If snakes are outlawed...

Only outlaws will have snakes...

He explained that the main purpose was to ensure a productive harvest in the coming year. But it was also to placate the snakes and to try to prevent them biting farmers in the fields.

I stared at the four cobras, now provoked to new levels of hissing and hooding by the offerings raining down on them, and felt that they looked anything but placated.

Perhaps at this point I should explain that everything I had witnessed was actually illegal.

Of course... all we really need here is a "National Reptile Registry."

In India snakes are protected by law and you cannot collect them from the wild without a licence - a licence that none of the snake handlers at this festival possessed.

However, the authorities seem to have turned a blind eye to a festival that is so culturally and religiously important - or, at least, to its morning's activities.

This also, quite conveniently, answers the age-old question, "What did people do for entertainment before cable tv."

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LAST WORD: In other snake-related news...

"Trouser snake kills Cambodian man"

(via right girl)