bats in african mythology
bats in african mythology
Bats in the house mean a death in the house or is a sign that the occupants will soon be leaving. Bats are largely considered to be tricksters in African folklore and mythology. Bats have fascinated humans for millennia, and this cultural and spiritual relevance is reflected in the presence of bat symbols in Egyptian tombs from 2000BC [7]. A folktale from Southern Nigeria gives a novel explanation of why the bat flies at night while highlighting its supposedly untrustworthy nature. However, consumption was influenced by religious beliefs, food taboos, and some myths about bats. In 2021, a bat won New Zealands Bird of the Year competition name of which in Mori language is Te Manu Rongonui o te Tau, and the word Manu means flying creatures, including bats. There exists a widespread belief in Southeast Asia that eating bat meat cures asthma [27]. Throughout Southeast Asia, bats are associated with luck and good fortune and used as spiritual totems [6, 27]. 15 Interesting Myths And Legends In African Mythology 1. It was from these traditions that the vampire bats were named rather than them giving their name to the supernatural, blood-sucking creature. Photo credit: Public domain creative commonsWikimedia. Hun Batz Facts and Figures Name: Hun Batz Pronunciation: Many paintings from western Europe in the middle ages depict the devil with bat wings. In a Creek Indian variation of this tale, the bat first asks to play with the birds but is rejected by them and accepted by the animals team. During the early days of the world, a bat and twelve insects revolved in the darkness. Here are some of the other names that people have given bats. Surprisingly little folklore exists specifically about Vampire bats, and Pre-Columbian erotic scenes do not involve bats although some folklore portrays female bats as alluring to men. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Males are called Kelb-el-khela, and females are called Tarhst. Shockingly, US news media recently reported shortages of Halloween decorationsplastic bats among them, doubtlessdue to the world supply crunch [63]. 11022198. Although bats already had long had a sinister reputation their addition to European vampire folklore came after that. They belong to the Order Chiroptera. Our team is growing all the time, so were always on the lookout for smart people who want to help us reshape the world of scientific publishing. In northern Argentina, a Toba story tells of the leader of the very first peoplea hero bat or batman who was teaching people all they needed to know as human beings. The artificial bat became a shorthand for horror in 1931, jiggled on a fishing line behind a Hungarian-American actor Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask, known professionally as Bela Lugosi in the genre-defining movie Dracula. Since the fourteenth century, Chinese culture has associated bats with good luck and blessings [33]. Finally, his wife realized what he was doing and set fire to the tree and killed her husband and the bats [54]. There are more than 1000 different species of bats in the world, making them the second-largest order of mammals. In the sandstone caves of Northern Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland, there are numerous depictions of flying foxes, some dating back tens of thousands of years. WebTrunko. Bending over the soup to stir, but unlike the old joke where a diner saw a hair in their soup, she saw the dead body of her husband. The origin of bats is prominent in the folklore of several North American Indian tribes. The bat flew to a nearby cave, but each evening it emerged at sunset, telling Jesus that it was time to take food [see Bats and the Netherworld, BATS, Summer 1993; also, see this same article for the converse notion that the devil created bats.). A substantial proportion (53%) thought that bats have medicinal value, but 35% saw them only as harmful creatures. Fruitbats are not the only bats to be eaten in the Indo-Pacific region. He always finds it a source of fascination discovering and learning how our ancestors perceived the times they lived in and how they have influenced us today. Photo credit: Stan Delone creative commonWikimedia. They often live and breed in dark and unusual places such as caves, tunnels and lofts, leaving these at twilight the time between light and darkness in search of food. Vampires. The police arrested 200 vigilante youth suspected of involvement in gangs that attacked persons allegedly engaged in vampirism. These creatures, or more like monsters, were said to be able to transform themselves into bats at will and would fly around looking for victims to drink their blood. Since the fourteenth century, Chinese culture has regarded bats as lucky animals, and these blessing bat symbols have been prevalent in Chinese arts over the centuries [33]. People in Vanuatu consider Pacific Flying Fox Pteropus tonganus as their ancestor and claim to be able to communicate with them [46]. However, more recently, the habit has become much more common. The twins had to spend the night in the House of Bats, where they squeezed themselves into their own blowguns in order to defend themselves from the circling bats. Emiong knew he was in trouble and flew off into the bush. While others say bats resemble an unhappy bird who got lost on its way to find the sun, in Greece during the middle ages, there was a myth that bats arose from mice. Although the exact source of the fungal pathogen, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, and its mode of introduction into North America remain unknown, the introduction was most likely mediated by humans, either through direct or indirect transfer of infectious propagules [66]. A folktale from Kanara, India tells how bats were once unhappy birds that prayed to become human. Some of their ceramic vessels have an anthropomorphic bat that is an agent of human sacrifice, with a knife in one hand and a human head in the other. In fact they are mammals of the scientific order Chiroptera, meaning hand wing in ancient Greek, because their forelimbs have become adapted to be wings. It is a carnivore, eating birds and other vertebrates, occasionally taking even other species of bats. While the English term batty denotes mad in a reasonably innocuous sense. All rights reserved. In North America, education has had some effect as more people have started to understand how useful bats truly are and how few cases of bat-born rabies transmission to humans there have been in the United States and Canada. Bats, at least the ones that originate from North-western Europe, look a bit like mice with wings. Out of over 13,000 species, there are only three that feed on blood. In Kenya, a bat attitude questionnaire was presented to 394 people living around the Arabuko-Sokoke forest. Contemporarily the bats were divided based upon morphology and behavior into two suborders, Microchiroptera (Microbats) and Megachiroptera (Flying Foxes and Old World Fruit Bats) [4]. Other strange beliefs in European folklore include: In Shakespeares Macbeth (written 800 years ago), the witches brew a potion with: Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog.. Bats play an important role in the ecosystem by eating large quantities of insects. The tour includes a brief 20-minute conservation education lecture about bats, caves, and the history of the Montford Bat Cave Sanctuary. Christianity and the origin of bats are also intertwined in the Mohammedan legend that Christ created a bat while keeping the fast of Ramadan. These gods and goddesses are some of the more well-known in Africa yet some of the lesser known by people of the the rest of the world. First he filled a large pot with warm water which he told his friend was boiling. Much of the folklore about bats relates to their way of life. As messengers for the forces of darkness, they become evil omens. In Indonesia, Iban people in Kalimantan also hunt fruit bats for consumption, and mainly Christian people in North Sulawesi regularly eat flying foxes (Black Flying Fox Pteropus alecto and Sulawesi Fruit Bat Acerodon celebensis) especially during the Christmas season [38, 39]. The Adjule is also called a Bush Dog. The remaining cultures had combinations of positive, neutral, and negative values. As you can see, bats have been both persecuted and protected through the ages. Most students wanted to participate in bat conservation activities, including some students who disliked bats. Do you know the difference between fact and fiction when it comes to bats? On the other hand, the Tupinamba people believed that the planet would be eaten by a bat at the end of time. In Malaysian Borneo, people consider it taboo to disturb a fruit bat. These names can be misleading as often, megabats can be smaller while microbats can be bigger. Whereas in China, it was a sign of good fortune. Using its new teeth to hold the ball, the bat helps the animals to win the game. The Serer Creation Myth Like in every creation myth in Africa, the Serer of Senegal, Mauritania and the Gambia have theirs. While the three species of true vampire bats (common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus, hairy-legged vampire bat Diphylla ecaudata, and white-winged vampire bat Diaemus youngi) are microbats, measuring just a few centimeters in length, it was the exaggerated reports from early explorers and adventurers that gave the public the image of these huge bloodsucking creatures. Warner Shedd (2000) felt strongly that the level of fear about rabid bats sometimes rises almost paranoid concern in the United States, citing the State of New York as an example [63]. Most often, they are seen only at night. Because mountains obscured the western sky, Jesus could not tell when the sun set. Although the bats roost in the sacred forest in Ghana, they are not regarded as sacred animals. 9. The duality of bats is mentioned in one of Aesops Fables, which tells how a bat fell to the ground and was pounced on by a weasel. On all occasions, the bats were able to escape without becoming entangled. While some cultures see bats as a harbinger of death, others believe that the creature holds the key to eternal life. In the Far East, particularly China, the Bat represents good fortune and longevity. Frustrated, Jonayaiyin eventually told the bat You cannot take care of your feathers, so you shall never have any. Very well, said the bat, I deserve to lose them, for I could never take care of those feathers.. If you have any questions or if you want to get in touch with us, you can find our contact details on our About Us page. They have fur and teeth and nurse their young like other mammals, but they dont walk on four legs. Also, a Tacana woman in Bolivia was killing a bat while not realizing that it was her husband [34]. Conversely, negative symbolism could promote conservation if it prevents unsustainable hunting and consumption [27]. Bats have fascinated humans for millennia, and this cultural and spiritual relevance is reflected in the presence of bat symbols in Egyptian tombs from 2000 BC . The recent introduction of a fungal disease (WNS=White-nose Syndrome) from Eurasia to North America has killed millions of bats in North America in the past decade. Montfort bat cave entrance in the Philippines with the numerous Geoffroys Rousette fruit bats Rousettes amplexicaudatus. This Order name means hand-wing as the bats can hold food between their forearms. *Address all correspondence to: heimomikkola@yahoo.co.uk. When Oyot went home his wife had to go out on an errand. In Madagascar, the exploitation of bats for bush meat regularly takes place during periods of food shortage, especially fruit bats, which are heavily hunted. Bldg. We are a community of more than 103,000 authors and editors from 3,291 institutions spanning 160 countries, including Nobel Prize winners and some of the worlds most-cited researchers. Obviously, these bats were not the only animalsor even the only batsto use these now destroyed habitats. It could swoop up a whole dugout and everything in it, she told him, with a face of deliberate seriousness. Bat Mythology There is a strong association between bats and death. Although they live near humans and are common, it appears that some of the species have not been described and given scientific names [17]. Most respondents were less likely to value the importance of bats in the ecosystem, so creating a conservation education to connect people with nature is not easy. Their prayers were partially granted and they were given grotesquely humanoid faces, hair and teeth but still had their wings and could fly. The official Islamic view is exempting bats from being killed because it would carry bad luck to kill a bat [32]. My Amazon Author Page can found here for the UK and for the USA, here. For example, a number of these countries are investing in the burgeoning industry of ecotourism by promoting organized visits to bat caves and bat watching [74, 75]. (Above is from a variety of African mythology not just Sub-Saharan, but it's also the tiniest fraction of it) A close-up photo of the Geoffroys Rousette fruit bats Rousettes amplexicaudatus at the Montfort bat cave entrance. Sociocultural definitions of animals as good or evil have persisted throughout the history of human beings. The bat was central to Maya religion and social structure. In another tale from Aesop, a bat borrows money for a business venture that fails. ), the ambiguous nature of bats is transformed into duplicity in their character. In southwest Asia, the bat is predominantly perceived as a strange, negative, and demonic animal that should be avoided. In Thailand, bat meat or blood is eaten for muscle pain, increasing virility and longevity [36]. If a man whose wife is nearing childbirth unthinkingly does so, some harm may befall the unborn baby [34]. Between Iran and Rajasthan, north-western India, there is the widespread public belief that if a bat lives somewhere in the house or hangs on the roof, this would mean bad luck for the owner [25]. In all four cases, the bats each walked about the volunteers hair without becoming entangled in any way and finally took flight without any difficulty. In Africa, house bats occur in distinct colors and sizes, but they are usually hard to identify. Between 1958 and 1961, Gathorne-Hardy, Fifth Earl of Cranbrook, a renowned conservationist and a founding member and former President of the Mammal Society, decided to put this old superstition to the test [16]. Bat guano provides one reason for the fertility associations [56]. In Europe, there are also myths about bats in the house. Especially Western cultural associations of bats with evil spirits, which have been recorded in Christian tradition as early as the fourteenth century [68] along with current media sensationalizing bats and the COVID-19 pandemic, are major hindrances toward bat conservation [69], although there is no reason why public health messages cannot be consistent with bat conservation. Its unlucky to see a bat in the daytime. We explore the role that bats play in traditional narratives and the likely reasons for their salience, including their connections with the extraordinary and supernatural. One bat, whose habits may have fostered these tales of decapitating bats, is the false vampire Vampyrum spectrum. For example, a bat entering a household was a forewarning of a death in the house. WebFar Eastern Bat Symbolic Meanings. The north coast of Peru is one of the South American regions where bat iconography is particularly prominent [51]. In Madurai, worshippers of the Muni god regard Indian Flying Fox Pteropus medius, formerly Pteropus giganteus, as sacred and protect colonies for fear of heavy punishment. One of these fables also exists, with slight variation, among tribes in southern Nigeria, among Australian aboriginals, and ancient Romans. The number of Bats seen also has meaning. The bat is a devil who flies only in the night because it would die if flying in the daytime [25]. A detailed list of all the African gods and goddesses wuld be endless, but these twelve from the Orisha Pantheon are a good placde to start. It is greedy for fragile human living creatures and sings a resonating tune to itself as it feasts. In some places bats were seen more positively. In Africa, bats were credited with high intelligence. So, using positive symbolism alone to promote bat conservation might be insufficient without accounting for day-to-day relationships of local communities with bats. He has studied bats for many years and is author of the entry on bats in The Encyclopedia of American Folklore and Superstition. Generally, the Maya revered a Vampire Bat god, Camazotz, the death bat, which killed dying men on their way to the center of the earth [51, 52].
