Insects have appeared in mythology around the world from ancient times. Among the insect groups featuring in myths are thebee,fly,butterfly,cicada,dragonfly,praying mantis andscarab beetle.
Insect myths may present the origins of a people, or of their skills such as finding honey. Other myths concern the nature of the gods or their actions, and how they may be appeased. A variety of myths tell of transformations, such as between the soul of a living or dead person and a butterfly in Japan. Finally, insects appear as symbols of human qualities such as swiftness, or as portents of forthcoming trouble; accordingly, they may appear asamulets to ward off evil.
The Kalahari Desert'sSan people tell of a bee that carried a mantis across a river. The exhausted bee left the mantis on a floating flower but planted a seed in the mantis's body before it died. The seed grew to become the first human.[1]
InEgyptian mythology, bees grew from the tears of the sun god Ra when they landed on the desert sand. There Egyptian gods that associate with insects likeSelketKhepri andNeith[2] The bowstring on Hindu love godKamadeva's bow is made of honeybees.[3]
TheBaganda people ofUganda hold the legend ofKintu, the first man on earth. Save for his cow, Kintu lived alone. One day he asked permission fromGgulu, who lived in heaven, to marry his daughter Nambi. Ggulu set Kintu on a trial of five tests to pass before he would agree. For his final test Kintu was told to pick Ggulu's own cow from a stretch of cattle.Nambi aided Kintu in the final test by transforming herself into a bee, whispering into his ear to choose the one whose horn she landed upon.[4][5][6]
InGreek Mythology,Aristaeus was the god ofbee-keeping. After inadvertently causing the death ofEurydice, who stepped upon a snake while fleeing him, hernymph sisters punished him by killing every one of his bees. Witnessing the empty hives where his bees had dwelt, Aristaeus wept and consultedProteus who then proceeded to advise Aristaeus to give honor in memory of Eurydice by sacrificing four bulls and four cows. Upon doing so, he let them rot and from their corpses rose bees to fill his empty hives.[4][7]
In theHomeric Hymn to Aphrodite, the goddessAphrodite retells the legend of howEos, the goddess of the dawn, requestedZeus to let her loverTithonus live forever as animmortal.[8] Zeus granted her request, but, because Eos forgot to ask him to also make Tithonus ageless, Tithonus never died, but he did grow old.[8] Eventually, he became so tiny and shriveled that he turned into the firstcicada.[8]
AmongAboriginal Australians, a tale tells how giant men found bee honeybags, and taught the Aboriginal peoples how to find them.[9]
In an ancientSumerian poem, a fly helps the goddessInanna when her husbandDumuzid is being chased bygalla demons.[10] Flies also appear onOld Babylonian seals as symbols ofNergal, the god of death[10] and fly-shapedlapis lazuli beads were often worn by many different cultures in ancientMesopotamia, along with other kinds of fly-jewellery.[10] TheAkkadianEpic of Gilgamesh contains allusions todragonflies, signifying the impossibility of immortality.[11][12]
TheHomeric Hymn to Apollo acknowledges that Apollo's gift of prophecy first came to him from three bee maidens, usually but doubtfully identified with theThriae, atrinity of pre-Hellenic Aegean bee goddesses.[13] A series of identical embossed gold plaques were recovered at Camiros inRhodes;[14] they date from the archaic period of Greek art in the seventh century, but the winged bee goddesses they depict must be far older.[15]
InPrometheus Bound, attributed to the Athenian tragic playwrightAeschylus, agadfly sent byZeus's wifeHera pursues and torments his mistressIo, who has been transformed into a cow and is watched constantly by the hundred eyes of the herdsmanArgus.Shakespeare alludes to the myth:[16][17] "Io: Ah! Hah! Again the prick, the stab of gadfly-sting! O earth, earth, hide, the hollow shape—Argus—that evil thing—the hundred-eyed."[17]
InHittite mythology, the god of agriculture,Telipinu, went on a rampage and refused to allow anything to grow and animals would not produce offspring. The gods went in search of Telipinu only to fail. Then the goddessHannahannah sent forth a bee to bring him back. The bee finds Telipinu, stings him and smears wax upon him. The god grew even angrier, until the goddessKamrusepa (or a mortal priest according to some references) used a ritual to send his anger to theUnderworld.
InHindu mythology,Parvati was summoned by the Gods to kill the demonArunasura in the form ofBhramari Devi, who took over the heavens and the three worlds. She stings him to death with the help of innumerable black bees emerging from her body, and the Gods regain control.[18]
In ancient Egyptian religion, the sun godRa is seen to roll across the sky each day, transforming bodies and souls. Beetles of the familyScarabaeidae (dung beetle) roll dung into a ball as food and as a brood chamber in which to lay eggs; this way, the larvae hatch and are immediately surrounded by food. For these reasons the scarab was seen as a symbol of this heavenly cycle and of the idea of rebirth or regeneration. The Egyptian godKhepri, Ra as the rising sun, was oftendepicted as a scarab beetle or as a scarab beetle-headed man. The ancient Egyptians believed that Khepri renewed the sun every day before rolling it above the horizon, then carried it through the other world after sunset, only to renew it, again, the next day.[19]
Themantis was revered in southern AfricanKhoi andSan traditions where man and nature were intertwined.[20] Several ancient civilizations considered the insect to have supernatural powers; for the Greeks, it had the ability to show lost travelers the way home; in theAncient EgyptianBook of the Dead the "bird-fly" is a minor god that leads the souls of the dead to the underworld; in a list of 9th-century BCNineveh grasshoppers (buru), the mantis is named necromancer (buru-enmeli) andsoothsayer (buru-enmeli-ashaga).[21][22]
According toLafcadio Hearn, a butterfly was seen in Japan as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead. If a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, it is said in Japan that the person whom you most love is coming to see you. Large numbers of butterflies are viewed as badomens. WhenTaira no Masakado was secretly preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared inKyoto so vast a swarm of butterflies that the people were frightened – thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil.[23]
Diderot'sEncyclopédie similarly cites butterflies as a symbol for the soul. A Roman sculpture depicts a butterfly exiting the mouth of a dead man, representing the Roman belief that the soul leaves through the mouth.[24] Indeed, the ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means "soul" or "mind".[25] According to Mircea Eliade, some of theNagas ofManipur claim ancestry from a butterfly.[26] In some cultures, butterflies symboliserebirth.[27] In the English county ofDevon, people once hurried to kill the first butterfly of the year, to avoid a year of bad luck.[28] In the Philippines, a lingering black butterfly or moth in the house is taken to mean a death in the family.[29]
AnAncient Greek myth tells of thecithara player Eunomos ("Mr Goodtune"). During a competition, the highest string on his five-string cithara broke. At that moment, acicada landed on the musical instrument and sang in the place of the missing string: together, they won the competition.[30]
An Australian aboriginal tale tells how a man builds a shelter for his sick son; when he returns with food, his son has vanished, but up in a tree is a cocoon around a pupa.[9]
Insects have often been taken to represent qualities, for good or ill, and accordingly have been used as amulets to ward off evil, or as omens that predict forthcoming events. A blue-glazedfaience dragonflyamulet was found byFlinders Petrie at Lahun, from the LateMiddle Kingdom ofancient Egypt.[31] During theGreek Archaic Era, thegrasshopper was the symbol of thepolis ofAthens,[32] possibly because they were among the most common insects on the dry plains ofAttica.[32] Native Athenians wore golden grasshopper brooches to symbolize that they were of pure, Athenian lineage and did not have any foreign ancestors.[32] In later times, this custom became seen as a mark ofarchaism.[32]
For some Native American tribes, dragonflies represent swiftness and activity; for theNavajo, they symbolize pure water. They are a common motif inZuni pottery; stylized as a double-barred cross, they appear inHopi rock art and onPueblo necklaces.[33]Among the classicalnames of Japan areAkitsukuni (秋津国),Akitsushima (秋津島),Toyo-akitsushima (豊秋津島).Akitu orakidu are archaic or dialectal Japanese words for dragonfly, so one interpretation ofAkitsushima is "Dragonfly Island".[34] This is attributed to a legend in which Japan's mythical founder,Emperor Jinmu, was bitten by amosquito, which was then eaten by a dragonfly.[35][36]As a seasonal symbol in Japan, the dragonfly is associated with autumn,[37] and more generally dragonflies are symbols of courage, strength, and happiness, and they often appear in Japanese art and literature, especiallyhaiku.[33]
In Europe, dragonflies have often been seen as sinister. Some English vernacular names, such as "horse-stinger",[38] "devil's darning needle", and "ear cutter", link them with evil or injury.[39]Swedish folklore holds that the devil uses dragonflies to weigh people's souls.[33] TheNorwegian name for dragonflies isØyenstikker ("eye-poker"), and inPortugal, they are sometimes calledtira-olhos ("eyes-snatcher"). They are often associated with snakes, as in theWelsh namegwas-y-neidr, "adder's servant".[39] The Southern United States term "snake doctor" refers to a folk belief that dragonflies follow snakes around and stitch them back together if they are injured.[40]
His bow is of sugarcane, his bowstring a row of bees.
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