The Rattlers Cage
By Art Jones

              In 1939, when I was a high school junior, I managed to acquire a job as a “guide” at the Reptile Gardens in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a business started in 1938 by a man who spent his lifetime as a successful tourist entrepreneur.   

            Guides were trained in the rudiments of herpetology and got a crash course in human nature. Our job was directing visitors around the snake pits, providing a lecture, and answering all questions.

            The pits were simply 10-foot square frame constructions dug into the ground, with a roof and an open side with a rail, designed only for summertime use. Visitors could lean on the rail as their guide jumped into the pit to talk about the creepy crawly creatures in that location. We all developed our own special techniques of becoming masters of the situation and working for the best tips possible at the end of the tour. Any given group of travelers could be counted on to repeat the same questions at each of the stops where we described the residents of that enclosure. We soon were aware of the importance of eye contact when we talked, to make visitors feel we were talking to them personally.

            One of the display pits was devoted to Crotalus Adamanteus, the Eastern Diamond Back rattlesnake native to Florida. These were large snakes, about the size of a man’s wrist, and four to five feet in length. Drop for drop, their venom was not much more deadly than other snakes, but they had an enormous venom sac. This was responsible for their deadlier position in the hierarchy of rattlesnake bites—they just injected more poison into the system of whatever creature they bit.

            The big diamond backs in our pit had slowly been dying because we almost totally lacked the ability to provide even a reasonably normal environment for them. By the middle of August, we all knew that this one pit had nothing but large dead snakes coiled on the floor of the area. There was a standard explanation for our visitors, “These deadly reptiles are accustomed to our walking among them, so they just don’t rattle or strike because our body odors and movements have not harmed them.”  We guides, of course, did not even hint they were all dead.

            One August day I had to leave the Gardens because of an illness in the family. Returning late on that very busy afternoon, I was sent down to the rattler pit to relieve a guide who had almost lost his voice from overuse.

            What I didn’t know was that a new shipment of snakes had arrived via Railway Express just moments after I left the premises that morning. The dead snakes had been removed and the travel-angry batch of fresh Diamond Back replacements had about six hours to calm down by the time I rushed in as a fresh-voiced guide.

            One smartly dressed, diminutive lady, who wore an attractive felt hat tipped jauntily over one eye, began asking knowledgeable questions, such as, “Are these Eastern or Western Diamond Backs?” I told her these were Easterns from Florida, as the Westerns came mostly from Texas. As she asked how to differentiate between the two types of reptiles, I noted she had a beautiful complexion, or one heck of a make-up artist with her. Her dark wavy hair was meticulously arranged, about level with her jaw line. By this time, I was impressed with her obvious intelligence; her questions were noticeably better informed than those coming from the usual run of tourists. She was certainly someone acquainted with wildlife and wanted to learn more than the average person who had spent a dollar to see the snakes.  I determined to converse at greater length with her after the tour was over.

            Standing in the center of the Diamond Back pit, I wasn’t in the least concerned about a possible lethal snakebite. The creatures were all dead the last time I’d seen them, and my casual stance within inches of the venomous snakes was deliberate, designed to impress the spectators with my poise.

            I started the usual spiel about why the snakes didn’t strike, and how we all wore boots, just in case. A fleeting thought about my own legs, covered only with trousers at the time, didn’t upset me. My Reptile Gardens shirt had the logo across the back and my name, a large “Art” above the left front pocket.

            What happened next, in a matter of seconds, is still engraved in my memory more than 60 years later. A small boy, out of pure boredom, kicked the wooden side of the containment area. All 18 of the snakes, in a nervous reaction to the thump, began vibrating their tails and the rattles filled the air with that unmistakable sound that has never been artificially duplicated. The strike at my left leg left the fangs of the nearest snake caught in the cuff of my trousers. As the rattler turned its head back and forth, trying to extricate itself from the cloth entanglement, a calm, decisive, highly-trained voice instructed, “Art – don’t move – be silent – hold yourself perfectly still.”

            Although it seemed like an eternity, it couldn’t have been over two minutes before everything settled back to normal and the snakes again appeared to be totally lethargic. The same voice said, “Move slowly, Art, and climb out of there.”  Following the woman’s instructions I was able to extricate myself from the perilous situation and what could have been a lethal snakebite.

            The remainder of the tour lasted just a few more minutes. Heading toward the exit, I stopped my rescuer and thanked her from the bottom of my heart. Now it was my turn to ask questions.

            I learned the woman’s name was Osa Johnson. With her husband Martin, she was responsible for 15 motion pictures about wildlife and the uncivilized tribes of the South Seas, Borneo and Africa. She was a professional lecturer, a licensed pilot, movie producer, photographer and, along with Irene Castle, was one of the first women in America to have a permanent hair wave. Obviously the blazing jungle sun hadn’t turned her skin to leather and she had also been listed as one of the 12 best-dressed women in the country.

            Osa Johnson’s often quoted reason for the many trips to primitive countries was, “The dangers of the jungle are trivial compared with the dangers of civilization. Nature made the one, man the other.”

Her husband Martin died in an airplane crash two years before our meeting. Osa Johnson was seriously injured in the same crash and was touring the country while regaining her strength.