Everybody’s Marty Feldman [via].
St. Kitts and Nevis. After the Spanish Conquest, mongooses were introduced to hunt and kill rats and snakes, but then they began going after chickens and became vermin themselves.
The Mongoose Play is a piece of folk theatre from Saint Kitts. The play is based around a battle against mongooses, who threatened the island’s chickens, an important food source, after having been imported to exterminate the then-raging snake and rat population. The Mongoose Play involves both dance and music performed by costumed masqueraders.
One would think that a “then-raging snake and rat population” might eventually take care of itself unless it were in equilibrium and self-supporting.