The groups who practise snake-charming are known as Sapera or Garudi
and in the Maratha Districts as Madari. Another name for them is
Nag-Nathi, or one who seizes a cobra. They keep cobras, pythons,
scorpions, and the iguana or large lizard, which they consider to be
poisonous. Some of them when engaged with their snakes wear two pieces
of tiger-skin on their back and chest, and a cap of tiger-skin in
which they fix the eyes of various birds. They have a hollow gourd
on which they produce a kind of music and this is supposed to charm
the snakes. When catching a cobra they pin its head to the ground
with a stick and then seize it in a cleft bamboo and prick out the
poison-fangs with a large needle. They think that the teeth of the
iguana are also poisonous and they knock them out with a stick,
and if fresh teeth afterwards grow they believe them not to contain
poison. The python is called Ajgar, which is said to mean eater of
goats. In captivity the pythons will not eat of themselves, and the
snake-charmers chop up pieces of meat and fowls and placing the food
in the reptile's mouth massage it down the body. They feed the pythons
only once in four or five days. They have antidotes for snake-bite,
the root of a creeper called _kalipar_ and the bark of the _karheya_
tree. When a patient is brought to them they give him a little pepper,
and if he tastes the pungent flavour they think that he has not been
affected by snake-poison, but if it seems tasteless that he has
been bitten. Then they give him small pieces of the two antidotes
already mentioned with tobacco and 2 1/2 leaves of the _nim_ tree
[349] which is sacred to Devi. On the festival of Nag-Panchmi (Cobra's
Fifth) they worship their cobras and give them milk to drink and then
take them round the town or village and the people also worship and
feed the snakes and give a present of a few annas to the Sapera. In
towns much frequented by cobras, a special adoration is paid to
them. Thus in Hatta in the Damoh District a stone image of a snake,
known as Nag-Baba or Father Cobra is worshipped for a month before
the festival of Nag-Panchmi. During this period one man from every
house in the village must go to Nag-Baba's shrine outside and take
food there and come back. And on Nag-Panchmi the whole town goes out
in a body to pay him reverence, and it is thought that if any one is
absent the cobras will harass him for the whole year. But others say
that cobras will only bite men of low caste. The Saperas will not kill
a snake as a rule, but occasionally it is said that they kill one and
cut off the head and eat the body, this being possibly an instance
of eating the divine animal at a sacrificial meal. The following is
an old account of the performances of snake-charmers in Bengal: [350]
"Hence, on many occasions throughout the year, the dread Manasa
Devi, the queen of snakes, is propitiated by presents, vows and
religious rites. In the month of Shrabana the worship of the snake
goddess is celebrated with great éclat. An image of the goddess,
seated on a water-lily, encircled with serpents, or a branch of the
snake-tree (a species of Euphorbia), or a pot of water, with images
of serpents made of clay, forms the object of worship. Men, women and
children, all offer presents to avert from themselves the wrath of
the terrific deity. The Mals or snake-catchers signalise themselves
on this occasion. Temporary scaffolds of bamboo work are set up in
the presence of the goddess. Vessels filled with all sorts of snakes
are brought in. The Mals, often reeling with intoxication, mount
the scaffolds, take out serpents from the vessels, and allow them to
bite their arms. Bite after bite succeeds; the arms run with blood;
and the Mals go on with their pranks, amid the deafening plaudits
of the spectators. Now and then they fall off from the scaffold and
pretend to feel the effects of poison, and cure themselves by their
incantations. But all is mere pretence. The serpents displayed on
the occasion and challenged to do their worst, have passed through a
preparatory state. Their fangs have been carefully extracted from their
jaws. But most of the vulgar spectators easily persuade themselves
to believe that the Mals are the chosen servants of Siva and the
favourites of Manasa. Although their supernatural pretensions are
ridiculous, yet it must be confessed that the Mals have made snakes
the subject of their peculiar study. They are thoroughly acquainted
with their qualities, their dispositions, and their habits. They
will run down a snake into its hole, and bring it out thence by
main force. Even the terrible cobra is cowed down by the controlling
influence of a Mal. When in the act of bringing out snakes from their
subterranean holes, the Mals are in the habit of muttering charms, in
which the names of Manasa and Mahadeva frequently occur; superstition
alone can clothe these unmeaning words with supernatural potency. But
it is not inconsistent with the soundest philosophy to suppose that
there may be some plants whose roots are disagreeable to serpents,
and from which they instinctively turn away. All snake-catchers of
Bengal are provided with a bundle of the roots of some plant which
they carefully carry along with them, when they set out on their
serpent-hunting expeditions. When a serpent, disturbed in its hole,
comes out furiously hissing with rage, with its body coiled, and its
head lifted up, the Mal has only to present before it the bundle of
roots above alluded to, at the sight of which it becomes spiritless
as an eel. This we have ourselves witnessed more than once."
These Mals appear to have been members of the aboriginal Male or Male
Paharia tribe of Bengal.