>>I've discovered this site:
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>>http://www.aolvideoblog.com/2007/05/10/baby-vs-cobra/
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>>Baby vs. Cobra
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>>Posted May 10th 2007 11:48AM by Tonka D., Attending Videologist
>>Filed under: Kids, Real or Fake?
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>>First and foremost before you watch this clip: Yes, we think that there's something very fundamentally wrong with exposing a baby to deadly snakes. Before you get outraged by this bizarre clip, here's the story behind it ... apparently it's a snake-charming rite of passage in India, where the baby is supposed to battle the cobra. For the child's safety, the mouth of the reptile is stitched shut and its fangs are removed (and the whole thing has animal rights groups in a tizzy). Any way you slice it, this looks very scary to us.
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>I remember a long time ago seeing a study that was done with baby monkeys:
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>- several baby monkeys were born and raised in a controlled lab environment
>- although their mothers were born wild and may have seen snakes, the lab-born baby monkeys were never exposed to snakes
>- the baby monkeys were temporarily separated from their mothers (so they couldn't get behaviour cues from their mothers)
>- while each baby monkey was in its cage, a large (but harmless) snake was released into the same room
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>In every case, the baby monkeys showed extreme fear of the snake. Even though they had never seen a snake before in their lives and had no way to know that they "should" be afraid of snakes.
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>The study was postulated as proof that some fears are genetic/innate, and that this might be the reason a lot of humans fear snakes.

I guess it all stands to reason - that the monkeys living today are all descendants of monkeys that were afraid of snakes. Those who weren't all ended up tube-shaped and never got to breed
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>I suspect the baby in the video may be part of a family of snake charmers or handlers and has been accustomed to the presence of snakes since a very early age. Other possibilities would be drug-induced sedation or stupor.
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>I would also suspect that an "average" baby would be afraid of a large snake, especially one hissing violently like that one.

I'd've thought that getting continually struck on the head would have put a baby off too!