The Snake

There are many good reasons to be afraid of snakes. There is an element of human instinct that makes many of us afraid of snakes. Many of them are venomous and can kill you, so that is a good instinct in most cases. As a foreign adventurer leading an excavation, the one and only characteristic I share with the fabled character “Indiana Jones” is that I HATE snakes. They give me instant recoil, as I found out at a young age when by chance I opened the “S” volume of an encyclopedia to a page full of snake pictures, and immediately tossed the book out of my hands.

Of course, with real snakes you need to be more measured in your response. Knowing that is why I am still here today. A student and I were hiking at Thomeng, another limestone quarry near the Buxton Limeworks. She stopped abruptly and said “What was that?” She pointed and I looked down to see what initially appeared to be a Gila monster, a denizen of the American southwest. But we were in the Kalahari of South Africa. My eyes then focused on the long coils behind the head, and I realized that we were facing a King Cobra, with its hood flared and ready to attack. Although it is rare that I anthropomorphize other animals, particularly ones with very tiny brains, to me it didn’t look happy. I certainly wasn’t happy either.

“Did it bite you?” I asked the student, trying to sound calm with my heart-rate rapidly rising. “No,” she replied. I said “Good.” So we very slowly walked away for about twenty feet, and then our adrenalin kicked in and we ran like crazy. King Cobras are not to be taken lightly, as they are very deadly, especially in the middle of nowhere. But that is not the kind of ‘snake’ I want to discuss here, or ever think about again, lest I drop my pen in a fit of irrational fear.

In Tswana culture, and throughout much of Africa, there is belief in another kind of ‘snake.’ It is a term that does not translate well into English, so I’ve also heard it as the ‘mermaid’ and various other renditions, but ‘snake’ is the most common. The snake, which lurks in both caves and water, is thought to be responsible for many deaths, including the many drownings of young children at Blue Pool, an otherwise idyllic spot at the edge of the quarry. Perhaps that’s what also happened to the Taung Australopithecus chld. When the snake is angered it moves locations, leaving in its wake horrendous and violent storms. Some of my workers, brave men the lot of them, were afraid to cross the Thamasikwa river at night, for fear of the snake. They had been taught young, and taught consistently, that the snake was a malevolent force.

So one sunny winter day I went to investigate a series of cave sites at Mokareng, yet another limestone quarry to the North of Taung, in order to better understand the nature of cave formations. It was a more extensive cave than most that we find in the tufa caves of this region. I took some students and a couple of my Buxton workers with me to record some data on these intricate caves. The latter were unwilling to go in with me. Indeed, they insisted, “Mr. Jeff, you must not go in that cave. You will disturb the snake.” I shrugged it off and went in with my students. It was the most extensive tufa cave I’ve ever been in, and we found many things, including the burnt candles of sangomas (shaman/witch doctors) who had performed rituals here. They had magic, so they were allowed in, but not normal mortals. **shaman at mokareng

After about two hours of investigation, we drove back to the Buxton Limeworks. The skies were starting to cloud up, which is highly unusual for the winter dry season. By the time we got back to the Taung fossil site, it started to sprinkle a bit. Then it started to rain, and rain hard. We took refuge in the back of the dynamite truck when it started to pour, and lightning and thunder overtook the skies. One of them looked at me with disdain: “Mr. Jeff, you should not have gone into that cave.” They all then looked at me with the same disdain.

I’ve been in many caves throughout South Africa since then, and every time I emerged to a clear blue sky. But to this day my friends at Taung believe I disturbed the snake.

Blue Pool at the Buxton limeworks where the tragic drowning of children is blamed on “the snake.”

The author dancing with a sangoma at his initiation ceremony at Mokareng. We went in many caves that day and it didn’t rain