Untold lives blog

A previous Untold Lives posting told of the methods adopted by the Government of India in the 1870s to tackle the problem of deaths due to wild animals (tigers, bears, etc). However loss of life from a snake bite was a greater problem. For instance, in the Madras Presidency in 1871/72, 1,033 people lost their lives by being bitten by a snake, compared to 227 who died after being attacked by a wild animal. 1872/73 was even worse, with 2,094 people dying through snake bite as compared with 519 killed by wild animals. The Government attempted to deal with this by experimenting with a system of cash rewards paid to those who brought a venomous snake to the local District Officer.

Indian cobra, Naja naja. NatMis181 © Florilegius/The British Library Board Images Online

In 1873, Dr Edward Nicholson was charged with trying out the system at Bangalore at the rate of 8 annas for each cobra. As word spread he found the numbers of snakes being brought to him increasing, with one group of villages taking to snake hunting with particular enthusiasm: “They would bring in, or send in by their women, heavy bags of cobras, as many as 20 at a time”. Nicholson reduced the rate paid to 3 annas per cobra, resulting in considerably fewer snakes being brought to him.

In his report, Dr Nicholson remarked on the different behaviour of town and country people: “In the case of a town man, one Indian bringing a perfectly harmless snake securely noosed to the end of a long stick, would come followed by a crowd of idlers admiring his courage; whilst I have never seen the country people show the least fear of venomous snakes.”

An added difficulty was described by the District Officer at Jaunpur, in the North Western Provinces, who stated that snakes were an object of veneration, with temples and feasts dedicated to serpents, and that “…even a professional snake-catcher will not catch a troublesome venomous snake unless a promise is given that its life will be spared.” Nicholson also noted the reluctance of local people to kill the snakes themselves, preferring to bring live snakes for Nicholson to kill. Denying any religious reason behind this, he instead put it down to an objection to killing an animal which did them no harm.

The experiment appears not to have been particularly successful, as Dr Nicholson pointed out: “…if the reward be kept low, the number brought in will not diminish the cobra population in any perceptible degree; while if sufficiently high, cobras will be sought for in distant places and kept alive until required for the market. On this system the expenditure would be unlimited, and yet cobras would be nearly as plentiful as ever in Bangalore.” He believed it best to leave the local people to kill cobras or not as they pleased, a view which the Chief Commissioner of Mysore concurred with.

John O’Brien
Post 1858 India Office Records

Source: Correspondence and reports from Local Governments and Administrations on the subject of the destruction of wild animals and venomous snakes, 1872-1874 [IOR/L/PJ/3/1115 No.5]