Temple de Pythons
Temple de Pythons
The modern python house is built in the shape of a granary. It shelters around sixty pythons kept for veneration — snakes that, contrary to popular belief, are never aggressive.
Looking closely, you'll notice markings on their skin echoed in the scarifications worn by their devotees — it is in fact to resemble the python that worshippers mark themselves this way, at the moment when fear must be turned into boldness. Before a python is carried, a small purification ceremony is performed with the hyssop leaf, a universal leaf of purification.
Once a month, the door of the house is opened : the pythons go out to hunt rats, rodents and mice — their natural prey. Once the hunt is over, they return on their own, or are brought back by the local population. Finding a python at home is always considered a blessing.
Inside the house, the pythons intertwine for warmth ; they mate and lay their eggs there, being oviparous animals. They also regularly drink sacred water there — water with which one may make wishes, though only positive ones.
To make a wish, one must walk around the house counter-clockwise and cross the three steps. Once the wish is made, an offering is left as a sign of gratitude and as a contribution to the ceremony : the money collected is used to buy what is needed for prayers. The python itself is the exception to this rule — it asks nothing in return.
Among us, the python lives on spiritually forever, even though it sometimes leaves its body behind : its average lifespan is between 40 and 50 years. When it "travels in spirit," it is buried according to specific rites and ceremonies. Its funeral gathers the priests, the priestess and a few initiates : chants and eulogies then accompany it into the afterlife.
