The Snake, the Death, and the Naked Flesh. Mythopoiesis of Mata Hari

The prima ballerina Anna Tsygankova as Margaretha Zelle MacLeod, a.k.a. Mata Hari, in the Dutch National Ballet’s production of 2016. Here, Mata Hari is portrayed as dancing with a snake, a popular story about her but, most likely, just a legend. It is the same for the legend that says she stripped naked in front of the firing squad at her execution, in 1917. The origin of both legends is hard to track down, but a turning point in their diffusion may have been the novel by E. Temple Thurston "Portrait of a Spy" published in 1929.

Mata Hari has turned out to be a myth-generating machine of incredible power. Myths which are pervasive, persistent, unstoppable, and - most often - completely false. Two of these myths are especially unlikely. One is that Mata Hari would sometimes perform her dances with a snake, the other that she bared her breasts in front of the firing squad that was going to kill her.

About the snake, it is not totally farfetched. We have pictures of dancers of the time of Mata Hari and sometimes they appear with snakes, as you can see here. This woman is often said to be Mata Hari, but she is not her, clearly. Yet, the legend of Mata Hari dancing with snakes is persistent. In addition to the image at the beginning of this post, it is described in Michelle Moran's recent novel "Mata Hari's Last Dance".

About the other legend, standing naked in front of the firing squad, it is not a common myth. We have no pictures of the execution, but most of the fantasy images created afterward show Mata Hari fully dressed and in a rather solemn attitude - or, sometimes, with a frightened expression.

Still, the legend exists. It is reported, among others, by Julie Wheelwright in her book "The Fatal Lover" (1992) (p. 3) in terms of a contemporary of Mata Hari, Natalie Barney, speaking of the "tawdry imagined sable coat over nude flesh invented by someone who wrote for the most scurrilous kind of literary weekly" It is mentioned also at this link.

I think it shouldn't take much effort to debunk both legends: there is no evidence anywhere - nothing at all - that Mata Hari ever danced with a snake. On the contrary, a descendant of her family, Ton Zelle, told me that "she hated snakes" - a rather likely attitude for a Dutch girl, born and raised in a place where snakes are not common - to say the least! About stripping naked in front of the firing squad, well, it doesn't even deserve to be debunked.

But these myths must have an origin: someone, somewhere, must have expressed them first. I haven't been able to find the "scurrilous literary weekly" described by Natalie Barnes, but I think it is possible to pinpoint the origin of both with the novel by E. Temple Thurston "Portrait of a Spy" appeared in 1929.

Today, Temple Thurston is nearly completely forgotten as a writer and perhaps for good reasons, at least judging from this novel. Not that it is poorly written, actually it shows the hand of a professional, the style reminds Faulkner, at times. But, as a novel, it just doesn't stand on its own. The protagonist, the British painter George Le Mesurier, doesn't ever gain life. Better, but still not satisfactory, is the female character inspired by Mata Hari. She goes under the name of Liane Sonrel (fictional alter ego of Margaretha Zelle) and Mada Garass (the fictional equivalent of Mata Hari). She is a character with some life, especially at the beginning. Apart from the different names, she goes through the same parable as Mata Hari, starting as a low-level stripper in Paris and in the end being shot. We read that, at the last moment,

. . . she flung open the folds of that sable coat and her body was gleaming naked to receive their bullets in her flesh.

As I said, not a good novel but, at least, Thurston created a myth that still lives today. It has been said in our time that propaganda "creates reality" and that was true also at the time of Mata Hari. Propaganda created the story of her being a dangerous spy and, in the process, people saw non-existing things, such as her dancing with snakes or appearing naked at her execution. In the end, all the madness, all the suffering, all the hate, love, folly, pain, joy, and misery are our creation. And I might cite Lafcadio Hearn in his "Out of the East"

We may have to learn that the infinite whirl of death and birth, out of which we cannot escape, is of our own creation, of our own seeking;—that the forces integrating worlds are the errors of the Past;—that the eternal sorrow is but the eternal hunger of insatiable desire;—and that the burnt-out suns are rekindled only by the inextinguishable passions of vanished lives.

Vanished lives who still project on us their inextinguishable passion. Margaretha, you are still with us.

The power of the snake god

The statuary pieces recovered from Ubaid, in Mesopotamia, are among the oldest known. And, surely, among the strangest. It is nearly impossible for us to understand what led these ancient Mesopotamians to represent snake headed women, with such prominent keloid scars on their shoulders. The only thing we can say is that they are part of the human fascination for snakes - creatures which have been the object of cult from the earliest times of human history. 

Perhaps Rudyard Kipling is the modern writer who best caught the human fascination with snakes. He did so in the story "Kaa Hunting", part of the "Jungle Book". It is a fabulous story, rich in symbols and allegories; not the least interesting one is the characterization of the "Bandar-Log", monkeys of the forest, a very transparent characterization of human beings. Here, Kipling describes how the great Python, Kaa, hunts the Bandar-log who have kidnapped Mowgli. It is a story that carries a feeling of the remote ages of our early ancestors who felt the fascination of the creatures of the forest and of the snake, the most alien and terrifying of them.


The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged shaky fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink and Bagheera began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the terrace and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all the monkeys’ eyes upon him.

“The moon sets,” he said. “Is there yet light enough to see?”

From the walls came a moan like the wind in the tree-tops– “We see, O Kaa.”

“Good. Begins now the dance–the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still and watch.”

He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body, and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales.

Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered.

“Bandar-log,” said the voice of Kaa at last, “can ye stir foot or hand without my order? Speak!”

“Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!”

“Good! Come all one pace nearer to me.”

The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them.

“Nearer!” hissed Kaa, and they all moved again.

Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream.

“Keep thy hand on my shoulder,” Bagheera whispered. “Keep it there, or I must go back–must go back to Kaa. Aah!”

“It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust,” said Mowgli. “Let us go.” And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle.

“Whoof!” said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. “Never more will I make an ally of Kaa,” and he shook himself all over.

“He knows more than we,” said Bagheera, trembling. “In a little time, had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat.”

“Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again," said Baloo. “He will have good hunting–after his own fashion.”