Snakes Alive
For the past month or so, I have been researching the medieval Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, in what is today the southeastern region of Turkey, for a novella I am currently working on. So imagine my shock (and horror) on February 6 to hear the tragic news of the earthquake that devastated that particular area of Turkey and nearby Syria, killing thousands and utterly disrupting the lives of so many. In honor of the land, the people, and the long human history in that part of the world, I wish to share a story about Shahmaran, an ancient Mother Goddess from that region. (Both a movie and a tv show have come out in recent years, neither of which I have seen). Her legend claims she was killed, but as her essence is one of life, death, and rebirth, this is a story of hope after death and disaster.
I wish to give special thanks to Çise Karakale for sharing with me two versions of Shahmaran’s tale, and to Shahmaran herself for her blessing.
Snow falls, soft and wet, over The Old Woman as she picks her way carefully along the beach. Though the days are growing longer, winter weather lingers. She bends to lift another piece of driftwood. Once a root, this one twists and curves around her hand like a snake frozen in motion. Smiling in admiration, she adds the twisting wood to the load on her back. She gazes at the lumps in the snow, discerning the pieces of wood she can lift and carry back up to her cave. She has the strength to carry each log, but not all of them at once. So she listens to the old bones of the trees, and they tell her when they are ready to leave the salty sea and tranquil snow to transform into ash in her fire. The Old Woman is returning to the cave when Raven catapults through the entrance in a wild jumble of black, white, and green.
“What on earth have you got there?” The Old Woman asks, dropping her wet load of wood beside the hearth.
Raven cannot answer. It is a wonder he can even fly. He clasps a little green snake in his beak, but the snake has wound around his body and grasps him about the foot.
“How do you even have this snake near your foot?” asks The Old Woman in baffled amusement. “You ravens don’t grab with your talons; you’re all beaks!” The Old Woman tries to unravel the two writhing creatures as gently as if they were two knotted yarns, but to no avail. “How did you two get all tangled up like this?”
Raven is not making her task easy. Nervous of the snake’s head, he refuses to relinquish his beak’s hold. The snake, meanwhile, is cold and stiff and has formed a hardened knot around Raven’s foot. The Old Woman nudges the two of them closer to the fire in hopes of warming the snake enough to relax. Raven hops about on his free foot, flapping frantically. The Old Woman can’t help but laugh at the predicament he has gotten himself into this time.
“You keep flapping your wings like that and you’re going to burn them,” The Old Woman warns, tears of laughter filling the creases around her eyes. She tries again to pry the creatures apart, but finds herself covered in something sticky. She has no idea where the sticky came from, but it smells like a pine tree and appears to be all over both the bird and the snake.
“You are a mess!” she exclaims, still laughing, and rises to find a jar of oil to clean everyone up.
“You’re going to have to let go of her neck,” The Old Woman tells Raven. In response, he clamps down a little harder and pulls the snake’s body taut. “Stop. You’re hurting her. Let me get her from you.”
She croons calmly to the snake. Reluctantly, Raven relinquishes his hold and The Old Woman takes the snake in her hands, unwrapping Raven from the pine sticky, oil slick-y, little green snake. She coaxes the long, little body around her own hand and stays sitting by the fire, gently rubbing the snake’s head.
“Welcome little one,” she murmurs to the snake. “You are safe now.” Of Raven she asks, “Where did you even find a snake in the snow?”
“On the mainland, to the south,” he croaks.
“That explains it,” The Old Woman nods. “I have never seen a snake on our island before.”
“It was a sunny day,” Raven explains, “and I caught her peeking up out of a hole. So, I landed in a nearby pine tree and waited until just the right moment. I didn’t realize until too late that I had stepped in a big oozing mess of pine pitch and got it all over my foot. I couldn’t do anything about it, and then the snake peeked out again, and I dove.”
“Do you remember where you found her?”
“Yes, of course!” Raven croaks indignantly.
“Good. Then you can take her back to her home.”
“Well…” Raven shifts a couple of steps away from the Old Woman.
“What?” she asks sharply.
“She put up a good fight, and I may have, kind of, well, destroyed her den.”
The Old Woman sighs and shakes her head. “She can stay here with us for now, then. She can rest on the warm stones by the fire, and you,” she points an ancient finger at Raven, “must feed her. You’ve caused her enough trouble, the least you can do is help care for her while she is our guest.”
“What am I supposed to feed a snake in the winter time?” complains Raven.
“Mice, voles, shrews,” lists The Old Woman. “The fresher, the better. She is a pickier eater than you are.”
Raven puffs himself up and makes a clucking sound in protest.
“That’s what you get for bringing a snake home,” admonishes The Old Woman, “But you’re a clever Raven. I know you can do it. And when you get back, I’ll tell you both a story.”
“Is it about snakes?” Little Snake speaks for the first time.
“Yes, in fact, it is.”
Always hungry for a good story, Raven launches himself back out into the snowy day, eventually returning with a mouse in his beak. This he drops before The Old Woman, who lets the snake go to hunt unencumbered. The mouse does not stand a chance.
“One life given for another to live,” The Old Woman speaks reverently, standing up and ladling a scoop of broth and another of herbal tea into her cup. “Thank you my darlings,” she speaks into the cauldrons, “for all the lives you nourish. May all who eat plants and animals be forever grateful.”
“Now for the story!” Raven hops excitedly by the warm fire.
“Now for the story,” agrees The Old Woman. “Ages ago, back when the women used to pour their monthly blood on the earth and the men used little stone blades for harvesting food, in a land far from here, lived the great Shahmaran. Her head appeared as a beautiful woman with long, black hair. Her serpentine body stretched long and scaled, with a snake’s head at the end of her tail.
“She traveled great distances, and everywhere she went, the people made a resting home for her. They welcomed her into their houses and temples, and made her special foods and drinks. Shahmaran graciously received their offerings, and in turn, sang the songs of life, death, and rebirth as the women wove on rock-weighted looms beside ovens, recording the songs in their textile patterns.
“Shahmaran was known far and wide as the wisest healer in the land. She spoke with the spirits of the plants and learned how to use their gifts to heal the humans and animals. When she graced a temple with her presence, all the ailing villagers flocked to her for healing.
“Sometimes, people would come to her in search of wisdom. Shahmaran would look into their spirits and if she saw that they had the healer’s gift, the snake head at the end of her tail would flick its tongue, licking the human’s forehead in blessing. They would sit long times with Shahmaran, learning all she would teach them so that they, too, could heal the people of their village when Shahmaran was away.
“One day, a young person knelt before Shahmaran to ask for her blessing to become a healer. Shahmaran could see this person had the right spirit for the task, but still the young one looked uncertain.
“‘Before I give you my blessing,’ Shahmaran spoke, ‘ask me the question that distresses you.’
“‘Shahmaran,’ the young person began, ‘you are the keeper of the cycles of life. Your wisdom comes from your belly as it presses to the earth, in rhythm with the heartbeat of the earth. You shed your skin as a woman sheds the blood of her womb. You teach us that our deaths are part of the cycles of life, that all who die are reborn in a new and different form. You sleep in the winter as if in death, but you always return to us in the same form. Shahmaran, do you ever die, like we do?’
“As the acolyte spoke, the clay floor of the temple began to quake. The young one could feel the earth reverberate through the balls of their feet and their knees where they knelt. Shahmaran felt the ground shake through the whole of her body. A boy, out of breath, burst unceremoniously through the doorway.
“‘Thunder! Lightning! Monsters!’ he gasped before falling to the ground. The people of the village began to move swiftly, focused.
“Amidst all the noise and movement, however, Shahmaran coiled forward to speak directly to the acolyte.
“‘You are right, my winter sleeps are merely rests, not true deaths. In them, I restore myself, and this is good medicine for all creatures to remember. I am a different being than you humans, and my life spans much longer than yours. The time may be close at hand when I, too, shall enter the death part of the cycle of life.’
“‘No!’ cried the acolyte, tears welling. Shahmaran brought her snake head close to the young person and flicked her tongue against their forehead.
‘You have my blessing,’ she told the young one, ‘but we may need to meet in dreams for you to learn the wisdom of plant medicines.’
“The elders of the village hustled into the room.
“‘Shahmaran, we must protect you from what is coming,’ they spoke with urgency. ‘They say the Sun god has come to earth and thunders across the land on strange beasts. He burns all who get too close. We cannot outrun the Sun, but we must keep you safe.’
“‘I will go to my winter cave,’ Shahmaran reassured them.
“‘Good, good! We will close in the passages so the Sun god cannot find you.’
“The villagers spread word, and across the land, ahead of the Sun god, people filled in the caves and wells, all of the entrances to Shahmaran’s winter cavern. There she lived for many long years, with her brood of snake children, conceived during her unions with her consorts, the earth gods. The cave ceiling became her cosmic sky, with pinpricks of light twinkling like stars from the tiny air holes the people had left when they filled the entrances. Strange constellations lit her underground home: myths of the earth world above.
“The cave ceiling was thin enough in places for brighter light to filter in, and there she grew and tended a garden. Her snake children could slip out in the hot months to hunt, and sometimes a rodent or other small creature would fall into her underground realm for her snake end to eat. Mostly, though, her own garden fed her.
“She spent much of her time sending dreams to the healers, like the last acolyte she had blessed. But human lives passed quickly for Shahmaran and she found fewer and fewer humans who recognized her in dream land. Not many were left to remember her and seek the healing wisdom she longed to share with the world.
“Then one day, a curious, scrabbling sound echoed through her cavern and down fell a man. He appeared afraid, shocked, and he did not seem to recognize her. She had not spoken to anyone in such a long time. She wanted to know all about this man and the world he came from.
“In a curious reversal of her old life, where she would arrive as a guest in the villages and the people would feed and house her, Shahmaran performed the honors of hospitality to her unexpected guest. She fed him from her garden and offered him water to drink from the cave. She made him a place to rest, and when he was nourished, they conversed.
“He told her about the world above, of the sun and the cities, of the wars and the kings. She cared little for these stories, for she could hear how hard life was for most of the people, while only a few lived in opulence beyond their needs. His stories of evil serpents and the women who associated with them alarmed her even more. She was most interested in the medicines. The man claimed he was a healer. Luqman Hakim was his name. But when she inquired into his medical knowledge, she found him sorely lacking.
“They spent a long while together, growing close, intimate. Hungry for a consort as she had once enjoyed among the males who walked the earth, she shared her body with Luqman Hakim. Hungry for another acolyte after so long, she shared her plant medicine wisdom with him as well. She came to love him, and he seemed to feel similarly. But the day came when Luqman Hakim asked to return to the land of the Sun.
“With a heavy heart, she let him go, raising him up herself with her strong serpent body. Before he left, Shahmaran warned Luqman Hakim to take care never to speak of her. The world above would not understand, and they would fear her. She instructed him also to take special care of the bag he carried. She had gifted him medicines to use as a healer, but the bag she had lined with her own shed snakeskin as a protection. If anyone should ever see that he carried with him a piece of Shahmaran’s snakeskin, she would be in great danger. Luqman Hakim promised to keep her secret before he kissed her farewell. Tears fell from her eyes as she watched him fill in the hole he had once opened, dropping his sunny self down into her dark world.
“Luqman Hakim never knew that he had left a part of himself behind with Shahmaran. After incubating much longer than an earthly snake, Shahmaran laid a clutch of eggs and wrapped her body around them. When the cavern constellations and the light above her garden shone brightly, she told the old stories to her tiny children growing in the leathery eggs. As the lights dimmed at night, she sang the old songs to them. She spoke all her wisdom into their dreams so that when they hatched, they would know all they needed to carry on her work.
“Shahmaran also visited Luqman Hakim in his dreams. She learned of his growing fame as a healer, which eased the ache of loneliness he had left behind. After a time, however, she began to meet him in nightmares in which he was being chased. Night after night, his dreams filled with fear and she worried for him.
“So when he fell through into her cavern once more, she met him with trepidation. Dust clung to tear tracks down his face, and he told her how the king’s daughter, the princess, was very ill and the king had sent for him, Luqman Hakim, to heal her. Luqman Hakim had tried all of the medicines, and some of them seemed to work for a time, but then the princess would fall ill again. Luqman Hakim told Shahmaran that he had overheard one of the king’s viziers speak of Shahmaran, who was said to possess medicine that could heal any sickness. The vizier claimed that if the princess would eat her, she would be healed. The king demanded to know where to find this Shahmaran, but nobody knew. The vizier said that only someone who had visited her would know, and they would have part of her snakeskin. So the king decreed that everybody go to the hammami, the baths, where soldiers rifled through all their clothes. Luqman Hakim told Shahmaran how he hid, but finally the soldiers caught him and made him go to the hammam, where they found her snakeskin inside his bag. The soldiers brought him before the king, who sent Luqman Hakim down to Shahmaran to ask her to come up and heal the princess.
“Shahmaran knew she did not have a choice. Soldiers were waiting for her and Luqman Hakim. They would kill her either way, but they might spare him. She looked around her cavern, at her tail coiled around her eggs, hidden under her snake’s head, and at her sweet little garden. She did not want to be hunted in her cave like a mouse hiding in its burrow. She did not want the memory of her violent death to live in her children’s memories, or in the rock of her home. So she agreed to go with Luqman Hakim.
“Heavy-hearted once again, she lifted him up through the hole in the ceiling. This time, she kissed her snake children goodbye and blessed each egg in her clutch. Then she thrust her powerful body up, up, and out of her cave, out into the blinding sunlit world. She had grown so unaccustomed to the light that her eyes did not adjust before the soldiers had bound her body in chains. Never had humans treated her with such disrespect. Luqman Hakim walked beside her, one hand on her snake body, his head hung low on his chest.
“They traveled a long distance under the blinding sun, stopping to camp for the night. Shahmaran gazed up at the night sky, filled with such different constellations than the cavern ceiling. The feel of hot liquid on her scales brought her attention back down to earth. Luqman Hakim was curled against her side, spilling silent tears in the darkness. The human world had become so dangerous to healing serpents and wise women, but she realized that it had become dangerous for the good men who loved them as well. In that moment, she forgave Luqman Hakim for betraying her, for the fault was not with him, but with his king and those who take without permission.
“The sun was low on the horizon the next day when the soldiers led Shahmaran through the streets of the city to the palace. People gathered to look upon her. The expressions on their faces showed a mixture of fear and curiosity. Once in a while, though, Shahmaran saw a wizened face with the glint of tears peeking out of a window, or from behind a corner. She smiled sadly at these people, the memory keepers. Behind the soldiers’ backs, her snake-headed tail slithered among the people to bestow her blessings.
“Shahmaran and Luqman Hakim drew closer together as they entered the austere and glittering palace. At first, Shahmaran wondered if the palace were a temple to the Sun god, with all of its gold and opulence. She looked for the hearth for baking offerings, for the sacred offering tables, and the women weaving the story textiles, but saw none.
“The soldiers brought them before a human king who sat in a place of honor once reserved for the Holy in Nature. He looked upon Shahmaran with a combination of greed and disgust. In that moment, Shahmaran felt what it is to become the living property of another, and the sensation caused a shudder to ripple through her body.
“‘My vizier tells me that you are the only cure for my daughter’s illness. So, tell me. What part of you shall she eat?’ The king wasted no time on eloquence.
“‘I, Shahmaran, am the Bringer of Balance.’ With no one to remember her titles, Shahmaran was left to declare them herself. ‘While you will find the medicine you seek by cutting up and eating my body, you will limit to one moment my capacity to heal. If I could see the girl, I would know what medicine would cure her.’
“‘You are two-faced! You speak with a forked tongue,’ spat the king. ‘The world knows that women and snakes are not to be trusted and you are both. I would not risk the princess’ life by letting such a vile creature as you near her. You might poison her as soon as heal her. The princess is very delicate at present. The sight of you alone could kill her.’
“‘I, Shahmaran, am the Wisdom-Keeper of All Medicines of the Land. If you kill me, my wisdom will return to the plants. No one will be able to hold all of that knowledge.’
“‘You have taught this Luqman Hakim, have you not?’ asked the king.
“‘I, Shahmaran, am the Lore Teacher. I have taught Luqman Hakim about the plants, but he does not know every story and song for every possible illness and its medicine. He does not know how to weave the songs into cloth. The world will lose much ability to heal if you kill me.’
“‘No woman is fit to be a wisdom-keeper,’ the king declared. ‘We will have only men for doctors. No more snake women. Your death is the only way for my daughter to live. So tell me. What part of you must she eat?’
“Shahmaran sighed deeply. She raised her voice to reverberate through the marble hall. ‘Anyone who eats of my body will be healed from any illness. Anyone who eats of my tail will gain more wisdom than any other human. Anyone who eats of my head will be poisoned.’
“With that, the king gave the order for his soldiers to kill Shahmaran and cut her body into three pieces. The body of Shahmaran was brought before the princess to eat, chopped into tiny bites. In his heartbreak, Luqman Hakim ate of Shahmaran’s head and brains, praying for death. Paying no attention to the sad doctor, the king and his viziers fell greedily upon the serpent head of Shahmaran’s tail.
“The princess recovered and went on to live a long life controlled by powerful men. To his great surprise, Luqman Hakim found himself far from dead. Rather, his already broad knowledge of medicine expanded a thousandfold and he earned even greater fame as the best doctor in the land. The king and his retinue, however, collapsed in death and were swiftly interred in the earth as the next greedy man scooped up the power they so recently vacated.”
Raven puffs out his neck feathers and hoots with delight. “Kao! Kao! She tricked them! She’s a Trickster, too!” He skips on the floor. “I think Little Snake fell asleep.”
“No,” Little Snake corrects him, “I grieve for Shahmaran.”
“Well, your eyes were closed,” Raven niggles, but Little Snake ignores him. The Old Woman continues.
“The story of Shahmaran seems to end here, but as she told her acolyte so long before, she has a much longer lifespan than any human. As time passed and both the princess and Luqman Hakim died and were buried, seasonal rains helped decompose the bodies of all who had eaten of Shahmaran. The pieces of her essence trickled down, down, down, until they reached Shahmaran’s cavern where her clutch of eggs rested, waited, in a nest of snakes.
“Ages passed and one by one, the stars in the cavern ceiling turned dark. Above ground, people unwittingly filled in the air holes to Shahmaran’s cave as they built cities and towns all over the land. The air of the cave became stifling with only Shahmaran’s untended garden to keep the balance.
“The day Shahmaran’s eggs hatched, the cavern shook violently. The earth rippled, shaking cities and crumbling buildings. With the birth of Shahmaran’s children, thousands of humans perished. The snake babies surged from the cave, a thousand tiny Shahmarans, to form a giant Shahmaran with all of their bodies combined. The humans never saw them. They were focused on the important work of pulling loved ones and strangers from collapsing buildings. Ordinary people became extraordinary. They found within themselves an immense capacity for love.
“Reborn of many, Shahamaran called the spirits of the dead people to her, blessing thousands with the flicks of baby snake tongues. For a moment, the spirits hovered around the great Mother Healer. Then the moment passed and she dispersed.
“Shahmaran’s progeny slithered into the catastrophe and surge of human fear, pain, and love. In this poignant, liminal time between life, death, and rebirth, the baby Shahmarans slipped unnoticed into the people’s mouths and ears. There, they whispered prayers for the green medicines. They whispered to the women to pour their monthly blood upon the earth once more. They whispered to the men to stop building cities and start planting gardens.
“Shahmaran is no longer in the state of death, but neither is she as she was before. Like the dinosaurs who became all of the birds, Shahmaran has transformed. But just as her death spanned many human lifetimes, so too will her rebirth. The people will likely continue on much as they have as of late, but there is hope now that Shahmaran’s children will whisper the old stories and songs into the people’s dreams, and the land and people will heal.”
“You know,” Raven declares, “when you first started the story, I was worried that this Shahmaran creature was going to be another boring Mother, like you. But she turned out way more interesting than I had expected. I love how she tricked the people who killed her! Then when her eggs hatched, I realized that she was my kind of creature, shaking up the earth to make space for new life.”
“You know, you’re right,” The Old Woman concedes. “Sometimes Creator and Trickster can be the same person. What did you think of the story, Little Snake?”
“Sad,” Little Snake states simply. “Having your life and your home destroyed is hard.”
“Are you speaking about the people in the story, or about your own situation?”
“All of them: Shahmaran, the humans, me,” explained Little Snake. “Sure, Shahmaran was reborn, but that doesn’t take away the pain of having to hide in the cavern, and being betrayed by someone she loved, and then killed and eaten. I know how the humans feel, too, because this nosy bird here crushed my den, and carried me off to this cold place. Do you know how scary it is for a snake to go flying through the air? We are creatures of the earth. I may be safe at the moment, but that doesn’t take away my grief and fear. Now, there is no way to go home, unless that Trickster takes me back - and I don’t trust him one bit.”
“Life holds many surprises - especially when you live close to a Trickster,” observes The Old Woman. “You are welcome to share our cave until Life calls you on your next journey.”
Little Snake rests her head on the coils of her slim body, clearly not ready for another of Life’s unexpected twists anytime soon.