The Serer Creation Myth Like in every creation myth in Africa, the Serer of Senegal, Mauritania and the Gambia have theirs. Large-bodied old-world fruit bats, like this Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus, are disproportionally targeted to be hunted for bushmeat. Open Access is an initiative that aims to make scientific research freely available to all. Courtesy of creative commonsWikimedia. In this article, we will be taking a deep dive into the world of bats in mythology, folklore, and superstition. It tells how a bushrat named Oyot was friends with Emiong the bat and they would often eat together, taking it in turns to cook. No content from this site may be used elsewhere without the permission of either #FolkloreThursday or the article 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. Bat Conservation International 500 N Capital of TXHwy. The rat now tries to retaliate by climbing tees and eating the flying foxes young, and this is why flying foxes carry their pups with them. They also don't share behavior with rodents. 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. They fly at night and so do witches, hence in Western Europe, witches and bats must be associated together. In Caribbean South America and the Antilles, bat images are associated with death rites and burials in archeological context [57], and in Cuba, a Taino ball court was bat-shaped, the ballgame being a sacrificial ritual [58]. The Tongan kings Samoan wife was rescued by flying foxes, and she honored her rescuers later by naming her son Tonumaipea (= rescued by flying foxes) [45]. Men hunt and consume bats more often than women who have fears that consuming bat meat would give them strange or deformed children. There are more than 1000 different species of bats in the world, making them the second-largest order of mammals. In some versions of the myth, the old mice would climb to the top of a tall tree, and when they reached the highest branches, their tails would detach and grow into wings. 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. Do they really deserve this sinister reputation, or do they play a more important role in the world than feeding the dark human fascination for the spooky and the supernatural? The lack of feathers, presence of teeth, and activity at night are rooted in basic biology and natural history. Ancient Celtic Cauldrons: The Magical, the Mythical, the Real, Top 5 Trees in Celtic Mythology, Legend and Folklore, Celtic Warrior Women: Queen Boudica of the Iceni, Animism and the Living World of the Ancient Celts, Mixing Animals, Birds, Humans and Gods in Celtic Mythology, Unicorn Lore: Interpreting the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries, The Legendary Puss in Boots and the Marquis of Carabas, Top Five Mythical Birds in Legend and Folklore, Aesops Fables; a new translation by Aesop, BATS Magazine Article: Folklore and the Origin of Bats, Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa by Elphinstone Dayrell. In the Punjab, northern India, magicians use bat bones to prepare their concoctions, and with the bat blood, they write amulets for malevolent and antisocial magic. Most students (56%) reported seeing bats in their locality. A modern variation of the myth that bats arose from rodents comes from an Ohio woman of Polish ancestry who attested that the bat was from a mouse that had eaten blessed Easter food. (In Polish tradition, a representative food from the Easter dinner is taken to church to be blessed.) Liminality aside, many of these myths have obvious roots in the real features of bats. Flying foxesalong with all other native batsare now protected in Australia. The genus Pteropus was first described by Brisson in 1762 from specimens collected on the Reunion Islands. Tjinimin wanted to have sex with the Green Parrot-Girls (who were the consorts of the Great Rainbow-Snake) and, of course, the Great Rainbow-Snake objected to this. 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. The felling of roosting trees was mentioned as bat death reason by 29% and hunting by 18%. Zteve has two websites dedicated to myths, legends and folklore from around the world. Zteve enjoys researching deep into the folklore, myths and legends that run through society and are part of our everyday lives. Licensee IntechOpen. In India, a total of 3059 high school students from 36 schools were questioned on their bat perceptions. It was from these traditions that the vampire bats were named rather than them giving their name to the supernatural, blood-sucking creature. Iban people in Sarawak, Borneo, believe that a bat flying into the house indicates a shaman bringing good vibes, conferring protection against any harm, while in Thailand, if a bat enters a house but immediately flies away, it is believed to change bad luck to good. The diversity of South American bats is impressive as there are more bats, and more bat species, than in any other part of the world [51, 52]. Its based on principles of collaboration, unobstructed discovery, and, most importantly, scientific progression. Among the rambling stories and folklore that make up the tales of the Australian Aboriginal Dream-time, there is one of a confrontation between Tjinimin the Bat God and the Great Rainbow-Snake. Bats also have wings. Here are some of them: Flying foxes eat fruit, and this has inevitably brought them into conflict with humans, who grow fruit. 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. Whereas in China, it was a sign of good fortune. Bat meat is widely consumed because it is considered more delicious than other types of meat. The myths grew with the 1927 stage production which further associated Dracula with bats. Decapitating bat demons appears in various myths in Amazonia and to the south in northern Argentina. Zteve believes that people have far more in common with each other than is often shown on the surface and this can often be seen in the folktales from other parts of the world. 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. Large, often man-eating, bats are found in Hawaiian traditions, and there is even a legend of an eight-eyed bat in Hawaii. For instance, 40,000 caves have been dynamited in Venezuela. There is a Japanese word for bat, komori, which is said to mean mosquito slaughterer. In Japanese mythology, very old bats can transform into nobusuma, spirit animals resembling flying squirrels that land on their victims faces at night to feed off blood [43]. Bats have been present in folklore and myth for quite some time. During this time eating food between sunrise and sunset is forbidden. Creative commonsWikimedia. While the English term batty denotes mad in a reasonably innocuous sense. Bats belong to the order Chiroptera, not Rodentia; they're actually more closely related to primates than they are to rodents. Photo credit: [7] Roy Kabanlit creative commonsWikimedia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode. In the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, spirits, devils, and witches had their general name Bitaboh, wood-goblins being specially called Ronga. All the bats were comprehended under the same name, especially the Yellow-winged Bat Lavia frons, formerly Megaderma frons, which flutters about from tree to tree in broad daylight [18]. Working together, we have the power to end bat extinctions worldwide. In some parts of the world, they are a valuable food source, and their body parts are used in traditional medicine, while their guano is collected and used as agricultural fertilizer [7]. The bat serves as mentor of the night and is identified with Talking God, one of the foremost deities. Over five hundred species of plants rely on bats for pollination including durian, banana, mango, guava, cocoa and agave. Creative commonsWikimedia. Nowadays, of course, we know that vampires are not real and neither is the ability to turn into a bat. Sometimes, as with the myth, it leaves a trademark two-pronged bite on the victim. Should the bat stay and eat the fruit in the house, bad luck will befall the owner [27]. Most students wanted to participate in bat conservation activities, including some students who disliked bats. IntechOpen Limited WebMYTH: Bats are blind. Among the Ibibio people of southern Nigeria, bats are associated with witchcraft, and for any bat to fly into a house and touch a person is a sure sign that this person is thereafter bewitched and will soon perish because his or her heart is eaten at night while he or she sleeps. Nevertheless, it is still a strongly sinister characteristic linking them closely to vampirism. That burning incense over the site of a bat buried at a crossroads would help you acquire a powerful love potion. When his wife returned she saw the pot was still boiling and no sign of her husband. Vampires. WebSpirits African mythology is filled with spirits, invisible beings with powers for good or evil. A folktale from Southern Nigeria gives a novel explanation of why the bat flies at night while highlighting its supposedly untrustworthy nature. A legend tells that in Fiji, a giant white vampire bat acts as a messenger, and one finds bats as gods in both Tikopian and Tongan myths. 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. People would sometimes even burn down whole colonies of bats because they thought that this would stop the spread of disease. Bat Myths and Folktales from Around the World. There is also, of course, the European connection with bats to vampirism. author. Our collection of global perceptions aims to promote a better biocultural richness for humans and bats as our long-term nocturnal companions. WebWhen seen as human souls, bats are often imagined as souls of the dead, particularly souls of the damned, or those that are not yet at peace. Pomo Indians of California have a myth that a bat could chew and swallow a large piece of obsidian and then vomit large numbers of excellent arrowheads. But the larger animals made fun of how small the creatures were and drove them away. In his book Bats (1939), G. M. Allen speculates that this association of bats with arrowheads refers to the California leaf-nosed bat (Macrotus californicus). 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. The Navajo people thought that bats were able to fly between different worlds and act as a bridge between the supernatural and the natural. Despite positive associations toward bats, they are widely consumed as food and medicine throughout Asia, except in Brunei and Singapore. Bat Conservation International is a 501(c)(3) organization. Today, we know that this is not the case, but the association of bats with longevity persists in some parts of the world. Bat hunting is illegal, but hunters readily admitted to having hunted bats and even directed the research people to other hunters. 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. Bats are very social animals and often live in colonies of hundreds or even thousands of individuals. They are unquestionably weird beings, appearing as half birds and half rodents, as if they came from a nightmare realm. Emiong always cooked a really tasty soup that Oyot loved and one day, after enjoying a bowl of Emiongs soup, Oyot asked how he managed to make it so tasty. The higher level of education was not always reflected in the positive attitudes toward environment and wildlife issues. 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.. Why is it then that while in some parts of the world this beneficial creature is seen as a symbol of good luck and good fortune, in many societies it is viewed with fear and loathing? Between the years 1950 and 2007, only 56 cases of bat-borne rabies transmission to humans occurred in the United States and Canada, which translates to 3.9 cases per billion person-years [65]. Halloween. I am a bird. They eat insects performing pest control while also pollinating species of plants and spreading seeds. It remains to be seen, however, how effectively the further education efforts could halt or even reverse the decline of the bats around the world. Cultural traditions and beliefs influence the future of the bats, which is threatened by human exploitation, both directly on bats and indirectly on the environment. This North American bat-like depiction should come as no surprise; it is merely another manifestation of the fear, horror, and superstition with which bats have been regarded down through ages [64]. Bats, being seen as liminal creatures, were believed to be able to cross this barrier. In some folklore, bats often have sexual connotations, which may relate to fertility and agriculture as bats are important seed dispersers and pollinators of many fruit trees. - Both to such an extent that hunting them has become a major concern to environmentalists. It is also noted that bat tourism has a potential to conserve bat populations while providing social and economic benefits to local people in host communities. Do you know the difference between fact and fiction when it comes to bats? It remains to be seen, however, if this could halt or even reverse the decline of the North American bats [64]. Bats - Disease-Prone but Beneficial, Reviewed: December 23rd, 2021 Published: January 18th, 2022, Total Chapter Downloads on intechopen.com. Their prayers were partially granted and they were given grotesquely humanoid faces, hair and teeth but still had their wings and could fly. Bats are found almost everywhere on Earth! It is merely a passing reference, along with moles, to represent animals that live with things that have been discarded. In Africa, house bats occur in distinct colors and sizes, but they are usually hard to identify. First he filled a large pot with warm water which he told his friend was boiling. Vampires had been part of Slavic folklore in Eastern Europe since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but it was not until the nineteenth century that popular fictional literature, predominantly through Bram Stokers Dracula in 1897, would forever tie bats and vampires together, with the protagonist, Count Dracula, being able to transform himself into a huge bat [13]. In many human cultures, caves were seen as gateways to the underworld and bats often emerge from caves at twilight when day merges into night. Montfort bat cave entrance in the Philippines with the numerous Geoffroys Rousette fruit bats Rousettes amplexicaudatus. Then he jumped into it and sat in it for a while and then climbed out. The Tzotzil Maya lived, and continue to live to this day, on the plateau of Chiapas in southern Mexico. 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. Fruit-eating bats such as Jamaican fruit bat Artibeus jamaicensis loves feeding on guavas, which is also the favorite food of the Taino spirits of the dead. These are Under the influence! It is imperative to obtain more current ethnobiological data to further our understanding of contemporary attitudes and relationships with batsand to document other cultural traditions not covered in this review. Just over one-third of the respondents (36%) did not see any benefits of bats to humans. An idea that reflected their ability to fly around so quickly in the dark without hitting anything. In a Cherokee fable, an eagle, a hawk, and other birds fashioned the first bat and the first flying squirrel from two mouse-like creatures. The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. Despite this primate-like gesture, it took quite some time for people to understand that bats are mammals and not birds. These names can be misleading as often, megabats can be smaller while microbats can be bigger. With the help of the bat and the flying squirrel, the birds won the ball game, with the agile bat scoring the winning goal. They were then ashamed to meet the other birds and are now active only at night, returning to the temples in the daytime and praying to be turned back into birds. Consult our entry on the Monkey Twins for the full story. Photo credit: Uwe Schmidt. These creatures have had a long and varied history with humans, and it is hoped that this article has helped to increase your understanding of these creatures. Bldg. In Malawi, negative bat superstitions caused recently quite disproportionate behavior when rural people in southern parts of the country killed nine people accusing them to be vampire bats [23]. In Malaysian Borneo, people consider it taboo to disturb a fruit bat. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode. This is bound to threaten the continued existence of local bat populations. Aboriginal peoples, however, were describing them long before this. Half of the students knew that bats are mammals, but 26% believed them to be birds, some thought of them being amphibians (12%) or reptiles (11%); 37% disliked the bats, and 27% liked them remaining seeing them as indifferent. In medieval Europe, dragons were usually depicted with wings and a barbed tail and as breathing fire. Because mountains obscured the western sky, Jesus could not tell when the sun set. Becoming neither one thing nor the other made them ashamed. We may never know how these early humans viewed their small flying co-habiters. Here are just a few: If a bat flies into your house, look out for bedbugs. People sometimes think of them as blind, bloodthirsty flying mice. Public domain. The Adjule is also called a Bush Dog. I am a mouse, not a bird! The weasel looked at the bat and agreed it was a mouse and released it. The apparent liminality of bats is also reflected in a legend from the Kanarese of India in which bats were originally a type of unhappy bird. Upset at his death, and possibly the ruining of the soup, she went straight to the king. On the other hand, the body fat of Indian Flying Fox is used to make massage oil to cure rheumatic pains, while drinking water from a bats wing is said to sharpen ones memory [30]. WebFar Eastern Bat Symbolic Meanings. Bats in Myth and Legend 945ontwerp / Getty Images Bat in the Cultures of the World | Gotham in . An irrational fear of batsChiroptophobiaencompasses negative perceptions of bats as disease vectors, pests, or harmful creatures associated with devils and witchcraft, which represents an important barrier to bat conservation globally [27]. Why Bats are symbolic of bad luck, especially when they call while flying early in the evening. There are more than 1400 bat species worldwide, and they make up roughly 20% of the worlds extant mammals [6]. Peasant farmers in Mexico used to call bats ratones viejos, which translates to old mice. They thought that when mice grew older, they would develop wings and transform into bats. In Vietnam, many mounted bat species are sold in souvenir shops, and in Laos, bats are traded in several markets (Figure 3) [41, 42]. Similarly, the Ge tribe in Brazil moved through the night following a bat that looked for light toward which to guide the people (Figure 4) [51, 52]. Although they live near humans and are common, it appears that some of the species have not been described and given scientific names [17]. Kill the bat before it escapes, and everyone will be safe. In Africa, bats were credited with high intelligence. When Oyot went home his wife had to go out on an errand. It is greedy for fragile human living creatures and sings a resonating tune to itself as it feasts. Strangely perhaps, given its poor press in Europe, carrying the dried and powdered heart of a bat in your front pocket was supposed to protect you from bleeding to death and later to stop bullets. One of these fables also exists, with slight variation, among tribes in southern Nigeria, among Australian aboriginals, and ancient Romans. To date, ethnobiological information regarding bats in Africa has mainly focused on utilitarian aspects of bats as food and medicine, whereas knowledge concerning symbolism and beliefs surrounding bats in that continent has not been assembled, apart from ancient Africa [18], Ghana [19, 20], Kenya [21], and Madagascar [22]. Thereafter, humans and animals may have lived different lives; but like people, the animals still had tribes, councils, and ethics, and they played ball games. Orchard owners in Myanmar believe that allowing bats to roost and feed in the garden ensures prosperity and well-being. The five-chambered cave hosts the worlds largest known colony of the Geoffroys Rousette Fruit Bat, Rousettus amplexicaudatus, with an estimated 1.82 million individuals [76]. This liminality gives bats a supernatural air that further heightens mystery and distrust as they cross the borders between birds and mammals, day and night. Samoan folklore tells of a similar origin for bats. So, using positive symbolism alone to promote bat conservation might be insufficient without accounting for day-to-day relationships of local communities with bats. Other than the polar regions, extreme deserts, and a few isolated islands, bats live in every habitat on Earth. Interestingly, blood sucking has been attributed to bats both in Cameroon and Sierra Leone despite the countries being widely separated and when no such type of bat is found in Africa [19]. Therefore, they would only come out at night, spending the daylight hours praying to be transformed back into birds. These intensely emotional visuals have most likely led to the sinister image of bats that many people still hold, even though we now know they are valuable members of the environment! The first sighting was reported in 1928 by Thodore Monod. Until we provoked the animals hostility because of our aggressiveness and disregard for their rights, humans and all creatures lived together in harmony, mutual respect, and helpfulness. To summarize shortly the various findings: In the West, bats have been seen as animals of ill omen, alongside other nocturnal hunters such as owls and black cats. Bats are not associated with any diseases, and it was felt to be safe to eat bat meat, but both studies were conducted before the 2013 Ebola outbreak (Figure 2) [19, 20]. With Gods permission, He fashioned the winged likeness of a bat from clay and breathed life into it. As PhD students, we found it difficult to access the research we needed, so we decided to create a new Open Access publisher that levels the playing field for scientists across the world. But it became obvious that the public attitude toward bats has still not been investigated extensively enough throughout the world, namely in contemporary Africa, America, Australia, and Europe. 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. In northern Guiana, Bat Mountain is the home of killer bats, and there is also a killer bat in folklore from Venezuela. What are they? 3. If a bat flies into a kitchen and at once hangs on to the ceiling, it is a lucky omen, but if it circles the room twice before alighting, it is a bad omen. They have wings and fly like birds (actually, in many ways better than birds). 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.. Having multifaceted anatomy of a lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile, she waited for the opportunity to devour the hearts of Bats lead us to the best opportunities to protect nature anywhere in the world. 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. As such, they would place a bat on the ground, point its head towards the sky, and wait for raindrops to fall on its back. Nandi Bear. The bat husband then cut off her head and those of other Indians and put all heads in the tree hole where he was living [55]. Books > Subcategories. 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]. At the end of the story, Tjinimin hangs upside-down in a tree to admire the stars and decides never to try having sex with anyone againwhereupon his nose falls off. It is the largest bat found in continental Africa and was believed to suck the blood of sleeping children until they die. In another tale from Aesop, a bat borrows money for a business venture that fails. From this duality and strangeness evolved a reputation of duplicity and threat, appearing as neither one thing nor the other. BUSTED! 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. Because of the mouses pious respect for the holy wafer, God gave it wings so that it would be able to find plenty of food in the future. In other parts of the world, fruit bats are occasionally hunted in small numbers. In China, the bat is a symbol of happiness and good luck and its image is found in art and crafts expressing this. Both African-Americans and those of European descent from around the United States frequently maintain that Oyot boiled the water and jumped in, but the soup, being boiling, killed him. 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. Bastet/Sekhmet, Bastet and Sekhmet were described as two parts of a similar Goddess, with Sekhmet representing the ground-breaking fighter and defender figure and Bastet, who was often portrayed as a feline, speaking to a gentler viewpoint. Micro-batswhich include the smaller, familiar snub-nosed batsmainly hunt by echolocation. This ability, coupled with the ability to navigate at night by using a system of acoustic orientation (echolocation), has made the bats a highly diverse and populous order. 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 to creative commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode. As such, the Earl of Cranbrook was able to dispel this silly superstition. The fictional DC Comic Super-hero, Batman relied on the sinister aspect of bats to strike fear into criminals, yet despite the scary myths, bats are an important part of the ecosystems and economies of many parts of the world. This was before people knew about germs and how diseases are spread. Bats feature in many myths, legends and folklore from diverse cultures around the world, and are often associated with darkness, death and the supernatural. In some countries such as the UK bats are seen as an indicator species and the stability of their population is monitored to look for changes in biodiversity. This persecution has been quite intense and has had negative effects on the whole environment. Hun Batz Facts and Figures Name: Hun Batz Pronunciation: Conversely, negative symbolism could promote conservation if it prevents unsustainable hunting and consumption [27]. Over half of the students (57%) did not know anybody in their neighborhood who would hunt bats. Presented here are different viewpoints from around the world, followed by a short look at the real significance of bats to humankind. Also, a Tacana woman in Bolivia was killing a bat while not realizing that it was her husband [34]. He told her he would make some tasty soup like Emiong had taught him for when she returned. Our habit of sharing their ancestral living quarters would inevitably have brought bats to our attention from before the dawn of history. Often seen in movies and even written in books, bats have always been portrayed as mysterious creatures throughout the years. Bats in a church during a wedding ceremony is a bad omen. In this story, Jonayaiyin, a hero who battled the enemies of mankind, killed several eagles and gave their feathers to a bat who had helped him escape from the eagles nest. Photo credit: Raniel Jose Castaneda creative commons Wikimedia credit as in Figure 7. They belong to the Order Chiroptera. Myth 2: MicroBats are Small, and Megabats are big Bats are broadly divided into two categories, Megachiropetra which are Old World fruit bats, and Michrochiropetra that are echolocating bats.
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