Primordial Characters.

Thomas, David John; Needham, Rodney

doi:10.2307/2066002

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“…As these examples suggest, where bats are associated with malevolent supernatural beings, a more likely motivation is the nocturnal behavior of bats rather than their diet, particularly since people the world over associate witches and other maleficent beings with the night, darkness, and flight (Needham 1978). Yet, the Nage case further shows how neither nocturnalism nor flight is a sufficient condition for linking bats with witches or, indeed, with spiritual beings of any sort.…”

Section: Bats Witches and Other Spiritsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguous Birds: Ideas about Bats on Flores Island and Elsewhere

Forth

2021

Journal of Ethnobiology

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Drawing on previous publications by the author, this article brings together information on folk classification and symbolic values of bats among the Nage people of the Indonesian island of Flores. This information is supplemented by new data from more recent field-based ethnobiological research in Nage and other parts of Flores, and is analyzed comparatively with reference to ideas about Chiropterans from other parts of the world. The way Nage and other Flores Islanders treat bats may appear cross-culturally unusual, but their ideas are shown to fit within a range of ways humans think about these remarkable creatures. In a more general vein, attention is given to the widely recognized morphological and behavioral ambiguity of bats and the variable extent to which this ambiguity affects their representation—both in folk zoological classification (or ethnotaxonomy) and symbolic thought (including taboo, spiritual belief, myth, and metaphor). A comparative analysis also demonstrates how, by contrast to the stereotypical view of bats as embodiments of evil in European thought, both Westerners and non-Westerners can represent bats positively, and that even where a generally negative view prevails, bats can possess a positive value contextually.

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Section: Bats Witches and Other Spiritsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguous Birds: Ideas about Bats on Flores Island and Elsewhere

Forth

2021

Journal of Ethnobiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Primordial Characters.

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Ambiguous Birds: Ideas about Bats on Flores Island and Elsewhere

Ambiguous Birds: Ideas about Bats on Flores Island and Elsewhere

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