Asked whether anyone has died of snakebites in the area, villagers grudgingly¹ admit that it does happen -- but, they add hastily, only as a result of attacks by nonresident cobras, or by other snakes -- vipers² or kraits, perhaps. 'Our sacred cobras only kill ducks and chickens, but never humans,' assures Mr. Sain.

Puzzled by the apparent mystery, the Zoological Survey of India, a government institution, sent in a team of scientists led by reptile³ specialist D.P. Sanyal in the early 1990s. Dr. Sanyal says he determined⁴ that the serpents teeming⁵ around Mushari are indeed 'monocled cobras, highly poisonous no doubt.'

But he didn't get much further: Local villagers, eager to uphold the religious taboos⁶, didn't allow him to collect venom⁷ samples and prevented him from taking one of the snakes to Calcutta for examination.

These religious taboos -- and faith in the priests' magical powers -- are slowly beginning to crumble⁸. Facing the prospect⁹ of death after a bite, some villagers nowadays are opting¹⁰ for more conventional medicine. One such snakebite victim is Malati Dhara, a young woman who was attacked by a cobra as she watered her garden last year.

At first, Ms. Dhara tried to follow the old custom. She called on Mr. Chakraborty, the chief priest, and spent the first hours after the bite applying mud and chanting. But in her case, the traditional rite¹¹ didn't do the trick. Soon, her foot became bloated and blue, and she vomited¹².

Feeling her body go rigid¹³, Ms. Dhara asked to be rushed to the nearest hospital, in the town of Burdwan, about 25 miles away. There, she was injected with a broad-spectrum antivenom. 'The priest had assured me that he will heal the bite, but it didn't happen,' she says. 'When I finally got to a doctor, he told me -- you've come so late, you're lucky to be alive.' Ms. Dhara still has a disfiguring scar on her foot where the snake got her.

'A cobra is highly neurotoxic, and no one will survive without the antidote¹⁴ if the poison is properly injected,' says Indranil Banerjee, the emergency medical officer at the Burdwan hospital. 'I see this often. After being treated by witch doctors, people come here too late and just die.'

To infuse its lethal¹⁵ venom into the bloodstream, a cobra must turn its head, squeezing out poison that's connected to its fangs¹⁶. The frequent survival of victims in Mushari, Dr. Banerjee says, can be explained by the fact that local villagers manage to shake off the cobras immediately when they bite. Also, he adds, a snake that has recently bitten a mouse or a frog may be fresh out of poison.

Ms. Dhara's near-death experience -- and rapid recovery after the antidote -- dented¹⁷ somewhat the priestly authority in the area. Other villagers have since gone to the hospital with snakebites. On a recent day, as Ms. Dhara recounted her tale, 21-year-old Gora Chand Dey nodded in approval. 'Now, everyone knows you have to see a doctor,' he said loudly. 'People no longer believe in these priests.'

Still, the age-old taboos aren't quite dead. Breaking up this conversation, Ms. Dhara's mother-in-law, Sandhya Dhara, stepped into the crowd. 'We have to follow our traditions and go to the priests when the snakes bite,' she insisted. 'Their rituals are the only cure.'