Photo Source[https://pixabay.com/photos/puff-adder-bitis-arietans-1558232]
I happen to frequently travel to my hometown, a village in Benue State, North-Central Nigeria. Its one of the few remaining Idoma towns which still holds dearly to lots of its ancient beliefs and traditions. Due to its thickly wooded terrain and remoteness, it was difficult for the early missionaries to penetrate therefore they still preserve most of their ancient beliefs and customs.
I got to hear about lots of stories on which their various beliefs are founded on but there is one very particular one that still baffles me. And i still wonder if it is simply embedded in myths, legends or reality.
On one of my visits, during the christmas season(it was also the period for yam harvest), i accompanied my cousins to the farm to gather yams and get them stacked. While i was about lifting a fallen tree branch to make way for easy packing of the yams, i stumbled upon a viper, although then i did not know it common name in english but recently i got to know it was a puff adder, a species of small venomous snakes that exhibits a kind of sluggish while moving during the day and mostly active during the night.
I shouted to my cousins and they eventually killed it. Since we do eat snakes, i was baffled when they threw it away, after all it was pretty well grown. I asked them why and they said its a taboo to eat or even come into bodily contact with that species of snake and any violation of that rule will lead to severe skin and scalp diseases.
When i asked why, i did not get a convincing reply so i had to reserve the question for a chat with the older ones, usually after dinner.
Evening came, dinner over and i was burning with the desire to get answers to my half-answered question. I asked my Dad's elder brother, an old man in his late 90s. I asked, Ada'm(which means Father in my tribe), why are we forbidden to eat or even touch the puff adder?
He smiled, chewed his kolanut for a while then he cleared his throat and began.
Long ago, when tribes waged war against each other to enlarge their territory, our ancestors journeyed from the north due to the incessant attack by the by men on horses. The war pressed on them and they had to flee. And since their assailants rode on horses, they had to move very fast and to make this possible, they broke into small groups to increase the swiftness of their escape. On one occasion, our ancestors were chased for days and in order to get to their present destination, they had to pass through sandy paths which left their footprints on it and it made it easy for their assailants to track them. After passing through one of such a path, and leaving their foot prints as usual, broods of puff adders came out to the path and as they slither around, they eventually wiped off the footprints on the sand. When their attackers got to the spot, they could not trace the footprints and had to give up the chase. So, since then, our people have made the puff adder, a kind of totem and it has been a taboo even to this day for any child of the land to eat or even touch a puff adder.
I smiled, thanked him and went off to bed, fulfilled then but now, being a grown up, it keeps me puzzled so i asked, based on your opinion, the act carried out by the snakes, was it deliberate(divinely guided) or it was just coincidence?
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