In Japan, the shirohebi (white snake) has been considered sacred since antiquity, long before the emergence of a hard rock band with a similar name. White snakes are believed to be messengers of Benzaiten (Saraswati in Hinduism), bringers of fortune, or water deities, depending on the region. The whiteness of such snakes, of course, comes from albinism, a relatively rare occurrence in nature. But not so in Iwakuni, a city at the southern end of Japan’s Honshū island. There, albino Japanese rat snakes have been commonly found at least since the 18th…
