Nala Damajanti

Promotional posters of Nala Damajanti have been widely reproduced and are thought to have inspired one of the popular folk images of the African water spirit Mami Wata.

In 1881 she was working as a governess with a French family in St. Petersburg, Russia, when she fell in love with and later married a ceiling-walking acrobat by the name of Palmer who introduced her to the art of snake charming.

As Poupon was scheduled to depart for Hamburg in the near future, with her eight enormous boas, she allowed her true identity to be revealed to have the case resolved as soon as possible.

[9] Carl Hagenbeck fondly recalled her in a section of his 1909 autobiography Von Tieren und Menschen,[10] though in the 1912 abridged English translation, that portion was omitted.

He further relates that she married an (unnamed) circus ceiling-walker, and they developed an innovative snake taming technique that allowed them to create an extremely successful act that toured America under the name Nala Damajante to much acclaim.

Nala Damajanti's image is thought to have inspired popular folk depictions of the African water spirit Mami Wata and of the Dominican spiritual figure Santa Marta la Dominadora.

[7][22] Nala Damajanti is thought to have been an inspiration for a limited series of highly prized automata produced in 1907 by the noted French firm Roullet & Decamps titled "la Charmeuse de Serpent," one of which was auctioned for a then-record price in 1977.

[23] A 1907 painting by Henri Rousseau with the same theme, titled La Charmeuse de serpents ("The snake charmer"), may have been inspired by the same source.