Snake Charmer Research Articles

Lionel Lindsay’s Maghreb: Orientalism as Anti-Modernism

Lionel Lindsay still troubles Australian art history. An illustrator and etcher of undeniable skill, he voiced conservative aesthetics, including his anti-modernist and antisemitic polemic Addled Art of 1942. However, Lindsay was also philo-Arab, as he demonstrated in his 1929 visit to the Maghreb to meet Etienne Nasr’Eddine Dinet, the Islamophile Orientalist whose 1889 Snake Charmer was Lindsay’s favourite painting at the Art Gallery of NSW. During two months in Bou Saada and Kairouan, Lindsay made dozens of watercolours, drawings and meticulous etchings of ‘local character’, studied here as a group for the first time. Drawing on Lindsay’s unpublished diaries, letters and memoirs this article shows that this anti-modernist Anglo-Australian’s ‘Orientalism’ ignored the settlers and chose favourites among the peoples of the Maghreb.

Crosscurrents of Contagion: Snakes, Rumours, Rivers, and Ebola in Sierra Leone's Borderlands

AbstractWhen the Ebola virus crossed undetected into Sierra Leone and exacerbated the 2014–15 crisis, the World Health Organization blamed the breach on a traditional healer treating patients from Guinea. Meanwhile, local residents initially maintained that her death was not Ebola‐related but a serpent's curse, an assumption grounded in lived experience of snake charmer spectacles. Both narratives drowned out evidence that the virus spread not via the healer's covert herbalism, but via her professional connections at the local government clinic and, more broadly, an overtaxed and undertrained public health system. This article takes local rumours around Ebola as vernacular epidemiologies that resonated with sensory experience. They show that both community and humanitarian actors had information; complications arose from the diverse experiences and expectations that shaped responses to that information. Such expectations emerge from the borderland geography, where colonial infrastructures continue to channel perception according to “upriver”, “downriver”, and “crossriver” phenomenologies.

Attitudes and behaviors toward snakes in the snake charmer community: A case from northern Bangladesh

Attitudes and behaviors toward snakes in the snake charmer community: A case from northern Bangladesh

Searching missing links between hereditary vocation, community development, and well-being: a case study of snake charmer community (West Bengal, India)

Searching missing links between hereditary vocation, community development, and well-being: a case study of snake charmer community (West Bengal, India)

Fang Under ‘Red Tape’: A Barrier for Underutilisation of Human Resource (Case of Snake Charmers, India)

The vulnerability of human death due to snakebite could (possibly) be countered in the most feasible way of utilising snakes themselves if properly organised. This article attempts to identify an indigenous community (snake charmer) with its inherent expertise for answering a large-scale health issue of snakebite. Existing bureaucratic directives often do barricade such human resources from their proper utilisation through stringent laws and regulations. In the case of a tropical developing country like India, snake charmers may be the capital of captivating the ladder of betterment when governments treat them as assets. Examining snakebite fatality over the globe and gradually zooming into a state level (West Bengal) prone to health hazards, the article sounds true to its venture of showcasing a policy orientation for minimising human deaths and disadvantages. In place of a barrier, ’red tape’ might be acting as a bridge of development between wildlife and humanity.

A Curious Case of Snake Venom Addiction as an Alcohol De-Addiction Tool: Pain for Gain?

With the emergence of a wide variety of psychoactive substances which are readily available for abuse, there has been an unfolding of surprising events of addiction to astonishing substances and unusual practices. Snake venom addiction is one such shocking practice that is witnessed throughout the world; however, it is underreported and not frequently talked about. We report one such case from rural central India where a 28-year-old male snake charmer by occupation presented to the emergency department following intoxication with alcohol and snake venom orally. Upon investigation, it turned out to be a case of snake venom addiction which was started by the patient in order to decrease his alcohol addiction through snake bites initially followed by practice of snake venom ingestion.

A survival vulnerability index (SuVI) for an outlawed vocation: empirical evidence from snake charmer community, West Bengal

A survival vulnerability index (SuVI) for an outlawed vocation: empirical evidence from snake charmer community, West Bengal

The Triumph of Trauma: Tarantino Style

In Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, Quentin Tarantino uses thematic symbolism to demonstrate the evolution of the film’s characters by assigning them code names. Each character’s code name is a different species of snake or is related to snakes: Black Mamba, Copperhead, Cottonmouth, Sidewinder, California Kingsnake, and Snake Charmer. Their aliases are a few examples of Easter eggs concealed in the films. The code names portray aspects of their character and the story of their growth as individuals. The protagonist, Beatrix Kiddo undergoes numerous aliases and evolves throughout the film through her recovery from immense trauma.

Rare Case Report: Young Male Hard Palate Pleomorphic Adenoma.

Salivary gland tumors are rare and accounting for only 2-3% of tumors occurring in head and neck region. Pleomorphic adenoma is a benign neoplasm which is very commonly encountered in the parotid gland and other major salivary glands. Few times they can also develop in minor salivary glands of the palate. The majority of minor salivary gland tumors are malignant in nature. This case report describes a case of a young male snake charmer develops a mixed tumor in a minor salivary gland of the hard palate.

Martinique, charmeuse de serpents (A. Breton, 1948) : L’échec du dépaysement

This article focuses on the texts collected in 1948 by André Breton in Martinique: Snake Charmer, presented as a rejection of the travel narrative. Complied from varied material, the work is marked by its fragmentation in terms of structure, genre and type of writing. Arriving on the island with a profound feeling of failure in terms of disorientation, Breton sought to show during his stopover in Martinique that a "re-orientation" was possible thanks to surrealist poetry, as well as a re-conquest of freedom, which is heard resonating with the generic fragmentation of his work.

Reflections on Architectural History Forty Years after Edward Said's Orientalism

This journal's acknowledgment of Edward Said's impact on our discipline on the fortieth anniversary of Orientalism marks a significant turn. No other scholar and no other single book outside the field have been given this kind of attention. Despite the fact that the cover of Orientalism , which featured Jean-Leon Gerome's painting The Snake Charmer as a shorthand to the book's contents, triggered loaded questions about the power of visual representation, Said himself did not engage with architecture and did so only marginally with art (Figure 1). Architectural and urban historians, and not only those working on “non-Western” topics, nevertheless found a fertile field of inspiration in Said's work. Figure 1 Edward Said, Orientalism , 1978 (photo courtesy Penguin Random House). The book appeared just as architectural historians were becoming increasingly fascinated with critical theory and philosophy. The subsequent haste to construct scholarly bridges between built forms and “higher” intellectual realms has created some curious outcomes, such as a series of short books that is perhaps sarcastically titled Thinkers for Architects. These books summarize the work of theorists from Immanuel Kant to Luce Irigaray, but only as their thinking pertains to and serves architecture.1 For better or for worse, Said and his work have not (yet) been included in this group, and thus the place dedicated to Orientalism here, in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians , is especially meaningful (Figure 2). Figure 2 Edward Said (photo by Brigitte Lacombe, courtesy of Mariam Said). In this essay, I do not seek to provide a comprehensive and neutral map of the past four decades of architectural history; rather, I will filter some of the developments that have arisen in the aftermath of Orientalism 's publication through my subjective lens as a scholar, a critic, and a teacher. I have been taking …

Biography of a snake charmer in Saidpur, Bangladesh

Though Saidpur Upazila under Nilphamari district is very small but here pigeonry, goat rearing, herbal treatments, circus team, monkey charmer, horse race and snake charmers are available. Snake charmers are not living well in this modern era. Their kids are not safe at home for snake rearing. In Savar, Dhaka there is a snake market where some tribal people buy it as food. People who are engaged with snake catching and snake-based superstitions go to that market. They support medical science and are waiting to get a good job. Who take snakes as food they say its meat is very hot. Depending on body size its price varies from 1000 to 2000 taka of a poisonous snake. People of the circus team, zoo committee and intersex people collects snakes from the snake charmer. Tradition of snake charming in Bangladesh is very ancient. Once upon a time most of the villagers liked it. Some peoples were considered as bede or tribal people who caught snakes from the jungle. Though Bangladesh is a small country but its 80 species of snakes are remarkable. Within these only cobras, kraits and sea snakes are poisonous and most of the cobras are bicellate type. Common vine snakes, tree snake and rat snakes are very common and nonpoisonous snakes of Bangladesh. After catching a snake, the charmer cuts the poison sac or rubs both fangs of the snakes. As poison of the snakes are digestive juice so that those snakes can suffer digestive ailments and ultimately die. The temperature of Rangpur division of Bangladesh is 350-370F which is suitable for snakes’ survival. There were 30.77% poisonous and 69.23% non poisonous snakes’ in Bangladesh in three families.1 In Bangladesh out of 82 species 28 are venomous and 12 are sea snakes.2 Estimates indicate ˃5 million bites annually by venomous snakes worldwide where ˃12500 deaths.3,4 Some research work have completed on snakes taxonomy, status, distribution and epidemiology of snake bite.5‒7 India has the highest number of snake bites in the world with 35000-50000 annually according to World Health Organization.8,9 In Bangladesh this is 4.3per 100000 an annual incidence and case fatality is 20%.10

The Snake Charmer(ess) intermedia dialogue between Henri Rousseau's Painting and Sylvia Plath's poetry

The Snake Charmer(ess) intermedia dialogue between Henri Rousseau's Painting and Sylvia Plath's poetry

Attempted suicide by snake bite: A case study.

Snake bite is an important public health issue in India and is almost always accidental in manner. Suicide by snake bite or injection of snake venom is extremely rare. Suicidal ideation and behavior is known to be influenced by various socio-economic and psychological factors. The method employed for suicide is also influenced by the occupation of the victim. We report a case where a snake charmer had attempted suicide by inflicting a bite by a monocled cobra.

Domesticating Otherness: The Snake Charmer in American Popular Culture

Abstract Metaphoric allusions to otherness are widely encountered and oftentimes taken for granted. Exploring the use of the snake-charming theme in American popular media, I discuss why and how such a supposedly foreign theme is borrowed, metaphorically adapted, and locally applied. The central premise is that such a process is integrally linked to the borrower’s own history and cultural outlooks. Besides reflecting my own first-hand experience, the narratives engage relevant discourses on representation, exoticism, imagination, metaphor, and power. Generally, the research illustrates how tropes of otherness acquire their forms and meanings as they become localized, or domesticated.

Severe Bilateral Ocular Chemical injury after use of Traditional Medicines: Result of Malpractice in Indian Villages

Case History A 24 year old farmer presented with bilateral decreased vision of three days duration. There was a history of snake bite on his left arm after which he was taken to a snake charmer at his village for treatment. A traditional eye medicine in the form of a whitish flaky powder was instilled into both his eyes by the snake charmer to keep him “awake”. Two days later he developed pain, redness and reduced vision in both eyes. He was referred to a tertiary care hospital. At presentation the visual acuity in both the eyes was perception of light. There was lid edema and conjunctival necrosis with 360 degree limbal involvement in both eyes. Examination of the right eye revealed the presence of corneal melt with iris prolapse and adhesions at multiple sites between bulbar and palpebral conjunctiva (Figure 1A). The left eye cornea was edematous with large epithelial defect (Figure 1 B). Blood coagulation profile, renal and liver function tests were normal. Prothrombin time was 11 seconds, Partial thromboplastin time 40 seconds,blood urea 24 mg%, creatinine 0.6 mg%, total bilirubin 0.9 mg%, SGOT 10 units/ litre, SGPT 13 units/litre. Topical 5% cefazolin and 0.5% carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) eye drops were started at hourly intervals. Homatropine hydrobromide 2% and autologous serum 20% eye drops were started four times a day for both eyes. The patient underwent large diameter tectonic keratoplasty in the right eye (Figure 2a & b) with bilateral amniotic membrane transplantation (Figure 3a & b). Postoperatively the patient was advised topical 0.5% CMC and 0.3% gatifloxacin for both eyes. Subsequently,he was started on 0.5% loteprednol and a permanent tarsorrhaphy was performed in the right eye to salvage the graft. At 12 weeks follow up the patient had visual acuity of 6/24 with partially opaque cornea in the left eye (Figure 4 a). Right eye had visual acuity of light perception only with opaque corneal graft (Figure 4 b). Chemical analysis of the powder obtained from the snake charmer revealed it to be potassium nitrite. Figure 1 (a): Right eye on presentation: corneal melt with iris prolapse

Amygdala on the Lookout.

results present an explanatory challenge: why would the amygdala be hypoactive in paranoid individuals who exhibit heightened threat perception and elevated physiological arousal? To explain this paradoxical finding, some investigators hypothesized that reduced frontal control over the amygdala due to dysconnectivity of frontolimbic circuitry could lead to hypervigilanceand misattribution of fear to incoming signals (3). AnotherpossibilityisthatmethodologicallimitationsofBOLD fMRI have obstructed a more accurate quantification of amygdala activity. In this issue of the Journal, a new study conducted by Pinkham and colleagues (5) offers a methodological explanation for discrepant findings concerning aberrant amygdala activity in paranoid schizophrenia. The authors definitively demonstrate higher baseline amygdala activity in paranoid compared with nonparanoid patients with schizophrenia, by employing arterial spin labeling perfusion MRI. Arterial spin labeling allows for a noninvasive and quantitative measurement of regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) by using magneticallylabeledarterialbloodwaterasanendogenoustracer (asopposedtoexogenousradioactivetracersusedinpositron emission tomography) (6). There are both important methodological and conceptual advances here worthy of note. In addition to arterial spin labeling, the authors acquired BOLD fMRI data while participants rated photographs of faces for trustworthiness. By measuring resting state regional CBF and task-related BOLD activity in the same participants, the authors were able to examine group differences in baseline amygdala activity alongside differences in task-related fluctuations of amygdalaactivity.Suchcomparisonsareparticularlyrelevant to schizophrenia, as prior evidence of amygdala hypoactivation relied on BOLD contrasts blind to potential group differences in baseline activity. Indeed, Pinkham and colleagues found that acutely paranoid patients exhibited higher resting CBF in the bilateral amygdala compared with nonparanoid patients and healthy comparison subjects, who did not differ from each other. On the other hand, the BOLD fMRI task analysis revealed a general trend of amygdala hypoactivation in paranoid compared with nonparanoid participants. Thus, observed taskrelated amygdala hypoactivity likely reflects higher baseline amygdala activity that mitigates the stimulus-driven signal change detected by the BOLD contrast. Additional wholebrain group comparisons found greater CBF in the internal capsule, the corpus callosum, and portions of the inferior temporal and fusiform gyri in paranoid compared with nonparanoid patients. Overall, these results suggest that paranoia

The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, eds.)

<i>The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous</i> (Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, eds.)

The Starving Artist: Life, Death, and the Role of the Storyteller in Varlam Shalamov's "the Snake Charmer" and "Cherry Brandy"

The Starving Artist: Life, Death, and the Role of the Storyteller in Varlam Shalamov's "the Snake Charmer" and "Cherry Brandy"

Life Style and Social Exclusion of Snake Charmers in Bangladesh

This article is constructed on the basis of a study conducted in Sunamgonj District in Bangladesh. With the objective of an in-depth exploration on the marginalisation process of snake charmer community, the study used qualitative design. Purposive sampling technique has been used to select both research participants and study area. The study selected one of the villages of snake charmer and all male and female at the age of 18 years and above living in the selected village were considered as the population of the study. Twenty-five villagers were selected as sample and were interviewed with a standardised interview protocol consisting open-ended questions for covering all aspects of the research objectives. In addition with intensive interviewing, two focus group discussions were conducted with the participants. The study reveals that the socio-economic conditions of snake charmers are not so good comparing with the mainstream people of Bangladesh. On the other hand, this community does not have good relation with the people of mainstream society. They are frequently neglected and humiliated by the majority of population mainly because of their status as marginalised community Bose (2003). This people do not get job as majority people are reluctant to allow them to be engaged in mainstream occupations. Government offices ignore them due to their status as snake charmers. They are living within majority of people with same religious faith as Muslim but they are not accepted warmly by the majority Muslims. Name calling, labelling them as inferior group, use of some terms to humiliate and degrade them, etc, have become the part of their everyday life. They are not properly counted in voter list. Many of them cannot cast their votes, and do not have national identity card. They are facing identity crisis. This people want to be recognised as a distinct group like indigenous people.