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Animals, Gods and Humans - Chapter 11

Animals as boundary markers In this chapter, we will look into how animals marked boundaries between different religions and how they were used internally to indicate distance from one’s neighbours, from those one lived closest to and shared belief with – those who to external observers looked pretty | 11 THE CRUCIFIED DONKEY-MAN THE LEONTOCEPHALUS AND THE CHALLENGE OF BEASTS Animals as boundary markers In this chapter we will look into how animals marked boundaries between different religions and how they were used internally to indicate distance from one s neighbours from those one lived closest to and shared belief with - those who to external observers looked pretty much the same as oneself. We will focus especially on the ways in which a new Christian identity was created in symbolic and mythological language by the Christians themselves and by their adversaries and how animals were used as symbolic elements in these identities. When Artemidorus in his Oneirocritica The Interpretation of Dreams comments on customs that are peculiar to some groups 1.8 he mentions six examples. Some groups are characterized by their tattoos the Mossynes have sexual intercourse with their wives in public just like dogs all men eat fish except for the Syrians who worship Astarte the Egyptians alone venerate animals Italians do not kill vultures and finally only Ephesians Athenian youths and the most noble of the inhabitants of Larissa in Thessaly take part in bullfights. Most striking in this list is the fact that five out of six customs in one way or another refer to animals. It is strange but also typical. In traditional societies animals usually describe what is peculiar and thus function as boundary markers. How people treat animals which animals they do not eat and in what ways they compare other people to animals and liken their way of living to bestial behaviour constitute such boundaries. Sometimes an animal functions as an identity symbol for a group or an area. The fish and the vultures in Artemidorus examples probably functioned in this way. Metaphorical animals were used to make and maintain cultural boundaries and to label categories of people and cultural systems. In his recent book Racism in Antiquity Benjamin Isaac connects the animal comparison with imperialism