My first experience was with my church when I was 10. One day we went out in the woods where a special shack had been built to perform these ceremonies without the prying eyes of the skeptical.
I remember being told to grab a rattler by the tail. Everyone knows that you don't grab snakes by the tail, but that's what I did. As fast as lightning the snake bit me and I felt its poison going into my arm. I shot a worried look at the older men in the room, but they assured me that this was normal and that I would not be hurt.
My grandfather handling snakes in the 40's; snake handling is an important part of my heritage. My great-grandmother is in the background playing the cymbals.
I was glad to know that the poison wouldn't affect me, but then I got woozy and started to fall. The snake ran away and slithered out of the room (and I've always wondered why the other men in the room got out of its way). I blacked out at this point.
I woke up to a man sucking poison out of my arm. I was confused, but he told me to "be still" and that he was going to suck the poison out of me because he was more faithful than I and could ingest the poison. I didn't remember this being part of the ceremony, but I blacked out again so I don't remember anything else.
When I awoke in the hospital I noticed the ministers were really excited to see me awake and asked me to keep the whole a secret. I asked the senior pastor if we were keeping it a secret because the ceremony had gone so well and he didn't want people to know how good of a snake handler I was. He looked worried but he told me that I was right. I asked him if we could do it again and he said that the ceremony only worked once for each person. That made me sad, but I'll never forget my first snake handling.
Read more about my family's snake handling by clicking here.
I woke up to a man sucking poison out of my arm. I was confused, but he told me to "be still" and that he was going to suck the poison out of me because he was more faithful than I and could ingest the poison. I didn't remember this being part of the ceremony, but I blacked out again so I don't remember anything else.
When I awoke in the hospital I noticed the ministers were really excited to see me awake and asked me to keep the whole a secret. I asked the senior pastor if we were keeping it a secret because the ceremony had gone so well and he didn't want people to know how good of a snake handler I was. He looked worried but he told me that I was right. I asked him if we could do it again and he said that the ceremony only worked once for each person. That made me sad, but I'll never forget my first snake handling.
Read more about my family's snake handling by clicking here.
5 comments:
This is my favorite of the day. CADIE has nothing on this.
Thank you, Jared, although your engagement announcement was quite effective in the Jones household.
(Although, what's more effective is the fact that I know you would do that only to fool us into thinking it is not true if it is, so we never know with you and you lifetime of trickery makes your pranking ten times more effective.)
You son of a gun.
No one's ever called me that before. My dad owns guns, that's pretty close.
Post a Comment