Spurlock Sunday: Animal Stereotypes - The serpent deceived me, I’m innocent

• Event Date: Sunday, November 15, 2026
• Time: 1:00 pm–3:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Collaboration and Community Gallery, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Age: All ages
• Cost: Free

• Hands-on
• Family-Friendly tag

Due to their dazzling patterns, vivid colors and sometimes deadly venom, snakes have both fascinated and frightened humans for millennia. So much so that snakes hold a rich and varied place in human culture and mythology, symbolizing medicine, wisdom, temptation, creation, and the eternal cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

In Hindu mythology the serpent goddess Manasa possesses the power to harm with one eye and to heal with the other. In Greek mythology, serpents are associated with both Asclepius, the god of healing, and Hermes, who is responsible for guiding souls to the underworld. Egyptian pharaohs have worn emblems of snakes as a sign of sovereignty. And because snakes periodically shed their skin, many ancient cultures associate them with rebirth, reinvention of the Self, and the immortal spirits of beloved ancestors. This duality of meaning appears frequently in both mythology and religion.

In Western and Near Eastern mythologies, snakes are famously cast as a malicious force or as a deceptive adversary. The Abrahamic traditions famously introduce the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a deceiving temptress, blamed for humanity’s ‘fall’ from innocence into sin. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, it is a serpent that steals eternal youth from Gilgamesh. Each narrative, of course, created by and for humans.

What associations do you make with snakes? Do they evoke fear, awe, or fascination? If a largely negative association, is it rooted in something factual about these extraordinary creatures or merely something stereotypical you’ve been conditioned to believe about their character? And like the serpents of mythology, what dualities might you represent— in the eyes of others as well as your own?

Join us in art making to reflect on the various mythologies that feature serpents, as well as their personal meaning to you. Please come design and paint your own movable wooden snake or paper puppet!

About the Series

Spurlock Sundays are free, drop-in programs held on one Sunday of the month from 1:00—3:00 pm. Programs are open to visitors of all ages and developed with youth and family in mind. Spurlock Sunday activities can take a multitude of forms, from crafts, games, performances, topical open-mic sharing, community conversations, and hands-on experiences with cultural artifacts.