KOK SANGA, Thailand (AFP) - Noo Laotong has been bitten four times by poisonous serpents, but the venomous violation is all part of life -- and death -- at Thailand's king cobra village.
 
The 57-year-old farmer is no snake charmer, he's a self-described snake-fighter. And while his battles with serpents may be staged, part of a spectacle at a Thai outpost of brave tradition, they are daring and dangerous money spinners.

This quiet farming community looks like most others in Thailand's hardscrabble northeast. What sets it apart are the wooden boxes, flush against the back walls of most homes, where endangered king cobras lay coiled in the cool darkness.

It's part of a tradition that goes back more than 60 years, when locals hunted snakes -- including the largest venomous serpent of all, the king cobra -- in order to rid farmland of dangers.

Villagers soon began keeping the reptiles. For the past decade, they have been more than just freak pets, they're the economic lifeblood of an agriculture community that had fallen on hard times.

"In the past we fed these snakes," Noo quips in an interview, referring to the inevitable livestock losses. "Now the snakes feed us."

In a three-day period during last month's Songkran, the Thai Buddhist new year festival, the cobra show raked in upwards of 200,000 baht (5,000 dollars), split between 130 participating households.

About 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bangkok, little Kok Sanga manages to attract up to 1,000 mostly Thai visitors each weekend and holiday, for "boxing matches" between villagers and king cobras that Noo insists have not been defanged.

Adult handlers, and occasionally boys as young as 10, taunt and rile up the snakes, jutting their hands and faces perilously close to the reptile's jaws. Often the snakes lash out; occasionally their fangs find flesh.

The fights aren't real, rather a display of ritual moves and faux sparring over three rounds of a minute each, and no winner is declared. The show combines the thrill of danger with high camp. Male and female handlers stuff the heads of far more tame live cobras into their mouths or, to groans from the crowd, down their pants.

The theme has consumed the village. There's a Miss King Cobra beauty contest; senior provincial officials come to pay homage to late snakes on the annual King Cobra Day; and the village's most revered reptiles are given funerals complete with the chanting of Buddhist verse.

Tragedy has visited the snake handlers twice, most recently five years ago when a cobra bit a handler during a show. He refused to drink an elixir of local roots that halt the spread of venom, and died 10 minutes later.

"The community grieved for a few days, but it was karma," Noo says. "But being bitten by a snake here is normal. Many have been bitten but they survive by consuming special Thai remedies," he says, showing a handful of gnarled brown roots.

These days, though, many of the worst cases are taken to hospital.

Noo shows his own most recent snake souvenir, a leathery scar below his right bicep, earned in a cobra bite last year. The venom pulsed through his rapidly numbing arm, and Noo felt his life slipping away. A dose of medicine saved him.

"I'm still a bit rattled about the whole thing, but I want to show tourists our heritage," he says.

Authorities have given the village their blessing.

"At first they argued it was animal cruelty, but now they acknowledge our village has helped preserve the king cobra," says a show organiser, Suphab Polthisuang.

Yet villagers know they are in the crosshairs of conservationists who say the shows promote the capture of wild reptiles for the trade.

Officials and villagers sought to preserve the cobras through two breeding programs, but both ended in failure.

In one sad outcome, some 75 baby cobras were hatched, but they all died.

"It's possible they'll become extinct, because humans are destroying their jungle habitat," Suphab says. "And when people come across snakes they kill them."

Not here. Noo uncovers a box and gingerly pulled out a three-metre (10-foot) king cobra, which rears up and flattens its neck ribs into a hood, poised to strike. An absorbed Noo waves his hand over the reptile and sways from side to side, engaging the snake in a tense dance.

He then picks up a larger and older, 18-year-old king cobra, raised from his early years and far more tame, but equally poisonous.

Noo drapes the serpent around his shoulders and let her nuzzle his chin and moustache.

"Some men in the village don't want to do snake shows -- they're afraid of death," he says. "But the shows must go on."