Secrets of the Snake King
The snake detection hypothesis vs an Armenian folktale
This article is a change of pace. Instead of endless footnotes and statistical arguments, I’ll let Anatolian folklore do the talking. The most obvious rejoinder to the snake-venom-as-entheogen hypothesis is the snake detection hypothesis. That is, snakes don’t appear in myths because their venom was a shamanic compound in prehistory, but rather because humans evolved to detect snakes in order to avoid them. Just as you are biased to see faces in clouds, the human mind tends to see snakes in stories, and those are the ones that get repeated. This predicts that snakes will abound in myths. It is usually ignored that it also predicts the function of snakes in myth. Based on the snake detection hypothesis, snakes should be out to get us. And yet, snakes are rarely featured in horror films, but fill creation myths. More broadly, the Wiki page Snakes in Mythology has the following sections:
Immortality
Creation myths
The underworld
Water
Wisdom
Healing
Snake gods
Rituals
The rituals include the Hopi snake dance with live rattlesnakes (don’t worry, they take traditional antivenoms before carrying the snake around in their mouth). It’s a weird list for an evolved snake detection mechanism to produce. Let’s dig into a lesser-known snake myth to get a flavor for the genre. Quoting verbatim from an anthology of 100 Armenian tales, coming in at 98 we have:
Lochman Hekheem, the Great Healer
There was once an only son about twelve or fourteen years old who was taking a walk in the woods one day when he saw a small snake slide out of a hole. When the boy went over to look at it, he found that it was very pretty with green, blue, red and yellow spots along its back. However, he saw that there was a mark on the little snake which made it part human and part snake. Because of these unusual markings, the boy decided to take the snake home with him.
He put the snake in a large bowl full of sand where it grew daily. And day by day it became more apparent that the snake was half-man and half-snake.
The boy kept the snake with him for two or three years. One day he said, "The snake is growing so fast—it is not right to keep him here. I'll take him back where I found him so that he will be able to join his friends."
The boy went into the woods, but he could not remember exactly where it was that he had found the snake. He looked all around and saw a little hill. "I will leave you here on this hill, and you can crawl anywhere he wants," the boy said, and he turned to leave.
"Do not go," the snake cried out.
The boy turned around much surprised as this was the first time the snake had spoken.
"Don't go, wait until my father comes. He will give you a reward," the snake said.
So the boy decided to stay and see what would happen.
"No matter what my father offers you, do not take it. He will offer even half of his kingdom, but don't accept it. Ask him to touch his tongue to yours. Refuse anything else," the snake advised.
The snake left the boy and went to call his father. Soon the father snake came out of the ground. "You have taken care of my son, my child whom I thought I had lost. Ask for your reward. I am Shah Merer, king of snakes," the father snake—who was also half-man and half-snake—said.
"I don't look for a reward," the boy said.
"I will give you anything: food, money, clothing."
The boy did not answer.
"I will give you half of my kingdom," the king continued.
"If you really want to give me something, touch your tongue to mine," the boy asked.
"But I cannot do that," the king said.
"That is the only thing I want."
"Ask for something else," the king urged. "My son, you have been listening to others. Forget them and ask for your heart's desire."
"No, that is all I want," the boy insisted. So finally the king of snakes touched his tongue to the boy's, and at the moment the boy was leaving the cave, Shah Merer died. The boy knew of this death because now he could feel it. With the touching of tongues, the boy's soul had become a new soul, and he possessed great knowledge. Almost immediately the weeds all around him began talking, and the boy could understand them. One said, “If you have a stomachache, use me.” Another said, “Use me to heal burns.” Another said, “Use me for sore eyes.” The boy sat down and wrote out all these different things so that he would not forget. One weed said, “If a person is dead, I can make him live.” Another weed said, “if all a person’s joints have been cut, sprinkle me on the joints, and I will bring them together and make them whole again."
Presently he tried some of the weeds and saw that they did what they said they would do. He hired an assistant and started making medicines. All the people who were sick went to him to be cured, and all were satisfied. Of course, the boy became richer and richer. His fame spread all over the country, and he became known as "Lochman Hekheem" [Turkish name].
One day Lochman Hekheem said, “I have tried everything but to make a dead man live. I want to see if I can do this, too. If I succeed, the man will never die but will be immortal. If I fail, I fail.”
He called his assistant and had him lie down. He first cut the young man’s throat, then pulled all the joints apart, carefully placing the right-side joints on the right-hand side of the man and the left-side joints on the left-hand side of the man.
Then he sprinkled a weed over the joints and put them back in the right order. He started from the feet and worked toward the throat. When all the joints were in place, he closed the wounded throat, took some liquid which he had prepared and poured it into the assistant’s mouth. Soon the man opened his eyes and sat up.
Lochman Hekheem knew that he had succeeded. During the trial Lochman Hekheem had written down exactly each step he had taken. “Well, I have succeeded,” he said to himself. “This man will never die. Now I must have him do the same for me so that I, too, will live forever.” To see if his assistant would remember what had happened to him, he asked, “My son, where were you?”
“Here, where else would I be?” the youth asked.
“No, you were not here at all. You were dead,” Lochman Hehkeem said and told him what had happened. “I have written down exactly how I did this. Do you think you could follow my plan just has I have written it? I have given you eternal life; now you help me in the same way.”
The assistant agreed to this, and Lochman Hehkeem told him exactly how things were to be done. When everything was ready, the assistant laid his master down, cut his throat, and pulled all the joints apart. Then he put them back together very carefully and closed the wound on the throat. Finally, he was ready to pour the precious liquid into his master’s mouth. At this point, however, God, who was witnessing this from above, became angry. “Only I have the right to give life,” He said.
He sent an angel down to hit the jar containing the precious liquid with his wing so that it would fall and break, then throw Lochman Hekheem’s writings into the sea.
The angel hit the jar containing the life-giving liquid, and it fell and broke. Lochman Hekheem begged his assistant to pour some liquid into his throat, but there was none left; nothing could be done. And soon Lochman Hekheem died. Then the angel took all the wise man’s books and his writings and threw them into the sea. The assistant carried on his master’s work as best he could, but, in reality, he knew very little.
Lochman Hekheem is supposed to have been the first doctor in the world. It is the general belief that if the angel had not thrown Lochman Hekheem’s books away, we would have been able to make men immortal now, just as he had done.
Discussion
“With the touching of tongues, the boy's soul had become a new soul, and he possessed great knowledge” is not exactly the cautionary tale one would expect folk wisdom to impart about snakes. Lochman Hekheem highlights the many surprising ways that snakes appear in mythology.
The Old Testament scholar John Walton notes, “The idea that animals in general, and serpents in particular, could communicate with humans is common in Egyptian literature.” Add Hebrew and Armenian to the list. Or consider the theme that medical knowledge was stolen from a snake, and immortality was almost achieved but for God’s intervention. The Greeks tell of the father of medicine, Asclepius:
One day, Asclepius saw a snake use an herb to revive a dead snake by placing it in its mouth. Taking inspiration from this, Asclepius used the herb to restore life to humans. Zeus, concerned that this power would upset the balance between life and death, struck Asclepius with a lightning bolt. Yet, acknowledging Asclepius's virtues and the appeals of Apollo and the mortals, Zeus honored him by transforming him into the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.
There are echoes in Eden, where the snake offers the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After Adam and Eve eat it, God casts them from the garden lest they also eat the Fruit of Immortality. Or in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero eventually obtains an herb that grants immortality, only for it to be stolen by a snake.
The rod of Asclepius became the image of medicine in the Western world. I live in Mexico, which blends that with Mayan iconography. The doorway to the local hospital is adorned by Ix Chel, goddess of healing, holding the rod of Asclepius. Even before this fusion, her symbol was the snake:
To multiply examples, the master’s thesis Perceptions of the Serpent in the Ancient Near East: Its Bronze Age Role in Apotropaic Magic, Healing, and Protection offers many cases. Or take the 1873 paper Origin of Serpent Worship with a more global repertoire, such as Ramahavaly, a healing god in Madagascar, or Janguli, a goddess in India. It concludes: “The serpent has been viewed with awe or veneration from primeval times, and almost universally as a re-embodiment of a deceased human being, and as such there were ascribed to it the attributes of life and wisdom, and the power of healing.”
One possibility is independent invention. Treating snake bites is an important part of traditional medicine. Couple that with a brain tuned to detect snakes, and maybe snakes naturally become the symbol of medicine. In this case, it’s strange that snakes are often depicted as gracious in bestowing knowledge. It’s as if a giant tumor became the symbol of oncology. Bold move, but there’s a certain logic to it. Then the back story digs in deeper. The first oncologist is said to have met the Tumor Queen as a young man. He fell in love and learned her secrets. She granted humans immortality, but God stepped in to make sure humans die by her hand. And that’s where we get oncologists, forced to fight their first love to the death using her own secrets. (cf. the Turkish tale of Shahmaran.)
Of course, there are many strange stories in the world, and most will not be explained. What gets me about snakes tales is they are so often strange in the same direction, and there is a parsimonious explanation that also explains the Sapient Paradox. If snake venom was used in early forms of shamanism “With the touching of tongues, the boy's soul had become a new soul, and he possessed great knowledge” is about what you’d expect to get passed down. For what such ecstatic rites would look like consider The Strange World of SNAKE VENOM Addiction:
Or of course read my theory:
Any guesses about why there's a recurring motif of "We almost got immortality but God intervened"?