ANIMAL TABOOS
by Dr. Alec Gill MBE
The primitive cave paintings and sculptures found in Spain / Pyrenees,
Africa and Australia mainly depict animals such as bison, deer, bulls, reindeer,
horses, mammoths, cattle, rhinoceros, lions, elephants, kangaroos and fish.
This demonstrates a fundamental relationship between humans and animals in those far off, dark days
when survival or extinction rested upon an axe-edge. Nature might be 'red in
tooth and claw', but there was also the hand-made blade drenched in blood.
Animals and their related taboos are presented here by species. I have
started with birds. What follows, basically, are my old lecture notes from when
I presented lots and lots of talks around the UK. Nevertheless, I hope you find
some of them useful for your needs and progress.
BIRDS
Roman augurs, auguries and soothsayers were keen to observe birds. The birds' random behaviour gave them a (false) objective authority
upon which to base their predictions. The word auspicious comes from this
practice.
Ravens at the Tower of London: Celtic/Welsh Bran the Blessed asked that on his death
his head be cut off and buried at the White Mount (later Tower). King Arthur is said to
have had the head dug up?
Black or Night birds: crows, ravens, etc. are usually a bad omen.
Seagulls / Albatross good extract from Coleridge 1798 poem 'The Ancient Mariner'
signifies the souls of dead seafarers.
Breton knock of death - called avsnement (a warning) in French.
Weatherlore: "When the birds fly low / The winds will blow"
Seagull seen inland: Seagull, seagull, get on to sand,
There'll be no fine weather while you're on land.
Magpie Verse:
One for sorrow
/
Two for joy /
Three for a girl /
Four for a boy.
Five for silver /
Six for gold /
Seven for a secret / Never to be told.
Eight for a wish /
Nine for a kiss /
Ten for a marriage / Never to be old."
A S H O R E :
Taboo: ornaments, curtain/furniture design; pottery; jewellery depicting a bird.
Yet will have a live budgerigar or canary, or parrot.
Birds flying down chimney - sign of death in the family.
Williams Brothers tale aboard the trawler Boston
Lincoln (GY.1399)
Birds obviously lay eggs and so these taboos overlap with the Easter time beliefs...
CONCLUSION: Random behaviour is a key factor in divination.
Ancient peoples envied the birds' gift of flight; birds lived in the magical trees
and their wings enabled them to visit Heaven and communicate with the
gods - this is why angels have wings?
Divination - Messengers of the Gods - Ornithomancy.
==========
CATS
Deity or Devil; Sacred or Satan.
Egyptian / Latin / Nordic / Burmese Goddesses associated with cat worship.
Black Cat lucky only in Britain - especially with mariners; yet 'Cat' is a taboo
word at sea.
Nine lives.
Cat is lucky - but can be unlucky when it crosses your path from left to right.
Scotland Caithness - Catti people were one of many cat cults throughout Celtic
Europe.
Witches familiar - she could only shift shape into a cat nine times.
Weather forecaster (puts Michael Fish out of a job!):
wash three times behind ears = rain;
cat sneeze also indicates rain;
dash about and scratch / claw at furniture = gales; and,
sitting with its back to the fire = frost / storms.
Indonesia = if you want it to rain pour water over a cat.
LONDON DIVORCE CASE:
LONDON EVENING STANDARD Sat 14 Jan 1933 p5
"BLACK CAT SAVES DIVORCE" [sic = Marriage?]
Tottenham Police Court was hearing a divorce case of a woman wishing to leave her
husband after 30 years marriage for cruelty. At that moment, a black cat entered the
court.
Magistrate Mr. S.H. Platten latched on to this random incident and said, "black cats
were lucky creatures" - would she not reconsider? She refused to do so.
Then the cat leapt near the wife and rubbed her nose against the woman's hand.
The wife then agreed to consider reconciliation.. As the reconciled couple left
the court, the black cat left with them"
Get HR anecdotes Flinton Street taking from window sill =
St.Honorius (H.66)
Eyes of cats are "strangely reminiscent of the moon" and, like the moon,
the cat comes alive at night.
Cat is also a corn-spirit creature.
Cat credited with divinity and healing powers.
Cat left home at time of death and returned only after the funeral in some homes.
CONCLUSION: Cats occupy a positive role in fairy stories such as:
The Cat and the Fiddle,
Puss in Boots,
Dick Whittington,
Aesops Fables,
Pussy cat, Pussy cat,
where have you been...,
T.S.Elliott's Cats and Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical
CARTOONS:
Tom & Jerry,
Top Cat
PIGS
Several taboo words used especially in Cornwall, Scotland and Yorkshire:
Grunter, Curly-tail, Porker, Swine, Hog, Pargar-Wargar, That Grunting Animal, Sow,
Four-footed Beastie, P-1-G mouthing the three letters silently with fingers crossed.
1900s Buckhaven boy tossed pig's tail on to deck of small fishing boat as it left
harbour - it turned back straight away for the day.
Fishermen turned back home if saw a pig when going down to the ship - superstitious
hierarchy.
Late 1940s Macbeth (H.113) pig hides amongst cow skins.
THE PARADOXICAL PIG
BIBLE Old Testament:
Leviticus (11.7) "You must not eat their [swine] meat or touch their carcasses:
they are unclean for you".
Health grounds: infected pork can cause parasitic tapeworm (can grow over three feet long in
the stomach). Cysticercosis - still no treatment - causes epileptic fits then, if
untreated, madness!!
DEVIL - both pigs and Satan have cloven feet.
BIBLE New Testament:
Jesus and Gardarene Swine (Mark 5:1-13) Madman 'Legion' - Jesus cast out demons into
herd of 2000 swine "who rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were
drowned..." Thus, to avoid drowning, avoid pig??
PAGAN PIG = Corn spirit
Sir James Frazer (1922) Pigs praised from Iceland to Israel through to Indus in
Pagan times. Ancestor of pig is wild boar.
Celtic god (Mabinogion) in Welsh and Irish mythology - other world eternal feast upon
magic pig = The Meat of the Gods. In Old Europe boars sacrificed as corn spirit (as were
the cat, hare, rabbit and other creatures).
Harvest reapers who scythed the final wheat sheaf, any animal that leapt out was captured
because it was believed to be the spirit of the corn trying to escape. The wild boar was
the most popular corn spirit. It was offered as a sacrifice to Mother Earth. The ashes
mixed with the seeds and sown during next year's crop.
Sow the land (sow = female pig).
The last sheaf baked into a boar-shaped loaf and may have been the predecessor of
the Yuletide Log. Then, during the following Spring sowing time, the sowers and ploughers
ate the bread and put crumbs into the mixture of corn seeds to be sown.
Fertility re-cycled!
CONCLUSION: Even Jewish view of swine may be more rooted in reverence rather than
revulsion.
The pig god was so sacred that ordinary folk felt compelled to avoid even uttering
its name.
PUBS: The Boar's Head, Blue Boar Inn in Robin Hood tale.
Heraldic shield = ferocity and fertility symbols.
CELTIC PIG
Anne Ross (1974) Pagan Celtic Britain, "The boar is, without doubt, the cult animal par excellence of the
Celts" (p390). Boar symbols featured on:
Helmets,
Shield of Witham
Cauldron
Coins at Iceni (Norfolk)
Standards / Banners
Altars = God Vitiris in Northumberland
Pork found in chieftains graves.
CONCLUSION: Meat of the Gods
Orkneys = Orci = Young Pigs
Celts = great oral tradition.
The boar contained all the Celtic passions:
HUNTING
FEASTING
FIGHTING
SEX
END: A quote that might be ascribed to
Churchill (1874-1965) - but I have found no evidence for it! - goes something
like:
Man looks down on dog
Cat looks down on Man
But pig stares Man in the eye
And sees his equal
=======
HARE see Fri 13th.
section
FISH
Fish is a sacred dish.
ZODIAC: The last sign in Astrology is Pisces.
BIBLE: The first form of life on the planet.
Lucky and unlucky types within fishing folklore. Good omen to catch a female fish
first.
The first fish was sometimes thrown back into the sea - as an offering to the
gods for more to follow.
Herring drifters - first fish nailed to the mast in the hope that more will
follow.
BIBLE / CHRIST - Fishers of Men.
Feeding the 5000 with five loaves and five fishes - haddock with the thumb and
finger print of Christ.
Fish = secret early Christian symbol -
ICTHUS (Greek = fish)
IESUS CHRISTUS THEOU UIOS SOTER
Jesus Christ, of God the Son (our) Saviour
PORPOISE: PORC - pig; PISCES - fish - pig-fish. Friendly fish which should never be harmed. Good omen if it swims around
a ship. Their playful behaviour is a sign of good weather ahead.
DARK SHARK - vultures of the sea - if they follow a ship, especially three of them,
it was felt that there would be a death on board.
CONCLUSION: Fish long held as symbolic of the Great Goddesses around the world:
archetypal of femininity, love and fertility. Aphrodite (Greek) Venus (Latin) and Freya
(Nordic). Fish eaten on Fridays in their honour. Fish also associated with Lunar Power
Fish nicknames at sea:
Salmon - wisdom.
Rappoport (1930) Animal correspondences under the waves: cat-fish, dog-fish,
porpoise (pig-fish) and mermaids.
Cross Ref with Good Friday.
OTHER ANIMALS this list needs
to be extended (can anyone help me with it?)
HORSES: clairvoyant - sense the arrival of Death.
WHITE HORSE - Saxon symbol at Uffington.
RATS: leave a sinking ship - even simple rodents can foretell death, but humans
cannot.
SPIDERS:
Witches' familiars
CONCLUSION
Animals are the closest companions to human on our lonely planet lost in space.
Lots of personification takes place.
Great affinity since the dawn of time.
THE CRADLE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION is Crete / Greece. Underlying these early
cultures is a rich mythology very much entwined with animals.
SNAKE GODDESS from Knossos with a CAT on her head + Egyptian Isis and cat
worship.
BULL MONSTERS - Minotaurs (Taurus) man-goat.
And Darwin's Evolutionary Theory of the species links humans very
closely with monkeys / primates.
Therefore, there is a strong affinity / bond between humans and animals. Thus, they
rightly occupy a place within the world's oldest beliefs - superstitions.
RETURN TO SUPERSTITIONS^