ARE PYTHONS HARMLESS TO HUMANS ?

Yesterday I had a little argument with a friend. It was about a picture of a Python my junior brother sent to me via social media. I was with my friend when I received this picture in my phone so i showed it to him and commented that the Python was very beautiful. He looked at me surprised and said that I should not make such statements because Pythons were dangerous and deadly. I disagreed with him vehemently by saying they were harmless and so the argument began.

(THE PICTURE MY BROTHER SENT ME)

Now I come from a place in Nigeria called Idemmili North. The African Python is a revered and sacred animal in the culture of Idemmili people, just like Cows are revered in India.
I explained to my friend that being from a town that holds Pythons sacred I would have better knowledge about them than he did, I explained to my friend that African Pythons are not venomous, extremely docile and hardly attack humans. In fact that when i am back home at my village, Python sightings are extremely common, some times you can find them in rooms in houses and around compounds. People from my town when discovering Python can pick them up with their hands and take them to bushes to set free. They even speak to them but women are always scared and stay away.

I told him that i had never in my life heard about a Python killing a person. He immediately brought out his smartphone and googled it. I watched him while he started reading some thing he saw on his phone. After some minutes he said, "check this out", then he handed his phone to. Lo and behold it was a story on BBC of how a Burmese Python swallowed a farmer whole in Indonesia,THIS YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!
My friend was looking at me victoriously as i read the story on is phone. At this point was more interested in the story then our argument. I will drop the links of the story below . From the story i learnt that the Python that killed this man was a different kind of Python found in Asia that grew much larger than their African cousins known as a Burmese Python and could be capable of eating humans, even though that was very rare and unlikely but it was a possibility and it had happened before.
Burmese Python can grow up to to 30 feet , that is around 9 metres, while African adult Pythons grow up to 3 metres long.

At this point i did not care whether it was a different kind of Python than the ones we have in Nigeria that killed the farmer or that my people regarded the Python as sacred, If i ever traveled back home to my Village i would even stay away from earthworms or anything that looked like a snake. Please note that the images and videos in the link below may be very graphic so if your faint in heart to view them.

UPVOTE, RESTEEEM AND COMMENT GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39427462

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/python-snake-swallows-man-whole-indonesia/