MOST men like to brag about ‘wrestling a python’.
Why? Ask any self-respecting, macho male when they head for the loo in a bar.
I suppose they opt for a large non-poisonous snake rather than the venomous kind – like spitting cobras, as the splatter (I mean latter) might give out the wrong impression.
Whether this is just a South African ‘thing’ or not is anyone’s guess.
(Maybe South American men refer to anacondas? Do they have any big snakes in Europe?)
Alas, some men take this a slither too far and literally wrestle these beautiful, giant serpents to death.
Many would have seen a photograph taken by Yolandi Pearce published in newspapers and on social media this week of a group of men proudly carrying a dead 4m python wrapped around a pole on the N2 freeway near Umgababa.
We won’t get into a debate here about cultures, fears, superstitions, ignorance, etc., etc. However, from a personal point of view, one feels these proud hunters should rather wrestle their ‘wieners’.
‘Ophidiophobia’ is the world describing an abnormal fear of snakes. It’s not ‘herpotephobia’, as some people think. That is the fear of reptiles in general.
We discovered this week that most staff members at the Herald are ‘orphidiophobics’, myself included.
This after snake expert Sarel van der Merwe popped into the offices with a cloth bag with something wriggling around inside.
He put it in a corner behind a pot plant and then sat down for an interview with journalist Shona Aylward.
The obvious first question was: “What’s in the bag?”
Casual answer: “A black mamba.”
There was a loud ‘eek!’ from the front desk women (who overhear everything that is said in our interview nook) and soon the entire office was peering around the corner at the wriggly bag.
Even though the ‘world’s longest species of venomous snake’ was quite secure in the bag, just the idea was enough to give one goosebumps. What Sarel was trying to get across was that there really is no need to kill snakes of any kind. Just leave them alone and they will reciprocate.
As for pythons, only one small child has been eaten in the last century in the Limpopo region, so one can hardly class it as a ‘threat to humankind’.
But a friend of mine, Hans Wagener, does admit they can be nasty critters. He actually studied herpetology (from the Greek word ‘herpien’, meaning ‘to creep’) and attained his master’s, specialising in pythons.
At first he was quite fascinated, but they kept biting him.
So he gave up and now Hans sells houses, Master’s in pythons be damned.
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