PHOBIAS, PRIMATIVE FEAR AND THE HOG-NOSED SNAKE
by Daniel Suits
East Lansing Towne Courier July 17, 2002

I heard a psychologist talk about phobias on the radio the other day. Phobias, he claimed, all involve things that used to be dangers to us at the dawn of the human race. There are phobias associated with height, with darkness, with

snakes, with thunder but not, he pointed out, associated with guns, with speeding cars or with other appurtenances of modern life.

But it is also important, it seems to me, that – whatever the nature of the fear – it does not occur spontaneously, but must be somehow learned. However deeply in our primitive brains lurks the potential for terror at the sight of a snake, nobody, I contend, is born with a fear of snakes. It has to be learned. My baby son convinced me of this.

The meanest, ugliest, most vicious appearing snake in Michigan is the hog-nosed snake, heterodon platirhinos. To suddenly encounter him sunning himself in a clearing is an unforgettable experience. At the sight of you, he throws himself into a coil, flattens his head and neck like a cobra, and

rears up, hissing like a steam jet. He sometime vibrates his tail in the leaves in the hope that you will confuse him with a rattlesnake. He will even dart his head at you, as if he were trying to strike. It’s a terrifying sight, enough to make almost anybody flee in panic – which, of course, is the idea. Because it’s all bluff. And bluff is the only defensive weapon the poor animal has. So far from poison fangs, the snake has hardly any teeth. And if you defy the dreadful appearance and pick him up, you will find the snake quite docile and friendly.

Well, I used to walk through the Northern Michigan woods with my eighteen-month-old son perched on my shoulders, his little hands clutching my hair. And on one memorable occasion we were suddenly confronted with a hog-nosed snake in the middle of the path, coiled, flattened out, and hissing viciously. To see what would happen, I lifted my little son down and set him on the path in front of the snake.

He pointed to the snake, looked up at me and said, "Da dooch." I have no idea what "da dooch" meant. At the time he couldn’t talk, so I couldn’t ask him, and by the time he had learned to talk, he had entirely forgotten, so I never found out. At any rate, he squatted down and picked up the snake in his two little hands, flattened head, hiss and all. He looked at it curiously, then looked up at me and repeated, "da dooch." He turned his attention back to the snake and, in the manner of eighteen-month-olds exploring the world, he opened his mouth and was about to find out what a snake tasted like. At this, I took the poor animal out of his hands (remembering to say thank you) and restored it gently to its place on the path. I hoisted my son back on to my shoulders, and as we strode off down the path, he let go of my hair with one hand, and waved bye-bye to the snake.