Kaa

This article is about a fictitional animal in the writings of Rudyard Kipling. For the island in the Duff Islands, please see Kaa

Kaa the python is a fictional animal character in the Mowgli stories of Rudyard Kipling.

First introduced in the story "Kaa's Hunting" in The Jungle Book, Kaa is a huge and powerful snake, more than a hundred years old and still in his prime. Bagheera and Baloo enlist Kaa's help to rescue Mowgli when the man-cub is captured by the Bandar-log (monkeys) and taken to an abandoned human city. Kaa breaks down the wall of the building in which Mowgli is imprisoned and uses his serpentine hypnosis to draw the monkeys toward his waiting jaws. Bagheera and Baloo are also hypnotized, but Mowgli is immune because he is human, and breaks the spell on his friends.

In The Second Jungle Book Kaa appears in the first half of the story "The King's Ankus". He and Mowgli spend some time relaxing, bathing and wrestling (Kipling may perhaps have been inspired to write this scene by Lord Leighton's statue Athlete Wrestling with a Python). Then Kaa persuades Mowgli to visit a treasure chamber guarded by an old cobra beneath the ancient city. The cobra tries to kill Mowgli but its poison has dried up. Mowgli takes a jewelled item away as a souvenir, not realising the trouble it will cause in the second half of the story, and Kaa departs.

In "Red Dog" Mowgli asks Kaa for help when his wolf pack is threatened by rampaging dhole (the red dogs of the title). In one of the most striking scenes in the series, Kaa goes into a trance so that he can search his century-long memory for a stratagem to defeat the dogs:

“The dhole do not turn and their throats are hot,” said Kaa. “There will be neither Manling nor Wolf-cub when that hunting is done, but only dry bones.”

“Alala! If we die, we die. It will be most good hunting. But my stomach is young, and I have not seen many Rains. I am not wise nor strong. Hast thou a better plan, Kaa?”

“I have seen a hundred and a hundred Rains. Ere Hathi cast his milk-tushes my trail was big in the dust. By the First Egg, I am older than many trees, and I have seen all that the Jungle has done.”

“But this is new hunting,” said Mowgli. “Never before have the dhole crossed our trail.”

“What is has been. What will be is no more than a forgotten year striking backward. Be still while I count those my years.”

For a long hour Mowgli lay back among the coils, while Kaa, his head motionless on the ground, thought of all that he had seen and known since the day he came from the egg. The light seemed to go out of his eyes and leave them like stale opals, and now and again he made little stiff passes with his head, right and left, as though he were hunting in his sleep. Mowgli dozed quietly, for he knew that there is nothing like sleep before hunting, and he was trained to take it at any hour of the day or night.

Then he felt Kaa’s back grow bigger and broader below him as the huge python puffed himself out, hissing with the noise of a sword drawn from a steel scabbard.

“I have seen all the dead seasons,” Kaa said at last, “and the great trees and the old elephants, and the rocks that were bare and sharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art thou still alive, Manling?”

“It is only a little after moonset,” said Mowgli. I do not understand--”

“Hssh! I am again Kaa. I knew it was but a little time. Now we will go to the river, and I will show thee what is to be done against the dhole.”

With Kaa's help Mowgli tricks the dhole into attacking prematurely. Kaa takes no part in the resulting battle, but Mowgli and the wolves finally kill all the dhole, though not without grievous losses.

Kaa makes his last appearance in "The Spring Running", as the teenage Mowgli reluctantly prepares to leave the jungle for the last time. "It is hard to cast the skin", he tells Mowgli, but Mowgli knows he must cast the skin of his old life in order to grow a new one.

Disney's version

The 1967 Disney cartoon The Jungle Book does not follow Kipling's story very closely. Its biggest departure is in making Kaa a villain. He twice hypnotises Mowgli, once near the beginning of the film (also hypnotising Bagheera in the process) and once about half way through, whilst seductively singing "Trust in Me". His method of hypnosis is through eye contact, and since the film this has been parodied many times. The only reason for the change seems to be that the studio felt that the American public would not accept a snake as a heroic character. Indeed, Disney virtually reprised the villainous Kaa with Sir Hiss (voiced by Terry-Thomas) in 1973's animated Robin Hood.