The bat serves as mentor of the night and is identified with Talking God, one of the foremost deities. The fearsome Norsemen who terrified, raided and eventually settled parts of England apparently gave us the Swedish bakka and Danish baake, words that the centuries turned into the English bat. But the old Scandinavian words mean bacon. Whats going on here? When you stand with us, your donation will support critical bat conservation initiatives. At thisnot surprisinglyDionysus was angered and instead of a girl became a bull, then a lion, then a leopard. In Swedish their actually called fladdermus not flutter mouse , Your email address will not be published. In India, using a hair wash of crushed bat wings in coconut oil is said to prevent both baldness and graying of hair. Repeatedly, the bats feathers were stolen by small birds, and repeatedly the bat returned to Jonayaiyin to ask for more. In ancient Aztec mythology, Quetzalcoatl was the son of the fertility earth goddess, Cihuacoatl, and cloud serpent and hunting god, Maxicoat. Many cultures had similar legendsthe Greeks, Arabs, the gypsy cult in India, even the ancient Chinese. Their ambiguous taxonomy was unsettling.The Bible makes a few references that seem to list bats as impure, and Isaiah 2:20 states (English Standard Version): In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats. This passage likely refers to Babylonian idols in the shape of bats. In other stories, bats are husbands in folktales, although often the wife does not realize at first that she is married to a bat. For example, if a bat lives in a theater, and flies over the stage during rehearsal, the play is guaranteed success. The bat will never accept half-hearted or lukewarm attempts at self-improvement. Stoker may have been influenced by the vampire bats of Latin America, since their existence was well known in Europe by that time. In China, the ideogram for good luck, fu sounds the same as the word for bat and so the animal is a lucky charm. Other contemporary references include a report from Ohio claiming that bat blood can call evil spirits, and another from Illinois asserting that it gives witches the power to do anything. There are also reports of bats used for witchcraft in Mexicos Yucatan, and bat wings are often in the conjure bags of African-Americans in Georgia. The Greek word aphros means "foam," and Hesiod relates in his Theogony that Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced by the severed genitals of Uranus (Heaven), after his son Cronus threw them into the sea. Dionysus punished them by changing them into bats, and their work into vines. The colors associated with Goddess Nyx are the following: Black; One colony of around 500 Indian flying foxes roosts in a huge banyan tree in the small village of Puliangulam, about 40 miles east of Madurai in southern India. All rights reserved. Bats are commonly said to indicate that the house they frequent is haunted, and an old German myth relates that if a bat flies into your house, the devil is after you. Bram Stokers contribution did a disservice to both bats and vampires. Some of the earliest came from Babylonia: The edimmu was a troubled soul who wandered the earth in search of human victims whose veins it sucked. The most striking example of this medieval attitude is probably found in Dantes Divine Comedy, where the Devil himself, emperor of the kingdom dolorous, is depicted as a gigantic bat with three faces. In many cultures, bats are associated with good fortune! 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. From a magical standpoint, bats are associated with workings related to death and dying, communication, and the spirit world. Bats have also been said to induce love or desire. In both ancient Greece and Rome, it was thought that sleep could be prevented either by placing the engraved figure of a bat under the pillow, or by tying the head of a bat in a black bag and keeping it near to the left arm. Mentors are ever present, although sometimes invisible. else if (days < -1) In the Ivory Coast, even today many think that bats are the spirits of the dead, and in Madagascar, they are assumed to be the souls of criminals, sorcerers and the unburied dead. The villagers say that about eight such cases have happened. Today in the United States, we see this association in Halloween decorations, horror movies, and scary novels, but it reaches back into antiquity and is found in many parts of the world. Many legends say that the bat does not even have to enter the house or the actual living quarters to be a harbinger of death. They have fur and teeth and nurse their young like other mammals, but they dont walk on four legs. The bat is reckoned among the birds in the list of unclean animals, and to cast idols to the moles and to the bats means to carry them into dark caverns or desolate places to which these animals resort (Isaiah 2:20), i.e., to consign them to desolation or ruin. But beliefs from the Midwest predict exactly the opposite, foretelling a persons death only if the bat is killed, and just sickness if the bat escapes. Vampires were described in legend as dead humans with the ability to rise from the grave, always at night. Camazotz is a bat deity who is a prominent figure in the cultures of the Zapotec and the K'iche' people. They often hang upside down inside their cave (also called a roost), and only emerge at dusk to feed on insects (a common time for insects to stir). In this myth Jesus was in the desert outside of Jerusalem attempting to keep the fast of Ramadan, which forbids eating food between sunrise and sunset. Folk healers prescribe a large variety of bat preparations for problems with vision, ranging from dimness to cataracts. I would like to share I website with you. They appeared sometimes in the guise of an animal, usually a wolf, and sometimes they were invisible. In South America among an ancient Mayan cult of the Quiche, located in the jungles of what is now Guatemala, Camazotz was a minor deity associated with bats. One tale tells of a man summoned by bats in a tree when he was returning from an evening hunt. If abatflies into the house and then gets away, there will be a death in the family. But it is also logical to believe that it was derived from Kawahori, which means eating mosquitoes. Powered by WordPress and WordPress Theme created with Artisteer. var day_before = "Christmas Eve"; 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. One of these fables also exists, with slight variation, among tribes in southern Nigeria, among Australian aboriginals, and ancient Romans. He's a changed hero in Maya and the Three, having rebelled against Lord Mictlan the Evil. Bat, bat, come under my hat Interestingly enough, bats dont appear traditionally to have been one of those transformations. Many Greco-Roman authors, including such towering figures as Aristotle in fourth-century B.C. The translations are literal and based on the etymology of the native word. This is, also, the only winged creature that feeds its young with milk from the breast.. One Navajo chant describes a scene at the hogan (a traditional Navajo dwelling) of the female deity, Changing Woman. Bats are symbolic of bad luck, especially if they cry while flying.lying early in the evening. if (days > 1) At the time when the worship of Dionysus was introduced into Boeotia, and while the other women and maidens were reveling and ranging over the mountains in Bacchic joy, these sisters alone remained at home, devoting themselves to their usual occupations, and thus profaning the days sacred to the god. One of the most common traditional beliefs about bats in houses, repeated throughout Europe and by immigrants in North America, is that bats are extremely fond of fat. If a bat flies into your house, look out for bedbugs. A world without bats would look very different than the one you know and not for the better. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minyades&oldid=1129785597, This page was last edited on 27 December 2022, at 03:27. With the bat by your side, you can learn to face your deepest fears and to accept yourself fully. It is symbolic of the night devouring the day. Role & Function: The function of Persephone is described as being the Queen of the Underworld and also the goddess of spring time. The birds took pity on the creatures and fashioned wings for one of them out of the head of a drum made from a groundhog skin, thus creating the first bat. Hollywood took over in 1931, with the movie Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. Zotz was the Maya word for bat. Greeks and Romans often referred to people who were active at night as "bats." Apparently many of these people had adopted nocturnal behavior to avoid those to whom they owed money. Bats fly joyously across fabrics and tapestries, jewelry and porcelain, and are carved into jade and ivory, and adorn the columns and facades of palaces and the thrones of emperors. The bat has been misunderstood by many over the years and most people fear this creature, but many medicine people and the Native Americans sought the bat for its connection to the other world.. At traditional Navajo assemblies, if after four nights of discussion no constructive plan has been achieved, a voice from near the door or from some concealed place in the ceiling gives a clue to the proper offering and the god to whom it should be presented. Bats are symbolic of bad luck, especially if they cry while flying.lying early in the evening. There is the page Spirit of Truth, you will find the wisdom that I share Bless. Bats and bacon are entwined as well in parts of Germany, where the word for bat is Speckmaus, literally bacon mouse. This has nothing to do with bats as a side dish for eggs. Once bats have emerged from their cave, and they are experiencing the outside world, they are highly attuned to their surroundings. Linking bats to witchcraft and magic has given rise to many of the fears people have about bats. "); Dracula apparently was Vlads nickname, meaning something on the order of devil.. In Navajo sand paintings, a traditional and ceremonial art form, brown sands form Bat, and its station is as one of the eastern guardians. The animals then give teeth to the bat to make it more animal-like. In other folklore, bats are classed with hummingbirds and butterflies, animals that sometimes visit the same flowers by day that bats feed from by night. "Alcathoe" redirects here. Peaches were first cultivated in China some 5,000 years ago, but their wild ancestors relied on bats to disperse their seeds. if ((navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer") && (year < 2000)) Another superstition from Germany relates that bullets from a gun swabbed with a bats heart will always hit their target. var date = new Date("December 25, " + year); var today = new Date(); Some also believe that tying a silk string around a bats heart will bring money. Bats are active at night while people sleep, and many bats spend their days in caves, abandoned buildings, church steeples, and tombs. In an attempt to explain the cause of epidemics, which often decimated entire villages, vampires frequently were blamed. In Greek mythology, the bat was said to be sacred to Proserpina, the wife of Pluto, ruler of the underworld. Unfortunately for the bat, most of them require its demise. The Mayans saw them as symbols of rebirth. Stoker created his Dracula as a vampire, thus giving rise to the vampire of fiction (with so little in common with those of folklore). For the Navajo, the bat holds a special significance. Christianity and the origin of bats are also intertwined in the Mohammedan legend that Christ created a bat while keeping the fast of Ramadan. Once the poor animal is dead, its legs must be buried at least a foot deep in the back yard. One gate was made of horn, the other of ivory. Perhaps the most persistent and damaging association with bats is the vampire myth. For many cultures, it wasand is stilla kind of intermediary to the gods, partly because of its uniqueness, partly because it fits into, and contributes to, mans environment. He went to have a drink with them and became attracted to a female bat. Many of the folk remedies and magical properties ascribed to bats are directly related to their physical features and lifestyles. Night after night, the man stopped off to drink and flirt with her, slowly developing a bats head, claws, and little nose patches. Finally, his wife, aware of what was happening, set fire to the tree and killed both her husband and the bats. How they interlace like a chain and hang the one upon the other!. And from the Ge in Brazil comes a tale of a tribe that moved through the night led by a bat who looked for light toward which to guide them. Since antiquity, people have perceived many of the physical features of bats as strangely similar to those of humans. As creatures of the night, bats had long been associated with witchcraft and demons in European traditions, both in fable and art. The West seems to have forged its own concept of evil bats. But not all myths bring to mind frightening acts; some ascribe wondrous magical properties to bats and associate good luck with them. Because they were four-footed, the mouse-like creatures first asked if they could play with the animals, which included a bear, a deer, and a terrapin. Many beliefs in Europe and the United States relate the value of bats blood, or their excrement, as a depilatory. German devil myths include tales about how the devil attempts to imitate the creations of God, but never quite gets it right. Because mountains obscured the western sky, Jesus could not tell when the sun sank below the horizon. Aphrodite, ancient Greek goddess of sexual love and beauty, identified with Venus by the Romans. A range of superstitious practices are also noted: bat blood is said to be an antidote for snake bites, bat hearts are supposed to repel ants, and bats or bat organs are listed, sometimes in combination with plants, as powerful remedies against a range of illnesses. Bees were associated with the underworld and honey was a beloved food of the gods. The Full Moon, represented by the Selene (the Maid), also known as Luna. The natural characteristics of bats provide a rich foundation for symbolism, making them creatures of life and death, fecundity and destruction. One of them became a bat, another an owl and the third an eagle owl. 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.. Symbols: The Pomegranate, wreath of flowers worn in hair, torch, bat. They strongly criticized other women because they abandoned the city to go as Bacchantes in the hills until Dionysus took on the likeness of a girl and urged the Minyades not to miss out on the rites or mysteries of the god. Bats appear very near the birth of Western literature, in one of the oldest and most important works of ancient Greece: The Odyssey, an eighth-century B.C. The villain of the piece is one Count Dracula, based on the disreputable Prince Vlad of Transylvania. Nyx Goddess colors. Quickly the sisters hide in the smoke-filled house and in various places shun the flames and light. In Trinidad there is an old belief that if you drank the blood of a bat, you would become invisible. They live only in Latin America and feed primarily on birds (two of the vampire species) or mammals, especially livestock. In all directions, sky and earth are fused as one on the horizon. Similarly, the Mayas of Central America had a bat God, Cama-Zotz (or death bat), depicted as a man with bat wings and a bat-like leaf nose, who lived in a region of darkness through which a dying man had to pass on his way to the netherworld. redable-red reblogged this from musicismyreligions . Indian flying foxes are considered sacred in a few other villages in southern India, and several in northern India as well. From the womb-like caves it emerges every evening at dusk. This is because Dionysus punished the sisters for failing to worship him by turning them all into the winged mammal. Fathers of the Church, including Eusebius of Caesarea, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome and others of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., took up this view, regarding bats as symbols of the blindness of heresy or the darkness of evil. When a team of researchers from Madurai Kamaraj University visited Puliangulam to talk to the local people about their beliefs concerning the flying foxes, an 80-year-old woman reported that the colony had occupied the tree even before her birth. document.write(day_description + " was " + ((days+1)*-1) + (days < -2 ? " Status: Occasionally included amongst the names of the Olympians. The people of ancient cultures venerated creatures who, to them, symbolized anomaly and transformation. Bats origins are given as within the earliest world, when all was dark: twelve insects and the bat revolve in blackness. 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