The Black Serpent Who Opened the Eyes of Man

Abstract

“Few African Gods have attracted the attention of travellers as has Dangbé, the Good Serpent,” writes Pierre Verger in the introduction to the chapter he devotes to the Dahoman Python. At the end of the 17th century Guillaume Bosman attributed to the Serpent the rank of “divinity.” He describes the “House of the Serpent” (the Temple of the Serpents which still exists in Ouidah); the offerings that are brought to him; the pilgrimages that the Kings of Fida (Ouidah) made there every year and the punishments meted out to Europeans or Africans who failed to pay him due respect. In the preface to his Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais the Reverend Father Labat relates how this “great Serpent” came out of the ranks of the army of Ardres (Aliada, south of Abomey) to enter those of the army of Juda (Houéda, from which Ouidah). He describes the Serpent as being one and a half arms in length, or seven and a half feet long, with a very beautiful skin “ marked by wavy stripes in which yellow, blue and brown combine in a most agreeable way.” The animal, quite innocuous as are all pythons is “ extremely patient and never attacks people.” He concludes: “The Serpent is in Ouidah a superior and excellent Divinity. He looks after and into everything, everybody appeals to him for advice, for rain, for good weather or in case of sickness or war, for trade, for harvest, for weddings.” It is possible to perceive already in this confusion of heteroclitic attributes the divinity that in our time has come to symbolize, and is said to procure fertility, fecundity, good health, wealth, peace, wisdom and happiness.