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 51 python skin? DHJanzen100505.jpg high resolution
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| As I watched them clean the second python for market, I suddenly realized that they were about to slice it into sections to smoke and dry for market. They had skinned the first python before broiling it, feeding the skin to the dogs, something that seemed logical/normal, so I took no notice. But this one was headed for market, abruptly jogging my memory. I had been in Uganda and Kenya years before, a place where a snakeskin fetches a large price in both local and tourist markets. And a dry forest and grassland place where bushmeat is relatively far more abundant than in western African rainforest. No Kenyan or Ugandan hunter would dream of slicing up that huge skin as so much soup protein. I explained this to the hunters, who thought it highly amusing, and I promised to show them what east Africans would have done with the python (after discarding the meat!). Above, Doyle stands next to the curiosity, the python skin laced firmly to a stick rack to dry. I have no idea if they ever succeeded in selling it to the one tourist a year who might have passed through Edea, but it did convince them that I was crazy. | ||
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