Bat Lore and Mythology

[GhostBat]

The Bat in Navajo Lore

Several North American Indian tribes include bats in their traditional folklore. For the Navajo, the bat holds a special significance—

by Stan Renfro

For the traditional Navajo Indian in the deserts of the American Southwest, the bat is an intermediary to the divine, bridging the supernatural distance between men and gods. Bat serves as mentor of the night, as Big Fly does by day. Bat's origins are given as within the earliest world, when all was dark: twelve insects and the bat revolve in blackness.

Both Bat and Big Fly are part of the Sun-Sky complex and stand for the skin at the tip of the tongue: speech. As Sun's day and night messengers, they are identified with Talking God, one of the foremost deities. Both have the ability to penetrate where ordinary beings cannot go.

They are not gods, though, in that they do not require an offering or payment, but instead volunteer their aid. One Navajo chant describes a scene at the hogan (a traditional Navajo dwelling) of the female deity, Changing Woman. When she begged the great gods to carry an offering to Winter Thunder, everyone was afraid until finally, after much coaxing, Bat, who occupied the humblest seat near the door, consented to go.

Mentors are ever present, although sometimes invisible. 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. The suggestion can be obscure, but furnishes enough information to be understood with concentration. Eventually, the voice "appears," embodied as Bat or Big Fly (or as Wind or Darkness) and introduces itself as a guardian of the home of some powerful supernatural being, all of whose secrets it knows. Many times a seeker achieves his quest because whispered messages in his ear inform him of the necessary directions to perform.

In Navajo sand paintings, a traditional and ceremonial art form, brown sands form Bat, and its station is as one of the eastern guardians. A yellow diamond on its body represents a small skin that Bat received as a reward for helping depose the Gambler (a large and powerful deity).

The sand painting, "Father Sky and Mother Earth," is a paradigm of Navajo beliefs. Father Sky and Mother Earth were the first creations of the Great Spirit. Their crossed hands signify the union of heaven and earth, bound eternally together by the Rainbow Guardian. In all directions, sky and earth are fused as one on the horizon. The physical earth and sky, or mind (spirit), functions together to produce new life. All things are conceived first in thought before they become physical reality, represented by the line running from the head of Father Sky to the head of Mother Earth. Physical pain, disease, or "evil" was first conceived in thought before it appeared in the body. To cure sickness, a poor crop, or whatever the need, one must first establish a harmonious rhythm with all unknown forces.

The stars, moon, and constellations are shown on the body of Father Sky, the zig-zags crossing his shoulders, arms, and legs forming the Milky Way. The life-giving energy of the sun radiates from the bosom of Mother Earth, bringing fertility to her womb, from where the seed of all living things springs.
Bat, the sacred messenger of the spirit of the night, guards the sand painting at the opening in its border. http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v6n1b.jpgThe sand painting, "Father Sky and Mother Earth." Bat, serving as mentor of the night, guards the border in the upper right corner.

[LV426]

Very informative, I must note that Totah Sam posted a very good link on Sand Painting under the Skinwalkers thread for those who are interested in this beautiful form of expression and medicine.

[GhostBat]

Cool, I'll check that out :cool:

[GhostBat]

BATS in South American Folklore and Ancient Art



Bats have fascinated people for thousands of years— especially in the New World tropics where more kinds of bats live than anywhere else in the world...


by Elizabeth P. Benson


South America is a land of contrasts. Across the equator, the Andes raise snow-covered, volcanic peaks that reach heights of 23,000 feet. The eastern slopes descend into the Amazon Basin, the world's largest--and one of the most lush--tropical forests. To the west, the foothills give way to the driest coastal desert in the world and to the cold, deep waters of the Pacific Ocean. The diversity of South American bats is as impressive and varied as the landscape. In its lowland forests, there are more bats, and more bat species, than in any other part of the world. The range of some of the more "interesting" species overlies, in rough outline, that of the cultures who attained the highest achievements in the New World before the arrival of Columbus.


Ancient peoples found bats fascinating, and these animals are a significant motif in many styles of Pre-Columbian art and a frequent theme in Indian folklore. A Toba story from the Gran Chaco region of northern Argentina tells of the leader of the very first people--a hero bat or bat-man who taught people all they needed to know as human beings. 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.


The people of ancient cultures venerated creatures who, to them, symbolized anomaly and transformation. The bat is one of these. For many cultures, it was--and is still--a kind of intermediary to the gods, partly because of its uniqueness, partly because it fits into, and contributes to, man's environment.


Bat imagery is concentrated in some regions and completely lacking in others, but some correlation seems to exist between the importance of bats in art and their plentifulness in nature. The most numerous New World bats belong to the family Phyllostomidae, a group of bats that have a characteristic nose leaf, which can range from a leaf shape to that of a spear or knife. Most Pre-Columbian bat depictions show this feature. Some representations are realistic, others are stylized, and many show bat traits added to a human figure. The non-naturalistic forms can be identified as part bat by large ears, a squarish gaping mouth, prominent teeth, wings, and/or a nose leaf.


The gods of the Sky and the Underworld were the most important Pre-Columbian deities largely because agriculture depended upon them both. As flying creatures, bats signify the sky, but they have many qualifications for Underworld symbolism as well. They hang upside-down, facing the Underworld; they are nocturnal (the Underworld is dark); they roost in caves or dead trees and use streams as flyways (caves, tree roots, and streams were considered openings into the Underworld). In New World myth and art, the Underworld was one of the most important themes. It was where the dead were buried and the place from where plants came. Death imagery in Pre-Columbian art has regeneration significance in the same manner as the green plant coming from the dry seed.


Whether or not ancient peoples understood pollination or seed dispersal, they likely saw bats visiting the flowers of trees and other plants. Some of the plants most important to people in the New World tropics are bat-dependent. For example, bats pollinate the kapok (or silk-cotton) tree (Ceiba pentrandra), which was sacred in many regions. Its fiber is used for making blow gun darts and canoes are made from its wood. Ancient people found ghostly pale stunted plants growing in caves where fruit-eating bats roost and drop seeds. Bats also deposit the seeds of the breadnut tree (Brosimum alicastrum), which produces an important staple food, in caves in eastern Mexico. Today, local people still gather the seeds, seeing them as gifts of the gods, a kind of recognition of the contributions of bats.


In some South American myths, honey, bees, and bats are related or interchangeable. 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. The Mochica culture of the Central Andes likely was aware of the connection between bats and plants. Some of their ceramic vessels depict a bat with what appears to be sweet sop (Anonna squamosa), a common fruit, the seeds of which are dispersed by bats.


Tobacco continues to be an important ritual plant in many places. Both bats and tobacco are associated with shamans (native priests). The Bororo, a tribe in Brazil, tell a story about men casually smoking one night. A vampire bat flew by and told them that, if they did not smoke reverently, they would be punished, "because this tobacco is mine." (Plants are often "owned" by animals in South American myths.) According to the story, the men who disobeyed the bat were turned into otters.


Another possible aspect of the tobacco relationship is the fact that fire often occurs with bats in folklore (although it may also derive from observing large numbers of bats emerging from a cave at twilight, often appearing like a great cloud of smoke). In folk tales, supernatural bats often burn their victims or they are themselves destroyed by fire. In addition, natural fires in caves sometimes occur from spontaneous combustion of bat guano. Although bat depictions on Pre-Columbian artifacts do not hint at fire or smoke, the cultural association of bats with fire suggests that bats might have had similar connotations in ancient times.


Ritual human sacrifice, often by decapitation, was common in many cultures of the ancient New World, and it was an important theme in their art. Blood sacrifice was believed to appease and nourish the gods of nature so human life could continue and thrive. In essence, blood equaled life. Various human beings, animals, or composite creatures--often supernaturals--were agents of sacrifice in different myths.


Mochica pottery shows a part human, part bat figure as a sacrificer with a knife in one hand and a human head in the other. (Owls were also common Mochica sacrificers.) The size ratio of the large bat and the small human head indicates supernatural status for the bat, and the throne on which it sits symbolizes power. Sometimes a bat-man carries a war club and a small human captive about the size of the club, or smaller. By far the most common Mochica bat effigies, however, are those holding pottery, which seem to have sacrificial or funerary connotations.


The sacrificial association is also indicated by batlike knife-shaped pendants. Usually cast in gold, they come from many places, but those of the Tolima style found in Colombia are the most common and obvious, likely representing the bat-sacrificer in simplified form.

[GhostBat]

In the lowlands east of the Andes, contemporary folklore recounts tales based on ancient beliefs. For Arawak Indians in northern Guiana, Bat Mountain is the home of "killer bats," and there also is a killer bat in folklore from Venezuela. Decapitating bat demons appear in various myths in the Amazon region, and, to the south, in the Gran Chaco of northern Argentina. Folklore from the Ge tribe in Brazil tells of "Indians" who had wings and bat noses, lived in a big cave near a river, and went out only at night. Flying like bats, they killed with "anchor axes" or "moon hatchets." In another tale, mankind acquired ceremonial axes from bats who had used them for decapitation. The shape of the axes is the same as the sacrificial knives most often depicted in ancient Mochica art far away in the Central Andes.


Much of this bat sacrificial symbolism likely derives from the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), a very small creature that feeds entirely on the blood of vertebrates [see "Vampires: The Real Story," page 11]. Although they may bite various parts of the body of their prey, they normally feed from the neck and shoulder regions of large mammals, a behavior that may have fostered tales of decapitating bats. Another bat, whose habits also may have contributed to such legends, is the false vampire (Vampyrum spectrum). With a wingspan of almost a yard, the false vampire is the largest New World bat. It is a carnivore, eating birds and other vertebrates, even occasionally eating other species of bats. When capturing its prey, it grabs the neck, sometimes killing with a single, powerful bite.


While stories of bats in general abound in the myth and lore of many New World peoples, ironically, surprisingly little folklore exists specifically about vampire bats. They do not appear to be mentioned at all in the lore of the Aztecs, one of the largest civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica. The Maya, however, revered a vampire bat god, "Camazotz," the death bat, who killed dying men on their way to the center of the earth. "Zotz" was the Maya word for bat. Throughout the Maya ruins in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, hieroglyphics and graphic depictions of the vampire bat can be found. The glyph for the great Pre-Columbian city of Copan in Honduras was the head of a leaf-nosed bat. Some Maya groups called themselves "people of the bat," living in "Zotzilha" (bat's house), a kingdom of mountain caverns. Present day "bat people" still live isolated in the rugged highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico in the Mayan community of Zinacantan, "place of the bat."


That bats are depicted with great frequency in some Pre-Columbian cultures, but not others, suggests that some groups had a special relationship with bats. In various South American myths of the origin of life, a human ancestor mated with an animal. Bats do not play this role in recent folklore and, apparently, Pre-Columbian erotic scenes do not involve bats, but there are other indications that some cultures may have had a mythical bat in their ancestor list.


Some folklore portrays female bats as alluring to men. One tale tells of a man summoned by bats in a tree when he was returning from an evening hunt. He went to have a drink with them and became attracted to a female bat. Night after night, the man stopped off to drink and flirt with her, slowly developing a bat's 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. In other stories, bats are husbands in folktales, although often the wife does not realize at first that she is married to a bat.


In the period just before the Spanish conquest, the Tairona culture of the northern coastal lowlands of Colombia depicted bats in various kinds of artifacts--pottery, stone, and gold. Some of the finest Tairona objects are cast-gold pendants representing elaborately dressed figures, probably rulers or their ancestors. They usually have a little extension on the nose, suggesting a nose leaf. Sometimes their handsome, semicircular headdresses have a roosting bat on either side, suggesting a supernatural bat in the ancestry of Tairona rulers.


Nose ornaments in the form of abstract bats with outspread wings are among the hammered gold artifacts of the earlier Calima culture in Colombia. These large ornaments form a mouth-mask, a prominent bat image, behind which the wearer faces the world. Objects from coastal Ecuador showing bat motifs appear to be important statements of royal power and may also be ancestral references. They include hammered gold pectoral ornaments, monumental U-shaped thrones and pillar-like sculptures.


The royal association with bats continued into the time of the Inca in Peru. Incas sometimes added bat fur to vicuna for royal garments. One of the early Spanish chroniclers wrote that the famed Inca ruler, Atahualpa, wore a bat-skin shirt and cape, which were softer than silk. Asked what his clothes were made of, the Inca responded that they came from the "birds" that fly at night.



The natural characteristics of bats provide a rich foundation for symbolism, making them creatures of life and death, fecundity and destruction. For the ancients, human sacrifice, in which the bat participated symbolically, nourished the sun and the gods of nature. The bat is part of a vital chain--both in nature and in myth--and some peoples, whose environment the bat shares, identify with its symbolic power. All Pre-Columbian peoples undoubtedly felt a strong fascination for the bat, and it certainly was thoroughly interwoven into their lives and their art.

[GhostBat]

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1d.jpg
Bat imagery abounds in the ancient New World. Among the many artifacts in the form of a bat is this moldmade clay whistle from the coast of Ecuador, A.D. 500-1500.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1e.jpg
Art mimics life in a Mochica vessel, A.D. 200-600, depicting a bat with a common New World fruit, the sweet sop. Ancient peoples likely observed bats at these and sour sop, a similar fruit, the seeds of which are dispersed by bats. The photograph shows a Jamaican fruit-eating bat (Artibeus jamicensis) eating a sour sop in much the same position as the bat on the vessel.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1f.jpg
Ritual human sacrifice was common among many cultures of the ancient New World, and various animals, humans, and composite creatures were agents of sacrifice in different myths. A Mochica clay vessel A.D. 200-600, depicts an enthroned anthropomorphic bat holding a knife and a decapitated head.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1g.jpg
A Tairona culture cast-gold pendent, A.D. 600-1500, shows a man with a bat's nose leaf, possibly indicating a supernatural bat ancester among Tairona rulers. Note the bats hanging from the headdress.

[silenceowl]

Look up bats and sir lanka folklore.

Bats and owls are very closely connected in that region.

[GhostBat]

From what I've seen in my searchs, bats and owls have been related in many cultures. I find that really neat :D And thank you for the tip Silenceowl, I'll look stuff up from that area to post soon :)

[GhostBat]

VAMPIRES: THE REAL STORY



The truth about the bats people love to hate is even more fascinating than the myths...

by Jacqueline J. Belwood and Patricia A. Morton


Who has not heard of vampire bats? Ask anyone what they know about bats, and tales about vampires are sure to top the list. What few people do know is that of the nearly 1,000 bat species known, only one--the common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus--really feeds on the blood of other mammals. Because of their need to bite in order to live, vampires have become the "black sheep" of the bat world, a reputation that unfortunately affects our attitudes toward other bats. In reality, the vampire bat is one of the most fascinating--even altruistic--animals on earth. Moreover, recent discoveries about its biology also show that it may prove to be of great importance to our own health and well-being.


Vampires feed exclusively on the blood of other vertebrates, which represents the most extreme example of food specialization in bats. There are three kinds of vampires, all of which live in Latin America. There aren't any in the United States, except in zoos, or in Europe where the infamous Dracula legends were born. The other two species, the hairy-legged vampire (Diphylla ecaudata), and the white-winged vampire (Diaemus youngii), are rare and so poorly studied that almost nothing is known about them other than that they feed on birds.


Exactly when the blood-feeding bats were named "vampires," and thus linked to ancient legends, is not known. Europeans were unaware of the existence of these animals until after explorers who voyaged with Columbus returned from Trinidad with the first written accounts of bats that fed on blood. Little more was heard about these unusual creatures for another 50 years, until 1565 when Cortes' followers returned to Spain with reports of bats that bit people during the night. In 1835, Charles Darwin became the first scientist to see a vampire bat, but it took another 70 years before taxonomic descriptions of all three vampire species were complete.


Fossil records show that, in a warmer geologic era, vampires lived as far north as California and Virginia. Today, Desmodus is found only in Latin America, from northern Mexico to northern Argentina. Vampires are adaptable and tolerate a wide variety of habitats from deserts to rain forests. They live singly or in groups of up to 2,000, but small groups of 20-100 individuals are typical. They often share roosts with other bat species, living in caves, tree hollows, abandoned mines or wells.


Vampires are commonly found near herds of cattle and horses, but this was not always the case. In Pre-Columbian times, vampires are believed to have existed in small numbers. This is true today only in undisturbed rain forests. The arrival of European colonists 400 years ago, and specifically the livestock they brought with them, provided vampires with a new and almost limitless food supply, allowing vampire populations to grow unchecked. The unprecedented deforestation occurring in Latin America--much of it to raise yet more cattle--has allowed this trend to continue to the point where vampires have become serious agricultural pests in some areas.


Large numbers of vampires can stress livestock and sometimes transmit disease. Over the last 30 years, large-scale vampire control programs have been initiated in Latin America. Unfortunately, the result has been loss of countless thousands of highly beneficial insect-, fruit-, and nectar-eating bats that are killed annually by farmers who mistakenly assume all bats are vampires.


Despite what Hollywood movies would sometimes have us believe, the common vampire is a small bat that weighs less than two ounces and is only about four inches long. It is grayish brown in color, and as bats go, is rather unspectacular in appearance. With its flat face, it looks more like an English bulldog or pig than it does a ghoulish monster. But while vampires may appear unspectacular, closer examination reveals there is absolutely nothing ordinary about these animals. Bats that feed on blood face many problems as a result of their specialized diets. Consequently, every aspect of their biology is affected, and vampires owe their success to the unique adaptations they have evolved to cope with their feeding habits. Truly, they are a scientific marvel.


Vampires feed on a wide variety of animals, extreme examples of which include sea lions and pelicans that inhabit desert regions off the coast of northern Chile. Near human settlements, however, they feed on a variety of domestic animals, including chickens, but cows, horses, and pigs appear to be their preferred prey. These animals are ideal victims; they are inactive and more or less stationary at night and possess few anti-vampire defenses.


Exactly how vampires locate and select individual prey is unknown, but it is likely that several factors are involved. First, vampires have exceptional eyesight. Extremely sensitive hearing allows them to home in on the sounds of potential prey breathing or rustling in vegetation. Olfactory cues may also help. In addition, heat-sensitive pits in their rudimentary noseleaves may enable vampires to detect prey through radiating body heat.


Vampires prefer to hunt only under the darkest of conditions. As a rule, they will not fly when the moon is visible, presumably reducing detection by potential prey. Vampires have good memories, and individuals can remember the approximate location of herds on which they regularly feed. They also frequent many roosts, allowing them to follow a particular herd over a large geographic range. Researchers have found that vampires visit some prey animals repeatedly and virtually ignore others. Why this occurs is not known, though the relative position of an animal in a herd, for example at the edge rather than in the middle, appears to be important.


Vampires either land on the ground near their intended victims or directly on the back. If the vampire approaches from the ground, it must take care not to arouse its potential host, which can weigh 10,000 times more than it does. Feeding on large prey is dangerous and is believed to account for the high mortality rate (54%) of young bats that have just begun to feed on their own. With this in mind, it is not surprising to find that vampires are among the most agile of all bat species.


Unlike most other bats, vampires spend considerable time on the ground and therefore must be able to maneuver with ease. They can run, hop, and jump with great speed. They also can stand upright and spring into the air from the ground even before spreading their wings. Vampires have exceptionally strong hind legs and long sturdy, padded thumbs that are even longer than their feet. When their wings are folded, they use their thumbs like front feet, making it possible for vampires to move like four-footed animals rather than the two-footed animals they really are.


Using their heat-sensitive nose pits, vampires select areas on the body of their prey that are well supplied with a rich bed of blood-carrying capillaries directly under the skin's surface. Cows and horses are therefore often bitten on the back or neck. Contrary to myth, vampires do not have an anesthetic in their saliva. Before biting, they soften the bite area by repeatedly licking a patch of skin. Their bite is swift and clean, such that sleeping prey are usually unaware of their nocturnal visitor. Contrary to what most people expect, vampires have fewer teeth than any other bats. Because they do not need to chew their food, their cheek teeth are tiny and few. Vampires use their large razor-sharp incisors to create the small crater-shaped wounds that typify their bites.

Vampires do not suck blood, instead lapping it up with a quick and continuous, in and out motion of the tongue. Blood flows up the underside of the tongue along special grooves, while saliva containing a potent anticoagulant substance flows down another groove on the upper surface. Periodically, the bat swirls its tongue in a wound to ensure that an adequate supply of this compound (a complicated protein) is mixed with the blood. Without the anticoagulant, clotting agents in the prey's blood would promote clot formation within a few minutes. If this were the case, each vampire's feeding bout would last only a short time, necessitating frequent bites and increasing the risk of arousing its prey.

[GhostBat]

During feeding, specialized hairs in the bat's facial region maintain continual contact with the prey animal and help ensure a safe feeding. Since a vampire sometimes feeds directly above the hooves on the legs of its victims, the special facial hairs, which function much like a cat's whiskers, keep the bat alert to any movement and potential danger.


A vampire usually can remain at a wound for up to 30 minutes, drinking its fill. When finished, the first bat is often replaced by others. It is not unusual for a vampire to consume its weight in blood during a single feeding, made possible by its expandable tube-like stomach. Vampires that have recently fed have greatly distended stomachs and occasionally drink so much that they are unable to fly.


Because blood is about 80% water, vampires have a highly specialized mechanism to cope with the formidable weight they accrue each time they feed. Urination to remove excess water from ingested blood begins as soon as they start to feed, their highly efficient kidneys enabling them to concentrate adequate protein from their meal.


Vampires are very social animals. The primary grouping consists of females roosting together in small groups, their roost guarded by a lone adult male. Young males set out on their own. A typical group consists of about 20 individuals and their respective single young. Because female young often remain with their mothers after maturity, many of the bats in the roost are related. There is much evidence to suggest that individual bats recognize one another and that groups are remarkably stable over time. Some females have been observed roosting together in the wild for at least 12 years.


Babies remain with their mothers for an exceptionally long time. Although capable of flight at eight to 10 weeks, they continue to suckle milk until they are nine to 10 months old. In the roost, contact between group members is more or less constant. When not clinging together in a tight cluster, they spend a good portion of the day grooming each other. Grooming helps maintain cleanliness while reinforcing a strong social bond.


Life is not easy for vampires. Some studies show that as many as 30% of bats in a typical group will not find food on any given night. Vampires cannot survive more than two days without a meal, but their complex social system allows them to survive, at least for short periods, without finding food.


Vampire bats will actually feed another individual regurgitated blood upon being solicited. Although this behavior is common between mother and young, it also occurs between adults. A bat that has not fed will solicit food by licking its roostmate's body, wings, and face. If the roostmate is receptive, it responds by regurgitating blood. Only bats that are close relatives, or who have a long-term association, will feed each other. While at first it might seem that such behavior is maladaptive (Why go to the great risk of feeding, only to give your food away to another individual?), the system has evolved because it is reciprocal. A bat that gives food today may very well need to solicit it tomorrow.


Reciprocal altruism, as it occurs in vampires, is very rare, almost non-existent, among mammals. Such behavior is known in only a few species, including wild dogs, hyenas, chimpanzees, and people. Studies of the social behavior of vampire bats have done much to help us learn about the behavior of mammals in general.


The vampire's habit of feeding on blood, which at first appears repulsive, may actually help us solve important human problems. Heart attacks and strokes are leading causes of death in humans. Recent discoveries about the anticlotting properties of vampire bat saliva hold promise for the development of new drugs to treat these disorders. Studies reveal that the proteins vampires use to prevent blood clotting are 20 times more powerful than any other known anticlotting substances. In addition, these proteins are more specific in their action and appear to cause fewer negative side effects (e.g. hemorrhaging) than the anticlotting agents we currently produce.


While vampires are truly fascinating animals, they can create legitimate problems when they exist in large numbers near people and domestic animals. Blood loss from occasional vampire bites rarely harms a large animal, but repeated bites, especially to a young cow or horse, can weaken the animal making it more susceptible to illness. Wounds can also be a source of infection. Screw-worm flies sometimes lay their eggs in bite wounds, which can lead to serious infection or even death.


Like all mammals, vampires can contract rabies. Although sick individuals normally die from rabies, they are capable of inflicting their prey with the disease before they do. Rabies is almost always transmitted from one animal to another via a bite. Throughout Latin America, vampire bats are believed to cause numerous outbreaks of bovine rabies each year, resulting in high economic losses for ranchers. Some studies estimate the loss at $50 million a year.


When vampires cannot find their food of choice, they sometimes will bite humans. This often occurs when their food source suddenly disappears, such as when a cattle herd is removed or transferred to a distant pasture. The only people likely to be bitten are those sleeping outside or in buildings with screened windows. Unlike classic myths, when vampires do bite humans, it is usually on the big toe, not the neck. When people are bitten, the local community often becomes hysterical and bat patrols are sent out to destroy any bats they can find. If the incident receives publicity, the killing often extends over a much larger area.


Most Latin American countries have large numbers of bat species. About half of these bats feed on fruit and nectar, and their seed dispersal and pollination services are essential to tropical forests. Because there seldom is an effort to distinguish between vampires and other bats, it is frequently the beneficial ones--not vampires--that die in generalized bat eradication programs. Migratory bats from the United States, such as Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) and endangered long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris curasoae and L. nivalis) are often the victims of such actions. Because bats such as the free-tail form huge colonies, they are more conspicuous and are therefore more likely to be targeted. Moreover, entire cave ecosystems can be eliminated in the process. One campaign in Brazil destroyed more than 8,000 caves with poison or dynamite. On a smaller scale, farmers, having observed that bats like to eat ripe bananas, set out fruit laced with poison. Upon finding dozens of dead (fruit) bats the next morning, they think they have solved their vampire problems, unaware that blood-feeding vampires have no interest in bananas.

[GhostBat]

It is only through education and carefully planned vampire control campaigns that problems can be solved, and people can come to appreciate the values of all bats. Several techniques have been developed to control vampires without causing harm to other species. Cows can be injected with small amounts of drugs harmless to the cow, but fatal to the vampires that ingest them. However, the treatment is expensive and not affordable on a large scale in developing countries. Applying a vampiricide is another method that is both widely available and affordable. A vaseline paste, containing an anticoagulant chemical like Warfarin (a rodent poison), is applied to the backs of live vampires caught in nets. Because vampires engage in mutual grooming in their roost, they spread the vampiricide around the colony. One pasted bat can kill up to 40 others. This technique necessitates not only the capture of bats, but also the correct identification of vampires, before it can be effective. A more targeted method is to paste the area around a fresh bite since vampires frequently return to the same site for another meal. As they feed, they ingest the paste.


It is truly unfortunate that such fascinating bats must become victims of control programs; their misfortune is a result of the way humankind has altered their habitat. Living in large numbers and feeding on domestic prey was certainly not nature's design. Where habitat remains undisturbed by human activity, vampires still exist in small, harmless numbers, feeding on traditional prey such as tapirs. When vampires do cause problems, all bats suffer because of our lack of understanding. There is also some evidence to suggest that growing populations of vampires may displace beneficial species from their traditional roosts.


Throughout Latin America, many problems face bats. It will be extremely difficult to plan for the conservation needs of bats in general--and for the rain forests they support--until the problem of vampires can be adequately addressed. Education is a vital component in this process, and BCI is currently working with several Latin American countries to provide educational materials and vampire control assistance.



Vampire myths existed long before Europeans or the rest of the Old World ever knew of the existence of bats that fed on blood. The word "vampire" came from the Slavic vampir, meaning "blood-drunkenness," but the mythic creatures have been called by many names. Legends of the undead abound with many variations throughout most of the world. 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. Many cultures had similar legends--the Greeks, Arabs, the gypsy cult in India, even the ancient Chinese.


In Europe, vampires inspired great fear and, sometimes, mass hysteria. In an attempt to explain the cause of epidemics, which often decimated entire villages, vampires frequently were blamed. Some of the strongest beliefs came from peasant tales in what is now Hungary and Romania in Eastern Europe, and the legends with which we are familiar today came largely from these. With them originated the belief that the vampire entity could leave its body at will and travel about as an animal or even as flame or smoke. Interestingly enough, bats don't appear traditionally to have been one of those transformations.


As creatures of the night, bats had long been associated with witchcraft and demons in European traditions, both in fable and art. But most accounts agree that it wasn't until Bram Stoker wrote his classic novel, Dracula, in 1897 that bats were linked with vampires for the first time. The seeds were planted for much of the intense fear people today have toward all bats and have been exploited ever since. Who can forget the scene from the 1931 film, Dracula, in which the elegant count, immortalized by Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi, stands before an open balcony door, spreads his dark cape and silently takes flight, transformed into a small bat flying against the full moon?


Today, anyone who has stood in line at a supermarket checkout counter has seen lurid headlines from the tabloids, allegedly true accounts of people, who bitten by a bat, later turn into a vampire, and, of course, never age. In other stories of supposed "mass attacks," vampire bats are almost always accused, even though most of the "reports" come from Europe and the United States, where no vampires exist outside of zoos. Worse yet, photos that accompany the stories are often of harmless fruit bats and even an insectivorous species or two. Some "eyewitness accounts" even assert that the bats are gigantic, with wings five feet or more across, and fans at least two inches long.


After centuries of tradition of the dreadful doings of human vampires, it is no wonder that a small bat who unfortunately shares but one characteristic with their mythic human counterpart--the need to consume blood in order to live--also came to be feared and despised. And it further should be no wonder that this fear has carried over to include all bats. --Mari Murphy

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1h.jpg
http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1i.jpg
http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1j.jpg
http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v9n1k.jpg

[GhostBat]

Is it just me or are those pictures of the Vampire Bat "hopping" in the air hilarious?

[GhostBat]

Bats and Human Hair


Folklore about bats abounds, but none so common as the belief that they get into your hair...

by Gary F. McCracken


BATS IN FOLKLORE
Part 1 of a series on bats in North American and European folklore--


The lifestyles of bats make them a natural for folklore the world over. Most are small and shy and active only at night when most people do not see them. They often live in caves or abandoned buildings, places often associated with danger or ghosts. They have fur like other mammals, but they fly like birds and can navigate in total darkness. It is little wonder that superstition and myth about such paradoxical creatures abound.


One of the most common themes in folklore about bats is the belief that they become entangled in human hair. Such stories come from throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Wearing white clothing is often said to attract bats, which will then get into your hair--thought to be a particular peril for women. According to common beliefs, once a bat gets into a woman's hair, removing it is difficult. Some maintain the bat will never let go and that the woman must cut off her hair to get rid of the bat. Other folklore asserts that the bat will stay until driven out by thunder and lightning.


The feared consequences of a bat in your hair can range from annoying to lethal and worse. Some beliefs are that your hair will snarl or turn gray or that the bat will pull it out. A similar belief found from the south of France to Canada is that if bat droppings fall in your hair, you will become mangy or even bald. (For years, I conducted research within the enormous cave colonies of Mexican free-tailed bats in Texas, and I have washed enough bat droppings out of my hair to fertilize a large cow pasture; I've noticed no loss of hair.)


Another widespread belief is that bats getting into your hair will cause infestations of "bugs," bedbugs, or lice. While bats have mites and a variety of ectoparasitic insects, lice have never been found on bats. Humans, however, have their own unique species of head louse (and a pubic louse, also). It would seem if a bat were to get into a person's hair, the bat would be the one far more likely to catch lice from the human!


Other consequences of a bat getting in your hair are thought to be bad luck or insanity. French folklore maintains that a bat in a woman's hair presages a disastrous love affair. The worst that can happen is if the bat escapes carrying a strand of her hair; in Ireland it is believed that this will result in eternal damnation.


Regional beliefs in the United States describe several other serious consequences. In Ohio, one woman predicts that if a bat flies off with a strand of a person's hair and puts it in a tree, the tree will die, and then so will the person. Missouri folklore relates that a bat in your hair leads to insanity. In North Carolina, a bat doesn't even have to get into your hair to cause problems: lifelong headaches are predicted if a bat merely strikes your head. Another Ohio legend cautions that if a bat only just flies over the head of a child, the parents must make a concoction of oils and coffee mixed with some of the child's hair and clothing. Otherwise, the child will stop growing.


Do bats really get into human hair? Certainly there are occasions when this happens, but hardly enough to explain the profusion of myths. While working in the large cave colonies in Texas, I've had bats in my hair, as well as up my pantleg and just about everywhere else. But this is to be expected in a disturbed roost containing several million bats, and myths about bats in hair do not come from the relatively few people who put themselves in such extreme situations. In the 1939 classic, Bats, Glover M. Allen documents only one case of a bat actually getting caught in a woman's hair, much too rare an event to account for the numerous myths of bats in hair.

I believe most stories about bats getting into hair originate from common bat behavior. Bats frequently fly low over the heads of people who are walking outside, or sitting on their patios or around swimming pools or near lakes in the evening. The numerous "bat attacks" reported near patios likely result when insects are attracted to the lights, and incidents around pools and other bodies of water probably occur because insects commonly aggregate over open water. In both cases, the insects attract bats.

Foraging bats often swoop over people's heads at night, but they are in search of insect prey, not hair. The rapid, seemingly erratic movements of echolocating bats in hot pursuit of insects, who are making similar moves to avoid the bats, often cause people to think they are being attacked. People walking in a field or on an open trail in a forest may also flush insects and make it profitable for bats to forage above the walker.


Undoubtedly, some reports of bat attacks also result from mistaken identity. In America's Neighborhood Bats, Merlin Tuttle relates one such instance in which a screech owl guarding her nest attacked people who came near her tree. In the dim light, the owl was mistaken for a bat.


Another factor is simple exaggeration. When someone calls my office reporting a problem with bats, the bats are almost always "big," even when they turn out to be among the smallest species. Conversely, when I show a bat to school groups and others, they invariably remark how small the bat is, even if it is a relatively large big brown or hoary bat. People exaggerate the size of bats just as they exaggerate the size of a sand shark or barracuda if they encounter one while swimming in the ocean. Similarly, I think people frequently overestimate how close a bat comes to their head when swooping after an insect.


While folk tales about bats getting into hair are common, these stories are only a small part of a larger body of folklore that connects bats with hair, either that of humans or the bats' own hair. (The contemporary French word for bat, for example, is chauve-souris, or bald mouse.) As I'll discuss in my next article, the use of bat hair (wool of bat), as well as other "bat products," in potions and medicinal concoctions is not confined to the recipe of Shakespeare's witches.


http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v10n2n.jpg

[GhostBat]

Bats in Magic, Potions, and Medicinal Preparations

The multiple uses of bats in magic and folk medicine are clear testament to the fertility of the human imagination. . .

BATS IN FOLKLORE --
part two in a series about bats in North American and European folklore --

by Gary F. McCracken

Linking bats to witchcraft and magic has given rise to many of the fears people have about bats. 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. Throughout history, bats have often been considered the familiars or even the alter egos of witches.

In 1332, Lady Jacaume of Bayonne in France was publicly burned because "crowds of bats" were seen about her house and garden. Shakespeare invoked bats and witches in several of his plays. The "wool of bat" in the brew of Macbeth's three witches is a prominent example of the association, as is Caliban's curse on Prospero in The Tempest: "All the charms of Sycorax, toads, beetles and bats, light on you."

The use of bats in witchcraft survives even in modern times. As recently as 1957, a California taxidermist sold bat blood, presumably for witchcraft. 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 Mexico's Yucatan, and bat wings are often in the conjure bags of African-Americans in Georgia.

But not all myths bring to mind frightening acts; some ascribe wondrous magical properties to bats and associate good luck with them. Unfortunately for the bat, most of them require its demise. An ancient belief found both in the American Midwest and the Caribbean is that bathing your eyes in bat blood will allow you to see in the dark. Many other beliefs suggest that bats have the power to make people invisible. While collecting small samples of bat blood in Trinidad, West Indies (for use in genetics research, I might add), a Trinidadian told me that if I drank the blood I would become invisible. Tyrolean gypsies have a similar belief, claiming that carrying the left eye of a bat will accomplish the feat. In Oklahoma carrying the right eye of a bat pierced with a brass pin will have the same effect, while in Brazil a person carrying the hearts of a bat, a frog, and a black hen will become invisible.

Bat magic can also be an antidote to sleepiness. In both ancient Greece and Rome, it was believed that you could prevent sleep either if you placed the engraved figure of a bat under your pillow, or if you tied the head of a bat in a black bag and laid it near your left arm. In many parts of Europe, a practice said to ensure not only wakefulness, but also to protect livestock and prevent misfortune is to nail live bats head down above doorways. Not for the faint of heart, this practice was reported as recently as 1922 in Sussex, England and may indeed continue today. Canadian Indians relate that bat "medicine" can also bring about the opposite effect of staying awake; traditions claim that placing the head or dried intestines of a bat in an infant's cradle will cause the baby to sleep all day. In a similar vein, Mescalero Apaches believe that the skin of a bat attached to the head of a cradle will protect a baby from becoming frightened.

Bats have also been said to induce love or desire. In Roman antiquity, Pliny maintained that a man could stimulate a woman's desire by placing a clot of bat blood under her pillow. In Texas, one lovesick suitor was told to place a bat on an anthill until all its flesh was removed, wear its "wishbone" around his neck, pulverize the remaining bones, mix them with vodka, and give the drink to his beloved. A similar love potion from Europe recommends mixing dried, powdered bat in the woman's beer.

Bat hearts or bones are often carried as good luck charms. Variations on a belief that apparently began in Germany, and have been repeated in the United States, predict that bats bring good luck at cards or lotteries. The prescription is to wrap a bat's heart in a silk handkerchief or red ribbon and keep it in a wallet or pocket, or tie it to the hand used for dealing cards. Some also believe that tying a silk string around a bat's heart will bring money.

Another superstition from Germany relates that bullets from a gun swabbed with a bat's heart will always hit their target. According to the Egyptian Secrets, attributed to Albertus Magnus in the 13th century, mixing lead shot with the heart or liver of a bat will have the same result. Some American Ozark pioneers had another variation of this belief: they carried the dried, powdered hearts of bats to protect them from being shot and to keep wounded men from bleeding to death.

It is common in folklore that the desired effect of a potion or medicinal preparation reflects real or imagined characteristics of the ingredients. (We've heard about cannibals eating the heart of a valiant but vanquished foe to obtain the foe's courage.) It is also common that the desired effect of a potion can be the opposite of the characteristics perceived in their ingredients. It is easy, therefore, to imagine the motivations for some bat preparations thought to cure various maladies.

The association of bats with human hair (BATS, Summer 1992) is seen here too. Many beliefs in Europe and the United States relate the value of bats' blood, or their excrement, as a depilatory. But in England and North Carolina the use of bats' blood has been advocated to prevent baldness. In India, using a hair wash of crushed bat wings in coconut oil is said to prevent both baldness and graying of hair.

Medicinal preparations using bats are legion and have been recommended for many other maladies. Folk healers prescribe a large variety of bat preparations for problems with vision, ranging from dimness to cataracts. Other bat folk medicines are said to be remedies for snakebite, asthma, tumors, sciatica, fevers, a painless childbirth, or to promote lactation. Sir Theodore Mayerne, who lived in the 15th century, prescribed "balsam of bat" as an ointment for hypochondriacs, his recipe consisting of "adders, bats, suckling whelps, earthworms, hogs' grease, stag marrow, and the thigh bone of an ox." In the 1700s one physician recommended that, properly prepared, the flesh of bat was good for gout. Folklore from Brazil suggests taking dried, powdered bat as a remedy for epilepsy. In more modern times, Texas folklore advocates drinking bat blood to cure rheumatism and consumption, and asserts that rubbing warts with a bat's left eye will remove them.

We can trace many of the folk remedies and magical properties ascribed to bats directly to their physical features and lifestyles. Wakefulness at night or sleeping all day are well-known characteristics of bats. Although none are blind (except by injury or congenital defect) and most have good vision, "blind as a bat" is still a commonly heard phrase, and many people believe it. But before the discovery in the 1930s that most bats use echolocation to navigate both at night and in total darkness, many people were convinced that bats not only had excellent vision, but that they could actually see in the dark. The use of bats to treat ailments of vision is therefore not surprising.

The extensive folk association of bats with hair can likewise explain their use as a depilatory or for preventing baldness. A less likely possibility is that bats are believed to promote lactation because, for their size, lactating female bats can produce a truly prodigious supply of milk for their young. Perhaps even more fanciful is that the 18th century doctor might have imagined bats to be a remedy for gout because they rest with their feet above their heads.

Obviously, the origins of many bat folk medicines are extremely, if not completely, obscure. Why should bats cure tumors, help hypochondriacs, or induce love? (In colonial North Carolina, eating roast bat was a recommended cure for children who ate dirt. Where did that one come from?)

Linking bats with witchcraft and magic, and ascribing other mystical powers and properties to them has certainly contributed to our apprehension about such seemingly strange and miraculous creatures. However, as we learn more and more about bats, we find that the truth is, in many ways, more miraculous than the legends.

[GhostBat]

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v10n3m.jpg
Magical properties have been ascribed to bats in the folklore of many cultures. A consultation with a witch often resulted in the prescription of a complex potion, containing some part of a bat, to cure various afflictions from disease to lovesickness.

[LV426]

The whole bats in the hair thing is funny. I used to work with this Australian Fruit Bat in the zoo, his name was Vlad (of course). He was super cute and would hang from my shoulders like a cape with his head tucked up under my hair and his nose pressed against the back of my ear. He was really shy and thought if he couldn't see anyone they couldn't see him. The other bats never really crawled in my hair or flew in my hair and I used to walk through their habitat when they were flying around. Occassionally one might land on my head but they didn't get stuck or anything.

I didn't handle the other bats the way I did Vlad. Vlad lived in the children's zoo alone so the humans that worked with him were his only family. He was really docile and would let us use him for demonstrations for the kids to show them that bats aren't dangerous. Bats are pretty cool although some have some really ugly faces while others are adorable.

[GhostBat]

Now that sounds soooooo sweet :D. I have a close friend who rehabilitates bats here in Austin. Her house is full of giant cages with fruit bats that can't live in the wild due to deformities or injuries. She also takes care of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats and Vampire Bats. I love going over and helping her with them all :).

And I agree completely!!! Some bats have very cute, lovable faces while others are just...EW. But they still need love, like all the other bats :p.

[GhostBat]

Bats in Belfries and Other Places

Folklore about bats in buildings most often portends doom— a reflection, perhaps, on the way many cultures have viewed bats through the centuries. . .

BATS IN FOLKLORE—

part three in a series about bats in North American and European folklore—

by Gary F. McCracken

The average family's most intimate experience with a bat is likely to occur when they encounter one clinging to an outside wall of their house, see one under the eaves, or--more dramatically--when a bat actually flies into their living quarters. A profusion of fables and folklore has developed around seeing bats in buildings, but these tales have little to do with the habits of real bats or the concerns people may have when they encounter a bat in their house.*

As we shall see, much of this mythology is dark, centered on the belief that the bat represents an evil spirit or the devil itself. A bat's sudden appearance in a building, therefore, portends grave misfortune ranging from death to illness or just plain bad luck. The most frequently repeated myth is that a bat's presence in a house foretells someone's death. There are many variations on this theme specifying who will die, when, and whether the death can be avoided.

Folklore from Nova Scotia relates that if the bat alights in the house, a man in the family will die, whereas if it flies around, a woman's death is foretold. If someone in the house is sick, they will die, but this can be avoided if a handful of salt is thrown into the fire. A woman from California stated that if a pregnant woman sees a bat, her child will die. Other myths are that bats in a house indicate the death of a parent or of a very good friend. Folklore from Illinois asserts that if a bat enters a house and stays for a long time, there will be a death in the house, but if it does not stay long, a relative will die. In New Mexico lore, the death will occur within eight days, while myths from the midwestern United States state that the death will occur either in a month, or within six months. Myth from Washington specifies that death will occur within a year.

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. Myths from Slovinian, German, and Jewish immigrants relate that bats in an attic foretell a death in the house. From numerous places and ethnic groups we're also told that a bat simply flying over a house, or at a window, or down a chimney can mean death. From western New York comes a tale that claims if a bat flies around a house while a dog is howling, it is a sure sign of death for someone in the house. An Arkansas myth says that dreaming about bats flying in your house will mean the death of a dear friend.

Some folklore asserts that mortal consequences can be averted, but in typical fashion, there are other myths to contradict this. More contemporary beliefs are related by a man in Las Vegas and a woman from Tacoma who both claim that death could be prevented simply by killing the bat. But beliefs from the Midwest predict exactly the opposite, foretelling a person's death only if the bat is killed, and just sickness if the bat escapes. In Ohio, a woman of Scottish ancestry related that when a bat flies in a doorway, a person can avoid serious illness by drinking a mixture of his or her burned hair and coffee [see "Bats and Human Hair," BATS, Summer 1992, for more uses of this remedy]. From Arkansas comes a report on how to avoid the issue altogether; it claims that placing a horseshoe in the fireplace will scare bats away.

Bats in buildings have also been seen as omens of lesser evils than death. Various myths relate that bats in houses may bring bad luck, or portend that someone in the house will go insane, become blind, be missing the next day, that a letter with bad news will arrive, or that the people in the house will move. Zuni Indian myths, along with lore from North Carolina, Arkansas, and Illinois, all corroborate that bats flying around a chimney, or attempting to enter a building, are a sure sign of rain.

While of less consequence than death, woe be it to the bridal couple who has the misfortune to marry in a church with bats in the belfry. A great deal of very bad luck is predicted if a bat flies into the church during a wedding ceremony.

While European and North American folklore about bats in buildings generally views bats as portents of misfortune or evil, some benign lore also exists perceiving them as good omens. For example, if a bat lives in a theater, and flies over the stage during rehearsal, the play is guaranteed success. A contemporary local story comes from Indians in California who relate that a bat flying in a house foretells a good hunting season. And finally, miners working in the mountains of Nevada insist that a mine will be safe if a bat remains in the mineshaft after blasting.

Other cultures also view bats in a human dwelling as a good omen. Merlin Tuttle relates that in his research in the northern and western part of Kenya, the Nandi and Lugen peoples welcome bats into their homes as bringers of good luck. Their presence is thought to help increase wealth and make livestock reproductively prolific. But even within the same country and region, views can contrast sharply. The Kisii people of western Kenya are said to very fearful of bats, sometimes abandoning their homes if bats enter, fearing ill health and death of their children.

Other European and North American myths give a positive interpretation of bats in houses, but as is often the case in folklore, the death of the bat--sometimes in a rather gruesome ritual--is usually required to interpret the bat as a good sign.

A recent story comes from a woman in Illinois who related that if a bat enters a house that has a small baby inside, the child will cut teeth better if the bat is killed and its carcass is kept overnight in the house. She said that her family did this when a bat entered her daughter's house, and that her grandchild "didn't have any trouble when cutting teeth." Lore from Montreal, Canada, relates that a bat flying into a house will bring financial prosperity to the household, but only if the bat is caught and allowed to die after its hind legs have been cut off. Once the poor animal is dead, its legs must be buried at least a foot deep in the back yard.

One very widespread myth about bats in houses, however, has nothing to do with bad--or good--omens. There is a persistent belief that bats enter your house to steal food. 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. The lore states that they will gnaw on hams and slabs of bacon, which in former times were hung to cure in chimneys and well-ventilated rooms--places where bats were often discovered roosting.

This belief is reflected in a German word for bat (speckmaus, speck being the German word for bacon), and also in period illustrations and nursery rhymes. Bats were clearly getting the blame for other animal thieves; in his 1939 book, Bats, G.M. Allen speculates that rats were the true predators. It also seems probable that birds, which people often purposely attract by hanging suet, may have been among the real culprits. Allen describes experiments conducted in Germany in the early nineteenth century in which captive bats were offered a diet of bacon but refused it and starved to death.

If you keep in mind that bats were viewed as evil spirits, or even the devil, it is not difficult to understand why folklore about them appearing in one's own home focuses largely on death, illness, and misfortune. Also, we should appreciate that in earlier times, houses were much more than good investments and income tax breaks; they were a person's safe refuge from many very real dangers. The bat, as a devil or evil spirit, was seen as entering this sanctum with malevolent intent. Typically, the devil is after souls, and this accounts for the frequent association of a bat's appearance in a building with death.

This devil/evil spirit association is specific in many myths. 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. But redemption is sometimes possible once a bat enters your home. By killing the bat, one might be able to minimize its evil effects or even gain grace with good forces.

Recognizing the devil/evil spirit association, we can certainly understand why a bat appearing uninvited during a wedding in a church, the Lord's house, would be seen as an extremely bad omen. Another view is found in African-American folklore, which relates that if a bat enters your house and leaves without staying long, it is because the evil spirits did not feel welcome.

With the plethora of myths handed down from so many cultures, perhaps we can come to understand some of the often irrational fears and behavior people exhibit when confronted with the presence of a small, harmless (and likely terrified) bat in their home.

[GhostBat]

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v10n4k.jpg
Bats likely have been entering buildings for as long as people have been building them. Not surprisingly, much folklore attempts to interpret the meaning of these visitations.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v10n4l.jpg
As this 1491 woodcut depicts, European tradition held that bats entered buildings only to eat the hams and bacon that people formerly kept in chimneys or well-aired upstairs rooms. Although the belief persists, no evidence exists that bats eat ham or bacon.

[GhostBat]

BATS and the Netherworld

The nocturnal habits of bats have no doubt contributed to the many myths that bats are creatures of another, unearthly world . . .

BATS IN FOLKLORE—
part four in a series about bats in North American and European folklore—

by Gary F. McCracken

Since antiquity, people have perceived many of the physical features of bats as strangely similar to those of humans. The great 18th century taxonomist Linnaeus noted that, among mammals, only humans, other primates, elephants, and bats possess a pair of breast nipples for suckling their young, a feature that led Linnaeus to place bats near humans in his classification. But the pointed ears of bats, their sharp teeth, leaf noses, wart-like protuberances on their chins, and their leathery wings supported by the same bones that are in the arms and hands of humans, have long led the superstitious to imagine that bats are merely a grotesque parody of the human form.

The persistent association of bats with the supernatural and the idea that they inhabit a world related to, but beyond, our existence undoubtedly also derives from the habits of bats. Bats are active at night while people sleep, and many bats spend their days in caves, abandoned buildings, church steeples, and tombs.

The layperson or novice bat biologist might even imagine that there are examples where scientists have fallen victim to the association of bats with the netherworld. The species name of the common North American little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), might connote an association with Lucifer, the fallen Archangel. That was not, however, the intent of "lucifugus," which has the less forbidding translation of "light fleeing." (It is interesting to note that "lucifer" means "light bringing," and that prior to his fall from grace, Lucifer was the most beautiful of the Archangels.) Then there is the Neotropical fruit bat, Vampyrops helleri. Despite appearances, this bat was not named for the abode of the damned, but in tribute to Florian Heller, a biologist.

One common folk belief is that bats are human souls that have left the body. Contemporary Finnish folklore relates that during sleep, the soul leaves the body and may appear as a bat. Such lore also explains the disappearance of bats during the day, since when humans awake, their souls return home to their bodies. In his 1939 book Bats, G.M. Allen reports testimony on the validity of this belief from an aged Finn who related an example where, upon awakening, a man could remember the places he had visited as a bat the night before.

When 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. Both African-Americans and those of European descent from around the United States frequently maintain that bats are "ghosts" or "haunts." Sicilian peasants relate that the souls of persons who meet a violent death must spend a period of time, determined by God, as either a bat, lizard, or other reptile. In the Auguries of Innocence, William Blake saw the bat as the damned soul of the infidel:

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.

An even earlier example of Western tradition associating bats with souls of the damned is provided by Homer when Hermes conducts squeaking, bat-like souls to Hades (The Odyssey, XXIV, 5-10). In Greek mythology, the bat was said to be sacred to Proserpina, the wife of Pluto, ruler of the underworld.

There is also long tradition associating bats directly with the devil and evil spirits [BATS, Winter 1992]. In medieval Europe, artists typically represented devils with bat-like wings and pointed ears. Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante's Inferno followed the tradition of portraying good spirits with the wings of birds and evil spirits with the wings of bats. 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.

The association of bats with the devil continues today in many cultures. An African-American folk legend relates that the devil may appear as a bat. In Ohio in 1962, a student nurse of eastern European extraction related that "bats are the devil in bat form." A contemporary Mexican belief is that bats are diablos (devils) from hell. Such lore is encountered today in the common expression "like a bat out of hell" (which even made it into contemporary music as a title by rock musician Meatloaf).

If not the devil itself, the bat is frequently seen as helping the devil in its work. This is evidenced by the frequent associations of bats with witchcraft [BATS, Fall 1992]. A Russian legend repeated by G.M. Allen relates that Satan wished to create a man, and after fashioning a human form from mud, could not give it life. Satan then enlisted the aid of the bat to fly to heaven and steal God's sacred "towel," which would give Satan's creation a divine nature. The bat complied, and according to the legend this is why God owns man's soul and Satan his body. God punished the bat for helping Satan by taking away its wings (presumably its feathers), making its tail naked, and fashioning its feet like those of Satan.

There is also persistent folklore repeated in many parts of the United States in which the bat is said to be the "child" or a creation of the devil. German devil myths are discussed by L. Rohrich in a 1970 article in the Journal of the Folklore Institute (VII, 21-35). Rohrich relates tales about how the devil attempts to imitate the creations of God, but never quite gets it right. God creates a bird; the devil attempts to imitate God's creation, but ends up with a bat. God makes man; the devil, apes, and so on.

In a complete reversal of this creation myth, a Mohammedan legend relates that the bat was created by Christ. 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. Because mountains obscured the western sky, Jesus could not tell when the sun sank below the horizon. With God's permission, Jesus fashioned the winged likeness of a bat from clay and breathed life into it. The bat quickly flew to a nearby cave, but each evening it emerged at sunset, which told Jesus that it was time to take food.

Although folklore persists, most people know that bats are not disembodied spirits or the devil's friends, confidants, or alter egos. Increasingly, people are coming to know that bats are one of the most diverse, interesting, and ecologically important groups of mammals. The myriad of physical, ecological, and behavioral features that make bats so prominent in folklore are the products of natural selection, demonstrating once again that the natural often surpasses the supernatural.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v11n2m.jpg
In Dante's Inferno, Gustave Doré's well-known illustrations followed the tradition of portraying good spirits with the wings of birds and evil spirits with the wings of bats.

[GhostBat]

BATS AND VAMPIRES

Although many people assume that the association of bats and vampires is an ancient tradition, history indicates that it is a relatively recent invention . . .

BATS AND FOLKLORE—
part five in a series about bats in North American and European folklore

by Gary F. McCracken

A prominent part of modern folklore about bats imagines them as the transformed bodies or souls of dead people who are not at peace and who prowl the night sucking the blood of human victims: Vampires! This folklore undoubtedly is responsible for much of the fear and dread that people have of bats, and those of us who engage in public education programs about bats invariably expect questions about vampires—the real bats, or otherwise.

Folklore linking bats and vampires is particularly intriguing because there are, in reality, three species of bats that subsist on the blood of birds and mammals. All three are restricted exclusively to New World tropical regions where their main prey are domestic livestock, primarily cattle, and fowl [BATS, Spring 1991, "Vampires: The Real Story"].

In the Neotropics, there are a variety of folktales about bats thirsty for blood. Folklore from the Arawak Indians of Guyana tell of bats sucking the blood of both men and their fowl. Guyanese Indians also maintain that oil from the seeds of a liana (called "bat's bane" by Creoles) will cause attacking bats to die. Legends of large bats that kill and, in some cases, eat people occur in folklore throughout much of South America, as well as from the Mayas of Mesoamerica. Effigies on pre-Columbian ceremonial knives and other artifacts also show that bats were closely associated with ritual sacrifices, usually through decapitation, in which human blood was offered to appease and nourish the gods [BATS, Spring 1991, "Bats and South American Folklore"]. The real vampire bats of the New World tropics may have inspired these myths and the pre-Columbian association of bats with blood sacrifice. However, the bat-vampire lore that is so prominent in modern books, pulp magazines, and movies* is not based on myths from South and Central America.Dracula, Barnabas, Vampirella, and the others were born in vampire traditions from Europe.

The existence of blood-eating bats in the New World tropics was first made known to Europeans by the explorer F. De Oviedo y Valdes with the publication of his Sumario de la natural historio de las Indias in 1526. Shortly afterward, in 1565, M.G. Benzoni (La historio del mundo nuevo) provided a graphic description of his toes being bitten by bats while he was asleep in what is present-day Costa Rica (vampire bats were not formally described in the scientific literature until 1810).

The earliest known Old World myths about vampires date from ancient Babylonia, millennia before the earliest European reports of blood-eating bats. Ancient myths about vampires also come from Assyria, Greece, China, and India. Montague Summers (The Vampire in Europe) and Anthony Masters (The Natural History of the Vampire), both scholars of vampire lore, note that almost no culture is free from superstitions of blood-sucking ghosts. A rich vampire folklore among various gypsy groups of eastern Europe apparently originated from India where Bhuta, Brahmaparusha, and Rakshara roamed at night, killing and sucking the blood of humans.

Vampires in folklore traditions from India and from the gypsies also had the ability to transform into various animals, including chickens, horses, dogs, cats, snakes, fleas, and even into fruits (pumpkins and watermelons) and household tools. However, while folklore throughout the world has long associated bats with the souls of the dead and with demons [BATS, Summer 1993, "Bats and the Netherworld"], I have found no Old World mythology where vampires take the form of a bat. Prior, that is, to the publication of Bram Stokers' novel, Dracula, in 1897.

The word "vampir" meaning "blood drunkenness" is of Slavic origin, and during the late 17th and 18th centuries, vampirism was a near obsession in much of eastern Europe. Pamphlets and newspapers dealt extensively with incidents of vampirism. Romantic authors of this period also published vampire stories (Ossenfelder's Der Vampir, 1748; Burger's Lenore, 1773; Goethe's The Bride of Corinth, 1797). Between 1642 and 1772, sovereigns sent delegations to investigate at least nine "vampire epidemics" in Istria, East Prussia, Hungary, Serbia, Silesia, Russia, and Wallachia.

This was a time of political unrest among ethnic groups. Neighbor distrusted neighbor, and they attributed the vilest activities to one another. It was also a time of mysterious, devastating epidemic diseases, notably black plague and smallpox, that were often believed to be of supernatural origin. This all created a climate for, and fueled, the popular vampire hysteria, but bats were not seen as vampires.

Although Scotland had the Baobham, which took the form of beautiful girls that drained victims of their blood, England was relatively free of vampire mythology. Stories from the Continent and the translation of German novels, however, soon inspired English authors and the first English vampire novel, Varney the Vampire, was published in the 1840s. While the cover of an early Varney edition shows bats overhead, Varney did not transform into one. That feat was left to the most famous of all vampires, Dracula.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker not only coupled bats with vampires, but also coupled eastern European vampire mythology with a real person, Vlad Tepes ("Vlad the Impaler"), a Wallachian (Romanian) prince who lived from 1430 or '31 to 1476. Vlad Tepes was the son of Vlad Dracul. The younger Vlad called himself Dracula ("Son of Dracul"). During a period of bloodthirsty princes, Vlad Tepes was famously bloodthirsty, reputedly ordering the deaths of 100,000 people, many his own subjects. There is no evidence that Vlad drank the blood of his victims, but he was an expert at torture. During his life, Vlad Tepes had allegiances at various times with both Christians and the Moslems, with the result that he was distrusted by all sides. With the invention of the printing press, handbills and pamphlets recounting, and perhaps exaggerating, his misdeeds were widely circulated by the German press. Vlad Tepes became infamous throughout Europe—one of the first people whose image was made by the media. He came to the attention of Bram Stoker.

The existence of vampire bats was well known in Europe by the 1890s, but whether Bram Stoker knew of them or not is uncertain. Stoker may simply have borrowed from and given a new twist to the folktales that associate bats with death. We can be certain of two things: that the vampire bats of the New World never lived in Vlad Tepes' castle and that vampire bats were not the source of Old World vampire myths.

[GhostBat]

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v11n3m.jpg
The cover to Varney the Vampire, published in the 1840s, clearly shows bats, but it was no more than an artist's conception of the lore associating bats with the netherworld. No mythology apparently exists where vampires actually took the form of a bat until Dracula was published.

[GhostBat]

Folklore and the Origin of Bats

Throughout the world, folklore is rich with tales speculating on how creatures as mysterious as bats came to be...

BATS IN FOLKLORE
part six, the conclusion to a series on bats in North American and European folklore

by Gary F. McCracken

People often perceive bats as anomalous or ambiguous creatures, different from more "normal" animals. They have fur and teeth and nurse their young like other mammals, but they don't walk on four legs. They have wings and fly like birds (actually, in many ways better than birds). They live in unusual places. Most often, they are seen only at night. What are they? In the terminology of folklorists, bats are "liminal"; they don't fit into the normal order of things and are somehow apart or in-between. This apparent ambiguity in the nature of bats is seen in many folktales about how they came to be in the first place and how they acquired their various features.

The origin of bats is prominent in the folklore of several North American Indian tribes. 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. These small creatures wished to participate in a ball game in which the "animals" challenged the birds. 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. But the larger animals made fun of how small the creatures were and drove them away. They then appealed to the eagle, the captain of the bird team. 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. Because not enough leather remained to fashion another bat, the birds then stretched the skin between the fore and hind limbs of the other creature, making the first flying squirrel. With the help of the bat and the flying squirrel, the birds won the ball game, with the agile bat scoring the winning goal.

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. The animals then give teeth to the bat to make it more animal-like. Using its new teeth to hold the ball, the bat helps the animals to win the game.

Apaches tell a different tale about bats. 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. Repeatedly, the bat's feathers were stolen by small birds, and repeatedly the bat returned to Jonayaiyin to ask for more. 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."

Traditional Navajo folklore places the origin of bats in the earliest world, when all was dark: twelve insects and the bat revolved in darkness. The bat serves as mentor of the night and is identified with Talking God, one of the foremost deities.

Folklore from Fiji, in the South Pacific, tells us that flying foxes originated when a rat stole the wings of a heron, while another Fijian tale relates that it was the rat that first had wings while flying foxes walked on four legs. The flying fox obtained his wings when he borrowed them from the rat and refused to return them. 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. Samoan folklore tells of a similar origin for bats.

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.) Christianity and the origin of bats are also intertwined in the Mohammedan legend that Christ created a bat while keeping the fast of Ramadan. During this time eating food between sunrise and sunset is forbidden. Because mountains obscured the western sky, Jesus could not tell when the sun set. With God's permission, He fashioned the winged likeness of a bat from clay and breathed life into it. 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.)

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. These birds went to temples and prayed to be turned into humans. Their prayers were answered, but only in part; they were given teeth, hair, and human faces, but otherwise remained bird-like. 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.

In several other folktales, bats are banished into the night either as a result of some treachery or, as in the case of the Kanarese, because of embarrassment resulting from ill-advised behavior. In two fables from Aesop (born ca. 620 B.C.), the ambiguous nature of bats is transformed into duplicity in their character. One of these fables also exists, with slight variation, among tribes in southern Nigeria, among Australian aboriginals, and ancient Romans. The basic scenario is that, in a battle between the beasts and birds, the bat repeatedly changes allegiance so as to be on the side that appears to be winning. When a truce is declared, the bat is rejected by both sides because of this deceitful behavior.

In another tale from Aesop, a bat borrows money for a business venture that fails. The bat must then hide during the day to avoid creditors. 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. The Greek philosopher Chaerephon was called "the bat," because he, like the animal, did not appear by day but instead hid and philosophized.

American Indian legends and the fables of Aesop were more than just stories recited around the campfire or bathhouse: they were teaching devices. For American Indians they provided information on the natural world and the behavior and habits of animals. Liminality aside, many of these myths have obvious roots in the real features of bats. Their well-known agility in flight would make a bat formidable in a ball game against a bear and turtle. The lack of feathers, presence of teeth, and activity at night are rooted in basic biology and natural history.

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. 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). The prominent leaf nose on the snout of this bat strongly suggests an arrowhead.

In Myths of the Cherokee (1900), James Mooney points out that a general theme in American Indian folklore is that, in the beginning, there were no essential differences between humans and animals. 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. 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.

American Indian legends and Aesop both gave animals human characteristics, including our failings, to teach moral precepts and the consequences of inappropriate behavior. While Aesop's fables involving bats may have envisioned them as duplicitous and dishonest, other folklore has ascribed a lot worse to bats, as we have seen in this series of articles. The positive side is that by 600 BC., and probably before, humans were learning important things from bats. We still are.

[GhostBat]

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v11n4i.jpg
Above: In Aesop's fable of a battle between birds and beasts, the bat was seen as duplicitous, unable to decide which side it was on. This folk theme reflects the common confusion over where bats belong in the scheme of nature.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v11n4j.jpg
Bats not only fly like birds, they also have teeth like mammals. This combination made them special and formidable game players in many folk tales where the agile bat won the day.

http://www.batcon.org/batsmag/images/v11n4k.jpg
Many legends have their roots in the actual physical features of bats. A Pomo Indian myth tells of a bat that could swallow obsidian and then spit out perfect arrowheads, perhaps a reference to the prominent noseleaf of the California leaf-nosed bat (Macrotus californicus) found in their area.

[GhostBat]

Why the Bat has Wings

Retold from a legend of the Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma

Long ago, the animals challenged the birds to a ball game. Bear was captain of the animals. On the way to the game he tossed great logs into the air to show his strength. Deer ran alongside to show off his speed.

Eagle was captain of the birds. Hawk and Falcon, both swift in flight, joined the team. But secretly, the birds were afraid the animals would win. The birds perched high in the trees, waiting for game time. Two furry things, not much larger than mice, scurried along a branch.

"Please, Eagle, let us play," they said.

"But you have four feet and fur. You belong with the animals," Eagle said.

"The animals would not have us," the furry things replied.

"They said we were not strong or fast."

"To be on our team, you must have wings," Eagle said. SO the birds took spare leather from a drum head and cut two wing shapes from it. They stretched the leather shapes with cane strips and fastened them to the forelegs of the first little animal. In this way came Tla'meha the bat. Eagle tossed the ball to him. He caught it in his wing and flew with it, dodging and circling. The birds knew he would do well on their team.

There was no more drum leather to make wings for the second animal.

"We'll have to stretch his skin," Eagle said. So the birds pulled at his fur with their beaks until the skin formed flaps between the little creature's front and hind legs. In this way came Tewa, the flying squirrel. He could carry the ball in his teeth as he glided from tree to tree.
The game began, Bat, skillful and agile, swooped close to the ground to catch the ball and carry it to the goal. He was the star player!. The animals wished they had him on their team.


Why the Bat Hangs Upside Down

Retold from a myth of the Lipan Apache Indians of Texas

Once, long ago, Coyote thought he would take a wife, but did not know whom to choose.

"Why not take the wife of Hawk Chief?" Bat said, for Hawk Chief was missing, and had not been seen for many days.

But Hawk Chief returned and became angry with Bat for giving such ill-considered advice. He picked Bat up and slung him with full force into a juniper bush. Bat hung upside down in the bush, caught by his long, pointy-toed moccasins. He twisted and he turned, but however much he struggled, he could not get free. And from that time on bats hang upside down - even when they sleep.


The Bat and the Weasels

Retold from a fable by Aesop, a legendary storyteller of Ancient Greece

Once, a bat slipped from his roost in a tree and fell to the ground. A hungry weasel beneath the tree. A good meal, he thought, as he snapped at the bat.

"Help me! Mercy! Save me!" the bat cried, knowing he was about to die.

"Why should I save you?" asked the weasel. "You are my enemy. In fact, you are my worst enemy among the birds."

"But I am not a bird," said the bat. "See my fur? See my teeth? I'm a sort of flying mouse."

"Then I suppose I'll let you go," the weasel said.

Later, the same bat slipped from his roost again. He was caught by a different weasel, who happened to be hunting beneath the tree.

"I shall eat you," said the weasel. "I fancy a tasty mouse for dinner."

"But I am not a mouse," said the bat. "Look at my wings."

"Then I suppose you are a bird. I will let you go," the second weasel said.

And so twice the bat went free.

Why the Bat has Short Legs

Retold from a myth of the Chiricahua Apache Indians of New Mexico.

Long ago, Killer-of-Enemies vowed to save his people from the terror of monster eagles that roamed the skies and carried off children. Killer-of-Enemies tricked one monster eagle into carrying him up to the eagle nest on the cliff, where he killed the monster eagle and its family. But Killer-of-Enemies did not know how to get down from the cliff. Just then, he saw an old woman approaching. It was Old Woman Bat.

"Grandmother, help me. Take me down," Killer-of-Enemies said. Old Woman Bat looked all around, but did not see him. Killer-of-Enemies called out again, and again, and again. Finally, Old Woman Bat saw him high in the eagle's nest. She came over to the cliff and began to climb.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, when she reached the top.

"Monster eagle carried me up here," he said. "Please take me down."

"Climb in my basket," Old Woman Bat said. Killer of Enemies looked at the burden basket on the old woman's back. Its carrying strap was made of spider's silk.

"That strap is too fine," he said. "It will break and I shall fall."

"Nonsense! I've carried a bighorn sheep in this basket," Old Woman Bat said. "Get in and close your eyes. If you look, we will fall."

Old Woman Bat clambered down the rock, singing a strange song. Her burden basket swayed wildly from side to side. Killer-of-Enemies thought the spider thread would surely break, so he opened his eyes to look.

As soon as Kill-of-Enemies opened his eyes. He and Old Woman Bat crashed down from the cliff. Old Woman Bat landed first and broke her legs. Killer-of-Enemies fell on top of her and was safe. Old Woman Bat's broken legs soon mended but from that day on her legs were short.

Why the Bat Flies at Night

Retold from a legend of the Kono people of Sierra Leone, Africa

Long ago, when first the world was made, it never became dark or cold. All day the sun shone brightly, giving creatures warmth and light. All night the full moon gleamed, making twilight almost as light as day. Until...

One day, Bat accepted a mission to carry a mysterious basket to the moon. In the basket was darkness, but Bat did not know that.

Bat took off to fly to the moon with the basket on his back.
Bother this basket," he said after a while. "Its too heavy and I'm tired and hungry." So Bat put the basket down and went to find some food and take a rest.
Along came some other animals. They saw the basket abandoned along the way.

"That is a large basket," said one of them. "I wonder if it is full of good things to eat?"

"Lets open it and see," said another.

Just as the animals were peeking under the basket lid, Bat came back. But he was too late. Darkness had escaped.
Ever since that time, Bat rests by day so he is ready to fly at twilight. At night, you will see him rushing about everywhere. He is trying to catch all the pieces of dark to put back in the basket, so he can take it to the moon. His mission now is to capture every tatter of darkness.

[GhostBat]

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/blind.jpg
Blind as a bat?
Although their eyes are adapted to darkness,
all bats can see, some as well as humans.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/arrow.jpg
The Pomo Indians of California
believed that bats could eat volcanic rock
and then spew forth arrowheads.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/vamp.jpg
The legend of Dracula, the human vampire,
arose long before real blood-drinking bats
were discovered in South America.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/hair.jpg
Bats do not become entangled in women's hair,
and yet this belief still persists in the western
world.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/witches.jpg
"Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog."
Recipe for a witches' brew, from Macbeth
by William Shakespeare.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/devil.jpg
The sinister association of bats
with the underworld has been a recurrent
theme in European folklore.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/broom.jpg
Because witches and bats both fly at night,
they are natural partners in European folklore.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/monk.jpg
Medieval folklore suggests the disturbing double nature of bats: They "fly like a bird" but "bite like a beast."

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/luck.jpg
In China, bats are believed to bring good luck.
Thus a bat entering a Chinese house
would be welcome.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/death.jpg
In Europe a bat entering the house
would be seen as an evil omen.

http://www.torstar.com/rom/batcave/myths/mouse.jpg
Mexican farmers refer to bats
as "old mice" (ratones viejos),
in the belief that rats and mice develop
wings when they grow old.

[GhostBat]

BAT

http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/legend01/battomb.gif

DUALITY, RESTLESS SOULS, HAPPINESS & DEMONS

The ancients saw in the bat an ambiguous rodent-like creature which was not quite bird and not quite mammal. Its dual nature likened the bat to the winged dragon and the hermaphrodite. Its mouse-like appearance gave it various nicknames such as flittermouse, leather wing, night puck, and bald mouse. In addition to that, it had the suspicious habit of roosting upside down and one of its relatives, the vampire bat, enjoyed sucking the blood of its victims.

In Christian symbolism, naked or unfeathered wings such as those of the bat are the mark of accursed creatures such as vampires, dragons, incubi, demons, Satan, basilisks, and Death. Because of this, the bat has been associated with black magic, witchcraft, idolatry, chaos, and fear. Wings of skin are representations of the perversion of the intellectual faculties. Those who lift their minds in the pursuit of godly knowledge fly on the wings of feathered birds; but those who study the black arts do not seek the heights, but rather hover about the earth upon the webbed wings of the bat.

The hybrid nature of the bat also makes it a symbol of those who become stuck on their spiritual journey. These unfortunates are unable to soar with the wings of an eagle and yet they no longer belong to the sinful world represented by their mammalian nature. They are like children who have "come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth." [2 Ki 19:3]

On the other hand, the bat's dual nature makes it a symbol of interbreeding and unity amongst creatures. The differences of the species are harmonized into a new being which is both bird and beast. The bat's tendency to roost in clusters with its fellows adds to the image of a closely knit and sharing community.

Its nocturnal habits make the bat an incarnation of the powers of darkness and of the Prince of Darkness, who is believed to flee from the powers of light. Demons, in the form of bats, are sometimes pictured exiting through the mouths of the possessed. Its hybrid form and its tendency to hide in dark and lonely places cause the bat to be associated with envy, atheism, hypocrisy, impurity, confusion, sexuality, and duplicity. Invidia, envy personified, is portrayed with bat's wings since she could not bear it if her true feelings and the malicious deeds they inspire her to commit were brought to light. The bat is an abomination to the Israelites and a terror to many. [Lev 11:19; Deu 14:18] Yet, in several countries, superstitious people nail bats to their doors in order to ward off locusts, demons, witchcraft, and black magic.

Like many birds, the bat is an incarnation of the souls of the dead. Because it haunts caves and ruins, it is generally considered to be an image of the restless or unhappy soul, the Underworld, and melancholy. Among the Maya it is thought to be the destroyer of life and ruler of fire since it is the eater of light. To reach the Land of Death, Mayans must travel through the House of the Bat. The Tupinamba believe that a bat will swallow the sun at the end of the world. In Homer's Odessey the flight and cries of those in the Underworld are similar to those of bats. Because bats live in caves which represent tunnels to the afterlife, some Native Americans use them as symbols of rebirth. Bats are also associated with longevity. In Australia, it is thought that each bat contains the life force of a human; to kill a bat is to cause the death of the one whose life force it contains.

In some countries the bat is thought to be very intelligent. The Chinese say this animal hangs upside down because of its unusually heavy brains. In Africa, it is considered a symbol of intelligence and clear-sightedness because it seems to be able to see well in the dark. Its large ears imply that it has excellent hearing. In other countries the bat's swooping flight make it a symbol of ignorance, drunkenness and restlessness. At one time "bat" was a common term for people out for a night of drunken revelry. Many consider the bat blind, not only in the light, but also to reality. Hence the idioms "bats in the belfry"; "batty"; "old bat"; and "blind as a bat." Because it hands upside down in caves full of its own dung, the bat is a symbol of moral depravity.

Although considered a bad omen in most countries Macedonia, China, and Poland consider the bat a fortunate sign. In China, the word "fu" means both "bat" and "luck." Red bats are most lucky since the color red is used to ward off evil spirits. Five bats, especially when produced by a magician, represent the five happinesses (wu fu) of Chinese life. These include: health, wealth, long life, peace or love of virtue, and a happy death. Bat's bones were worn in Macedonia as good luck charms while in Egypt the bat's head was cherished as a protective amulet. In many areas bats are associated with longevity since their caves lead to the homes of the Immortals and other heavenly places. The bat was also a symbol of vigilance. Its eyes were used in potions to prevent drowsiness and promote good eyesight. Other parts of the bat were used to ensure longevity, cure snakebite, and prevent plagues of ants and locusts.

In Samoa the war god, Sepi Malosi, appears in the form of a bat to lead warriors into battle if he believes they will be successful. If he thinks his tribe will lose the campaign, he flies towards them as if warning them to turn back. Ovid relates that Minyas' daughters were turned into bats for ignoring the wine god Dionysus. [Met. 4.389f] While most legends say the bat flies at night to avoid the light, Aesop says he does so to avoid his creditors. The Plains and Southwestern tribes of North America consider the bat a trickster who flies at night in search of his wives who are terrified by his ugly appearance and the discovery that instead of bringing them food from the hunt, he had been feeding them on his own flesh. The bat is a companion of Diana (a.k.a. Artemis), who although a virgin was the protector of children and mothers. Since it is the only animal which both nurses its young and flies, the bat is symbolic of motherhood. In both Africa and America it is associated with rain. Isaiah says that in the Day of the Lord men, running to hide in the caves of the earth, will throw their idols to the bats.

[i]All scripture quotes are from the NKJV Bible unless otherwise indicated.

[GhostBat]

A Taino legend

The Bat

When time was yet in the cradle, there was no uglier creature in the world than the bat.

The bat went up to heaven to look for God. He didn't say,

"I'm bored with being hideous. Give me colored feathers." No. He said, "Please give me feathers, I'm dying of cold."

But God had not a single feather left over.

"Each bird will give you a feather," he decided.

Thus the bat got the white feather of the dove and the green one of the parrot, the iridescent one of the hummingbird, the pink one of the flamingo, the red of the cardinal's tuft and the blue of the kingfisher's back, the clayey one of the eagle's wing, and the sun feather that burns in the breast of the toucan.

The bat, luxuriant with colors and softness, moved between earth and clouds. Wherever he went, the air became pleasant and the birds dumb with admiration. According to the Zapotec peoples, the rainbow was born of the echo of his flight.

Vanity puffed out his chest. He acquired a disdainful look and made insulting remarks.

The birds called a meeting. Together they flew up to God.

"The bat makes fun of us," they complained. "And what's more, we feel cold for lack of the feathers he took."

Next day, when the bat shook his feathers in full flight, he suddenly became naked. A rain of feathers fell to earth.
He is still searching for them. Blind and ugly, enemy of the light, he lives hidden in caves. He goes out in pursuit of the lost feathers after night has fallen and flies very fast, never stopping because it shames him to be seen.

[GhostBat]

Taino Symbols of the Dead

The Bat

The spirits of the dead, the op’a, were thought to come out at night and feed themselves on guayaba (guava fruit). As Stevens-Arroyo points out, nocturnal consumption of guayaba is primarily attributed to tropical bats, which spend their days hidden in caves. This similarity, along with the frequency of bat motifs in Taino art, has led scholars to investigate possible associations between death and the symbol of the bat in Taino religious culture. As Garcia Arevalo has observed.

In many examples of Taino art, skull-like images alluding to death dramatically fuse with images of bats (Chiropterae) and owls (Strigidae), animals of nocturnal habits and sinister appearance that are associated with the opias ...

Garcia Arevalo has also noted that some Taino bat figures feature a central hole that he interprets as symbolic of the lack of navels on the op’a. All of this evidence has led Stevens-Arroyo to suggest that the Taino may have "believed the form opia assumed during the day was that of sleeping bats." Both of these scholars identify bats and owls as symbols of the zemi Maquetaurie Guayaba and of the "realm of the dead."

However, this conclusion is not unanimous among scholars of Taino culture. Petitjean Roget believes that bats in Taino art symbolize men and dryness in opposition to frog motifs that symbolize women and wetness. While it is true that this hypothesis matches the tropical seasons, there is little archaeological, mythological, or historical evidence to support Roget's theory that these motifs were paired in such tandems. Thus it appears that the archeological evidence better supports the interpretation shared by Garcia Arevalo and Stevens-Arroyo.

Finally, it is important to consider that bats are flying mammals. If the Taino did associate the bat with death, they chose a curious animal that both mimics humans in early life (i.e. bats nurse one offspring at a time) and demonstrates the distinctly non-human ability to rise up in flight. The latter is consistent with Taino notions of the op’a as beings that are not bound or tied to this life in the same way as the living goeiza.

The Owl

As already noted, Garcia Arevalo also believes that the owl was equally a symbol of death for the Taino. He bases this on the observation that "owl eyes outlined on many archaeological objects resemble the empty eye sockets on human skulls." Arrom finds circumstantial support for this connection in Caribbean and South American folk tales still in circulation that perpetuate the belief that the call of an owl heralds the end of a human life. However, the latter is not that easily traced to Taino or Amerindian religious culture because the same belief about owls is also found in European folklore. Thus it is possible that the folk tales about owls and death that still circulate around Latin America came from the European colonizers and not the Native Americans.

Arrom also connects owls to death in Taino mythology by noting similarities between geometric designs found on stylized owl motifs and a skull-like head that he has identified as the lord of the dead, Maquetaurie Guayaba. It is true that all of these figures have some form of geometric designs that might be related but the degree of correspondence on these is very difficult to judge from the photos available. The evidence for the connection between owls and death in Taino religious culture is suggestive but inconclusive.

[Bone and Soul]

I remember seeing something on the discovery channel about bats and I found out something interesting- what could be the first mythology involving bats! This goes back to the last Ice age, back when mammoths were still alive and well. Neanderthals and sometimes Cro-magnons often in habited caves and from evidence they found out many of these caves were inhabitted by bats. The Cavemen painted/ drew beautiful pictures of the animals they encountered and they were always real animals, but there were never any pictures of bats. In their stead researchers have discovered haunting pictures of winged devils and fiends. Is it possible that the Cavemen saw them as winged demons? Did they create cults of the bats, possibly leading to the first religious practices? :confused: