SUNDAY NEWS (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) 23 July 06 When tame snakes run riot (Sosthenes Paulo Mwita)
In theory snake rearing was a money-spinner. My father owned nearly a hundred wild snakes of various species. Some of the snakes lived in a large pot in an isolated hut on the compound. He kept others in a large wooden trunk that he hid in a lush bush in the forest near Isarwa.
I asked my old man one chilly evening as we sat around a bonfire why he kept some of the most venomous snakes in the pot on the compound. I had no qualms about the snakes that lived in the trunk but sometimes the pot snakes sneaked out and slithered towards my hut.
They gave me quite a scare! My father went to great depths to enlighten me on the dangers posed by venomous snakes. He said snakes were the most dangerous reptiles known to man. He said it was imperative that such snakes be kept away from people, livestock and pets.
"Unfortunately, thieves often came in the dead of night to steal the snakes. The most dangerous snakes happen to have the highest black market value," he said.
He told me that white people buy them. "One puff udder fetches the price of a large bullock and two donkeys," he continued.
He said if you sold five king cobras, you could buy enough cattle to afford a bride price. My father, however, was not the only snake keeper in the village. Kimbo's father had three wooden barrels under the canopy of a musisi tree that held nearly two hundred snakes.
The snakes lived only a few metres from his huts. So, my father was aware of the danger posed by the snakes. I very nearly mentioned to my old man that night that snake keeping was primitive and dangerous. I had read somewhere in a library book that snake venom kills in a matter of minutes.
But I stopped short when I met the leer in his eyes. It warned me sternly against any clever retort. Among the Wasimbiti children are not expected to challenge the reasoning of their parents. I told Kimbo the following day that my father sees snake rearing as a dangerous occupation.
Kimbo, an age mate and close friend, looked me in the eye as I went on to explain that snakes should invariably be kept a discreet distance away from homes. Kimbo dismissed my suggestion saying; "I have seen snakes living in a pot right inside the house without harming anyone."
I remained skeptical. My father was in a friendly mood the next evening, so as I poked the fire with a splinter of wood to stoke it, I told him that I had seen a clutch of snakes slithering in Magoto's house. Then, I froze, expecting anything between a kind reply and a hard clout to the head.
"I know," he said kindly. "Magoto keeps a lot of snakes in his house. But those are bewitched, small-value snakes," he said. "They are a bequest from his own father who was a dreaded oracle and miracle maker," my old man said as he swatted a firefly that strayed into his face.
"Oracles and miracle makers live in an underworld of intrigue and wouldn't want to share their knowledge with anyone from the more rational world," he said. "Many of them are dangerous characters," he warned.
From then on, I kept a keener eye on the snakes that Kimbo's father kept near the musisi tree and the "bewitch reptiles Magoto reared in a pot. I also watched the snakes that lived in my father's pot. They all looked menacing. Occasionally, they bared their fangs frighteningly in long yawns.
Sometimes I found them leaning their heads on the mouth of the pot enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. They flicked their forked jet-black tongues in and out incessantly. I watched the reptiles with interest from a discreet distance.
My mind wandered back to the day I conquered a very dangerous snake - a puff adder. Kimbo and I were out to harvest honey from a hive that we had seen in the forest. It had rained in sheets the previous night. The morning was bitterly cold, an ideal condition for harvesting honey.
We arrived at the foot the massive musisi tree in the canopy of which the hive was. I climbed the tree with difficulty but finally reached the crotch in which the hive lodged. I slipped my right hand into a soft but tough cowhide glove that stretched to the elbow.
Kimbo watched me from the foot of the tree shouting instructions I didn't need. The hive was full of bees. The insects were so cold that they could hardly walk. They were completely incapable of flight. But I knew they could sting. They glared at me angrily but hardly did anything to repel me.
I sunk my gloved hand into the mass of bees and scooped them out. They fell to the ground helplessly. I dug deep into the hive scooping out clusters of desperate bees. I finally reached the honeycombs. I brought out a couple of the combs and studied them in utter amazement.
The combs were a thrilling work of art. All cells were astoundingly identical hexagons that, incredibly, were made by insects without calibrated geometrical tools. I was, however, baffled by the crude hole in the lower half of the combs.
Obviously, the bees could not have made the hole. I extracted more combs from the hive. Each bore the hole that kept increasing in size. I knew bees as vicious insects that could not have invited any other creature to venture into the hive - or so I thought. I finally caught a stiff object.
I hauled it out thinking it was a mass of combs. Alas! It was a puff adder. It had never crossed my mind that bees can host a reptile that big. I held it tightly as it struggled vigorously, flicking its jet-black forked tongue in and out. The reptile was a menacing sight but I didn't lose my head.
My old man had told me to remain calm in the face of danger. "Be brave in the face of life threatening danger. Some people wind up in graves because of fright. Fight back bravely and always aim to defeat your enemy." That was the advice from my old man.
The reptile wriggled out of the hive and coiled menacingly around my right hand. It even threw several tail-end coils around my neck. I told Kimbo that I had captured a snake and that I was climbing down to the ground with it. "Get ready to crush its head with a 'rungu'," I told him.
Kimbo clucked like an old hen in disbelief as I set foot on the ground but he managed to pound the reptile's head to pulp. My father was over the moon in delight when I showed him the snake and narrated my ordeal to him later that evening.
He gave me gift, a cow, for marshalling survival skills to the fullest. Two years rolled by before another snake tragedy struck. I was leading my father's cattle to a watering hole when I saw Kimbo, his father and mother running like maniacs.
Kimbo headed for the lake with three large cobras dashing behind him. He and his mother sprinted towards the forest with furious puff adders giving them a chase. I later learned that the family housecat had led a lot of snakes into the compound after pawing the wire mesh cover open.
The incensed nesting snakes pursued the cat into the compound and threatened to bite people. The cat dived into a pot and saved its bacon. Once again, my father's advice rang back in my mind: "Snakes are dangerous reptiles that should be kept away from people, livestock and pets."
When tame snakes run riot