As for the pythons, they have always been here, protected like many others by the patronage of one god or the other, at whose shrines large numbers of them can be seen at any given time. In some clans it is the crazy rhesus monkeys, others the pygmy tortoise that gets the highest patronage as the chief totem. But in my village, it is the giant pythons that are superior. They can at times be seen lumbering down one village path or the other...