Tarantula Dance

Eating a meal with mom is bound to bring some interesting conversation. Mom LOVES to read medical articles that appear in her espanol newspapers. Dinner can turn into a medical discussion - one recent tidbit she gave me was that cilantro has healing powers. I would have to research this, maybe it has some antioxidant properties. You can count on her tossing some cilantro on her and my tacos.

Well, today the dinner discussion began with spiders (remember hearing about a woman finding a black widow in her recent grape purchase). One of the local priests had commented to my father that the media was making a big deal over the incident. He use to always find spiders in his groceries years ago. I don't know where he did his shopping, but mom and I have never encountered spiders in our fruits. I mentioned the big hoopla was over the fact that black widow spiders have toxic venom. So mom brought up the tarantula as another example of spiders with dangerous venom.

Apparently, it was a common belief that what I have labelled as the "tarantula dance", was indeed a way to minimize the pain from the tarantula bite. According to mom, in Yuriria, people (men really) would dance around the victim of the tarantula. "Eso era cosa de hombres," mom stressed after I asked her if she ever did the "tarantula dance." Usually they would drink alcohol to have the stamina to dance all night if necessary. Someone would buy bread in town and brew some coffee as well (also I guess to help keep them awake). "So did the person who was biten, have to dance?" I asked in disbelief. Mom essentially replied, "No silly, he would be lying down and the other people would dance around him." The dance was suppose to lessen the pain from the tarantula bite. If it did, it probably was due to the victim laughing at the crazy people prancing around him. Laughter has been showed to boost the immune system in several studies. One of my uncles participated in this ritual years ago. I inquired if the person, who my uncle tried to help, lived or died. Surely, he didn't make it (I thought) since he should have gotten medical care versus a dance marathon. But mom says he survived. Don't know if it really minimized his pain.

Which makes one wonder if a person can die from a tarantula bite? Being in the medical field, I had to know if this peculiar belief was causing preventable deaths. Also, who knows when you will encounter a tarantula. The tarantula does have venom but it is non-toxic to humans. The most the bite causes is pain & some swelling. It can lead to infections if the wound is not kept clean. So dance away friends but keep some tylenol or ibuprofen handy. See a doctor if you need stronger pain medication or if it starts to look infected.
click on the link above for further info on this creature.