Secrets of snake charmers. Secrets of snake charmers Poisonous snake charmer

It is known that snakes are very poor hearing. But they react to high-pitched flute music. Certain vibrations of the air strike the scales of the skin or the tips of the snake's ribs.

The snake charmer is unusual and dangerous profession. The art of snake spells originated in Egypt, so it is there that you can meet the most experienced hunters and spellcasters in the world. The art of snake spell appeared as a result of the worship of creeping reptiles. The most skilled snake charmers in Egypt are deeply religious people. Cobras, like tiaras, served in ancient Egypt as a symbol of royal dignity. Cleopatra's snake was a cobra. And the wizards of the pharaohs could turn snakes into a rod. This was done by squeezing the snake's head so much that its brain was affected, and the snake entered into a stupor.

The most consummate snake charmer was Sheikh Moussa of Luxor. The skill of Sheikh Moussa was unique. At his shows, he cast spells and sang, thereby luring snakes out of their holes. Without stopping these actions, he slowly approached the snake, put his hand on the ground, and the cobra lowered its head and laid it on the palm of the caster. Moussa also showed a trick by placing a wild, freshly caught cobra in a circle, which he outlined with a stick in the sand. Cobra remained in the circle until Moussa allowed her to leave him. Having caught 4-5 cobras, Moussa put them in a circle and began to conjure them all together. The spectacle for those around was unforgettable. How did he manage to do it?

Snakes are known to have very poor hearing. But they react to high-pitched flute music. Certain vibrations of the air strike the scales of the skin or the tips of the snake's ribs. Therefore, playing the flute excites the cobra rather than charms it. After all, the open hood of the snake just testifies to this. If you look closely at the movements of the snake charmer, then their secret can become clear.

The whole trick is not at all in the flute. The snakes crawl out of the basket after a slight imperceptible blow to it by the caster. Swinging to the beat of the music, the cobra follows the movements of the human hand, and does not dance at all. Thoughtful movements of the caster's hand control the behavior of the snake. He approaches her slowly, trying not to alarm the reptile. The snake charmer always looks into the eyes of the animal to catch the moment when the snake wants to grab his hand. If the snake starts to worry, the caster puts it back in the basket and chooses another cobra.

Sometimes snake charmers, for the amusement of the public, display two bites on their arm from the snake that allegedly bit him during the show. He applies a "serpent stone" to them - a remedy for their poison. But those two holes were already there before the show started. And healing with a stone is just a fairy tale. These are not all the tricks and tricks that you may not notice during the show.

Some cunning people manage to repaint completely harmless snakes in the natural colors of the most dangerous of their kind, like vipers. From afar, such a fake is almost indistinguishable, especially to the eye of a non-specialist. No snake charmer trains his pets from birth. For performances, already mature individuals are caught, since the young are more aggressive, and adult snakes bite less often. Training snakes is useless.

It happens that the snake charmer removes the poisonous teeth of the unfortunate reptile or sews up his mouth with an ordinary thread and needle. If the operation is carried out skillfully, then the thread remains covered with lip shields. The snake in this case becomes harmless and helpless. She can hiss, stick out her tongue, rush at people, but, alas, she will not be able to bite in this state. Snakes do not live long after such manipulations. By the way, not all snakes participate in performances. The snake charmer selects only those individuals who are able to stand for a long time and rarely show a desire to rush and bite.

Snake shows are widespread in Thailand. Snakes and reptiles in general cannot be tamed. Any - even those who were "educated" from childhood: fed, treated and courted in every possible way. They can attack their teacher at any moment. Therefore, a snake show worker cannot be called a trainer - he is a caster. The snake charmer!

Many tourists are touched by the sight of a huge python hanging on the neck of its owner. The owner of the snake smiles friendly and offers to hang the pet on a curious onlooker - for a certain bribe, of course. And the guest is unaware that in reality the python is not so humble and quiet. Just in nature, the snake is used to not eating for a very long time. And here it is constantly, to the point of disgust, “pumped up” with food. And the python is always full. Therefore, he has a persistent reluctance to swallow and squeeze something in his iron embrace. There are many absurd judgments about the cobra. Say, a cobra participating in a snake show is safe because its fangs are removed. But this is a delusion. In fact, this snake, in addition to fangs, also has a solid tooth comb, and the poison flows down the groove behind it. Cobra bites with fangs, and holds the victim with a comb. So even if you remove the fangs, and the snake bites a person, the poison will still get into the blood, because the comb will scratch the skin. So tearing the fangs of snakes does not make any sense, moreover, it is even harmful to their health, since the periosteum can become inflamed. Then the snake will die.

The secret of trainers is that they are guided by the instincts of snakes. Some spellcasters in Thailand tease the snake with their hands - these movements replace the famous Indian flute. In India and Morocco, fakirs and spellcasters, without further ado, take out a simple musical instrument and begin to play it. The snake, which has just stuck its head out of the box, suddenly begins to sway to the beat of the music. And it seems to calm down. But if there are no tourists around, then the snakes are not teased and do not play melodies for them. All these tricks with flutes are a show for the audience. After all, snakes are deaf, they have no ears. And the flute is needed only in order to, if necessary, heat the creeping reptile with a musical stick. This is how she is brought up, accustomed to a certain rhythm of the movement of her hands and the flute. And when the snake sees the tool or the hands of the caster, ready to hit it, it performs a dance of fear. Quite often, snakes still get to their owners and bite them. For some, the career ends here: fear is a serious matter. If this happens, the snake is usually killed and carried along with the wounded caster to the hospital to pick up an antidote. The poor fellow will have to spend some time in intensive care. Working with venom-spitting snakes is even more difficult. As a rule, they strive to get into the eyes of a person (or any other victim). Another number in the show is based on this feature. The caster puts on glasses, lifts the lid of the box and, shaking his head, brings his face closer to the snake, then demonstrating the poison on the glasses.

It is believed that working with small, less than one and a half meters, snakes is generally impossible - their movements are unexpected. A large reptile does not instantly throw the whole body forward, its movements are quite predictable.

Snake spells are an unusual and dangerous profession. Almost every spellcaster I knew had died by their own snakes. The only secret that these fearless people do not know is the secret of survival.

I think that the art of snake charms originated in Egypt, a country that gave the world many inventions. Snakes are the bane of Egyptian villages, which is perhaps why you'll find some of the world's most skilled snake hunters and charmers in the world. On the banks of the Nile I have seen performances far more interesting and sophisticated than those seen in India.

Cobras served as a symbol of royal dignity, like tiaras on Egyptian statues. Cleopatra's snake was a cobra. The magicians of the pharaohs could turn snakes into a rod, imitating the miracle that Moses demonstrated. This, I think, was done by squeezing the head of the snake so that its brain was affected, and the snake seemed to become stiff.

Sorcerers all over Africa know a lot about the habits of snakes. White people living in tropical Africa often call a sorcerer for help when it seems to them that snakes have wound up in their dwellings. And the medicine man mgange rarely fails to detect a snake. For this, he deserves a well-deserved reward. And what is five or ten shillings when the house is permanently rid of poisonous mambas?

So the medicine man comes with his reed pipes. He says the traditional spell and plays the pipe in different corners of the house until the mamba crawls out on open space. This writhing creature is very beautiful, but there is so much poison in his teeth that he could slay an elephant with it. At the right moment, the healer directs his stick forked at the end to her, grabs the snake and throws it into his bag. Now such an operation almost always turns out to be the result of fraud. This is, as a rule, a trained snake without teeth, which was planted in a bungalow, and then "lured" out of its hiding place.

Probably the best snake charmer of his time was Sheikh Moussa (the Arabic equivalent of the name Moses) from Luxor, familiar to many thousands of tourists. Both Moussa's father and grandfather were snake charmers, and both of them died from their bites. One day, the youngest son of Moussa went to the desert to collect snakes and was mortally stung. Moussa was always ready to share the same fate. So it happened in 1939, when he somehow climbed into a cobra hole.

The skill of Sheikh Moussa was unsurpassed. Before the performance began, he allowed himself to be stripped and searched. The snakes he pulled out of their burrows under the adobe huts were untrained. He could smell a scorpion sitting under a rock, or a snake hiding in a hole.

The smell of the snake, he said, resembles the smell of ammonia.

Casting spells and singing, Moussa lured the snakes out of their holes and called them to him. Sometimes the cobra tried to attack. Moussa gently pushed the snake away with his stick. Then the cobra rose and carefully watched the caster. This, probably, gave Mousse the opportunity to do what he wanted. He, without stopping his singing for a moment, slowly approached the snake. Finally, he put his hand on the ground, and the cobra lowered its head and placed it on Moussa's palm.

Other snake charmers, including head keeper Bald of the London Zoo, have also been able to put on the same show, with the snake resting its head in the palm of your hand. This was the most exciting moment of the performance that the wise exorcist Husain Mia had put on in Cape Town for many years. But the old Moussa had other sensational tricks that only a few spellcasters of the present and past could perform.

Moussa placed a wild, freshly caught cobra in a circle, which he traced with a stick in the sand. In this circle, the cobra remained as if locked up until Moussa allowed her to leave it. Of course, I understand that almost anyone can hypnotize a chicken in this way, but try it with a cobra! Having finished the operation of catching snakes, Moussa would put four or five of them in a circle and begin to conjure them all together. Their attempts to escape were clearly visible to anyone who watched the performance, but not a single snake could slither far when Moussa was looking at it.

Without a doubt, Moussa simply created a special atmosphere for performances with spells, because snakes have very poor hearing. However, they do respond to high-pitched flute music. There is a theory that a certain vibration of the air hits the scales of the skin or the tips of the snake's ribs - in much the same way as the feet hit the ground when walking. So playing the flute excites the cobra rather than bewitches it.

Watch a snake charmer with his cobra baskets and you'll see he doesn't rely on his pipe to lure the snakes out of there to start the show. He lightly strikes each basket, and then a snake appears. Snake charmers do have real skill, but the audience rarely realizes that what is really happening is not at all what it seems to them. The swaying of the cobra in time with the music of the caster is nothing but the attempts of the snake to follow the movements of the human hand. It is worth carefully studying the behavior of the snake charmer, and you will see: the thoughtful movements of his hand and body, as it were, control the behavior of the snake. He approaches her slowly, always trying not to disturb the animal. And as soon as she shows signs of irritation, he puts her back in the basket and, to continue the performance, chooses another.

Hagg Ahmad, another famous Egyptian snake charmer and friend of Russell Pasha, claimed to be able to hypnotize snakes by whistling. He caught rare snakes for zoos and serum manufacturers. Hagg Ahmad was a member of the "Rifai" - a secret society of snake charmers, whose activities are religious in nature and are regulated by their own rules. He has been vaccinated, as have the rest of the Rifai, but it is still impossible to achieve complete immunity to snake bites. His career was very successful - until the day he died from a cobra bite.

Russell Pasha had an expert on snakes in the Cairo city police - an Englishman named Bain. Russell and Bain studied the techniques of snake charmers independently, but came to very similar conclusions. They decided that the secret to luring snakes out of their holes often lay in the ability of charmers to imitate. Nothing, of course, can make a snake in hibernation move, but during the mating period, the caster imitates the specific whistle emitted by the female, and lures the male with it into the open.

Another explanation I heard in Egypt was that experienced spellcasters used some kind of substance secreted by snakes, which has the property of attracting other individuals. I think this theory has some scientific backing. The remedy is said to be particularly effective in collecting snakes.

Russell Pasha stressed that the caster needed sharp eyesight and quick hands. To these qualities, I would add the ability to concentrate on your work at any time and at any age. Many spellcasters died simply because they thought of something else instead of keeping a close eye on the snakes.

When, five years after the First World War, I first became acquainted with the exotics of Egypt, there was a peculiar type of youthful snake charmers whose performances were so disgusting that the government had to restrict this kind of activity. These swashbucklers might walk up to your table in a cafe on Port Said Boulevard or even on the terrace of the luxurious Shepard Hotel and offer to show you how they swallow a cobra alive. Although there were always people willing to pay for such a spectacle, his sight of strong men began to vomit, and women fainted. Such artists no longer appear in fashionable hotels.

I remember one young guy who wore scorpions in his long black hair and held a cobra against his skin. Some of these people smeared their bodies with snake fat, believing that thanks to this they, as it were, entered into the trust of the snake tribe. Perhaps that is the way it is. One trick they did was a mystery to me for a very long time. The caster grabbed the cobra by the throat, forced it to open its disgusting mouth and spat into it. Let's face it, not the most refined entertainment, but the effect on the snake was simply amazing. In a second, she became as if petrified, and she could be held like a cane. It wasn't until a few years later that I was told that the caster had some kind of drug in his mouth that worked as soon as it entered the snake's mouth. This is another one of those tricks that looks like magic on the outside.

Some spellcasters may pretend to have been bitten by a cobra and show two small cuts on their finger. Rest assured, that "bite" was there before the show even started. These people usually apply a porous "snake stone" to their finger, a remedy they would never use if the bite were real.

The snakes favored by spellcasters everywhere are the cobras. Undoubtedly, their ominous "hood" gives additional sharpness to the performance. It should be noted that the cobra spreads its "hood" only when it is excited. This means that the snake is not under the influence of hypnosis when it sways to the tune of the caster, and certainly does not "dance". She is most likely just wondering what the caster is going to do, and you can be sure that the caster is watching the snake's eyes closely to see if it's aiming at his hand.

There are seven species of cobra in Africa, and they are so widespread that snake charmers easily collect their "inventory". The so-called Egyptian cobra, which is found from mediterranean sea to South Africa, is not a spitting snake, nor is the Cape cobra. But the ringhals and the black-necked cobra aim at their prey in the eye and can hit the target from a distance of seven feet. So you will have to rummage through the caster's bag for a long time before you find a spitting snake. To use it for a performance would be pure suicide.

Egyptian snake charmers often show very venomous horned viper. They also catch the dangerous carpet viper, but this species is extremely rare.

Husain Mia, the snake charmer whose performances in Cape Town I have mentioned above, sometimes asked for a king cobra to be sent from Burma. This snake has a very impressive appearance: it is the largest venomous snake in the world, and it seems huge among its smaller (zero less deadly) counterparts. The largest king cobras reach a length of 18 feet. They devour their fellow snakes, and the caster who keeps even one can lose all the other snakes if he is not careful.

Unfortunately, the king cobra South Africa does not live long. Husain Mia lost 14 expensive reptiles one by one, but they greatly enlivened his performances. Some of them are good-natured and calm, some are skittish. But nevertheless, every snake charmer craves the applause that only a huge and obedient king cobra can bring him. This is a snake that is being performed with a number known as the "death kiss". It can be performed only by a few among female spellcasters. Looks like some kind of hypnosis is really needed to kiss the face king cobra.

Husain Mia loved Cape Town so much that he called himself "Cape Town Charlie". He was a graduate of the University of Magic, Fire Swallowing, and Snake Charming in Pune, as befitted a descendant of a family of hereditary Indian wizards. Husain Mia arrived in South Africa at the end of the last century, and one can hardly find in Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa locality wherever you see this bearded smiling artist in a turban with a small tom-tom and snakes. He stated that he even performed at Buckingham Palace. ("I made snakes dance for King Edward and King George," he boasted.) He did speak at the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town, but his usual place of performance was at the jetty entrance on Adderley Street. When this pier was dismantled, he usually performed on the Parade (one of the main streets of Cape Town).

Among my memories of Khusain Mia is an episode full of childish humor, which I must have watched dozens of times, and I never got bored with it. Husain showed the audience a small basket with a lid. He would then select a suitable victim from the crowd - preferably some brute who would mock his performance. He asked the "victim" to carefully inspect the basket and show everyone that it was empty. Husain covered the basket with a cloth, played a few mysterious beats on the flute, put the basket forward and asked the victim to place his palms under it with a "cup" and catch what would appear from there. This number was a complete success if he managed to convince the "victim" that the basket was magically filled with money. The next moment, the frightened victim had a live snake in his hands. This snake was not at all dangerous, but it did not look harmless. I may have a primitive sense of humor, but rarely in my life have I laughed more sincerely. Husain Mia could put on performances that lasted for hours and still not repeat a single trick or joke twice. He also showed another number with a basket: his son Ibrahim wrapped himself like a snake around her, and Khusain plunged a dagger into the weave. But still, Husain was primarily a snake charmer. He sent his son to Pune so that he would improve his skills and then be able to continue the family business.

Husain Mia kept me entertained until I was an adult. He lived to the age of 75, which is probably a record for people in such a dangerous profession. The Cape cobra he was training bit him in the thumb on right hand during a speech at the entrance to the Mount Nelson Hotel during World War II. The son was called, who was giving a solo performance with snakes about a mile away. But when he arrived, Husain was already unconscious, and he was taken to the hospital too late.

Dr. Hamilton Fairley, who was interested in this deadly activity, traced life path 25 snake charmers over a 15 year period. During this time, 19 of them died from snake venom. There were quite a few charmers in South Africa who let their guard down when working with snakes. Bertie Pierce, known to scientists and naturalists all over the world, was the most famous among them. His main business was selling snakes for museums and "milking" snake venom used to make bite serum.

Pierce should never have done this business. He had a weak heart, and after each bite, he doubted whether he could endure the treatment. Once a viper bit him on the arm when there was no serum nearby. So he decided to burn out the poison, and since then the sleeve of his shirt has been hiding terrible scars. And one day he went to his usual place in Cape Town, where he put on a show with snakes to entertain the usual crowd when his African assistant was absent due to illness. A small cobra bit him on the ankle - and bites in this place are always especially dangerous, since there are many small blood vessels there. Pierce was given medical care but this time it didn't help. The snakes had bitten him nine times before.

You may wonder why snake charmers don't "milk" the snakes before the show starts. The fact is that the poison in a special bag accumulates in snakes quickly enough. And getting a snake to bite a piece of cloth over and over again until its venom pouch is empty is quite a painstaking task. Of course, the caster can rip out the snake's teeth altogether, but people who truly take pride in their work rarely do so. Such snakes become lethargic, sick and do not live long.

Desmond Fitzsimons, a South African snake specialist and son of the famous F. W. Fitzsimons of the Serpentarium in Port Elizabeth, during one of his snake charm performances, thought one of them looked very much like a viper. It was so unusual that he began to examine it carefully. It turned out to be a harmless carpet snake, painted so naturally that from a distance it looked exactly like a South African viper.

There was another medicine man in Sinai, in Southern Rhodesia, who achieved great fame by performing various tricks with green mambas without fear. During one of the performances, this man was bitten and died. The local surgeon sent one of them to Fitzsimons to determine its breed. It turned out to be a type of tree snake, or, as it is called in South Africa, a boomslang, a very bright green color. Boomslang is a snake whose back teeth are venomous. That medicine man was very unlucky: boomslang rarely manages to grab someone with his teeth and kill. But when scientists figured out the type of snake, the mystery was immediately dispelled. No snake charmer, no matter how skilled, could survive so many performances with a real mamba.

The art of snake spell probably originated from the worship of snakes in ancient world. Doctors were snake charmers at the same time, and to this day the snake is the symbol of the medical profession. Therefore, it is not surprising that the members of the Rifai, the most skilled snake charmers in Egypt, are deeply religious people. They will clean your house of snakes, but at the same time they will make a reservation that the snakes will be taken to the desert and released into the wild. Without a doubt, snake charmers still possess secrets that are still unknown to anyone except members of their caste.

There are many deadly professions in the world. The snake charmer is one of them. In India, the secrets of craftsmanship are transmitted exclusively from father to son - and so from generation to generation. No one will ever reveal to a stranger the nuances of the profession, the secrets that the ancestors owned - this is considered disrespectful to the dead.

Spellcaster Villages

India is full of villages where hereditary snake tamers live. One of them is Chincholi village in Karnataka state.
Only 400 inhabitants live in it, but all of them, without exception, perfectly find mutual language with poisonous reptiles. Without this skill, you simply cannot survive in the village, because snakes are everywhere there.

According to travelers, even women and children are not afraid of creeping reptiles. Here is what the Frenchman Samuel Roche writes, who happened to spend 2 weeks in this village: “One morning I was smoking in the courtyard of the house where I stopped to stay, and I saw that a giant snake was crawling 2 meters from me.

Poisonous? I asked the mistress of the house, backing away in horror.
- Yes. But don't be afraid, just don't touch it.

At the same time, the woman continued to calmly hang out clothes, and her three-year-old son played a meter away from mortal danger.

snake catchers

In Chincholi, five or six snakes live in almost every house. These are actors who are raised and bred for business. True, since the law on protection wildlife, which prohibits keeping snakes in captivity for profit, there are much fewer people who want to train them. And in order to somehow feed their numerous families, some residents of Chincholi retrained and turned from charmers into snake catchers. They simply sell their goods in snake markets, where you can get at least some money for creeping reptiles.

The brightest Chincholi residents went further and joined forces with relatives to create modest reptile trapping companies in the cities. Such a business in India is a win-win option, because every year 300 thousand people suffer from a snake bite here, of which 75 thousand die.

But those who have perfectly mastered the art of snake training earn much more and enjoy great respect among local residents. After all, Indians are well aware that even for the most experienced masters of their craft, this business remains incredibly difficult and deadly.

Many mistakenly believe that snake charmers raise their artists from infancy. Actually it is not. Cobras and vipers get to the trainer as adults. And there is an explanation for this. Young snakes are very aggressive and stupid, and therefore you should stay away from them. Adults are smart, prudent and calm, and therefore bite much less often. Raising them from a young age to accustom them to yourself is a waste of time.

A snake is not a cat or a dog, one wrong move and this ungrateful creature will pounce on you, despite the fact that you cherished and cherished it long years. That is why spellcasters in their work use exclusively the method of a whip, and not a carrot.

Fakirs buy snakes at special snake markets. Cobra costs 20 rupees, python 5 rupees per yard, vipers 6 rupees per dozen. And the rupee is worth a little less than the Russian ruble.

Cruel business

As for the performance itself, of course, cobras with an open hood look the most spectacular. Sometimes the snake makes sharp throws towards the tamer, but he deftly pacifies it. It seems that the cobra can be trained, that it is obedient to him, but is it really so? Of course not. According to experts, snakes cannot be tamed, you can only change their place of residence, for example, bring them home from the forest or to a serpentarium. And organize a pet comfortable conditions residence.

Experienced tamers know the habits of the animal and use their habitual behavior in their performances. During the performance, it seems that the cobra, swaying from side to side, is closely watching the tamer. In fact, the snake almost does not see what is happening (it receives most of the information through the organ of touch and the organ that can detect temperature differences). By sticking out her tongue and vibrating it, she does not so much frighten a possible victim as she studies her.

Before the start of the performance, the artist sleeps quietly in the basket. Only some kind of disturbance can make it crawl out, for example, a light blow on the lid of the basket. The snake raises its head, begins to vibrate from side to side. The audience thinks that she is attentively listening to the music of the flute, but in fact she is just trying to defend herself - she opens her mouth, hisses, moves her tongue, opens her hood, moves from side to side behind the flute. At this time, the tamer himself also leans in different directions to the beat of the melody he is playing and imperceptibly taps his feet on the ground. The snake becomes even more lost, believing that there is someone else nearby, and behaves quietly.

However, this is only apparent humility. And the trainer needs to be extremely careful and attentive. Sometimes unscrupulous spellcasters take the path of least resistance and remove an organ containing poison from a snake. The animal becomes lethargic and absolutely safe, but does not live long. After the death of an actor, negligent fakirs buy a new product, and so it goes on ad infinitum. This is a tough business. That is why snake performances are now officially banned in India.

Posture matters

In times of danger, all snakes try to defend themselves and take a frightening pose. The cobra spreads the neck ribs, and we see an unusual wide hood. Rattlesnake vibrates with scales at the end of the tail, and we hear the specific tapping of a rattle. The viper raises its head, hisses and shakes its head menacingly from side to side. However, it must be remembered that a snake never attacks a person first. She is secretive, timid and always tries to avoid collisions with large animals, and even more so with a person. She does not at all seek to spend seva the only means of protection and hunting - poison. After all, in order to synthesize it again, it will take a lot of time and energy.

The secret of the magic pipe

The snake is unable to recognize its owner. For her, that he, that the audience is one, these are enemies, violators of her peace.
But what the snake recognizes right away is the tune. When she sees her, she instantly freezes. And it's not about some special melody - snakes are deaf and do not hear music, this was established 50 years ago by French herpetologists who turned on melodies to reptiles, but they did not react to them in any way. The secret lies in the pipe itself, as well as in the smooth swaying of the caster from side to side.

During numerous trainings, snakes develop a fear of the pipe. First, they tease her, forcing her to stand upright, and when she rushes at the offender, they beat her on the head with a pipe. If the snake tries to crawl away, it takes blow after blow until it gets back into a stance. And so every day - tease and beat. Attempts to get rid of a hated object lead to nothing - musical instrument no snake teeth. In the end, the snake stops biting, because by its nature it is not inclined to waste poison in vain.

Answer from Vasilisa kyueapngshoschzhd[active]
Sometimes we see images of an eagle holding a snake in its claws, which reflects the dominance of the spiritual over the natural evil power of the snake and the archetypal idea of ​​​​the conflict between good and evil.
Snakes are also associated with sexual energy.
Poisonous snakes have been the object of special worship since ancient times. Ophiolatry is the name given to the deification of snakes. Serpent worship has survived: today you can see a picturesque chilling dance full of risk, which is performed by the priests of the famous snake cults of Myanmar (Burma). The object of worship is the king cobra - the world's largest poisonous snake: its length reaches five meters. The cobra is considered one of the most aggressive snakes. Intending to attack, she stands on her tail, and her front part of the body, raised almost vertically, is at least a meter long. Meeting with this majestic representative of the fauna, a person tries to increase the distance separating him from the cobra. A snake priestess from Myanmar has a completely different task - to dance with her poisonous deity.
As soon as the location of the king cobra is determined, the priestess begins her performance right in front of the cobra, at a distance of one or two meters. The hem of his long dress she manipulates like a matador and very skillfully dodges deadly throws. Soon the priestess's robe becomes damp, golden droplets of poison flow down it. The most main danger still ahead. At the end of her performance, the priestess suddenly leans forward and kisses the cobra. Sometimes to the head, sometimes directly to the lips. The girl repeats this twice. Then it slowly backs away, joining the rest of the snake worshipers and allowing the snake to retreat. The snake does this, and very hastily. The dance is over, the deity has left.
How do you learn to dance with a cobra? girls with early age are being trained for non-poisonous species snakes or "cold" (devoid of a poisonous tooth) cobras. Their task is to thoroughly study the behavior and movement of the snake in order to be able to anticipate their attack in a split second. The dance of the priestess has a special musical accompaniment. It distracts attention or even hypnotizes the snake, reduces the speed, accuracy of strikes.
Snake charmers adopted the experience from the priests of snake worshipers.
The English writer Lawrence Green in his book The Last Mysteries of Africa writes:
“Snake spells are an amazing and dangerous profession. Almost every spellcaster I knew died from the bites of their snakes. These fearless people could not master one secret in any way - how to stay alive. It seems to me that the art of snake spells originated in Egypt, which was the cradle of many arts. Snakes are the scourge of the Egyptian village. Maybe that's why the most skilled snake hunters and charmers appeared there. On the banks of the Nile, I have seen performances much more complex than in India.
... Cobras were a symbol of royal greatness. Tiaras in the form of cobras crown the heads of Egyptian statues. Cleopatra died from a cobra bite. Magicians at the court of the pharaohs could turn a snake into a stick, repeating the miracle once performed by the prophet Moses. Apparently, they squeezed the snake's neck so that the brain was paralyzed and the snake became hard as a stick.
African sorcerers are well aware of the habits of snakes. Europeans in tropical Africa they often turn to sorcerers if they suspect the presence of a snake in their home. And it almost never happens that a mganga does not find a snake and leaves without a reward. And what does five or ten shillings mean when a house gets rid of a mamba? Usually the sorcerer brings a flute with him and begins to play his melody in different parts rooms, waiting for the mamba to slip out into the open. A lithe, graceful creature, but it carries enough venom in its tooth to bite an elephant. The sorcerer seizes the moment, quickly grabs the snake with a forked stick at the end and throws it into his bag. It's almost always a scam these days. The sorcerer usually throws a tamed snake into the house, whose poisonous teeth are torn out, and then calls it out of the shelter with the help of "enchantment".