 175), the implication being that such reptiles were sometimes killed by them for the same purpose. But few additional indications are provided. Questions such as “What snakes or crocodiles parts were used in the making of medicines?” or “What types of medicine required snake or crocodile parts as ingredients?” remain unanswered. This ethnographic gap is filled to some extent by Carnochan. Although the crocodile was a “sacred beast” for “ordinary natives” (Carnochan et al. 1937: 62), the Nyamwezi medicine men did kill crocodiles—“one of the most important things in the Kaioka” (p. 92)—to make medicine. Their gall and anal glands were among the chief ingredients for the making of an 21

The Buyeye was not the only Sukuma secret society to have a tree as its emblem.

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ordeal poison (Carnochan et al. 1935: 185; 1937: 64). The leopard was also highly valued as a source of ingredients for the making of some medicines (1937: 24). So were lions, whose fat was a component of powerful drug pastes (p. 211). Of course, the members of the Kaioka also killed serpents (p. 103) and they were given dead snakes—such as venomous mambas—recently killed by their fellow tribesmen (p. 18). Indeed, heads of spitting cobras were “big medicine” in Unyamwezi and “a fine medium for trading” between medicine men (p. 146).22 A senior Nyamwezi “Snake-Man” disclosed a method used to kill snakes: pipetobacco residue was smeared on a few bits of wood which were then inserted in a snake-hole so that the nose of the ophidian occupant came into contact with them when crawling out (Spelling, p. 62). Apparently, the man would come by later to collect a dead snake.23 More actively, perhaps, than their contemporary Sukuma counterparts, the medicine men of the Kaioka were involved in fighting and overcoming witchcraft. In the words of one of them, it was their duty to wage “war” upon sorcerers (Carnochan et al. 1935: 23). One of the medicines used to that effect was a fearsome poison which those suspected of sorcery would be forced to swallow in public; only the non-guilty would live through such an ordeal (Carnochan et al. 1937: 61, 66-67). This must have been the type of activity Spelling (Ibid.) had in mind when depicting the wayeye as Schlangenbeschwören (i.e. “snake-conjurers”) in addition to Schlangenzauberern, “snake-magicians.” ***** The Kaioka guild had an “inoculation” ritual similar to that of the Sukuma Buyeye, which involved the making of several incisions on the skin: between the eyes, along the eyebrows, behind the ears, on the sides of the neck, under the shoulder blades, etc., as well as the rubbing of the equally 22 Snake parts were used by traditional healers from Cameroon to cure victims of envenomation in the initial decades of the twentieth century: incisions were made at the site of the bite and these were filled with a powder prepared from dried parts of various venomous snakes (Garnier et al., p. 164). A Catholic missionary witnessed the speedy recovery of a woman thus treated; she was losing blood from her mouth and nose when she came to the healer (Ibid.). 23 As mentioned earlier in the present chapter, the Gogo would serve an infusion of tobacco juice to victims of snake-bite. The treatment may have been administered by the local bayeye. The widespread use of tobacco provides a good illustration of knowledge sharing among the bayeye throughout their regional distribution.

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named lukago medicine into the cuts (Carnochan et al. 1935: 95-98; 1937: 210-12). As with the Buyeye, the “inoculation” ritual was part of the initiation process. Carnochan et al. (1935: 97-98; 1937: 279-81) enquired about the many components of the lukago medicine used in the Kaioka “inoculation” ritual: the calcined roots of a number of plants; the heads and tails of several venomous snakes, notably mamba, cobra, boomslang, puff adder, etc.; parts of various birds: bateleur eagle, vulture, a night bird such as an owl; parts of hyena, wild dog, leopard, lion, and chimpanzee; as well as human body parts such as an aborted human foetus.24 Indications about the specific role of each type of ingredients were given. Concerning the snake parts, These, on the principle that like cures like, are used to protect against snake bites. The actual effect is that a natural immunity is built up, because by this method small doses of venom are placed under the skin. As this type of inoculation has to be done every few weeks the first year and after that once a year, the final immunity that is built up is very high. (Carnochan et al., 1937, p. 280)

The array of ingredients that went into the making of lukago suggests that the immunity putatively conferred by that medicine was by no means restricted to snake poison. The top officials of the Kaioka benefited from an ultimate inoculation ritual meant to protect them even more fully against all evils. The theory that the “Snake-Men” of central and western Tanzania were immune to snake bites has been reported notably by Spelling (above) for the Nyamwezi and by Schaegelen (p. 555) for the Gogo. As the latter observed, “Once certified, [they] can be bitten by the most venomous snakes,” commenting that this immunity was the probable outcome of “the antidotes which [they] must have absorbed during [their] initiation,” and adding that they would always have with them a little bag filled with antidotes. An elderly Nyamwezi expert at “snake-catching” named 24 Carnochan was aware of the make-up of the medicine and hesitated to have it injected into his own blood system. However, he was assured that lukago never harmed anyone and was given the opportunity to witness a young candidate go through the experience without any obvious damage, except for a very severe nightly headache. Carnochan was inoculated with the sacred lukago medicine on two later occasions. His own experience matched that of the young initiate (Carnochan et al. 1935: 103-104, 280).

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Macharia and known as Bwana Nyoka, “Mister Snake,” by the people of Morogoro—some distance west of Dar es Salam—was brought to Loveridge (p. 113-14) who depicted that man as “one of the most picturesque natives” he ever came upon in Eastern Africa. The people of the area knew that Macharia had been hired to collect snakes by a German colonialist who had lived in Morogoro some years back. On asking why one of Macharia’s forefingers was missing, Loveridge was told that the German man had insisted on cutting off the finger upon learning that his employee had just been struck by a puff adder. The German fellow would not listen to Macharia, who attempted to explain that he would be all right: He claimed that he allowed the young of poisonous species to bite him from time to time and he also scarified his limbs and trunk and rubbed in the broth resulting from a decoction of roots which he boiled. (Loveridge, p. 116)

Macharia treated with scars and medicinal plants a young native assistant of the snake-interested biologist so that ophidians would not harm him. From the day he witnessed a Snake-Man being bitten by one of Eastern Africa’s most deadly serpents while on a snake-catching excursion, Carnochan never doubted that the Nyamwezi wakaioka did not fear the bite of any venomous ophidian: Nyoka bent down, caught the mamba by the neck and pulled its teeth out of his leg. Then he looked at me and my expression of horror must have amused him, for he broke into a loud and hearty laugh. (...) Nothing more was said about the incident, but I watched Nyoka closely. He walked a little stiffly and his leg was slightly swollen, but otherwise he seemed fit as usual. When we got into the camp, I looked at the two dark spots where the snake had found its mark. There was no inflammation. (Carnochan et al., 1935, p. 21-22)

A newly inoculated Nyamwezi “Snake-Youth” was given the opportunity to demonstrate his “faith” in the medicine of the Kaioka on being “compelled to capture a poisonous snake with his bare hands” (p. 96). Carnochan himself took part in this final moment of his initiation process, but as a spectator rather than an actor. He was awarded the privilege of being initiated as if he were a chief so that a proxy was found to do the job. A cobra was located nearby in the bush and while the members of the local Kaioka lodge made a circle around the scene, the young candidate who had volunteered to stand for him successfully caught the six-foot ophidian by the neck and dropped it in a bag (p. 129). Years before,

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Loveridge (p. 117) had been told of the challenge faced by a young Nyamwezi “snake-catcher”: After a pupil of the Wayeye has gone through the preliminary exercises, he is taken out into the bush by the old snake doctors to locate a mamba, which, when found, he is told to catch; should he show fear, the snake doctors beat him with sticks until his fear of them is greater than that of the snake. Generally he gets bitten and is dreadfully ill but recovers after treatment.

Carnochan was told that when a candidate was bitten, no treatment was given to him. Had he not been recently inoculated? The local theory was that an initiate would only die if the ancestral spirits of the tribe refused to activate the power of the lukago medicine (p. 124). That was reportedly a rare occurrence. No animal part appears in the list of ingredients used in the preparation of the lukago medicine for the Sukuma igonzi “inoculation” ritual which was, as reported earlier, the first step in the Buyeye initiation process. This would seem to imply that young bayeye initiates were later offered the possibility of being administered a more powerful protective “inoculation” ritual, one that notably conferred immunity to snake venom.

Box 41 Snake-Taming in Eastern Kenya and Central Ethiopia As an institutionalised social practice, snake-taming was mostly prominent in regions corresponding to present-day central and western Tanzania on the one hand and southern Ethiopia on the other hand, as Part V (Volume Two) will demonstrate. There were many more or less isolated occurrences of snake-handling in traditional Eastern Africa. The author has been able to locate two somewhat outstanding instances, one from the Kamba of eastern Kenya (Lindboom, p. 303-306; Hobley 1910: 93-94) and one from the Gurage of central Ethiopia (Azaïs et al., p. 188-90). Some Kamba medicine men were called “snake-tamers” by Lindbloom “inasmuch as they capture and work with snakes.” Reportedly “immune from snake poisoning,” these men used to cure snake bites and were able to confer immunity against snakes to other persons.25 Kimia, the most famous of the local snake-tamers, had died before Lindbloom came among 25

Most ophidian species were believed to be venomous by the Kamba people.

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the Kamba in 1910.26 Kimia had kept many snakes in calabashes in his hut. He sometimes released them, called them to him by whistling, took them with his hands and let them coil round his body, and even put their heads into his mouth. The source of his immunity was a secret powder he periodically swallowed and which was prepared from a poisonous treeʊother than that used to make poison for arrowsʊ, the fat of some animal, and snake parts. A Kamba snake doctor could transfer his immunity to someone else: “On the body of the person who wants to receive his binza [?] (‘power’), he makes small incisions here and there, even on the tip of the tongue, and into these incisions he rubs [the] powder.” The power is thought to be “concentrated in the blood and saliva” so much so that a new snake-tamer could kill a reptile simply by spitting on it. The snake-doctors treated snake bites as follows: “Besides carefully sucking the poison out, they use as medicine their own blood and saliva, which is of course considered to contain poison. It is done by cutting themselves on the wrist and letting the person who has been bitten suck up the oozing drops of blood”; they then “rub their saliva on the bitten place and finally spit in the mouth of the patient, who has to swallow the saliva.” Once treated, not only does the patient recover but he or she can without danger catch a snake. But “real power over reptiles is not acquired before one has eaten some of the powder or been smeared with it.” Hobley’s description agrees with that of Lindbloom A medicine man is immediately called in, or failing that, a person who has obtained from a medicine man the power to cure snake bite. His power is said to be obtained thus: the medicine man makes a slight cut in the tip of the man's tongue, and then rubs into the cut certain medicines, and after that if the person thus inoculated spits on a snake the reptile will go into convulsions, writhe about and bite itself to death. And if a medicine man or a person so inoculated spits on a person bitten by a snake the patient recovers forthwith. If a person bitten by a snake cannot quickly obtain the services of one of these useful people he sends a runner post-haste to a professor in the art and the doctor cuts himself slightly till blood flows, and

26

Kimia had learnt the art among the Giriama, who are among the eastern neighbours of the Kamba. The Giriama have long interrelated with the Swahili communities of coastal eastern Kenya. Whether or not indigenous snake-charmers existed among the coastal Swahili, the author cannot say.

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Chapter 4.13 the messenger brings back a little blood, and rubs it on the snake bite, and the patient is said to invariably recover.27

Thanks to Azaïs et al. (p. 188-90), institutionalised snake-handling has been reported in central Ethiopia among the Gurage people. Their tribal zone lies immediately to the south of Addis Ababa. The Gurage have long been under the influence of Christianity and Islam (Shack 1966: 172 ff.). However, “traces of paganism,” notably “sorcery,” subsisted among them. A guild of sorcerers called Moet was headed by a “king” whose behaviour was subjected to a host of prohibitions. As detailed by Azaïs et al., its members were professional snake-handlers: “Their influence is significant throughout Gurageland, but especially in the western district of Chaha.28 They do everything possible to strike the imagination of the people: tricks, strange garments, unfamiliar utterances. They make money through staging public snake-handling sessions. For instance a member of the Moet guild secretly places a snake on a path. A colleague of his takes it and yells to attract people. He lets the snake wind around his arm and swears that it will not leave him until the ‘king’ orders it to let go of his arm. He then goes from house to house with the snake during three days. The people give him something to prevent being harassed by serpents. When night comes, the sorcerer dumps the snake in a pot only to put it back around his arm the next morning. On the third day a ceremony takes place in which the ‘king’ of the Moet orders the snake to loosen its grip, which it does immediately to the great astonishment of the crowd. The Moet sorcerer 27

For a more detailed account, see Hobley (1922: 198-203). One Kamba snakedoctor accompanied the author of that publication in a journey: “His general procedure was to lie down and put his arm into the recesses of a white ant nest which is a very favourite shelter for snakes during the heat of the day; he would feel about and sometimes extract a snake. The idea of feeling about in a dark hole in a district where cobras, puff adders, and other poisonous snakes are common, made one shudder. But nothing untoward happened” (Ibid.). 28 The sacred grove of Wak, the traditional male sky god of the Gurage, was located in that part of Gurageland (Shack, p. 181-82). Their highest religious officer was the priest of Boza, the thunder god. Even if he had converted to Islam, he reportedly maintained his religious supremacy by challenging all other Gurage leaders to drink “a poisonous potion containing ‘snakes’” (p. 192). All of them eluded the ordeal: “He drank the potion and survived, which signified that he still had command of the supernatural powers of Boza” (Ibid.). The Gurage Thunder god clearly had connections with poisonous snakes. That was by no means the only case of snakes being associated with thunder. Their lesser female deity Damwamwit was herself “imagined to be accompanied by a leopard and a serpent” (Bustorf 2007: 549).

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privately splits his earnings with the ‘king.’ He ceases to talk in public for one or two years. The people believe that his muteness is caused by the curse of the snake.” It is not clear whether or not the Gurage snakehandlers cured snake bites and to what extent they built up immunity through self-inoculation. ***** As noted above, the Sukuma bayeye cured snake bites using plant medicines: at the conclusion of their initiation process, the “novices” were led to “a place where the kifinda [initiation officer] and his assistants have made a collection of all the plants used for treating snake-bite. These are named and their use explained” (Cory 1946: 175). Whether Cory witnessed this part of the initiation process or not, the details about these plants are not given. Carnochan witnessed a Nyamwezi boy bitten by a cobra swallowing a “small quantity of coarse, reddish-brown powder” mixed with water handed to him by a local snake-doctor (Carnochan et al. 1935: 57). The powder was called mkalia (p. 75). Its composition was not probed into. However, he did send a sample of mkalia to a laboratory in the US. It was found to be “a highly active heart stimulant” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 75). The gap has been filled in a small part by Loveridge (p. 3) and Schaegelen (p. 559) for the Nyamwezi and Gogo snake-doctors respectively. In Unyamwezi, eleven plants were reportedly used in the treatment of a bite by a puff adder.29 Only the vernacular names of the plants used were recorded: ilandoyakini, kacooni, mgwegwe, mkuni, munumbulu, mtalali, mkola, musunga, kalilalela, musenga, and mufuwati, as collected by Loveridge from a junior snake-doctor. The leaves were first “chewed up in the mouth” and then dried. When a patient was brought to the medicine man, the mixture was “moistened and a few grains applied to the site of the bite, and a quantity about the size of an ordinary marble is mixed with water and drunk. (…) The object of taking it orally is to make the patient spue up the venom! Only one dose is taken.” When the mixture applied to the bite does not remain in place, this is because it fails to absorb the poison. The healer tries some other mixture.

29

The Nyamwezi designation for the puff adder is or was moma (Loveridge, p. 3). That appears to be a standard Swahili designation (Chifundera 1990: 157).

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The combination of so many plants to cure one snake bite seems to be outstanding and therefore doubtful. Indeed, Gogo healers used some fifteen different local plants in all to treat the bites of venomous ophidians. Once again, only the vernacular names of the plants used in Ugogo were given, all those plants being trees or bush. Eleven were administered to persons afflicted by various snakes: mwerowere (a1), kandagizi (a2), budika (a3), mutute (a4), minyankali (a5), mvugala (a6), mweza (a7), mutulu (a8), mtula (a9), mpanda (a10), and mtuto (a11). And four were used on patients suffering from the bite of a specific ophidian species: igombwe (a12), lunkwakwa (a13), tundulu (a14), and mtumba (a15); the first two: a12 and a13 in the case of the bite of snakes called nzoka ya ngwagu and kaora, respectively30; the last two: a14 and a15 in the case of a nyamiru and of a spitting snake.31 All the medicines were prepared and administered in the same way, except for a15: some roots were unearthed, cut, dried, and burnt to ashes; the ashes were mixed with sheep fat; some of the medicine was applied to the wound and some was swallowed by the patient (Schaegelen, p. 559).32 The Gogo and Nyamwezi listings of medicinal plants do not overlap. The author has no clues regarding the individual plant names recorded by Loveridge. However, three of the trees or bushes used by Gogo healers are more or less identifiable. One is the plant species numbered a3: budika. It appears to correspond with the nbudika tree used by the Sukuma bayeye during the igonzi “inoculation” ritual. This plant is identified by Cory (1946: 163) as Schrebera koiloneurea. This is an outdated botanical designation. Cory (p. 165) tells us that the Sukuma name for that tree has to do with the fact that its twigs are “easily broken.” The second identifiable plant is the one numbered a13 above: tundulu. It must be the same as the ntundulu tree, which is identified by Cory (p. 171) as 30 Kaora was said to be the most dangerous serpent of all those to be found in the land of the Gogo. In terms of dangerousness, moma, i.e. the puff-adder, was second to kaora (Schaegelen, p. 522). 31 According to Schaegelen (Ibid.), nyamiru referred to a spitting snake. The “spitting snake” whose bite was cured using the root of the mtumba may have been a different type of cobra or a boomslang. It was noted above that the founder of a major Rimi sub-clan was known as Nyamwiru (i.e. nya-mwiru), “the mother of the cobra” or “the mother of the black one.” The Rimi are among the not-so-distant neighbours of the Gogo, both groups speaking Bantu dialects. 32 Powdered lukago medicine was sometimes mixed with sheep fat and applied to initiatory incisions by the Sukuma bayeye (Cory 1946: 172). More powerful lukago was apparently mixed with lion fat (Carnochan et al. 1937: 211).

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Dichrostachys glomerata. Its pounded leaves were well-known among the Sukuma for their analgesic qualities (p. 172).33 This species of Fabaceae is also reckoned in the West for its analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. The third identifiable plant is the one numbered a7: mweza. The Gogo designation would seem to echo the Nyamwezi term mwezia, which denotes a type of fig tree yielding a milky sap and held to be “sacred” by the local people. Kulwa, the future head of the Kaioka, “firmly believed that the mwezia was a king among trees, for he had often seen it grow from the top of another tree, sending its roots down into the ground—then the other tree died, leaving the mwezia standing alone and strong” (Carnochan et al. 1937: 34). The compound of the Kaioka high priest had been built in the vicinity of a huge mwezia tree (Carnochan et al. 1935: 148).34 ***** With a view to making a preliminary assessment of the origins of the snake societies of western and central Tanzania, the historical indications available will now be reviewed. These snake guilds will also be situated within their regional context. As far as the author is aware of, the origins of the uwuyeye complex of the Gogo is not an issue that has been scrutinised. However, the Kimbu held that as with their Porcupine Society, their Uwuyeye Snake guild was an “import” from their northern neighbours, the Nyamwezi: “Their songs and ritual formulae are in the Nyamwezi language” (Shorter 1972: 28). Paradoxically, Carnochan heard in Unyamwezi that “the Wanunguri lodges [those of the Porcupine guild] were introduced from the Wakimbu” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 202). Roberts (1968: 130) also tells us that the Nyamwezi bayeye snake experts came “from the south.” Likewise, both Hall (p. 94) and Cory (1946: 160-61) were told that the Sukuma 33 See again footnote 8 of the present chapter. The Nyamwezi used the leaves of the botanically unidentified yaradumio tree for the same pain-killing purpose (Carnochan et al. 1935: 139; 1937: 96). 34 The mwezia parasitic fig may have been the plant emblem of the Kaioka inasmuch as the likewise whitish-sap-yielding ndulansongo euphorbia was that of the Buyeye. Alternatively, the mweza plant used by Gogo snake-doctors may be the mwesa plant, an Euphorbiceae of the species Bridelia micrantha (Hochst.) Baill., known to the Hehe group, immediately to the south of the Gogo. See “Hehe botanical dictionary.” Accessed November 10, 2013. http://fr.scribd.com/doc/14759571/Hehe-Botanical-Dictionary-draft.

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Bugoyangi and Buyeye “snake societies” hailed from Ufipa, a tribal area just west of Ukimbu. However, some Sukuma informants maintained that the medical knowledge of the local “Snake People” originated from the Tabora area (Cory, ibid.), which lies in Unyamwezi. The Nyamwezi origin of the Tanzanian snake societies would be also upheld by the two following elements. The Sukuma people, or some of them, are reported to be an offshoot of the Nyamwezi; and the level of internal organization and influence reached by the Kaioka as described by Carnochan et al. may have been unparalleled. According however to Spelling (p. 62), the wayeye were more strongly represented in northern than in southern Unyamwezi, the former being located next to Sukumaland. On the whole, the indications are confusing. It has been recorded that not far to the north of Ugogo, the land of the Gogo people, there used to be “a few Sandawi [Sandawe] with an uncanny knowledge of snakes and of antidotes against their poisons” (Bagshawe 1925: 329). Bagshawe added that, “apparently,” a Sandawe snake-handler was “not necessarily a wizard,” that is, a sorcerer. The local designation for Sandawe snake-experts has not been recorded. It may have been wholly different from the root -yeye inasmuch as the Sandawe are not Bantu-speakers, unlike the Gogo and their Kimbu, Nyamwezi, and Sukuma neighbours. Being among the few remnants of the peoples who occupied the dry savannahs of central Tanzania long before the arrival of the Bantu and others, the Sandawe speak a Khoisan language with click consonants. The idea that the Khoisan speakers of ancient Tanganyika were at the root of the snake guilds of central and western Tanzania may sound arbitrary but it is substantiated by the following facts. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, early Dutch settlers in South Africa came upon a few Khoisan-speaking Hottentot “experts in poisons” and snake bite curers whom they called slang meesters—i.e. “snakemasters”—“because of their undoubted ability to immunize themselves against the effects of snake bite” (Snook, p. 102). One of those medicine men attached himself to a Dutch family as a herd boy. It was said of him that “from time to time he amazed everyone by rubbing into incisions which he made on his arms and legs the venom of Cape cobras and puff adders. The [settlers] believed that it made him sleepy and slow moving but never doubted his immunity from snake poison” (Ibid.). It would seem that the likewise Khoisan-speaking Sandawe snake-handlers have long been familiar with such methods of immunisation. It may very well be that the Khoisan-speakers were the original proponents of immunisation practices.

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Such practices have been met in other parts of Eastern Africa. Among for instance the Acholi of north-central Uganda, “Vaccination is practised, the actual pus of a patient being rubbed into a cut on the forehead of the man who is being vaccinated” (Grove, p. 163). An Italian Catholic missionary tried to interview a few men from the Karimojong of eastern Uganda who could manipulate venomous serpents “with minimal damage” to themselves (Farina, p. 256-59). The snake-handlers refused to answer many of the questions of the clergyman. However, he did learn from them that they killed venomous serpents, extracted some of their venom, and rubbed minute doses of their poisons into incisions made on their skin. It was believed that venomous snakes would not attempt to bite a man immunised in such a way. The deadly reptiles would instead pay him visits in his house or bed. It is not certain, but likely, that the Karimojong snakehandlers cured snake bites. In any case, Farina was told that bitten persons would be attended to by healers who resorted to the roots of certain plants, which he did not seek to identify. Farina also overheard that some people captured scorpions to immunise themselves from their sting (p. 257) and that others had protected themselves against smallpox in the same way, using pus from an infected person (p. 280). In his opinion, some of the persons who had boldly attempted to gain immunity from snake venom or smallpox must have died. To prevent the spread of smallpox, the Kikuyu also practised “a primitive and yet efficacious method of vaccination, gucanjana,” the vaccinators being persons who had been afflicted by the disease and had recovered from it (Leakey, p. 889-90). According to Abrahams (1967: 79), “an indigenous form of vaccination against smallpox” was practised in Sukumaland. In a similar way, in the Kenya-Tanzania borderland, i.e. to the north of central Tanzania, it was said of the paramount ritual leader of the Maasai that he had initiated prophylactic vaccination against cattle lung disease in the late decades of the nineteenth century (Merker, p. 20). Kamba healers also treated sick animals by making cuts on their skin and smearing the incisions with powdered medicine (Ndeti, p. 118). The southern neighbours of the Gogo, the Hehe, appear to offer a contrario evidence inasmuch as, unlike the communities with whom they interacted, “they [did] not even make scars to rub medicine in” (Hodgson 1926: 49).35 35 The situation changed significantly in the following decades: “There are very few Hehe indeed whose bodies do not somewhere bear the scars of incisions made for administering medicine, which is rubbed into the cuts” (Redmayne 1970: 113). The making of incisions in the skin “for inserting charms” has also been reported of the Chagga of northern Tanzania (Raum 1939: 561).

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Such far apart indications are liable to substantiate the hypothesis that inoculation-based immunity was an element of ancientʊpossibly Khoisanʊ esoteric knowledge in much of Eastern Africa. Evidence from Central Africa and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa appears to underscore the antiquity of inoculation practices. As reported by Chifundera (1987: 21), “snake charmers” were “well known” in former Zaire, west of our area of prime concern: “They handle without fear the dangerous cobras and mambas.” They were to be seen at work “daily” in the recent past (Chifundera 1990: 139). Their mode of immunisation was analogous to what occurred in Eastern and Southern Africa: (a) snake fangs were removed and exposed to the sunshine and when the venom was dried, pricks were administered weekly to the person seeking immunity; (b) a snake head with an intact poison bag was calcined and mixed with a plant of the Anthericum species; the ashes were rubbed on incisions made at each articulation; (c) fresh leaves of up to sixteen plants (Funtumia elastica, Amaranthus aspera, etc.) were crushed and mixed, and their decoction was drunk, thus ensuring durable immunity (p. 150). In another paper, Chifundera (1992: 40) notes that ashes from the calcined heads of Forest or Black-and-white lipped cobras are rubbed on skin incisions made all over the body to induce immunity to the bite of that species of ophidian, i.e. Naja melanoleuca.36 In the course of a visit to Guinea in the mid-1940s, a French scientist learnt that Fulani snake-doctors fed three specific plants to cobras to mollify them (Keimer, p. 109). Similar practices have been recorded elsewhere in Western Africa (Forbes 1904; Schnell 1949 and 1958; Villiers 1963). The Khassonké of western Mali tied a bit of the root of the dyombo tree (Diospyros mespilijorinis) to their wrists to keep clear of snake bites (Monteil 1915: 153). But West African “snake charmers” did not only focus on ways of rendering venomous snakes harmless or selecting plants which could keep dangerous snakes at bay. A Catholic missionary reported that some Cameroonian medicine men knew of a concoction which, when drunk, conferred immunity to the bite of horned vipers (Garnier et al., p. 164). It was said of a Guerzé snake-handler from eastern Guinea that he had gained immunity to the bite of mambas through the inoculation of small doses of venom while he was a young man (Schnell 1958: 208). Villiers (p. 64) was told similar stories, and Boulnois 36

The dried fangs of puff adders or Gaboon vipers are also used in Bushi (western DRC) by healers to prick the feet and buttocks of persons afflicted by rheumatism or paralysis (Chifundera 1992: 40).

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et al. (p. 139 fn., 177) briefly allude to variolation practices in former French Western Africa. It is good to know that variolation was reportedly introduced into England from Turkey in the 1720s.

CHAPTER 4.14 PRE-COLONIAL AND CONTEMPORARY SNAKE CULTS

To start with, the more outstanding instances of cults involving offerings to real or imaginary ophidians which have been highlighted in the foregoing chapters will be briefly reviewed. These instances have to do either with prophesying or with the securing of a healthy and fruitful life. New ground will then be covered, including contemporary religious practices. ***** As mentioned in chapter 4.8, the Fipa of south-western Tanzania honoured a number of named “spirits of the land” or “spirits of the bush” housed in shrines: “In the better known of these shrines, there was a resident python (insato), which was regarded as an embodiment of the divinity and was treated with appropriate ceremony” (Willis 1968: 140). The sacred pythons of the Fipa were cared for by an attendant priest. They reportedly used to “sit” on “royal” stools, were addressed as “kings,” and given offerings by the people (p. 154). As we have seen, mediums known as aka miyaoo, “wives of the spirits,” were attached to some of these shrines; they went into a trance and made pronouncements (p. 152). We heard in chapter 4.2 of Kolelo, a mighty cave-dwelling serpent that lived in a mountainous area of present-day eastern Tanzania. It once captured a young woman and took her as its wife. All the members of her clan reportedly became its servants. Other than the female caretaker, only two persons could enter the cave, as elicited in chapter 4.8. These were mediums who interpreted the sounds hailing from deep inside the cave. Kolelo’s pronouncements related notably to agricultural matters. Similarly, among the Rimi (or Nyaturu) of central Tanzania, a group of elders watched over the entrance to a deep cave that was the abode of a great rain serpent. People believed that it “wriggled” deep into the earth at the beginning of every rainy season. The “sacred mud” then thrown out of

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the chasm around the shrine was inspected by the guardian elders who would then make predictions about the events of the coming year; whether for instance the next harvest would be a good or a poor one (Jellicoe 1978: 35). Other instances of snake cults mentioned above had to do with the protection of life, the promotion of fertility, or the curing of illness. In central Tanzania, the Mbugwe people revered a great serpent believed to embody the spirit of their founding ancestor; in the cave reputed to be its abode, water was always to be found, even at the height of the driest of dry seasons. As noted in chapter 4.3, people came to the cave and made invocations and offerings in times of epidemics, war, famine, and drought. Youths desirous of finding a well-matched spouse also went to the cave. A more recent observer reports that the Mbugwe believe in a large sacred snake dwelling in a cave harbouring a pool at a place known as Mbesi Hill: “There are those of the Wambugwe who come to this pool in search of a blessing and to prevent being bewitched” (Hoffman, p. 37). To ensure the well-being of the Lokoya community in South Sudan, a yearly ceremony was conducted by a high priest at the entrance of a mountain cavern inhabited by venomous snakes (Lomodong Lako, p. 52). Most of the meat of the sacrificial goat was eaten by the priest and other elders, but some meat, the bones, and blood were left for the snakes to feed on. Once the chief had blown his magic whistle, the sacred snakes reportedly came out, licked the feet of those present, tasted the blood, chewed the bones, and ate the remaining meat. The priest asked his forefathers—obviously represented by the snakes—to protect the community and he summoned the evil spirits to leave the country along with all diseases and illnesses (p. 53). On the Ugandan shore of Lake Victoria, north of the Bukoba area, a Buganda community revered a male python god known as Selwanga whose sister Nalwanga was reportedly the wife of the supreme guardian spirit of the Ganda people. The ophidian deity was fed with milk by a woman who could not marry, implying perhaps that she was the serpent’s wife.1 Offering it fowl and goats was believed to ensure a successful 1

According to Berger (1995: 73), the “practice of dedicating girls and women to the deities as spirit wives” was widely distributed in the Great Lakes region of Africa and beyond. Those consecrated females sometimes “acted as priestesses or shrine caretakers rather than mediums” and had to “remain chaste for the duration of their lives” (Ibid.).

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fishing expedition. But the sacred python was mostly honoured as a “giver of children,” i.e. as a bestower of fertility. It was worshipped at night on the days following the new moon, devotees flocking into the large conical hut that served as its temple. Attached to the python god was a male medium, who, when possessed of its spirit, wriggled like a snake and made peculiar noises which another male ritualist interpreted as answers to the requests submitted to the snake god by the people who came to its temple with gifts.2 In far south-eastern Uganda, the Gisu similarly worshipped a serpent named Mwanga—a name possibly connected with Selwanga and Nalwanga3—whose temple was built on a hill: “Offerings of goats and fowls are given to him to appease him when sickness appeared. Women who are childless take offerings to him and beg for children” (Roscoe 1909b: 188). It may also be recalled that there was at Kisengwa in the western Ugandan kingdom of Bunyoro a temple “in which a priest dwelt with a living python which he fed with milk” (Roscoe 1923: 44). This was not exceptional in Bunyoro, where pythons were held to be sacred, and in some places offerings were made regularly to them to preserve the people. (…). No one should kill a python or drive it from his house should it enter, but if one is dangerous, the people besought the priest to allow them to destroy it, as it could be no sacred snake but only a dangerous reptile. (Ibid.)

Finally, the clans or phratries of the Gabra people in north-eastern Kenya made periodic pilgrimages to their respective putative places of origin, usually a hill or a mountain. In the case of the Galbo phratry, a female 2 The author has already underscored in Box 27 the connexions between Selwanga and Mukasa, the most widely revered divine character in Buganda. In Mukasa’s major shrine on Bubembe Island, Lake Victoria, the chief priest was assisted by a female medium who was consulted by the king of Buganda on matters relating to himself, his family, or his kingdom (Roscoe 1911: 297, 299; Kagwa, p. 115). Dead Buganda kings also had individual shrines where their spirit could be interrogated through a male medium (Roscoe 1917: 40). 3 All these names were probably related to the most senior member of the “Ganda spirit pantheon” whose name was Wanga (Southall 1972: 87). According to Kagwa (p. 113), Wanga was known to “have introduced the art of making walking or fighting sticks.” Sticks and snakes, as we well know, tend to belong to related semantic fields.

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sheep was sacrificed by senior members of the group at the top of Mt Farole to honour the spirit of its founder, which was represented by “a giant snake with long fur that is dripping with water” (Schlee 1990: 48). According to Kassam (1987: 66), the marvellous serpent was these people’s “ancestral python.” ***** A few cases of snake cults that have not been mentioned so far, and which relate to areas of Eastern Africa other than southern Ethiopiaʊan area to be dealt with in the next part of this bookʊwill now be raised. All of them are more or less similar to those that have been underscored above. Of mostly local import, the first three instances are from eastern Kenya and from central and south-western Uganda. Hobley (1910: 88) heard that “at a place called I-Kiwi in the Maruba valley there is said to reside a very big python; it lives at one of the Ithembo [clearing around a sacred fig tree, p. 86] or Aiimu [souls of the departed] shrines and the A-Kamba in the vicinity feed it with milk and ghee.” Some 15 miles off present-day Kampala, the steep rock of Kungu, “surely one of the more remarkable natural feature of this part of Buganda,” was considered as “a human being, a king of long ago” (Bere 1940: 188). An elderly and lonely man appeared to be “devoted to his self-appointed task of acting as Kungu’s guardian,” regularly leaving at the foot of the mighty rock offerings of “a calabash of beer, sometimes the traditional gift of coffee berries or some more substantial meal” (Ibid.). Was the old priest actually feeding a spirit serpent? Indeed, Williams (p. 66) heard that a “sacred python”—of which the local people were “fearful”—lived in a forest near a spring at the base of the Kungu rock. The third example relates to Ankole, a former kingdom bordering southern Buganda, not very far from the site of Selwanga’s temple. In addition to the “sacred cobras” found in groves corresponding to the burial sites of former chiefs, many water-holes and some hills were haunted by impressive serpents: At the bottom of Kangenyi hill in Shema, a large cobra lived for a long time. Mbaguta, the grand old man of Ankole, who was its chief minister for nearly forty years, used to assure me that the cobra followed his father

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Chapter 4.14 from Mpororo when he came to Ankole.4 It fed on beer, white cows and white sheep. When (…) Christianity came, it was neglected and died from lack of food. (Williams, 1946, p. 68)

What seems to be implied here is that feeding and honouring the big cobra was believed to be beneficial to the people of the surrounding area. Madi country covers parts of southern South Sudan and of northern Uganda. It was divided into many well-recognised areas, each corresponding to the domain of one land-owning lineage comprising the descendants of the original occupier of the land. All these domains had sacred places: untouched groves, single large trees, rocks, hills, etc. Some of the sacred groves were burial places for local chiefs. It was the responsibility of the head, vudipi, of the land-holding lineage to lead religious ceremonies at the sacred places of his land: “Whatever the nature of the sacred place, the snakes which inhabit it are also regarded as sacred, i.e. having the special power of being able to help the community” (Williams 1948: 205). The great snakes would only appear “at times when ceremonies take place” (Ibid.). More information is provided on two such sacred places, one grove and one large tree: At Dufile there is a large grove in which lives a great snake called Ogumbo; when the vudipi prays there, Ogumbo is said to appear and (according to the vudipi and the elders who attend the ceremony) to be able to reply in a human voice to the requests which are made. In East Madi the clan Makolo has a sacred tree beneath which lives a snake also endowed with the power of speech, and reputed in addition to have a human head. The snake’s name is Orio, son of Nyevura. Nyevura is the father; who the mother was is not known. (Williams, ibid., p. 204)

A religious ceremony consisted of communal prayers and offerings of food. The prayer leader would address “his ancestors, saying ‘My forefathers, as you have helped us in the past, so help us now. Take away the famine (or sickness, etc.) from the land…’” (p. 205). The food offerings were eaten in part by the elders present, “the rest being left overnight for the snake to eat.” As in Ancient Greece, “if the food is gone in the morning, it is believed that the spirits have heard the prayers and that it will be answered; if the food is untouched, another attempt must be made” (Ibid.). The Madi term for ancestral spirits, ore, is recognisable in the word for “sacred place,” angwaore. The ore were believed to be “in 4

Mpororo was a small kingdom bordering southern Ankole near present-day north-eastern Rwanda.

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contact with Rubanga,” the high god, and “able to influence him to help the living” (Ibid.). Because the sacred snakes were firmly connected with ancestral spirits, Williams refrained from characterising Madi religion as “snake-worship.” In central Tanzania, next to the Pangani Rapids on the Rufiji River, a shrine was dedicated to Bokero, the “great snake-god,” which, according to the Rufiji people, lived in the river (Wright 1995: 132-33). Closely connected with the rapids, Bokero was quite possibly a rainbow spirit. Delegations were sent to its shrine to ask for rain when a nearby region was afflicted by a severe drought (p. 139). Likewise, very little has been reported about “a snake god called Kiboyi” that was revered by the Gusii or Kisii of far south-western Kenya (Wipper, p. 400). The ethnographic record does provide, however, cases of ophidian spirits or deities among the large Luhya group of people, not far to the north of the Gusii and not far to the east of the Gisu. We have already heard about the founder of a clan from the Abakhero, a Luhya sub-group, who reportedly “turned into a big python when he became very old” (Mukhule, p. 152). Moreover, in the recent past, a certain Abakhero man was known for his skills in rearing monkeys and “taming snakes in his compound” (p. 67). Another Luhya sub-group, the Maragoli, offers a good illustration of a snake-cult (Kabaji 2005: 33-37). Maragoli prayers and religious rituals were meant to promote the fertility of human beings and livestock, as well as to ensure bountiful harvests. Some Maragoli families still keep snakes as their “totems.” Upon his marriage, a man from such a family is presented with a snake: “Failure to accept the snake would lead to sterility on the part of the couple” (p. 37). This custom may be correlated with the myth of Murogoli, a diviner or medicine man believed to be the founding ancestor of the whole community. The spirit Umusambwa appeared to him and ordered him to migrate in search of a fertile land. Murogoli finally settled in Maragoli country at the spirit’s instruction.5 The ageing tribal hero bequeathed his priestly powers to his last-born son, who did the same in favour of his last-born son, Nondi. The latter’s descendants became the priestly clan of the Maragoli sub-tribe. Among the important things Murogoli handed out to his last-born was his snake, a puff-adder known as 5

The radical -sambwa is commonly used to designate ancestor spirits in the Bantu languages of the Lake Victoria region. Box 31 (Chap. 4.5) has illustrated vividly the connection between snakes and spirits on Musambwa Island.

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Irihiri. That sacred snake seems to have been an embodiment of Umusambwa. Nondi clansmen are said to keep snakes “up to this day” (p. 35). It appears that some people believe that the snakes kept by senior Nondi families are direct descendants of Murogoli’s mythical personal snake. The final words on the Maragoli will be those of Kabaji (p. 37): To this day, it is believed that killing the snake Irihiri in Maragoli would be followed by serious consequences even among those who do not keep them and who have converted to Christianity. When this snake dies, it is accorded burial rites fit for a human being.

Even though many have become Christians or Muslims, the “royal snake” remains “a symbol of fertility, a totem the Maragoli still venerate.”

Box 42 Snake Cults and Resistance to Colonial Rule In Eastern Africa, live snake gods or spirits have sometimes been physically destroyed by representatives of the new colonial order. In some cases, ophidian cults played an active part in opposing colonialism. The Christian missionaries saw the legendary Ndamathia serpent of the Kikuyu as a figure-head of paganism, and in the initial version of the Bible in the Kikuyu language, the term ndamathia was used to represent the “evil snake” (Lonsdale, p. 373). That posture was strongly opposed by some of the leaders of the Kikuyu struggle against colonialism. One of them, Kenyatta, championed the view that the Kikuyu people should revere the “sacred monster” as “a national totem” (p. 374). In the coastal area as well as in the Tanganyika hinterland, many of the natives had been forced in the early years of the twentieth century to work in vast sisal, cotton, or rubber plantations, and to pay an annual hut tax. Two serpent-gods were associated with a large-scale movement against German colonial rule in what was then Deutsch Ost-Afrika. One of these two deities was Kolelo, whose abode was a deep cavern in the mountains of Uluguru, west of Dar es Salam. According to Werner (1933: 245), the medium of the fortune-telling serpent foretold that the Germans would be overrun by rebels armed with mere millet stalks. More directly involved in the preparation of the uprising were two ritual leaders of the cult of Bokero: the first used the name of the river-serpent god Bokero and was attached to its main shrine on the Rufiji River; the second was known as Kinjikitile and was attached to a secondary shrine. In mid-1904, the latter

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became “possessed by the spirit Hongo, an emissary of the superior spirit Bokero” (Wright, p. 128). The two leaders started to sell a medicine known as maji maji (“water water”), which would magically turn German bullets into harmless muddy projectiles. Both of them were captured and hung a few months later. Their killing triggered a mounting rebellion that affected almost a quarter of the colony and lasted for two years, from July 1905 to the summer of 1907. The uprising was severely dealt with by the colonial armed forces. Thousands and thousands of people died in the process, some being killed, others perishing through starvation. On a day in 1913, a Luo named Onyango Dunde was reportedly “swallowed up” by Mumbo, “a giant serpent which had arisen form the waters” of Lake Victoria (Shadle 2002: 31). The man, it was said, was “regurgitated” on the mainland by the divine creature some time later. Mumbo was perhaps the ultimate manifestation of an ancient tradition according to which the lake was the abode of mighty ophidians. Onyango preached that he had been instructed by the serpent god to lead a movement that would rid the country of all Europeans, whether colonial administrators or missionaries. The local people would not only be freed from enforced labour and taxes but they would also experience thereafter a period of unbounded prosperity. Onyango and his initial adepts soon attracted a sizeable following from the Luo and Gusii (Kisii) communities. However, the movement was opposed in its early stages by both the Christian churches and the colonial administration. The leaders were arrested and expatriated from their South Kavirondo homeland. ***** In the final section of the present chapter, cases of communities located in the southern and western outskirts of Eastern Africa will be examined more or less briefly: the tribal communities of Malawi, the Shu of eastern DRC, and the Mongwande of northern DRC. The Mongwande contemporary “snake-cult” would seem to be the more fully documented of its kind throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Among the Chewa people of Malawi, according to Morris (2000: 235), three species of snakes are believed to be connected with spirits, mzimu: the puff adder, mphiri; the file snake, njokandala; and the python, nsato or

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thunga.6 The people are aware that puff adders are very poisonous. Nonetheless, “when a spirit (mzimu) takes the form of this snake it is said to be gentle and non-aggressive” (Ibid.). No one would harm it and “offerings of flour may be put out for the spirit” (Ibid.). Meaning “white snake,” the designation njokandala refers to the Mehelya capensis species: 130 cm long, greyish brown in colour with a remarkably white vertebral stripe (p. 199). As with the chameleon, the mostly nocturnal but nonvenomous file snake arouses “a good deal of awe”; it is “considered extremely dangerous to kill this snake”; njokandala was associated with a reputed rain-making spirit medium known as Matsakamula (p. 200). As the following examples will further show, the connection between sacred snakes and rain was commonly acknowledged in Malawi. The Shona and other ethnic groups believe that, especially when such a snake shows up in a village, pythons may embody the spirits of the dead, “particularly those of chiefs” (p. 199). Then, of course, “no harm is done to the snake.” As a rule, these people would not slay pythons. They believed that the killing of a thunga or even of an ordinary nsato would have “dire consequences”: “a person might go insane, or a serious drought might result” (p. 200). Whenever such an unfortunate event takes place, “the python must be ritually buried on the bank of a river” so as to prevent the high god from “withholding the rains” (p. 199). To the Lomwe people, the python was closely linked to the spirit Mbona which “they invariably describe (…) as a snake (njoka), or as a spiritual being that takes the form of a snake” (p. 212). Some people believe that “Mbona was a person who lived at Nsanje, and was a famous rain maker,” and that “when he died he became a snake” (Ibid.). Mbona’s shrine is located in a grove near which stands a pond (p. 213), one which was probably permanent. In the hut erected within the sacred grove lives a female medium by the name of Salima, who is reported to be the spirit’s “wife,” mkazi. The shrine is also the abode of a python: “This snake (…) often comes to Mbona’s hut, where Salima sleeps, as the embodied form of Mbona—her husband—and is described as playing with her body, without biting her or causing harm” (p. 215). The messages proclaimed by Mbona’s female medium usually relate to “famine conditions or to the oncoming rains” (Ibid.). 6

As in most of Bantu-speaking Eastern Africa, nsato is the standard designation for the python in Malawi whereas the local term thunga stands for “a larger, more mystical version” of the same ophidian species (Morris 2000: 199). It is also described as a “water-serpent” (p. 200).

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Mbona’s shrine is but one of Malawi’s major “rain shrines”: “spirit mediums associated with the various rain shrines, who are ‘wives’ of the spirit (mkazi a-chisumphi) who should remain celibate, have sexual relations at night with the shrine official, kamundi, who represents the spirit in the form of a python (thunga)” (p. 70). About the term chisumphi, Morris (p. 242) notes that it is “one of the words used to describe the deity, especially in relation to rain, the supreme spirit often manifesting itself as a snake (thunga).” At the western periphery of Eastern Africa, the simpler of the two more relevant cases of which the author is aware of is that of the Shu people, whose tribal territory lies to the south-west of the Ruwenzori Mountains in far eastern DRC. These people—especially the highlanders (Packard, p. 106)—used to propitiate a number of major spirits of the bush, all of which had their own “priests.” One of the great spirits revered by the Shu was “Mulumbi, a serpent who aids in cultivation” (p. 28). Mulumbi’s priests performed sacrifices for the benefit of the families seeking their support (Ibid.). The homeland of the Mongwande straddles the frontier between DRC and the Central African Republic in the lower Uele Valley. Also known as Ngbandi, the Mongwande are related linguistically to their better-known eastern neighbours, the Zande. The Mongwande “snake cult” was investigated by S. J. Moen, a Norwegian protestant missionary who stayed with these people for ten years in the middle decades of the twentieth century. His recent publication (2005) takes stock of two earlier Belgian studies with a similar focus. The first one was published in 1926 by Tanghe, a Flemish Catholic missionary, and the second in 1970 by Molet, an anthropologist. The latter disagrees with the opinion—shared by the two clergymen—that the beliefs and ritual practices related to snakes amounted to a genuine cult (Moen, p. 176-77). Let us look into the matter. In Moen’s understanding, the snake or Snake was “prayed to and venerated as one of several gods and spirits” by the Mongwande (p. 179). It stood more or less on a par with ancestral spirits. But the Norwegian missionary does little to substantiate the claim that it was “worshipped (…) on all occasions” (p. 39). He merely observes that coloured “pictures of writhing snakes” adorned some village huts (p. 26) and that the snake was invoked at the preparation of the poison, yolo, used for arrow hunting and fishing (p. 56-57) as well as formerly in times of war (p. 60). In the old days, the deadly poison was presumably used against the human

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enemies of the Mongwande. Even though yolo was made from plant ingredients, its effect was understandably compared to snake venom. The Mongwande viewed the moon as periodically shedding its “skin” in ophidian-like fashion, it being held that its outer layer sometimes “fell to the ground” and that some parts of it could be picked up by lucky persons (p. 54-55). No one, however, apparently bothered to collect discarded real snake skins. Actually, the cultic practices involving ophidian symbolism were mostly connected with twins. All observers agree on the identification of twins and serpents.7 Twins were indeed named and referred to as ngbo, a Mongwande word meaning “snake” but also “doubleness” (p. 52). The first-born twin was invariably named Kozo Ngbo, the other Ngambi Ngbo (p. 48). Twins as well as parents of twins felt closely related to one another as members of a great family and they “organised as often as possible big festivals for each other” (Ibid.). Two carved sticks, tolo ngbo (“snake soul” or “snake image”), were planted next to the doorway of the hut where twins had just been born (p. 98). The placenta was not buried or disposed of in the river as with all other births; it was hung on two forked sticks, ta ngbo (“mother snake” or, perhaps, “mother of twins”), stuck in the earth next to the main road leading to a village (p. 99). Twins were not presented to the family ancestors and blessed by them as other babies were (p. 104), the unspoken implication being that they had been sired by a snake or by Snake rather than by their mother’s husband. They had no need of blessing by their father’s ancestors since they benefited from the protection of snakes. For instance it was said that twins were rarely afflicted by illness and would anyway recover quickly “because the snake heals them” (p. 115). The identification was so complete that when twins became angry, “they hiss[ed] like snakes” and sometimes called upon serpents “to help them” (p. 110). The body of a deceased adult twin was placed between the roots of a big tree (p. 40), an appropriate resting place for an ophidian figure.8 7

Father Tanghe, who wrote in Flemish, was confronted with the twins-snake issue for the first time in 1912 when his cook, a twin, lamented after the killing of a threatening snake in his master’s hut (Knappert 1971: 151-52). Allan et al. (p. 42) briefly refer to the identification of twins and snakes among the Ngbandi as well as to the debatable thesis that the serpent was that community’s “supreme god.” 8 When a parent of twins was buried, the body was thickly covered with blankets: “It is a common belief that the snake parents are in the possession of mysterious forces (…). If it rains on their dead, naked bodies, the rain will fall incessantly”

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Box 43 Twinship and Snakehood Like the Belgian Catholic missionary Tanghe, Moen (p. 23, 52, 106, 178) thinks that the relatedness of twins and snakes is rooted in the forked ophidian tongue. A more striking natural foundation for the connection would be the actual occurrence of two-headed snakes. Indeed, “the [SouthAfrican Port Elizabeth] Snake Park has its share of these strange reptiles, most of them being either King Snakes or Sand Snakes” (Snook, p. 55). African systems of representations must have paid attention to such extraordinary creatures.9 Some of the material symbols of twinship singled out by Southall (1972: 83, 85) for Eastern Africa are highly telling in this regard: a two-bladed spear (the sacred spear of an Alur chiefdom in far eastern DRC), a pot with two necks (Alur religious symbol), or paired baskets with one mouth (Bunyoro religious symbol, western Uganda). A double-mouthed pot was likewise evocative of twins for the Lango of central Uganda (Curley 1973: 93-94). The Nyamwezi used to say that twins “share the same soul” (Carnochan et al. 1935: 45; 73). Gender distinctions were “ignored” (Brandström, p. 181). It was customary among the Sukuma “for twins to be called Kulwa and Doto; the first to be born is called Kulwa and the second Doto” (Huggins 1936: 91; also Cory 1944: 37). The same names occurred amidst the Nyamwezi. The Meru and Kikuyu of central Kenya also reckoned that “twins are one” (Mwambia 1973: 63; Leakey, p. 55960). Likewise, the Nuer reckoned that twins are one ran, person, with two ‘physical selves’, pwony (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 157). Some West African communities connected twins with snakes, as documented in chapter 3.3. In Eastern Africa proper, Sukuma twins were also related somewhat to serpents (See chap. 4.12). The connection has also been reported for the Murle of South Sudan: “There are some Murle texts which infer that one of the twins is actually an agoor, ‘green water snake’, in the disguise of a child” (Arensen 1992: 60). One of the local stories about twins is the following:

(Moen, p. 111). Chapter 4.3 taught us that some snakes were commonly associated with rain in Eastern Africa. 9 The two-headed snake, one head at each end in this case, was emblematic of chiefship among the Bamun and Bamiléké in Cameroon (See chap. 3.3).

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Chapter 4.14 Because he was born a twin, he was regarded in some way to be a snake even though he grew up as a man. Later in life, they stole something from him and refused to give it back. The man then took grass and twisted it into a circle [in oruboros fashion]. Soon snakes by the hundreds entered the homestead and wrapped themselves around the people. The thief was bitten and killed. The snakes then released the other people and returned to the bush. (p. 248-49)

The birth of twins made the life of Mongwande parents more difficult. They had to build a raised shelter near their house and stay there until their twins could crawl around. During that period, they were subject to various food prohibitions, and so were their visitors (p. 107). It appears that they were exempted from agricultural work and other productive activities. They took pains to treat their twins fairly and avoided offending them.10 The birth of twins also involved major disturbances in family and village life, jeopardising the authority of senior members within the kin group to which the twins belonged as well as that of the village headman. This was apparently because the snake was “superior to all worldly authority” (p. 108). On the other hand, “special hunting and fishing raids were arranged” whenever twins were born in a village: “Hoping to obtain a big catch, the entire village participated” (p. 27). The parents of twins also invoked the snake or Snake for big seasonal catches of termites (p. 60-61). As a wellknown “snake song” says, those who venerate the snake shall not suffer from want (p. 69). Normality was restored some weeks or months after the birth of twins when they were renamed, i.e. given human names. The timing of the naming festival and its circumstances were dictated by the snake or Snake through revelations experienced in dreams by elderly women or sorcerers (p. 109). At the naming of twins, the parents received food as well as gifts—always in pairs—in abundance as they paraded in their village from house to house (p. 93, 96). The renaming ritual did not, however, remove “the stamp of having been born as snakes” (p. 121). Surprisingly, the Mongwande people as a whole did not have a special regard for snakes. In fact, they willingly killed them by smashing their heads (p. 19). As one may expect, twins would never destroy snakes nor 10

Among the Ganda people of central Uganda, the birth of twins was believed to be a blessing. However, “The mass of custom and belief surrounding the birth and life of twins made the attitude of parents to whom they were born rather a mixed one. Some chose to kill them off. In that case, none dared to say they had been killed or even that they had died but said instead that they had gone to heaven” (Kagwa, p. 108).

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would they lightly witness the killing of such creatures (p. 19, 45). A father of twins would always “avoid killing or hurting snakes” (p. 64). Ordinary Mongwande males not only killed snakes but they were also fond of snake dish. Women, however, were forbidden from eating serpent flesh (p. 161). They also refrained from eating any plant or herb “whose fruit had grown together, as twin bananas,” fearing that it would cause them to give birth to twins (p. 178). Taking the life of a snake showing up in a village where twins have been born more or less recently would turn out to be “a bad omen” (p. 107). When a snake was located in such a village, a twin was fetched, who threw some powder or ashes at it “with the result that the snake [took] off” (p. 110). A fair amount of ambiguity characterises the Mongwande perception of twins: mocked as monstrous, they were nonetheless highly respected as spirit-like characters and as persons who brought material benefits to a village and who probably could protect it from snakes. It is not clear whether the Mongwande practised a “snake cult.” According to the anthropologist Molet, the snake was not an “object of religious worship” per se; it was merely a significant representation of powerful and greatly feared white or red spirits, i.e. river or forest spirits. If he is right, it must have been the same with twins. A final snake cult from Central Africa will now be brought into focus. The whereabouts are not specified by Snook (p. 18-20). The readers are merely informed that the cult existed in a community established “near the Equator (…) along the margin of the great equatorial rain forest.”11 The unidentified community revered the ground-dwelling and nocturnal file snake and believed that its cult ensured abundant crops.12 Snake priests and priestesses would handle such snakes freely. Although totally harmless, they were apparently feared. One day, a young woman inadvertently struck a file snake in her field with an agricultural implement. That was taken to be a most unfortunate event, one which was possibly believed to result in a bad harvest. A goat was sacrificed and skinned, and the dead serpent was buried, wrapped in its skin. The woman was immediately possessed by the spirit of the snake and was taken away from her family to become a “ministrant priestess of the snake”: “In this capacity she took part in many strange rites and orgies with snake priests 11

The Equator crosses three Central African countries: Gabon, the Republic of Congo, and DRC. 12 This is reminiscent of Mulumbi, the ophidian spirit of the Shu of north-eastern DRC (See above).

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and male devotees of the cult.” Eventually, she gave birth to a baby who was reckoned to be the child of the snake she had inadvertently killed. The young woman was then relieved from her duties of priestess of the snake cult.

CONCLUDING NOTE TO PART IV

The profile of the snake in Eastern Africa appears broadly consistent with that of ophidians in the rest of the continent, as outlined in Part III. The correlations between serpent and water, rivers, rain, and rainbow; fertility, life, and rejuvenation; ground, death, and the ancestors; divination and omens were all very much significant on both sides. In some cases, twins were connected with snakes, as in parts of western and Central Africa. In Eastern Africa (Nandi, Pokot, Iraqw, Kikuyu) as well as Western Africa (Soninké and other peoples), stories told of maidens being offered to mighty serpents in order to ensure rainfall and prosperity. Some aspects of ophidian symbology were apparently peculiar to Eastern Africa or more prominent in that area. Monstrous serpents were more widely known. It was the same with East African agrarian ophidian spirits such as Kolelo (Zaramo), Nyang’indi (Luo), and Mulumbi (Shu). Chapter 4.1 evoked the case of a black snake encountered in cultivated land and believed by the Gimira of south-west Ethiopia to be the “master of the field.” An inviolable black snake was said to reside in each of the “spirit houses” belonging to a local priest: “If and when the black snake sheds its skin (…), it is picked up by means of a stick and tossed into a weed-field” (Lange 1975: 155). 1 All these cases possibly echoed old Mesopotamian as well as Egyptian religious representations. A few East African snake deities or spirits were believed to issue prophecies through a medium. Foretelling the future was one step ahead of using snakes for divination (as in parts of Saharan Africa), and of acknowledging the messageʊe.g. proximate death, breach of social norm, or pregnancyʊdelivered by a snake that showed up unexpectedly in certain circumstances. Such a pattern was common in much of Africa. As we may recall, snakes and their mediums were consulted about future events in ancient civilisations, notably in the Greek world.

1 The file snake of some unidentified community of western Equatorial Africa is also to be recalled.

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Concluding Note to Part IV

In Eastern Africa, snakes were seemingly concerned with healing more than elsewhere in Africa. The evidence is disparate but significant. The Oromo believed in the existence of a great red-headed serpent said to have “sixty little claws,” which reportedly fetched a high price on local markets since they could cure an array of diseases (chap. 4.2). Some Nuer medicine men killed cobras in order to get a medicinal substance, wal, from their heads or spittle (chap. 4.7). The Gisu used to worship a mountain serpent, Mwanga, which had power over diseases; people would learn from its medium the cause of their ailments and how to cure them (same chapter). In Buganda, an oracular snake god was also appealed to by persons suffering from illnesses or infertility (same chapter). The poison bag of mambas was used in Uganda by some Luo to cure elephantiasis (chapter 4.12). In far eastern DRC, Shi healers use the dried fangs of some poisonous vipers to heal rheumatism or paralysis (same chapter). Known as il-oibonok, the snake-related ritual leaders of the Maasai were not only resorted to as medicine men capable of curing various diseases and female infertility. They were also involved in the business of making prophecies. Their lineage founder was said to have performed miracles, notably bringing forth water from the dry ground. The ideological profile of these characters combined various aspects of the rich and powerful ophidian symbology. That was also true of the Nandi and Kipsigis ritual leaders who hailed from a Maa-speaking community. Intimately connected with little black snakes, which were not reckoned to be reptiles at all but spirits in ophidian guise, the ritual leaders of the nearby Datog were likewise involved in healing and prophesying.

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INDEX 1 TRIBAL IDENTITIES I (VOLUME ONE) - II (VOLUME TWO)

Note: Only the core of the designations for the many Bantu-speaking ethnic groups of Eastern and Central Africa is used in this Annex. For instance, Kamba (rather than A-kamba), Gogo (instead of Wa-gogo), Luhya (instead of Aba-luhya), or Kongo (rather than Ba-kongo). Ababda, I: 177. Acholi, I: 165 fn. 11, 215, 278, 288, 303, 319, 361, 404, 419, 423, 457. II: 74. Agau/Agaw, I: 364. II: 3, 7, 13. Afar (or Danakil, Dankali), I: 29, 173, 222, 269 (including fn. 3), 276, 278, 326. II: 2, 58 fn. 49, 76 fn. 79, 79 fn. 83 & fn. 84. Alabdu, I: 309 fn. 24, 331, 348. II: 10, 11, 26, 29, 46, 50, 59, 63. Alur, I: 281, 300, 301 (incl. fn. 15), 335, 471. Amba, I: 21, 370, 417. Amhara, I: 271 fn. 6, 317, 331 fn. 11. II: 2, 6, 13, 14, 22 fn. 20, 45, 46, 73. Ankole, I: 26, fn. 6, 206, 207, 264, 463-64 (incl. fn. 4). Anuak, I: 312, 316 fn. 32, 358-59. Arawak (South America), I: 39 (incl. fn. 11). Arbore, I: 408. II: 25, 66, 72. (See also Hoor) Arsi, I: 319, 220, 225-26, 258, 267, 278, 293, 331, 346 fn. 25. II: Part V (very many pages).

Arusha, I: 314. Ashanti, I: 51, 153 fn. 37, 243. Atuot, I: 312, 369 fn. 2, 370, 400, 405. Baga, I: 243. Baggara, I: 14. Baka, I: 296. II: 8, 18, 22 fn. 19, 74. Bambara, I: 235 (incl. fn. 5), 251. Bamiléké, I: 239-40 (incl. fn. 10), 241, 355 fn. 11, 358 fn. 15, 471 fn. 9. Bamun/Bamum/Bamoun, I: 238-39 (incl. fn. 10), 358 fn. 15, 471 fn. 9. Barabaig I: 271-72, 363, 364 fn. 6. (See also Datog) Bassa, I: 237-38. II: 99. Baulé, I: 250, 252 fn. 32. Bedawin, I: 26 fn. 6, 177 fn. 31. Beja, I: 177. (See also Ababda, Bisharin) Bemba, I: 362. Berber, I: 246. Beri, I: 244, 277. Beti, I: 237 (incl. fn. 9). Bilen/Blean, II: 13.

544 Bini, I: 227 fn. 34, 238, 311 fn. 25. Birom, I: 242, 243 fn. 18. Bisharin, I: 165. Bobo, I: 237, 440 fn. 6. Bodi (See Me’en) Boni (See Sanye) Boran/Borana, I: 56-57, 213 (incl. fn. 13), 219-20 fn. 25, 221, 223, 225, 258, 263, 267, 277, 281, 283, 288, 294, 295, 296 (incl. fn. 3), 311-12, 316, 317, 318, 319, 321, 331, 333 fn. 12, 365, 382 fn. 8, 384 fn. 13, 385 fn. 14, 407, 409, 413. II: Part V (very many pages) and 94. Bororo (Amazonia), I: 36, 202-03 (incl. fn. 2). Burji, I: 164 fn. 8, 213, 317 fn. 33. II: 21, 22, 23, 56, 66, 69, 71, 89, 90, 94. II: 21, 22, 23, 56, 66, 69, 71, 89, 90, 94. Bwamba (See Amba) Carib (South America), I: 39. Chagga, I: 213, 268, 300, 301 (incl. fn. 15), 457 fn. 35). Chara, II: 7. Chewa, I: 248, 260, 268, 271, 272, 287, 310, 351, 467. Chiga (See Kiga) Tshokwe, I: 247, 360, 366. Dan, I: 241 (incl. fn. 13). Danakil (See Afar) Danwar (India), I: 301 (incl. fn. 15). Darassa/Derassa, I: 303. II: 7, 26. (See also Gedeo) Dassanech, I: 45, 52, 223, 227 fn. 34, 285, 304, 310, 314 fn. 29, 335, 382, 390-91, 414, II: 90. Datog/Datooga, I: 51-52, 204 (incl. fn. 4), 259, 260, 272, 273, 300, 325, 333 fn. 12, 334, 339, 340, 341-45, 347, 350-51, 352 (incl. fn. 3), 363, 364, 379 fn. 2, 476.

Index 1 II: 63, 94, 98. (See also Barabaig, Gisamjanga) Didinga, I: 165 fn. 11, 398 fn. 12. Dime, I: 428. Dinka, I: 205, 206, 207, 213, 217, 258, 259, 262, 263 fn. 10, 265, 268, 276, 280, 281, 282, 284-85, 288, 299, 312 fn. 27, 324, 335, 369, 370, 371, 372-74, 375, 376 (incl. fn. 16), 377-78, 400, 404, 405, 418, 423, 429. II: 8. Dizi, I: 204, 261. II: 8. Dodoth, I: 209, 215, 216, 217, 22122 fn. 26, 263 fn. 10, 272, 288, 291, 327, 335, 404 (incl. fn. 6). Dogon, I: 235-36, 302. II: 74 fn. 77, 95. Dorze, I: 259, 287, 336. Duala, I: 238. Ekoi, I: 269. Ewe, I: 235. Ewondo, I: 237. II: 99. Fipa, I: 10, 259, 260, 272, 306-07, 350 (incl. fn. 2), 365-66, 456, 460. II: 97, 98. Fon, I: 234, 235, 253. II: 99. Fulani, I: 25, 26 fn. 6, 47, 56, 57, 107, 231, 241, 242 (incl. fn. 16), 252, 458. Fur (Darfur), I: 165, 212, 244, 245, 284 (incl. fn. 13). Gabu, I: 251. II: 96. Gabra/Gabbra, I: 220, 222, 223, 226, 283, 292, 295, 296 fn. 3, 382-83 (incl. fn. 10), 384 fn. 12, 385 (incl. fn. 17), 390, 409, 433, 462. II: 15 (incl. fn. 10), 56, 63, 66, 75, 79, 81, 84, 85 fn. 92. Gamo, I: 271, 294, 365. II: 3, 8, 96, 99. Ganda, I: 206, 207, 258, 264, 265, 272, 307-08, 313, 330, 461-62 (incl. fn. 2 & fn. 3), 476.

Tribal Identities: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) Ganza/Gunza, II: 7. Garre, I : 223, 283, 385 fn. 15. II: 77 fn. 80. Gawwada, II: 7. Gedeo, I: 303. II: 26, 29, 40. II: 26, 29, 40. Gidole, I: II: 7. Gimira, I: 262, 335, 475. II: 96. Giriama, I: 352-53, 451 fn. 26. II: 16 fn. 11. Gisamjanga/Gisamijang, I: 273, 274. Gisu, I: 272, 327, 367, 419 fn. 4, 462, 476. II: 18. Gogo, I: 206, 263, 274, 286, 298-99 (incl. fn. 9), 305, 311 fn. 25, 328, 336, 361, 401, 403, 417, 428 (incl. fn. 9), 437-38, 442, 447 fn. 23, 448, 454-55 (incl. fn. 34). Gombichu, II: 35. Guduru/Gudru, II: 13, 14, 31, 36. Guéré, I: 241 (incl. fn. 13), 360. Guerzé, I: 241 (incl. fn. 15), 458. Guji, I: 276, 289, 293, 303, 316, 317, 319-20, 331, 406. II: Part V (very many pages). (See also Alabdu) Gullalle, II: 9, 10, 32. Gurage, I: 294, 450, 452-53 (incl. fn. 28). II: 8. Gusii/Kissi, I: 51, 261 fn. 2), 324, 361, 362 (incl. fn. 2), 420, 465, 467. Ha, I: 264-65. Hadiya, II: 8, 12, 14 fn. 8, 40. Hadza, I: 217-18, 261. Hamar, I: 52, 56-57, 261, 280, 332, 408. II: 50 fn. 41, 72. Harari (Ethiopia), I: 257, 278, 283, 407. II: 31. Hausa, I: 161 fn. 2, 244-45, 250 (incl. fn. 30), 253, 265 fn. 13, 280 fn. 5, 286 fn. 16. II: 96, 99.

545

Hehe, I: 346 fn. 23, 420, 427 (incl. fn. 8), 455 fn. 34, 457 (incl. fn. 35). Himba/Humbi, I: 200, 212, 219, 247, 260, 307 fn. 22. II: 97. Hoor, I: 223, 368, 407-08. II: 25, 33 fn. 16, 50 fn. 41, 66, 72-73 (incl. fn. 73 & fn. 74), 94. (See also Arbore) Hottentot, I: 316, 426, 456. Hweda/Houeda, I: 233-34, 235. Ibo, I: 238, 381 fn. 6. Idje, I: 244. Igala, I: 243-44. Igbo, I: 238. Ihanzu/Isanzu, I: 352, 353, 356. Ik (See Teuso) Iramba, I: 435. Iraqw, I: 53, 204 (incl. fn. 4), 226, 273-74, 281 fn. 8, 286 fn. 16, 300, 325, 342, 351, 352 (incl. fn. 3), 475. Janjero, I: 271, 278, 283. II: 2 (incl. fn. 2), 8. Jie, I: 60, 209, 210 fn. 10, 215, 216 (incl. fn. 28), 262-63, 327, 404 fn. 6. Kaffa, I: 277, 364-65, 433. II: 8, 97. Kaffir, I: 26 fn. 6, 248. Kaguru, I: 53, 57 fn. 18, 213-14 (incl. fn. 16), 218, 281 fn. 8, 353, 420-21. Kalenjin, I: 398. See also Keyo, Kipsigis, Nandi, Pokot, Sebei, Tugen. Kamba, I: 26 fn. 6, 51, 192 fn. 23, 212, 260 (incl. fn. 4), 261, 268, 276, 280, 287-88, 310, 326 (incl. fn. 3), 354 (incl. fn. 9), 420, 423, 425, 428, 430-31, 432-33 (incl. fn. 25 & fn. 26), 450-51, 457, 463. II: 59 fn. 50, 65 fn. 61, 94.

546 Karam (New Guinea), I: 202 (incl. fn. 1). Karimojong, I: 60, 165 fn. 11, 20809 (incl. fn. 7), 215-16, 219 fn. 24, 221 fn. 26, 262 (incl. fn. 8), 263 (incl. fn. 10), 285, 288, 290, 291, 324, 327 fn. 4, 327, 328 fn. 6, 339 fn. 19, 366, 369 fn. 1, 430, 457. II: 98. Keyo, I: 52, 53 fn. 8, 261, 281 fn. 8, 346 fn. 25, 348, 362, 398, 402, 414, 421-22, 423, 425. Khassonké, I: 458. Khero, I: 274-75, 301, 425, 426, 428, 465. Khoisan, I: 456, 458. Kiga, I: 416. Kikuyu, I: 187-88 fn. 15, 212-13, 231, 257, 267, 268 fn. 1, 281 fn. 8, 286 fn. 16, 296 (incl. fn. 4), 310, 329, 338, 354, 381 fn. 5, 385 fn. 15, 399, 402, 414, 428, 440 fn. 6, 457, 466, 471, 475. II: 16 fn. 11, 18, 20 fn. 16, 96. Kimbu, I: 337, 437, 438, 455, 456. Kipsigis, I: 281 fn. 8, 298-99, 31314, 333, 338, 395, 397, 398, 414, 421, 476. II: 49 fn. 38. Kissi (West Africa), I: 241 fn. 15, 243, 363 fn. 3, 422. Kom, I: 237. Koma, II: 7. Komo, I: 207. Kongo, I: 246, 302, 315. Kono, I: 244, 308, 309. II: 99. Konso, I: 277, 283, 288, 291, 295, 315, 332, 334, 335, 385 fn. 15, 400. II: 7, 11 fn. 4, 15-16, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 33 fn. 16, 47 fn. 35, 56, 66, 67, 68, 69 (incl. fn. 65), 73 fn. 74, 75, 90, 94. Kuba, I: 351. Kuliak, I: 216. Kuranko, I: 60. Kurumba, I: 236-37. II: 95.

Index 1 Lafola, I: 284. Laikipiak, I: 346 (incl. fn. 24), 390, 410. Lango, I: 215 (incl. fn. 19), 257, 285 fn. 14, 305, 318, 335, 361, 404, 419, 471. Lele, I: 130 fn. 7, 200. Lieka, I: 331. II: 21, 36 (incl. fn. 21). Limba, I: 86 fn. 2, 244, 253. II: 99. Loango, I: 315. Lobi, I: 295 fn. 3. Loikop (also known as Samburu), I: 223 fn. 28, 295, 388, 389, 390, 392, 396, 410, 414, 433-34. II: 16 fn. 11. Lokoya, I: 279, 398, 461. II: 59 fn. 50. Lotuko, I: 207, 209 fn. 9, 217, 328 fn. 6, 378, 379, 380 fn. 3, 382, 387, 398. Lovale, I: 415. Luba, I: 246, 260, 296, 302, 354, 355, 424. Lugbara, I: 280, 282, 399, 418, 420, 423. Luguru, I: 57 fn. 18, 214 fn. 15, 227 fn. 33, 274, 367, 424, 466. Luhya, I: 277, 281 fn. 8, 296, 30405, 310, 330, 338, 465. (See also Khero, Maragoli) Lunda, I: 271, 306. Luo/Lwoo, I: 267, 290, 305, 350, 418, 419, 420, 430-32, 433, 467, 475, 476. II: 96. Maasai/Masai, I: 52 fn. 5, 215, 22325, 260, 271, 276, 289, 293, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317-18, 322, 323, 330, 334, 337-38, 345-46, 363 fn. 4, 379-82, 387 fn. 24, 388, 389-90, 392-98, 400, 401 fn. 3, 402-03, 407, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 420 (incl. fn. 5), 457, 476. II: 16-17 (incl. fn. 12), 20 fn. 16, 49 fn.

Tribal Identities: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) 38, 63, 93, 98. (See also Arusha, Laikipiak, Loikop, Parakuyo, Samburu) Macha, I: 8, 320, 331, 407, 408 fn. 12, 413. II: 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 30 fn, 9, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37 (incl. fn. 22), 39, 40, 46, 66, 78 (incl. fn. 81). Madi, I: 464-65. II: 74, 97. Maji, II: 7. Malinké, I: 25, 243 fn. 19, 269. Mandari, I: 206, 207, 270, 328 (incl. fn. 6), 358, 404, 417, 429. Manon, I: 241 fn. 15. Manyika, I: 424, 427. Maragoli, I: 465-66. Marakwet, I: 361, 398, 402, 411 fn. 14, 418, 430. Marsi (Ancient Italy), I: 193, 198. Mbugwe, I: 274, 286 fn. 16, 279-80, 336, 461. Me’en/Mekan (also known as Bodi), I: 204 fn. 3, 210, 335, 356, 357 fn. 14, 401, 428, 433. II: 8. Meru (Kenya), I: 214-15, 299 (incl. fn. 8), 336, 350, 402, 471. II: 18, 26 fn. 1. Meru (Tanzania). See Rwa Mijikenda, II: 16 fn. 11. Mocha, II: 7, 8. Mongwande, I: 296, 355, 467, 46970, 472-73. Montol, I: 240. Moors, I: 245-46 (incl. fn. 23). Moroccan, I: 77 fn. 18, 93 fn. 13, 173, 175, 211-12, 290 fn. 20. Mossi, I: 235, 240, 260 fn. 4, 311 fn. 25, 316. Moundang, I: 243. Munducurú (Amazonia), I: 35-36. Murle, I: 215, 259, 262, 289, 298, 324-25, 356-58, 361, 374 fn. 12, 383 fn. 9, 398 fn. 12, 423, 471. II: 72 fn. 73.

547

Nandi, I: 285, 286 fn. 16, 290, 296, 299 fn. 9, 313, 315, 332-33, 336, 347 (incl. fn. 26), 396-97, 398, 399, 402, 403, 411, 414, 421, 423, 425, 475, 476. II: 49 fn. 38, 93, 96, 98. Ndembu, I: 33 fn. 3, 64, 291. Ngala, I: 246. Ngangela, I: 355. Ngbandi (See Mongwande) Ngindo, I: 272. Ngonde, I: 297 (incl. fn. 6). Ngulu, I: 29, 57 fn. 18. Nuba, I: 276, 284, 305, 306. Nubian, I: 57-59, 72. II: 46 fn. 34. Nuer, I: 206, 207, 258, 262, 276, 281, 288, 299, 312, 319, 324, 335, 358, 367-68 (incl. fn. 12), 369-71 (incl. fn. 4), 372, 373 (incl. fn. 10 & fn. 11), 374 (incl. fn. 13), 375, 377, 378, 400, 404, 405, 406, 471, 476. Nyakyusa, I: 49, 56, 297 fn. 6, 423. II: 93. Nyamwezi, I: 213, 260, 272, 277, 299-300, 327, 337, 349, 353-54 fn. 6, 363, 426, 431 fn. 15, 43542, 443-44, 445 (incl. fn. 19 & fn. 20), 446-49, 450, 453 (incl. fn. 29), 455 (incl. fn. 33), 456, 471. Nyangatom, I: 218 (incl. fn. 22), 282. Nyaturu (See Rimi) Nyoro, I: 264, 270 (incl. fn. 5), 271, 287, 376, 399, 418, 462, 471. II: 14 fn. 8. Oceanian, I: 302. Ochollo, I: 271. Okiek, I: 428 (incl. fn. 10). Orma, I: 221, 223, 225, 309, 310, 324, 389 fn. 27. II: 10, 15, 17, 21, 64, 65 (incl. fn. 60 & fn. 61). Oromo, I: 26, 223, 225, 258, 263, 267, 270, 276, 277, 283 fn. 10,

548 288, 289, 290, 292, 311, 317, 319, 320, 322, 323, 331 (incl. fn. 11), 332 fn. 11, 336, 351, 358, 389 fn. 27, 406, 407 (incl. fn. 11), 408 (incl. fn. 12), 409, 428, 476. II: Part V (very many pages) and 91, 94, 99. (See also Alabdu, Arsi, Borana, Gabra, Gombichu, Guduru, Guji, Gullalle, Harari, Lieka, Macha, Orma, Raya, Sayo, Sibu, Tulama, Wollo) Ovimbundu, I: 247. Parakuyo/Baraguyu, I: 219, 313, 314, 379 (incl. fn. 1), 402-03, 411, 430, 434. II: 16, 17. Pare, I: 305 (incl. fn. 18). Pokomo, I: 296. Pokot, I: 209-10, 217, 261, 281 fn. 8, 286 fn. 16, 290, 291, 314, 315 fn. 31, 328, 397, 403, 422, 475. Psylli (Ancient Cyrenaica), I: 78, 142, 253, 265 fn. 13, 405 fn. 10. II: 99. Raya, II: 10. Rendille, I: 221, 222, 223, 288, 380 fn. 3, 385-89, 390, 391, 397 fn. 10, 409-10, 411, 414. II: 16 fn. 11, 17, 76- 77 (incl. fn. 80), 90, 93. Rimi, I: 25, 52-53, 260, 286 fn. 16, 315, 328 (incl. fn. 7), 337, 351, 352, 353, 356, 364, 415, 421, 439 fn. 4, 454 fn. 31, 460. Ronga, I: 275. Rufiji, I: 465, 466. Rukuba, I: 242, 243 fn. 18, 307 fn. 21. Rundi, I: 265, 285. Rwa (often loosely referred to as Meru), I: 305, 346, 430, 433 (incl. fn. 17).

Index 1 Rwanda, I: 265, 285 (incl. fn. 15), 306, 311 fn. 25, 355 fn. 10, 464 fn. 4. II: 98. Sahelian, I: 242, 244, 250, 251, 252. Saho, I: 278. II: 3, 96. Sakuye, I: 380 fn. 3, 391, 409. Samburu (See Loikop) San (or “Bushmen”), I: 21, 216 fn. 21. Sandawe, I: 313 (incl. fn. 29), 319, 337, 351, 417, 428-29, 456. Sanye, I: 311 fn. 25, 314. Sara, I: 311 fn. 26. Sayo, I: 406. II: 11. Sebei, I: 261, 279, 397. Senoufo, I: 235. Serer, I: 242, 281 fn. 7. Shangama, II: 8. Shilluk, I: 418. Shona, I: 247, 249, 468. Sibu, II: 13, 19. Sidamo/Sidama, I: 278, 283, 304, 310, 317, 350. II: 6, 7, 40, 45. Somali, I: 165, 166 fn. 12, 220, 222, 223 (incl. fn. 28), 226, 257, 269 (incl. fn. 3), 283, 289, 296, 318, 319, 343 fn. 22, 348, 370 fn. 5, 385 fn. 15 & fn. 17, 393 fn. 3, 409, 424-25, 426, 432 fn. 16. II: 3 fn. 3, 6 fn. 11, 21 fn. 17, 30 fn. 10, 76 fn. 79, 77 fn. 80, 80 fn. 87, 83 fn. 90. (See also Garre) Songhay/Songhoy, I: 250 (incl. fn. 29). Soninké, I: 241-42, 250, 251, 286 fn. 16, 475. II: 96. Sor/Sorat (See Tepes) Sotho, I: 216 fn. 21. II: 18. Suei, I: 433. Sukuma, I: 26 fn. 6, 51-52, 213 fn. 12, 259, 260, 271, 272, 276, 280, 281 fn. 8, 285, 290, 300 fn. 11, 328-29, 331 fn. 10, 337, 349, 363, 417, 420, 435, 436-37, 438-39, 441 fn. 8 & fn. 9, 442,

Tribal Identities: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 450, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 471. II: 49 fn. 38. Surma/Suri, I: 204. II: 8. (See Bodi, Me’en, Murle, also Surmaspeakers). Swahili, I: 154 fn. 41, 313, 328 fn. 8, 451 fn. 26, 453 fn. 29. Swazi, I: 247, 295. Taita, I: 401, 425, 427. Tama, I: 244 fn. 21. Tarawuré, I: 251. Tshokwe, I: 360, 366. II: 98. Tepes, I: 216. Teso, I: 215 fn. 19, 278, 285, 288, 328 fn. 6, 361. Teuso, I: 216, 217. Thai (Thailand), I: 21, 30, 108 fn. 3, 126, 203, 211. Tharaka, I: 215 fn. 17, 354. Thonga, I: 213, 248, 249, 272, 287, 351, 362. Tiv, I: 238, 243. Toposa, I: 165 fn. 11, 282. Torrobo/Dorobo, I: 296, 350, 351. Tsamako, I: 258-59, 277, 296, 300 fn, 10, 312. II: 7, 25, 66, 69, 72, 73 fn. 74, 94. Tswana, I: 247. Tugen, I: 397. Tulama, II: 10, 19, 30 fn. 9, 32, 33, 35, 39, 40. Tukulor, I: 241. Turkana, I: 60, 201, 210, 215, 216, 217, 221, 226 (incl. fn. 31), 262, 328 fn. 6, 331 fn. 11, 334, 382, 404. Twareg, I: 246. II: 98.

549

Uduk, I: 204, 208, 213, 246, 300 fn. 12, 359 (incl. fn. 16). Venda, I: 251, 252, 275, 351, 424. Vute/Wute, I: 311. Watta, I: 220 fn. 25, 433. II: 54. Wobé, I: 241, 250. Wolamo/Welamo, I: 332. II: 6, 8. Walayta/Wolayta, II: 8. Wollo, II: 10. Xhosa, I: 248. Yakuba, I: 107. Yao, I: 272. Yira, I: 282, 427. Yoruba, I: 208 fn. 6, 238. Zafqu, I: 267, 268. Zaghawa (See Beri) Zala, II: 7. Zanaki, I: 393 fn. 3. Zande, I: 208, 278, 354, 355 (incl. fn. 12), 356, 361-62, 417, 420 fn. 5, 429-30. Zaramo, I: 57 fn. 18, 226, 227, 274, 353 fn. 5, 367 fn. 10, 475. Zulu, I: 107, 248, 249, 339 fn. 19, 351, 422.

INDEX 2 COUNTRIES AND REGIONS OF AFRICA I (VOLUME ONE) - II (VOLUME TWO)

Abyssinia, I: 98, 181, 190, 252, 255, 265, 270 (including fn.), 283, 286 fn., 308 fn., 317, 368. II: 29, 10-12, 14, 23, 33 fn. 16, 36, 48, 49, 60, 94, 96. Angola, I: 200, 212, 219, 247, 253, 260, 268, 271, 355, 360, 366. II: 97, 98. Benin, I: 206, 230, 233, 234, 252 fn. 32, 298 fn. 3. II: 99. Botswana, I: 247. Burkina Faso, I: 235, 236, 237, 240, 260 fn. 4, 296 fn. 3, 311 fn. 25, 316. II: 95. Burundi, I: 265, 285. Cameroon, I: 26 fn. 15, 56, 57, 237. 238, 239 fn. 10 & fn. 11, 241, 294 fn.1, 311, 355 fn. 11, 358 fn. 15, 447 fn.22, 458, 471 fn. 9. II: 98. Central Africa, I: 83 fn. 27, 246, 254, 263, 302, 315, 356, 433, 456, 473 (incl. fn. 11), 475. Central African Republic, I: 296, 469. Chad, I: 216 fn. 21, 243, 244 (incl. fn. 21), 253, 277, 311 fn. 26. II: 4 fn. 6, 97. Côte d’Ivoire, I: 107, 229, 235, 241, 250, 252 fn. 32, 350. Dahomey, I: 230, 234. Darfur/Dar Fur, I: 212, 244 (incl. fn. 21), 245, 284.

Democratic Republic of the Congo/DRC, I: 3, 7, 130 fn. 7, 200, 207, 208. 246, 258 fn. 2, 260, 261, 265, 268, 271, 296, 300, 306, 329 fn. 9, 351, 354 (incl. fn. 7), 355, 356, 362, 422, 424, 431 fn. 14, 433, 444 fn. 16, 458 fn. 36, 467, 469, 471, 476. II: 96. Djibouti, I: 276, 289, 326. Egypt, I: 17, 24 (incl. fn. 3), 25, 27 fn. 6, 27, 69, 70-79, 83, 84, 85, 86, 91, 93 fn. 11, 94 fn. 14, 98, 103, 104 fn. 3, 105, 108 fn. 9, 117, 125, 129, 130, 132 (incl. fn. 9), 133, 134 (incl. fn. 11), 135, 136, 137, 140, 142, 146, 148, 161, 165, 167 fn. 15, 169 fn. 18, 170, 175-77, 180, 187, 189, 190, 195-96, 197(incl. fn. 1), 198, 211, 236 fn. 6, 243 fn. 18, 253, 265 fn. 13, 277, 278 fn. 4, 313, 328 fn. 6, 358, 475. II: 3, 79, 92, 96, 98, 99, 100. Eritrea, I: 29; II: 3, 13. Ethiopia, I: 8, 26 (incl. fn. 6), 29, 45, 52, 56, 115 fn. 19, 164 fn. 8, 180, 204, 210, 213, 218, 219, 221, 223, 225-26, 227 fn. 34, 257, 258-59, 261, 262, 263, 265, 267, 270, 271, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281 (incl. fn. 8), 282, 283, 285, 287, 288, 289, 291, 293, 294, 295, 296, 300 fn. 10 & fn.

Countries and Regions of Africa: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) 12, 303, 304, 311, 312, 313 fn. 29, 315, 316, 317 (incl. fn. 33), 318, 319, 331, 332, 333 fn. 12, 334, 335, 336, 346 fn. 25, 348, 350, 351, 353 fn. 6, 356, 357 fn. 14, 358, 364, 365, 368, 381 fn. 6, 383 (incl. fn. 10), 384 (incl. fn. 11), 385 fn. 15, 397 fn. 9, 400, 401, 406-08, 413, 414, 426, 428, 433, 435, 450, 452, 475. Plus Part V of Volume Two in its entirety, and II: 96, 97, 98, 99. Guinea, I: 238, 241, 243 (incl. fn. 19), 244 fn. 20, 249, 251, 363 fn. 3, 458. II: 96, 99. Horn of Africa, I: 255, 261, 399, II: 2, 7, 79, 93. Kenya, I: 26 fn. 6, 51, 52, 56, 201, 212, 214, 215, 219, 220, 221, 225, 226, 257, 258, 260 (incl. fn. 4), 261, 262, 263, 267, 268, 275, 276, 277, 280, 282 fn. 8, 283, 285, 286 fn. 16, 287-88, 290, 292, 294, 295, 298, 299 (incl. fn. 9), 301, 304, 305, 309, 310, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 324, 328, 329, 331 fn. 11, 332, 334-35, 336, 346 (incl. fn. 25), 348, 350, 353, 361, 362, 379-91, 396, 399, 400, 401, 402, 404, 406, 408-09, 414, 416, 418, 419, 420, 421, 425, 428, 430 (incl. fn. 13), 431, 433, 434, 450-51, 457, 462-63, 465, 471. II: 10, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26 fn. 1, 47, 48, 49 fn. 38, 56, 59 fn. 50, 64, 71, 77, 88, 90, 96, 98. Kordofan, I: 14, 212. Lesotho, I: 216 fn. 21. Liberia, I: 233. Libya, I: 87, 90, 180 (incl. fn. 5). Maghreb, I: 176. Mali, I: 47, 235 (incl. fn. 4), 242, 250, 251 (incl. fn. 31), 458.

551

Malawi, I: 249, 260, 268, 270, 272, 287, 298 fn. 6, 310, 334, 349, 351, 356, 426, 467-68 (incl. fn. 6), 469. II: 98. Mauritania: I: 241. Morocco, I: 25, 76 fn. 15, 77 fn. 18, 93 fn. 13, 169 fn. 18, 171, 173, 175, 176 fn. 27, 211-12, 278 fn. 4, 290 fn. 20, 325 fn. 2, 359. Mozambique, I: 248, 275, 287, 362. II: 23. Niger, I: 244, 245, 250, 280 fn. 5. Nigeria, I: 162 fn. 2, 206, 208 fn. 6, 227 fn. 34, 235, 238, 240, 242, 243, 244, 250, 269, 307 fn. 21, 311 fn. 25, 382 fn. 6. II: 96, 99. Northern Africa, I: 90, 199, 211, 212, 363 fn. 5, 495 fn. 10. II: 94. Rwanda, I: 53 fn. 10, 265, 285 (incl. fn. 15), 306, 311 fn. 25, 355 fn. 10, 464 fn. 4; II: 98. Sahara, I: 175, 211, 234 fn. 1, 24546, 475. II: 98, 100. Sahel, I: 26 fn. 6, 242, 244, 250, 251, 252, 253. II: 95. Senegal, I: 241, 242, 250, 281 fn. 7. II: 96. Sierra Leone, I: 60, 86 fn. 2, 212 (incl. fn. 23), 218 fn. 23, 227 fn. 34, 244, 308. II: 99. Somalia, I: 165, 222, 257, 289, 426. II: 80, 96. South Africa, I: 27 fn. 6, 248, 251, 275, 351, 362, 424, 426, 456. Southern Africa, I: 7, 21, 26, 78, 107, 165 fn. 11, 213, 216 fn. 21, 247, 248-49, 254, 255, 260, 295, 316, 325, 422, 424. II: 18, 23, 99. South Sudan, I: 205, 206, 207, 208, 213, 215, 217, 258, 259, 262, 268, 270, 276, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284, 288, 289, 298, 299, 312 (incl. fn. 27), 313 fn. 27, 319, 324, 328, 335, 354, 356, 358, 361, 367, 369-78, 398

552 (incl. fn. 12), 404, 417, 418, 423, 429, 461, 464, 471. II: 59 fn. 50, 63 fn. 58, 72 fn. 73, 74, 97. Sudan, I: 14, 57, 59 fn. 21, 72, 165, 177, 212, 217, 244 fn, 21, 258 (incl. fn. 1), 267, 284, 290 fn. 20, 331 fn. 11, 405 fn. 9. (See also Darfur and Kordofan) Swahili coast, I: 154 fn. 41, 313, 451 fn. 26. Tanzania, I: 25, 26 fn. 6. 29, 49, 51, 52-53, 57 fn. 18, 154 fn. 41, 204, 205, 213, 214 fn. 15, 217, 219, 224, 226, 257-58, 259, 260, 261, 263, 264, 271-72, 273, 274, 276, 279, 280, 281 fn. 8, 286 (incl. fn. 16), 290, 298-99, 300, 305, 306, 313, 314, 315, 317, 318, 319, 325, 327, 328, 334, 336, 337, 346 (incl. fn. 23), 348, 349, 350-51, 352, 353 (incl. fn. 5 & fn. 6, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 367, 379 fn. 1, 393 fn. 3, 396 fn. 6, 401, 415, 417, 420, 421, 423, 424, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 433, 434, 435-50, 453-56, 457 (incl. fn. 35), 46061, 465. II: 23, 96, 97, 98.

Index 2 Togo, I: 234, 235. Tunisia, I: 88. II: 5 fn. 6. Uganda, I: 21, 26 fn. 6, 60, 165 fn. 11, 206, 208, 215 (incl. fn. 19), 221 fn. 26, 230, 257, 258, 262, 264, 265, 270, 272, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291, 300, 303, 305, 307-08, 310, 313, 319, 324, 325, 327, 328 (incl. fn. 6), 330, 334 (incl. fn. 14), 335, 356 fn. 13, 361, 366, 367, 368 fn. 11, 369 fn. 1, 370, 376, 399, 404 (incl. fn. 6, 416, 417, 418, 419 (incl. fn. 4), 420, 423, 427, 428, 430, 457, 461, 462 (incl. fn. 2), 464, 471, 472 fn. 10, 476. II: 4 fn. 5, 14 fn. 8, 18, 74, 97, 98. Western Africa, I: 175 fn. 28, 241 fn. 14, 302, 334, 422, 427, 430, 433, 458, 459, 475. Zambia, I: 33 fn. 3, 64, 249, 291, 349, 362, 415, 423. II: 74 fn. 77. Zimbabwe, I: 261 fn. 5, 247, 249, 275, 277, 362, 424, 427.

INDEX 3 THEMES AND TOPICS I (VOLUME ONE) - II (VOLUME TWO)

Adder (including Puff adder), I: 2, 7, 8, 89, 161, 173, 185, 249, 257, 258, 260, 263, 325, 329, 374, 376, 381, 385, 386, 387, 418, 429, 431, 448, 449, 453, 456, 465, 467, 468. II: 20, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56. 57, 58, 71, 72, 87. Ailment, I: 171, 367, 409, 424, 434, 445, 446, 476. See also Illness, Sickness. Ambiguous/Ambivalent, I: 20, 28, 38, 63, 128, 189, 201, 231, 288, 395 fn. 5, 411 fn. 14, 473. II: 17, 93. Ambrosia/Amrita/Sa, I: 86 fn. 2, 104 fn. 3. Analogy, I: 25, 36, 46, 49, 50, 52 (incl. fn. 6), 55 fn. 14, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 134, 154 fn. 41, 156 fn. 47, 203 fn. 2, 292, 293, 298, 401, 405, 412, 413, 416. II: 37, 88. Ancestors, I: notably 237 (incl. fn. 9), 243, 248-49, 279, 327, 371, 382, 383, 397, 465, 470. II: notably 69, 95, 99. See also Shade, Soul, Spirit. Anthill/Termite mound, I; 114, 115 fn. 21, 236, 280 fn. 5, 281 fn. 7, 290, 291, 384. II: 26, 75. Arabic, I: 24, 27, 29, 75 fn. 13, 76, 132 fn. 9, 160-77, 187 fn. 15,

197, 246 fn. 24, 258 fn. 3, 317, 427. II: 6, 79 fn. 83 & fn. 84. Archetype, I: 23, 32, 33, 34 fn. 4. Baboon, I: 208, 211-18, 422. Beheading, I: 98, 100, 108, 187, 242, 252, 354. II: 95. Belly, I: 130, 145, 148 (incl. fn. 31), 289 (incl. fn. 18), 322, 423, 445. II: 22, 37. See also Womb. Belt, I: 26, 73, 344, 424, 425, 440. Bite, I: notably 7 (incl. fn. 10), 8, 25, 75-78, 87, 94 (incl. fn. 14), 105, 112 (incl. fn. 13 & fn. 15), 116, 118, 132, 161, 177, 187, 193, 196, 310, 348, 361, 379, 391, 417, 420, 425-34, 435, 439, 444, 448, 449, 451, 453-54, 456, 457, 458. II: 23, 63, 70 fn. 67, 86, 90. Blood, I: notably 7, 41-42, 58, 9798, 109 (incl. fn. 10), 164, 187, 261, 271, 279, 287-88, 320, 350-51, 415, 425, 429-30, 45152, 461. II: 2, 3, 5, 26, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 29, 50 (incl. fn. 41), 60, 68. Bone, I: 53 fn. 8, 248, 279, 336, 346 (incl. fn. 25), 347, 396, 461. II: 93. Burial/Bury, I: 23, 25, 58, 72, 98, 174, 177, 179, 183, 187, 188, 193, 207, 242, 243, 247, 249, 251, 264 fn. 11, 265, 277, 299

554 fn. 9, 300 (incl. fn. 10), 306, 314, 316, 324, 325, 341 (incl. fn. 20), 342, 343 fn. 22, 344, 345, 346 (incl. fn. 23 & fn. 25), 351, 394, 396, 416, 463, 464, 466, 468, 470 (incl. fn. 8), 473, II: 7, 16, 22, 52, 63, 67, 68, 69, 87, 88, 94. Burning, I: 22, 25, 28, 58, 75 (incl. fn. 13), 106, 110, 113, 126, 132, 137 fn. 15, 141, 172 fn. 23, 182, 193 fn. 25, 197, 290, 296, 348, 351, 355, 356, 358, 359, 366, 371, 389 fn. 26, 423-24, 426, 427, 454. II: 79, 80, 86. See also Fire. Butter, I: 242, 271, 287, 331, 339, 340, 341-42, 345, 374, 376. II: 2, 28-29, 33 fn. 16, 50, 51, 53, 59, 60, 68, 78, 80, 82. Caduceus/Kêrukeion I: 74, 88. Cave/Cavern/Cavity/Grotto, I: 23, 24, 70, 83, 89, 90, 91, 94, 105, 138, 165, 167 fn. 15, 168, 169, 176, 181, 188, 196, 236, 244, 245, 250, 251 fn. 31, 276, 269, 271, 274, 275, 276, 278-80 (incl. fn. 4), 284, 286 fn. 16, 289, 290, 348, 352, 353, 356, 357, 358, 364, 367, 368, 383 fn. 9, 384, 419, 460, 461, 466. II: 2, 31 (incl. fn. 12), 46 fn. 34, 48, 75, 90, 97. See also Hole. Ceremony/Ceremonial, I: 32, 36, 51, 96, 109-10, 111, 112 fn. 15, 113, 115, 118 fn. 26, 119, 122, 155, 163 fn. 5, 165 fn. 11, 168, 183, 193, 216, 244, 245, 248, 249, 267-68, 279, 285 fn. 14, 292, 293, 324, 326, 335, 337, 338, 341, 343 fn. 22, 352, 365, 366, 374, 382, 383, 386, 394, 402, 404, 406, 410, 439 fn. 4, 443, 452, 460, 462, 464. II: 15, 19, 29, 32, 44, 46, 50, 51, 52,

Index 3 57, 58, 66, 68, 70, 71 (incl. fn. 70), 78, 82, 84, 87, 89, 97. Chameleon, I: 304-05, 310-11 (incl. fn. 25 & fn. 26), 315, 419, 468. Charm, I: 31, 91, 98, 106, 284, 333, 397, 419, 428, 457 fn. 35. Charming (Snake charming, Snake handling), I: 11, 75-78 (incl. fn. 14, fn. 15, fn. 16 & fn. 17), 79, 92, 116-17 (incl. fn. 23 & fn. 24), 119, 123, 124, 131 fn. 8, 142, 169 fn. 18, 177, 185, 245, 265 fn. 13, 393, 417, 435-46, 450, 452, 453, 456, 457 fn. 35, 458, 459, 473. II: 49, 57, 82, 93. Chimpanzee, I: 212, 213, 218 (incl. fn. 23), 448. Chthonic/Chthonian/Autochthonous, I: 17, 18, 22, 23, 41, 42, 79, 171-72, 181, 195, 196, 197, 239, 276, 277, 322. See also Earth. Christian/Christianity/ Christianisation, I: 131 fn. 8, 144, 178-94, 234, 235, 255, 265, 317-18, 368, 444, 452, 464, 466, 467. II: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (incl. fn. 12), 9, 12, 13, 14, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 33, 46, 75, 92, 93, 94. Chyme, I: 279, 352, 415, 427. Circle/Encircle, I: 19, 26, 33, 60, 70, 74, 209, 234, 422, 424, 472. See also Oruboros. Cobra, I: 2, 4 fn. 6, 6, 7 (incl. fn. 10), 10, 15, 25, 29, 39, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 87, 98 fn. 24, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108 (incl. fn. 8), 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114 (incl. fn. 18), 115 fn. 21, 116, 117 (incl. fn. 25), 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 148 (incl. fn. 33), 161, 166, 187, 197, 235, 236 fn. 7, 244, 257, 258, 259, 260, 263 (incl. fn. 10), 269 (incl. fn. 3), 280 (incl. fn. 5), 281 (incl. fn. 8), 282, 283, 284, 285 fn. 15, 286, 292, 325,

Themes and Topics: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) 327, 328 fn. 6, 329 (incl. fn. 9), 330, 331, 335, 353 fn. 6, 354, 368 fn. 12, 373 (incl. fn. 8 & fn. 11), 375, 376, 378, 379, 380 fn. 4, 381, 383, 389 fn. 26, 396, 411, 412, 414, 415, 418, 419, 421, 423, 426, 431, 436, 437, 443 (incl. fn. 13), 447, 448, 449, 452 fn. 27, 453, 454 fn. 31, 456, 458, 463, 464, 476. II: 23, 52, 55-56, 58 fn. 49, 62 (incl. fn. 57), 63, 67, 74, 93, 94, 95. See also Naga. Coil, I: 3, 5, 10, 29, 38, 88, 89, 104, 108, 111, 117, 124, 127, 133, 144, 173, 187, 194, 234, 235, 238, 241, 247, 248, 347 fn. 27, 357, 358, 375, 383 fn. 9, 424, 445, 451. II: 49, 72 (incl. fn. 72), 93. Colonisation/Colonialism, I: 236, 255, 265, 275, 367, 426, 442, 444, 449, 466-67. II: 33 fn. 16, 100. Connotation, I: 28-29, 38, 39. 43, 44, 47, 54, 59, 132, 176, 193, 195, 234, 245, 295, 334, 335, 359, 396, 398. II: 16, 21, 96. Cool/Coolness, I: 3, 14, 58, 115 fn. 19, 126, 145, 337, 339, 351, 352, 355, 393, 394, 395, 401, 403, 411 fn. 14, 415, 427. II: 41, 43, 45, 47, 77, 92. Corpse, I: 24, 28, 85-86 (incl. fn. 2), 122 fn. 39, 130, 177, 294, 299 (incl. fn. 9), 306, 341, 342, 344, 345. II: 23, 63 (incl. fn. 58), 68, 69, 79. Cosmos/Cosmology/Cosmogony, I: 7, 19, 20, 22, 26, 45, 103, 104, 117 fn. 25, 122 fn. 40, 125, 155, 201, 203, 231, 234 fn. 1, 271, 274, 295, 347 fn. 27, 353, 356. II: 60. Crocodile, I: 2 (incl. fn. 2), 207, 208, 209 fn. 7, 260 (incl. fn. 4),

555

263 fn. 10, 269, 371, 372, 377, 378, 421, 446, II: 17. Cult, I: 12, 39, 70, 84, 88, 90-91, 92, 95 fn. 18, 102, 110, 111, 129, 130 fn. 7, 140, 141, 155, 17576, 178, 179-80, 182, 184, 187, 194, 233, 234, 278-79, 284, 465-67, 469, 473-74. II: 3, 5, 7, 9, 46, 74, 87, 92, 94. See also Worship. Death, I: notably 6. 9. 25, 28, 79, 83, 96, 113, 117 fn. 25, 126, 130, 138, 147, 149, 158, 196, 197, 242, 248, 254, 294, 298, 299, 300, 304, 305-06, 310, 311, 316, 318, 326, 341, 342, 349, 361, 362, 378, 420, 475. II: 5, 10 fn. 1, 15 (incl. fn. 10), 16, 22, 23, 47, 62, 63, 68, 69, 73 (incl. fn. 76), 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 99. Disease, I: 89, 109, 110, 113, 114, 175, 197, 243, 267, 279, 332, 343, 367, 385, 387, 445, 457, 461, 476. II: 22. Divination/Diviner, I: 17, 18, 19, 45, 85, 143, 144, 149, 173, 197, 216, 217, 233, 246, 247, 248, 252, 254, 285, 332, 335, 360 (incl. fn. 1), 365-66, 389 fn. 26, 395, 396, 398, 410, 416, 417, 438, 441 fn. 9, 465, 475. II: 95, 98. Dog, I: 22, 27, 62, 122, 174, 190, 208, 244, 309, 313, 315, 316 fn. 32, 322 fn. 37, 349, 357 (incl. fn. 14), 358-59, 411. II: 59 (incl. fn. 50). Dove, I: 131, 389. Dragon, I: 3 fn. 4, 17, 20, 27 fn. 7, 33, 79, 80, 81, 99, 100, 125, 127 (incl. fn. 1), 130, 166, 167, 180, 181, 189, 190, 242, 247, 251 fn. 31, 272, 350, 354. II: 3, 5.

556 Dream, I: 31, 34 (incl. fn. 5), 37, 38, 40, 42, 43, 89, 94, 172, 237, 245, 249, 294, 339, 356 fn. 12, 361, 362, 431, 472. II: 101. Eagle, I: 82, 126, 155, 190, 353-54 (incl. fn. 6), 448. Earth, I: notably 17, 18, 20, 22, 42, 74, 79, 85, 88 fn. 5, 92 fn. 9, 94, 103-04, 122 fn. 40, 134-35 fn. 13, 153, 171, 195, 234, 236, 246, 259, 271, 276, 277, 280, 288, 299 fn. 9, 300 (incl. fn. 10), 304, 324, 325, 352, 358, 460-61. II: 50, 60, 70, 94. Earthquake, I: 17, 104, 234, 253, 271. II: 2 (incl. fn. 2). Ecdysis, I: 5 (incl. fn. 9). Elephant, I: 7 fn. 10, 208, 209 (incl. fn. 8), 219-20 (incl. fn. 25), 22527 (incl. fn. 34), 228, 261, 273, 348, 377, 386, 388. Elusiveness/Slipperiness, I: 6, 29, 68, 79, 202 fn. 1. Entwine, I: 73, 80, 81 fn. 23, 115, 133, 138, 186-87, 197, 238, 362. II: 93, 98. Evolution, I: 2, 128, 174, 211. Eyelids, I: 4, 73, 307. Fangs, I: 6, 7, 13, 25, 77, 97, 117, 163, 187, 289, 412, 417, 418, 419 (incl. fn. 4), 426, 441, 458 (incl. fn. 36), 476. II: 23. Fascination, I: 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 68, 233, 269. II: 24. Fat, I: 52, 77, 80, 226, 329, 338-39 (incl. fn. 17), 351, 425, 428, 447, 451, 454 (incl. fn. 32). II: 58, 59, 81. Feed/Feeding, I: 57, 84, 98, 108 fn. 8, 113, 180, 187, 211, 245, 271, 300, 340, 344, 351, 356, 364, 376, 437, 461, 463, 464. II: 2 fn. 2, 7, 28 fn. 7, 51, 53, 58, 59, 82 fn. 89.

Index 3 Fertility, I: 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 33, 39, 54 fn. 12, 59 (incl. fn. 21), 60, 79, 80, 81 (incl. fn. 23), 91, 96, 102, 104, 107, 112, 114, 123, 126, 134, 140 (incl. fn. 20), 141, 143, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155 fn. 45, 159, 163 fn. 5, 176 (incl. fn. 30), 179, 185, 195, 196, 197, 198, 211, 213 fn. 12, 227, 231, 234, 242, 247, 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 264, 267, 282, 295, 296, 312, 313-14 (incl. fn. 29), 320, 330, 337, 369, 380, 391, 401, 406, 425, 439 fn. 4, 461, 462, 465, 466, 475, 476. II: 7, 11, 14, 43, 47, 62, 84 (incl. fn. 91), 85, 92, 94. Fire, I: 22, 54, 58-59, 75 (incl. fn. 12), 86, 98 fn. 24, 117 fn. 25, 122 fn. 40, 125-26, 132, 141, 142, 162, 171, 172 fn. 23, 185, 196, 272, 275, 277, 290, 292, 296, 322 (incl. fn. 37), 323, 348, 351, 355, 356-57 (incl. fn. 14), 358-59 (incl. fn. 15), 388 (incl. fn. 25), 390, 393-94, 401, 429. II: 4, 72, 80. See also Burning. Fly/Flying, I: 3 fn. 4, 115 fn. 21, 172 fn. 22, 247, 269, 356-57. Fruit, I: 99-100, 107, 131, 145-49, 151-52, 156-57, 162, 211, 217, 218, 220 fn. 25, 227 fn. 33, 251, 312, 318, 319-20 (incl. fn. 35), 321-22, 339, 428, 430, 473. Garden, I: 23, 35, 76, 99-100, 111, 127, 145, 146, 147 fn. 29 & fn. 30, 149, 150, 151 fn. 41, 152, 153, 154 (incl. fn. 41), 155, 156, 157, 162, 163 (incl. fn. 5), 164, 214, 318, 320, 322, 378. II: 7. Gate/Gateway/Gate post, I: 70, 71, 80, 108 fn. 9, 139, 155, 173, 196, 281 fn. 7, 325. Gaze, I: 4, 10, 18, 26, 27.

Themes and Topics: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) Giraffe, I: 208, 209 (incl. fn. 7), 210, 219-20 (incl. fn. 24 & fn. 25), 369 (incl. fn. 1), 378, 440. God/Goddess, I: Very many pages, especially in Part II (Volume One). II: 2, 3, 5. 6, 18, 87, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99. Granary, I: 60, 63, 216, 240, 276. II: 68. Guardian, I: 20, 22, 24, 71, 89-90, 108 (incl. fn. 9), 109 fn. 10, 111, 160, 183-84, 195, 196, 197, 230, 246, 254, 258, 287, 340, 345, 419 fn. 4, 425, 461. II: 73 (incl. fn. 75 & fn. 76). Head/Forehead/Headpiece, I: 4, 25, 26, 39, 51, 70, 72, 73 (incl. fn. 7), 74, 78, 84, 87, 97-98 (incl. fn. 24), 104, 11, 112, 124, 148, 164, 167, 170, 183, 189, 191, 198, 235, 236, 242, 244, 246, 247, 268, 269, 275, 284, 295, 296, 300, 307, 312, 327, 336, 341, 356, 374, 403, 405, 418, 447, 458, 464. II: 5, 29, 56, 63 fn. 57, 68, 71, 72 (incl. fn. 72), 73, 74 (incl. fn. 77), 81, 86, 87, 88, 96. Healing, I: notably 17, 19, 20 22, 25, 33, 73, 74, 78, 79, 82, 84, 88, 90, 129, 133, 140, 141, 142, 170-71, 175, 184, 189, 194, 197, 241 (incl. fn. 14), 267, 279, 295 fn. 1, 389 fn. 26, 396, 400, 404, 417, 423-24, 428, 429-30, 43132, 433, 447 fn. 22, 453-54, 458 fn. 36, 470, 476. II: 26, 66, 80, 81 fn. 88, 84, 92, 95, 98, 100. See also Medicine. Hole, I: 3, 6, 17, 19, 23, 24, 30, 37, 79, 86, 101, 113, 120, 167, 168, 169, 192, 196, 236, 237, 245, 276-78 (incl. fn. 1), , 280, 284, 288, 289, 292, 322, 324, 325, 333, 338, 342, 343, 351, 358,

557

364, 377, 422, 430, 438, 440 fn. 6, 452 fn. 27. II: 68, 97. See also Cave. Hut, I: 220-22, 223-25, 226, 227, 242, 243, 248, 259, 327, 328, 329, 331, 332, 333, 334, 338, 350, 363, 375, 376, 394, 422, 451. Hyena, I: 174-75, 207, 249, 251, 281 fn. 8, 299 (incl. fn. 9), 325, 341, 342, 345, 346, 361, 419, 421, 448. Illness, I: 73, 114, 118 fn. 25, 193, 247, 249, 279, 350, 361, 370, 385, 400, 407, 461, 470, 476. II: 63. See also Ailments, Sickness. Immortal/Immortality, I: 17. 18. 19, 22, 23, 28, 70, 71, 81, 84, 86-87 (incl. fn. 1 & fn. 2), 99-100, 104 (incl. fn. 3), 122, 126, 147, 149, 152, 157, 158, 159, 162, 175, 187, 196, 201, 231, 232, 244, 253, 254, 295, 297, 299, 302, 303-19, 344, 345. II: 91, 92, 94, 98. 99. Incision, I: 426, 429, 430, 445, 447 (incl. fn. 22), 451, 454 fn. 32, 456, 457 (incl. fn. 35), 458. II: 80, 83 fn. 90. See also Inoculation, Vaccination. Inoculation, I: 77-78 (incl. fn. 18), 447-48, 450, 453, 454, 458. See also Incision, Vaccination. Islam/Islamisation, I: 76-77, 154 fn. 41, 160-77, 197, 251, 278, 317, 318, 321, 409, 452, 453 fn. 28. II : 3, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 31, 32, 33, 46, 65, 92, 98. See also Muslim, Shaikh. Jewel, I: 91, 115 fn. 21, 269 (incl. fn. 3), 282. Judaism/Jews/Rabbinic, I: 115 fn. 19, 127, 128, 129 (incl. fn. 5), 130 (incl. fn. 7), 132, 133, 135,

558 136, 148, 150, 163 fn. 7, 316, 317, 323. II: 2, 99. Justice, I: 61, 71 fn. 4, 80, 82, 133, 141-42, 197. See also Punishment. Kiss, I: 93, 167, 170, 235, 396, 410. II: 93. Knowledge, I: 18, 20, 22, 27, 41, 78, 90, 118 fn. 27, 121, 143-44, 146-47 (incl. fn. 29), 149-50, 155-58 (incl. fn. 48), 175, 189, 194, 196, 216, 231, 233, 236 fn. 4, 254, 360-68, 429, 431, 434, 435, 439, 441, 442 fn. 11, 444, 445, 446, 447 fn. 23, 456, 458. II: 41 fn. 30, 70 fn. 67, 87, 101. Leprosy/Skin disease, I: 89, 114, 115 fn. 19, 197, 243. Likeness, I: 49, 63, 168, 218. Limb, I: 3, 5 fn. 7, 11, 78, 87, 148, 149, 213, 425, 426-27, 428, 449. Lion, I: 50, 51-52, 73 fn. 7, 155, 174, 190, 204, 205, 206, 207, 210, 211, 213 fn. 13, 228, 249, 264 fn. 11, 346, 367, 371, 372, 377, 378, 381, 384 fn. 13, 385, 392, 410, 420, 421, 447, 448, 454 fn. 32. II: 52, 68, 84, 89 fn. 95. Liver, I: 393 (incl. fn. 3), 396. Locomotion, I: 12, 19, 130 fn. 7, 148, 201, 202, 212. Lunar, I: 83, 166, 297, 300 fn. 10, 313. See also Moon. Mamba, I: 2, 7, 51-52, 257, 258, 273, 326, 373, 374, 419, 422, 441, 443 (incl. fn. 13), 447, 448, 449, 450, 458, 476. Medicine/Medicinal, I: 19, 40, 51, 52 fn. 5, 78, 80, 83-84, 86 (incl. fn. 2), 87, 99, 111, 116, 137 fn. 15, 149, 157, 160, 171, 189 (incl. fn. 19), 193, 194, 218,

Index 3 230, 243, 244, 250 fn. 29, 253, 268, 270, 279, 286 (incl. fn. 16), 309, 319, 329, 338, 345, 350, 362, 368 fn. 12, 375, 389 fn. 26, 394-98 (incl. fn. 5 & fn. 6), 400, 402, 406, 417, 418, 420-23, 426-32 (incl. fn. 8 & fn. 10), 443-35, 438 fn. 2, 440-50 (incl. fn. 7 & 24), 451, 453-58 (incl. fn. 32 & fn. 35), 465, 467, 476. II: 70 fn. 67, 81 fn. 88, 88, 98, 99. See also Healing. Metaphor, I: 34, 36, 49-51, 52-59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 68, 97 fn. 23, 128, 136, 144, 151, 152, 155, 156, 202-06, 222, 226-28 (incl. fn. 34), 254, 341, 344, 353. II: 36, 82, 94. Metonymy, I: 34, 48, 49, 51, 52. Milk, I: 84, 93 (incl. fn. 13), 104, 105, 109, 111, 112 (incl. fn. 15), 113, 116, 118, 119 (incl. fn. 29), 120, 121 (incl. fn. 38), 122 (incl. fn. 39), 140 fn. 19, 166, 184, 186, 191, 196, 219-20 fn. 25, 242, 248, 254, 264, 271, 284, 285, 300, 304, 315, 319, 320, 326, 328, 329 (incl. fn. 9), 331, 332, 333, 334, 339, 340, 341, 343, 346, 349, 364, 371, 374, 375, 376, 383, 384, 387, 392, 393, 394, 396, 401, 403, 406, 408, 411, 415, 425, 427, 455, 461, 462, 463. II: 2, 4, 7, 29, 51, 73, 80, 81, 94, 97. Monkey, I: 12, 207, 210, 211-14 (incl. fn. 12), 215-17 (incl. fn. 21), 228, 388, 465. II: 67. See also Baboon, Chimpanzee. Moon, I: 20, 83-84 (incl. fn. 27), 96, 170, 195, 197, 246, 269, 297, 298, 303, 306, 313-15 (incl. fn. 29 & fn. 31), 316, 332, 366, 394-95, 399, 462, 470. II: 81, 92, 95. See also Lunar.

Themes and Topics: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) Muslim, I: 76 fn. 15, 154 fn. 41, 160, 161 fn. 2, 163, 164 fn. 8, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172 fn. 23, 173, 175, 177, 197, 211, 242 fn. 17, 244, 277 fn. 1, 317, 318, 326, 409, 466. II: 3, 31 fn. 11 & fn. 12, 32 fn. 15, 34 fn. 17, 68 fn. 64. See also Islam, Shaikh. Naga, I: 102-26, 236 fn. 6, 353 fn. 6. II: 97. Netherworld/Underworld/ Underground, I: 3, 19, 20, 23, 24, 43, 70 fn. 1, 73, 74, 75 (incl. fn. 14), 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 8788, 92 (incl. fn. 9), 96, 97, 104, 114, 127-28 fn. 1, 130, 131-32 fn. 7, 140, 153, 171, 175, 187, 195, 196, 202 fn. 1, 238, 245, 250, 261, 276, 281, 282, 302, 313, 324-25, 326, 328, 340, 343, 344, 352, 353, 368. II: 76, 93, 101. Nile, I: 29, 58, 70 (incl. fn. 1), 71, 79, 91, 135, 136, 137, 175, 176 fn. 30, 197 fn. 1, 335, 377. II: 14, 98. Opposites, I: 30, 42, 126. Oruboros, I: 74 (incl. fn. 9), 144, 234, 242, 251, 472. See also Circle. Otherness/”Alien-ness”, I: 11, 18, 20. Pangolin, I: 131 fn. 7, 307-08 (incl. fn. 22). Paradox/Paradoxical, I: 1, 28 (incl. fn. 9(, 30, 68, 91, 100, 110, 185, 206, 217 fn. 21, 263, 310, 348, 357, 414, 455. II: 5, 10 fn. 1, 15, 16, 22 fn. 20, 59 fn. 50. Phallic, I: 17, 19, 18, 20, 22, 26-27, 28-29, 33, 36-37, 39, 40, 43, 68, 92 (incl. fn. 10), 98 fn. 20, 154 (incl. fn. 39), 180, 195, 196,

559

230, 231, 319 fn. 34, 353. II: 38, 68, 71, 84, 86, 87. Phobia, I: 10 (incl. fn. 4), 12, 37, 263. Pictograph, I: 70. Pillar, I: 81 fn. 23, 92, 133. Poison, I: 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 17, 19, 25, 71 fn. 3, 72, 75, 76 fn. 15, 77-79 (incl. fn. 16 & fn. 18), 83, 87, 97-98, 99, 103 (incl. fn. 1), 108, 116, 117, 118, 125-26, 127-28 fn. 1, 131, 132, 137, 147, 177, 185, 187, 189, 243-44, 249, 257-58, 261, 262, 263, 268, 272, 277 fn. 1, 279, 283, 290 (incl. fn. 20), 305, 310, 321, 329, 331, 348, 367 fn. 9, 370 (incl. fn. 5), 372, 373, 378, 382, 385-87 (incl. fn. 17), 389, 391, 399, 400, 409, 417, 418, 419, 421, 425-26, 427, 429, 432, 436, 437, 440 fn. 6, 443 (incl. fn. 15), 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452 fn. 27 & fn. 28, 453, 456, 457, 458, 468, 469, 476. II: 4, 23, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 86. Polysemy, I: 16, 63-64, 196. Pond, I: 24, 27, 248, 250, 263, 282, 321, 348, 354, 468. II: 18, 22, 34, 37, 38, 67. See also River, Water. Porcupine, I: 281 fn. 8, 438-41 (incl. fn. 6 & fn. 8), 455. Pot, I: 53 fn. 7, 57, 58 fn. 20, 60, 63, 64, 105, 118, 120, 245, 248, 285, 290 (incl. fn. 20), 312, 452, 471. II: 68, 97. See also Vessel. Priest/Priestess/Religious leader, I: 70, 72, 89, 91, 94, 95 fn. 18, 97 fn. 22, 98, 109, 110, 111, 113, 122, 123, 145, 155, 156, 158, 176, 184, 190, 215, 217, 230, 231, 233, 235, 237, 247, 250, 253, 258, 264, 265, 279, 280, 287, 290, 330, 332, 340, 341 fn. 20, 343, 346, 349, 360, 363,

560 366, 385, 390, 392, 405, 408, 409-10 (incl. fn. 12), 452 fn. 28, 455, 460, 461 (incl. fn. 1), 462 (incl. fn. 2), 463, 465, 469, 473, 474, 475. II: 1, 7, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 29, 31, 34, 39, 40, 41 (incl. fn. 30), 43, 44, 45, 48, 52, 53, 54, 58, 61, 62, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 75, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99. See also Shaikh. Prophet/Prophecy, I: 95, 97 fn. 22, 135, 136, 143, 144, 145, 161, 166, 167, 168-69, 170, 173, 174, 197, 211, 214, 217, 275, 278 fn. 4, 340, 360, 367 (incl. fn. 10), 392, 395, 398, 405, 406, 435, 460, 475, 476. II: 93, 98. Punishment, I: 132, 146 fn. 28, 147, 161, 196, 211-12, 288, 292, 304, 330, 332, 349, 365, 416, 419, 442. II: 63. See also Justice. Purity/Impurity, I: 81 fn. 25, 110, 113 fn. 17, 121, 122, 123, 129, 130, 164 fn. 5, 197, 233, 415. II: 33, 79. Python, I: 2, 4, 5, 9, 13, 21, 26, 51, 95, 97 (incl. fn. 22), 98, 107, 152 fn. 37, 227, 229 fn. 1, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235, 237 (incl. fn. 9), 238, 240 241, 242, 243, 244, 247, 248, 249 (incl. fn. 28), 250, 251, 252, 257, 258, 259, 260 (incl. fn. 4), 261, 264, 265, 267, 269, 272, 274, 275, 280, 301, 317 fn. 33, 325, 326, 329, 330, 331 fn. 11, 333 (incl. fn. 12), 334, 338, 347 (incl. fn. 26), 348, 349 (incl. fn. 1), 350, 351, 352, 353, 355, 356, 358 (incl. fn. 15), 359 (incl. fn. 16), 360, 361, 364, 365, 366, 369, 372, 373 (incl. fn. 10), 374, 375, 376, 378, 381 (incl. fn. 5), 383, 384 fn. 13, 397, 407 fn. 11, 419,

Index 3 423, 424, 441, 443, 460, 461, 462, 463, 465, 467, 468 (incl. fn. 6), 460. II: 2 fn. 2, 20 fn. 16, 31 fn. 12, 51, 55, 56, 66, 67, 69, 94, 95, 97, 98. Rain, I: 104, 112, 125, 126, 137, 153, 190, 214, 217, 225, 230, 231, 234, 236, 237, 245, 247, 249, 250 (incl. fn. 30), 245, 263, 268, 270, 272, 279, 283, 284, 285, 286 (incl. fn. 16), 287, 295, 310, 313-14 (incl. fn. 29), 33536, 337, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 364, 371, 384, 393, 395, 399, 400, 403 (incl. fn. 5), 407, 408, 415, 460, 465, 468, 469, 475. II: 31, 43, 46, 47-48, 60, 62, 70, 76, 95, 98. See also Pond, River, Water. Rainbow, I: 37, 115 fn. 21, 230, 231, 234, 237 fn. 9, 238, 250, 254, 268, 269, 286 fn. 16. 35354, 355 (incl. fn. 11), 356, 357, 358, 359 (incl. fn. 16), 465, 475. II: 95, 99. Rain-making, I: 217, 283, 284, 285, 287, 335, 336, 337, 352, 353, 371, 390, 393, 394, 405 fn. 9, 438, 468. II: 98. Reincarnation, I: 22, 71, 126, 207, 230, 274, 324, 326 fn. 3. Regeneration/Rejuvenation, I: 17, 18. 20, 22, 25, 37, 40, 71, 80, 82, 84, 87, 96, 100, 102, 148, 195, 197, 294, 295, 297, 298 (incl. fn. 8), 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 316, 319, 416, 418, 475. II: 88, 90, 91, 92, 98, 101. Ringhal, II: 23. River, I: 25, 40, 79, 90, 91, 107-08, 126, 127 fn. 1, 137 (incl. fn. 15), 141, 153, 162, 170, 173, 234, 237-38, 242, 248, 250, 263, 267-58, 269-70 (incl. fn. 5), 271, 273, 282, 283, 351, 354,

Themes and Topics: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) 364, 377, 378, 465-66. 468. II: 10, 12, 13, 17 (incl. fn. 13), 31, 45, 90, 95, 99. See also Pond, Rain, Water. Rock, I: 3,73, 98-99, 135-37, 164 (incl. fn. 9), 165 (incl. fn. 11), 155, 167, 171, 174, 175, 209-10, 277, 327, 349, 352, 383, 463. II: 92. See also Stone. Rod, I: 51, 74, 438 fn. 3. II: 71. See also Scepter, Staff, Stick. Rope, I: 26 (incl. fn. 6), 271, 279, 299, 300, 344, 381 (“strap”). Sacred, I: notably 11, 71, 72, 91, 94, 100, 103, 111, 114, 117 (incl. fn. 25), 123, 124, 141, 155, 164, 165 (incl. fn. 11), 167, 170, 174, 231, 235, 238, 244, 247, 253, 264, 268, 270, 272, 284 (incl. fn. 13), 287, 288, 327, 336, 344, 349, 352, 353, 364, 365, 379, 383, 419 fn. 4, 460, 461, 462, 453, 464, 466, 468. II: notably 5, 6, 7, 13 fn. 7, 18, 22, 25, 27 fn. 3, 36, 37, 53, 54, 61, 67, 69, 71, 72, 76, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 92, 97. Sacrifice/Sacrificial, I: 26, 60, 95, 96, 98, 109 fn. 10, 122 fn. 39, 145, 164, 168 fn. 16, 174. 175, 176, 188, 202, 230, 234, 235, 236, 237, 242 fn. 17, 247, 248, 249, 250 (incl. fn. 30), 251, 271 (incl. fn. 6), 278, 279, 284, 286 (incl. fn, 16), 287, 288, 296 fn. 4, 298 fn. 8, 329, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339 fn. 17, 341, 343, 352, 365, 374, 382, 383 (incl. fn. 10), 393 fn. 3, 402, 415, 439 fn. 4, 461, 463, 469, 473. II: 2, 3, 15, 27, 28 (incl. fn. 7), 36, 46, 58, 59, 60, 62 (incl. fn. 56), 66, 68 (incl. fn. 64), 78, 82 fn. 89, 92, 95, 96.

561

Saliva, I: 5, 7, 138, 142, 382, 399413, 451. II: 87. See also Spittle. Scepter, I: 74. See also Staff, Stick. Scorpion, I: 77-78 fn. 18), 131, 160, 161 (incl. fn. 2), 168, 174, 177, 405, 422, 426, 457. Semen: I: 36, 57, 58, 154 (incl. fn. 41), 401, 413. II: 11 fn. 2, 85, 86. Shades, I: 70, 71, 138. See also Ancestor, Soul, Spirit. Shaykh/Shaikh, I: 77, 173, 175-76 (incl. fn. 30), 177, 278 (incl. fn. 4). II: 31, 32, 33, 40. See also Islam, Muslim. Sickness, I: 20, 83, 88, 132, 169, 218, 420, 462, 464. II: 84. See also Ailment, Illness. Skin, I: 5 (incl. fn. 9), 9, 7, 17,18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 28, 40, 71, 76 (incl. fn. 15), 82, 83, 89, 96, 106, 107, 113, 114, 115 (incl. fn. 19), 116, 119, 132, 134, 150, 183, 185, 188, 196, 197, 204, 213, 216, 217, 220, 226, 230, 232, 243, 244, 245, 246. 248, 265, 267, 275, 286 (incl. fn. 16), 289, 290, 291, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300, 301 (incl. fn. 14), 302, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309 (incl. fn. 24), 310, 313, 316, 318, 329, 335, 336, 338, 341, 342, 344, 376 (incl. fn. 16), 407 (incl. fn. 11), 411, 412, 414, 415, 416, 418, 419, 421, 424, 429, 430, 440, 441, 445, 447, 448, 457 (incl. fn. 35), 458, 470, 473, 475. II: 81 (incl. fn. 88), 87, 88, 90, 93, 94, 95, 99, 101. Sky, I: 23, 30. 75, 80, 82, 83, 89, 91, 103, 103 fn. 2, 121, 123, 125, 134 (incl. fn. 13), 135, 136, 137, 164 fn. 9, 173, 179 fn. 2, 195, 207, 215, 231, 233, 234, 237, 238, 269, 271, 283, 284, 286 fn. 16, 288, 292, 299, 304,

562 306, 313, 319, 324, 325, 334, 335, 336, 337, 354, 357, 358, 378, 392, 399, 452 fn. 28. II: 11, 31, 34, 36, 46, 47, 60, 61, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 90. Soul, I: 19, 20, 22, 24, 36, 40, 42, 73, 88, 91, 94, 101, 134, 184, 208, 212, 237, 240, 243, 264, 324, 326, 327, 334, 346, 396, 400 (incl. fn. 1), 453, 470, 471. See also Ancestor, Shades, Spirit. Spear, I: 26, 51-52, 56, 57, 202, 281 fn. 8, 291, 329, 359, 374, 405, 439-40, 471. II: 20 fn. 15, 74, 93. Spine, I: 4, 8, 130 fn. 7, 247, 347 fn. 27, 441. Spirit, I: notably 23, 70, 79, 89-90, 91, 93 (incl. fn. 12), 124, 155, 171-72, 176 (incl. fn. 30), 186, 197, 201, 203, 207, 215, 231, 236 (incl. fn. 6), 237, 242, 246, 247, 248-49, 250 (incl. fn. 30), 254, 259, 261, 263 (incl. fn. 10), 270, 271, 278, 279, 281, 282, 283, 287, 288, 289, 324, 325 (incl. fn. 2), 326 (incl. fn. 3), 327, 328, 329, 330 (incl. fn. 10), 332, 333, 335, 338, 339, 340, 341, 343, 344, 345, 347 (incl. fn. 27), 349, 350, 352, 362, 364 (incl. fn. 7), 365, 366, 369, 370 (incl. fn. 4), 371, 372, 373, 374, 378, 379-91, 400 (incl. fn. 1), 416, 431, 445, 460, 461 (incl. fn. 1), 462 (incl. fn. 2 & fn. 3), 463, 464, 465 (incl. fn. 5), 467, 468, 469, 473 (incl. fn. 12), 475. II: notably 5 fn. 8, 6, 8, 11 (incl. fn. 3), 12, 13, 15, 17, 22 (incl. fn. 20), 60, 72-73 (incl. fn. 75 & fn. 76), 74 (incl. fn. 77), 93, 84, 95, 97, 98. See also Ancestor, Shade, Soul.

Index 3 Spit/Spittle, I: 11, 52 (incl. fn. 6),73, 76, 78, 63, 97, 125, 137, 138, 139, 142, 169, 235, 243, 257, 258, 275, 286, 294, 310, 329, 361, 363 (incl. fn. 3), 373 (incl. fn. 11), 375, 377, 378, 382, 39091, 396, 399-415, 418, 420, 421, 422, 429, 431, 436, 443 fn. 13, 447, 451, 454 (incl. fn. 31), 476. II: 21 (incl. fn. 18), 22, 23, 24, 51, 56, 62, 65 (incl. fn. 61), 68, 69, 70, 75, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 (incl. fn. 91), 85, 86, 88, 90, 93, 94, 95. See also Saliva. Staff, I: 29 fn. 10, 74, 89, 95, 127, 133, 135, 136, 137 (incl. fn. 15), 138, 161, 190, 194. II: 20 fn. 15, 65, 72. See also Rod, Scepter, Stick. Stick, I: 26, 29, 47, 48 (incl. fn. 2), 51, 52, 53 (incl. fn. 8 & fn. 9), 54 (incl. fn. 12), 63, 64, 68, 74, 75, 76, 88, 104, 121 (incl. fn. 35), 135, 144, 161, 162, 183, 186. 188, 190, 223, 237 (incl. fn. 9), 242, 248, 257, 287, 291, 292, 293, 304, 331, 333, 339, 340, 343, 357 (incl. fn. 14), 376, 380 (incl. fn. 3), 386 (incl. fn. 18), 396 (incl. fn. 6), 417, 424, 450, 462 (incl. fn. 3), 470, 475. II: 9, 32, 33, 54, 67, 84. See also Rod, Scepter, Staff. Stone, I: 17, 24, 33, 53 fn. 7, 56, 82, 83, 94, 97, 109, 138, 164 (incl. fn. 9), 165 (incl. fn. 11), 166, 167 (incl. fn. 14), 168, 170 (incl. fn. 20), 171, 177, 187, 188, 210, 212, 269, 284 (incl. fn. 13), 312, 316 (incl. fn. 32), 336, 345, 346, 349, 352. II: 15 fn. 1, 45, 92, 93. See also Rock. Strangulation, I: 25, 26, 38, 286 fn. 16, 374.

Themes and Topics: I (Volume One) - II (Volume Two) Taboo, I: 21, 34, 35, 55 fn. 14, 109, 150, 209, 318, 320, 321, 322, 347, 351, 370, 412, 413, 446. II: 16, 33 fn. 16, 53 fn. 45. Tail, I: 51, 74, 75, 135, 144, 148, 167, 213, 214-15 (incl. fn. 16 & fn. 19), 217, 225, 234, 236, 242, 267, 268, 275, 277, 338, 356, 357 (incl. fn. 14). Theriac: I: 84, 87, 115 fn. 19, 158. Thunder, I: 135, 137, 138, 213, 250 fn. 30, 270, 271, 285, 286, 288, 356, 357, 358, 452 fn. 28. II: 95. Tobacco, I: 328, 339, 340, 375, 404, 428, 447 (incl. fn. 23). II: 81, 84 fn. 91. Tortoise, I: 208, 260, 307-08 (incl. fn, 21 & fn. 22). See also Turtle. Totem/totemic/Totemical/Totemism /Totemistic, I: 105, 124, 207, 208, 209, 210, 230, 240, 241, 242, 243 (incl. fn. 19), 244, 245, 262, 277, 288, 350, 369-78, 379, 380 (incl. fn. 20), 382, 387, 389, 405, 435, 466. II: 21, 94. Treasure, I: 17, 20, 24, 166 (incl. fn. 12), 167, 168. Turtle, I: 2, 260, 307, 308. 315, 440 (incl. fn. 7). See also Tortoise. Twins/Twinship, I: 95, 96, 106-07, 206-07, 208. 239, 241 (incl. fn. 13), 242, 245, 246, 254, 264, 324, 339 fn. 17, 368, 369, 370 (incl. fn. 5), 384, 387, 438, 439 (incl. fn. 4), 441 (incl. fn. 8), 470 (incl. fn. 7 & fn. 8), 471, 472 (incl. fn. 10), 473, 475. II: 4, 95, 98. Two-headed/Three-headed/etc., I: 8, 78, 97, 98, 99, 103, 109, 111, 125, 238, 247, 251 fn. 31, 268, 273, 471. Uraeus, I: 72, 73, 99 fn. 24.

563

Vaccination/Variolation, I: 457-58, 459. See also Incision, Inoculation. Venom/Venomous/Envenomation, I: notably 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 75 (incl. fn. 17), 90, 118, 125 (incl. fn. 43), 126, 132 (incl. fn. 9), 137, 161, 187-88 (incl. fn. 15), 196, 248, 252-53, 257, 385-86 (incl. fn. 17), 417, 418 (incl. fn. 3), 420, 425, 427, 430, 431 (incl. fn. 14), 432, 435, 447 (incl. fn. 22), 448, 450 (incl. fn. 25), 457, 458. II. 19, 23, 50, 51, 56, 63 fn. 58, 70, 77, 86, 87, 90, 94, 99, 102. See also Adder, Cobra, Mamba, Ringhal, Viper. Vessel, I: 57, 80, 83-84, 104 (incl. fn. 3), 111, 186. 191. 251. See also Pot. Viper, I: 2, 4 fn. 5, 7 (incl. fn. 10), 11, 24 fn. 3, 39 fn. 11, 75, 80, 84, 87, 89, 115 fn. 19, 141, 148 fn. 33, 161, 169, 173, 177, 181, 185 fn. 13, 193 fn. 25, 240, 241 (incl. fn. 15), 244, 246, 248, 250, 257, 258 (incl. fn. 1) , 265, 289, 332 fn. 11, 373, 385 fn. 17, 386, 406, 426, 458 (incl. fn. 36), 476. Water, I: notably 3, 4 (incl. fn. 6), 20, 21 24-25, 58, 79, 82 (incl. fn. 26), 83, 87, 102, 103, 108, 122 fn. 39, 124-25 (incl. fn. 43), 126, 135, 136, 137, 139, (incl. fn. 16), 140, 153, 154 (incl. fn. 41), 161-62, 169, 170, 171, 184, 200, 215, 230, 238, 245, 246 fn. 23, 249, 250 (incl. fn. 30), 252 260, 263 (incl. fn. 10), 268, 271, 273, 276, 282, 283, 284 (incl. fn. 13), 285, 286 fn. 16, 287, 292, 300, 301, 309 (incl. fn. 24), 312, 336, 351, 354-55 (incl. fn. 11), 356, 359, 364, 374

564 (incl. fn. 12), 384 (incl. fn. 11), 399, 401, 453, 463, 467. II: 4-5 fn. 6, 11 (incl. fn. 2), 12-13 (incl. fn. 5), 17 fn. 13, 18, 21 fn. 18, 23, 32, 34-35, 37 (incl. fn. 24), 38, 63, 74 fn. 77, 75, 76 (incl. fn. 79), 77, 94, 95, 97, 99, 101. See also Pond, Rain, River. Whip, I: 53, 186, 421. II: 71, 72. White, I: 36, 59 fn. 21, 84, 103, 113, 120, 121, 122, 164, 166, 167, 171, 184, 188, 202, 205, 209, 210, 216, 233, 234 fn. 1, 243, 244, 246, 250, 275, 280, 284 (incl. fn. 12), 287, 291, 297, 327, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 351, 363 (incl. fn. 4), 366, 373, 378, 379, 411, 412, 452 fn. 27, 464, 468, 473. II: 2, 4 fn. 6, 46, 69. Wind (atmospheric) , I: 158, 172 fn. 23, 236-37, 249, 282, 441 fn. 9.

Index 3 Womb, I: 58 Incl. fn. 20), 59, 60, 63, 88, 155, 220, 222, 223, 224, 226 fn. 31, 241, 275, 290, 293, 322, 406, 424, 425, 427, 440. See also Belly, Fertility. Worship, I: 12, 14, 15, 17, 22, 72, 80, 81, 102, 105, 109, 110, 11, 112, 113, 114, 118, 122, 123, 124, 128 fn. 3, 129, 133, 141, 143, 144 fn. 26, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170 (incl. fn. 20)., 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 181, 185, 194, 198, 229, 230, 251 fn. 31, 263, 274, 278, 350, 367, 438, 439 fn. 4, 462, 465, 469, 473, 476. II: 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 31, 46 fn. 34, 74. See also Cult.