Unruled Notebook

Snake Charming

In childhood I have witnessed snake charmers tame a snake and dance it to the tune of their magudi. The snake used to swivel, squirm, twist and twirl to follow the trajectory of the magudi in the hands of the charmer. It would give an impression that the snake ‘listens’ to the music and follows it faithfully. So much importance along with a smattering of divinity is attached to this event that the mere sound of the magudi, or the play of that punnagavarali raga in any music instrument would send a celerity of apprehension in the child in me (listen to this for a sample). Furtively I will look around for an approaching snake to listen to the music. My legs will get folded up in the chair…

The obvious lack of external ears on a snake became visible to my eye protected with doubt in later years. And I thought the tap of the feet from the charmer is the reason that prompts the snake to be in rapt attention, the tap being felt by its body through the ground contact. The random Lissajou figure like traces done with the magudi is a ploy by the snake charmer; the snake simply follows it by eyesight, in apprehension of an imagined enemy.

Today at Science Daily I read that Snakes Locate Prey Through Vibration Waves a summary of the recent research done by J. Leo van Hemmen and Paul Friedel, scientists at the Biophysics Department of the TUM and BCCN, together with their colleague Bruce Young from the Biology Department of Washburn University at Topeka (KS, USA).

The relevant excerpt

Any disturbance at a sandy surface leads to vibration waves that radiate away from the source along the surface. These waves behave just like ripples on the surface of a pond after a stone is dropped into the water. The sand waves, however, propagate much quicker (the speed is about 50 meters per second) than at the water surface but on the other hand much more slowly than for instance in stone (or concrete) and the amplitude of the waves may be as small as a couple of thousands of a millimeter.

Yet a snake can detect these small ripples. If it rests its head on the ground, the two sides of the lower jaw are brought into vibration by the incoming wave. These vibrations are then transmitted directly into the inner ear by means of a chain of bones attached to the lower jaw. This process is comparable to the transmission of auditory signals by the ossicles in the human middle ear. The snake thus literally hears surface vibrations.

I am now in doubt again. Contrary to my earlier belief that the entire body of the snake senses the ground vibrations, it seems now that only its head (near the two ends of its mouth) can sense the ground surface vibration. That means the snake with my childhood snake charmer needs to rest its head on the ground always to hear continuously the tap of the feet of the snake charmer.

So, would this mean the random magudi shakes traced by the snake charmer’s hands is the only reason the snake raises its hood?

Whatever it is, the associated music, the magudi nadham and the punnagavarali music scale, is a psychological distraction. A charming one.