Don’t Wake the Snake

The following is a read aloud story for April 2004. This is one in a series of stories especially for Awana Clubs, homeschoolers, Sunday school classes, DVBS, mission conferences, or just reading them for fun. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others. Use them. God bless! This month I tell the story of two Culina girls and their adventures in the great Tropical Rain Forest of the Amazon River of Brasil. If curiosity killed the cat, it almost scared these two girls witless.

The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
Missionary/ culture observer among the Culina Madirra for many years
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, FL

Rarro (Raw-HOE) closed her black eyes and smelled the awesome odor of the fat rat-like creature she was roasting on her little mound of red hot coals. She and Doro (Doe-ROW) had been walking through the large field just hours after the men had set fire to it. Like other children they were scouting to see what animals had not escaped the holocaust and were scorched to death in the fire. Lizards, mice, and here and there a fat rat. Whenever someone found a smoldering piece of meat they would shout it out and all the others would search more intensely for their prize. It was sort of a Culina Easter egg hunt. Rarro’s rat had not cooked enough in the burning, so she got some coals together and was finishing barbecuing the succulent treat. Doro still looked for her find. “OCCA!” she shouted loudly! “This is MINE!” and she held up a hot little turtle for all to see!
The smoke was slowly dissipating and the field had burned well. With rat juice staining their chins the girls raced back in the forest to their trail. They laughed and teased and the whole world seemed to be a beautiful song. Life did not get better than this.
The trail went along the bank of the river for some miles and would eventually break off to a larger more well-used path that led to their shelters in the village. They skipped, they jumped, they stopped to swing on the everpresent vines and now and then they took off their dirty dresses and plunged in the cool stream and swam around like two little naked mermaids and then came back to the trail giggling and chasing each other. Suddenly Doro stopped! “Rarro, do you hear that noise? What is it?”
“Perhaps it is an old cow fish calling her calf!” Rarro teased.
There it was again! ZZZZZZZ.
The girls looked around and saw nothing. ZZZZZZ. What? It was coming from the ground just a few feet in front of them. They cautiously stepped forward all alert. ZZZZZZ. It was coming from right under them! The noise was muffled at times, but then it got louder and trailed off. Where was it coming from? Doro looked out in the river and saw nothing, but she did take note that there was a cave going back under the river bank and right under their trail. Something was in that cave. Sleeping! Something was snoring loudly!
ZZZZZZ. “Doro, DON’T WAKE THE SNAKE!!” Rarro shouted nervously trying to reason with her friend. ZZZZZZ. A giant sucuriju water snake was in the hole under the trail sleeping! That was it! ZZZZZZ. The girls started to run away, but then curiosity got the best of them. They tried to lay on their stomachs and peer under the bank, but the hole was too deep and dark to see anything. “Rarro, let’s dig down and poke it on the head!”
“I don’t think that is a good idea at all. He will get very mad!” Rarro reasoned.
“Oh, come on, let’s see if we can find him. He won’t awaken, he is sleeping too soundly!”
The girls found some pointed sticks and got to work digging in the sand on the trail and their hole got deeper and deeper. And then…GISH…the stick went right through into the hole. ZZZZZZZ. The snoring was louder now. They widened their hole and sure enough they could see a greyish green bulk, but they did not know where the snoring head was located. “Doro, let’s go!”, Rarro pleaded, “Don’t wake the snake!”
Doro lifted her stick and plunged it down with all the force she could muster and she felt it hit the snake’s body penetrating it’s flesh forcefully. Then all of creation began to roar and roll and go on a rampage! The girls stood terrified as the giant water snake, perhaps 25 feet in length, gave an ear splitting cry of war! It uncoiled from the hole and hit the water causing the entire river to suddenly boil with rage. The girls finally got their legs to function and were preparing to run for their lives! WHOSH…an ugly head came rushing up out of the river and they were looking in the two small evil eyes of death itself! Rarro nearly passed out with fright and Doro was screaming! The girls seemed to have been jet propelled as they raced down the trail towards the village screaming and crying. Had they glanced back they would have seen the gigantum serpant easily slither up on the trail and begin to whip after them. But the snake had been wounded by the stick and it stopped it’s pursuit to explore the source of it’s pain…and with a tumultuous splash it dove back in the river forgetting the girls entirely.
Has curiosity ever gotten you in trouble? Have you ever done something very foolish and dangerous? Have you ever awakened a snake and regretted it? Those snakes can be the bad things that you watch on television. Or, taking a peek at those magazines in the store that your parents have expressly forbidden you to ever open! Curiosity. It nearly cost the lives of Rarro and Doro, it has killed children as well as cats. Jesus has told us to walk circumspectly. That is a big word meaning to walk CAREFULLY, CAUTIOUSLY, and WISELY. Don’t mess with sin! Don’t dabble with what you know is very, very wrong. Don’t experiment with things older kids give you to taste, or try, or smoke, or do. It’s a giant snake that’ll get you! Walk circumspectly with Jesus all the time!