Ancient Python Ritual

South African Rock Python photograph by Heather Shelley, n.d.. Digital image file is hosted at FreeRange.

Some of us fear snakes, some of us are fascinated by them and snakes have long been held in awe by human beings. A startling archeological discovery in Botswana has uncovered the earliest known ritual and the 'deity' or spirit worshipped was a python. Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo was studying the San Bushmen in remote corner of northwest Botswana looking for Middle Stone Age artefacts in the Tsodilo Hills, a group of small peaks in the Kalahari Desert. The Tsodilo Hills are still sacred to the San, are known as the "Mountains of the Gods, and the Rocks That Whisper" and have the largest group of rock paintings in the world.

The python is also sacred to the San, mankind descended from the python in their creation myth. The ancient, arid, stream beds in the Tsodilo Hills were created by the sacred python as it looked for water and it is logical to assume that a creation myth ritual featuring the Sacred Python was an important ceremony. But how to find evidence for such a ritual ? In a secluded, small cave on the north side of the Tsodilo Hills, Coulson found a 6m x 2m large rock in the shape of a python with visible mouth and eyes. When light played over hundreds of indentations that had been carved on this python rock, the resemblance to snake skin was uncanny. Thousand of artefacts, including many spearheads, were of a type that indicated an age of 70,000 years. A small dig in front of the python rock uncovered the tools used to make the indentations, to carve the snake skin of the python. The spearheads were not made from local rock, and are extremely colorful. Red spearheads were deliberately burned, an action likely connected with the python ritual. No tools have been found at the site and there are no signs that any San lived in this cave, it seems to have been reserved for ceremonial use.

The only paintings in the python cave are small and depict an elephant and a giraffe. In San mythology, the elephant with its long trunk is often used as a metaphor for the python. There is a San tale wherein a python falls into a pond, cannot get out and is rescued by a giraffe. A secret chamber behind the python rock may have been the place where an invisible San shaman spoke to his people as the Sacred Python who created 'the people'. A small shaft allowed the shaman to leave the cave behind the python rock, his presence never revealed to those participating in the ritual.

Until recently, the oldest evidence of human ritual came from Neanderthal culture. The dead were not only buried but flowers were put on their graves. The Python Ritual of the ancient San people is almost twice as old. Africa, well known as the birthplace of humankind, now appears to be the continent where the earliest sacred, ceremonies were created. Think snake, think water, think creation.