BUSTED! This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 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. Therefore, they would only come out at night, spending the daylight hours praying to be transformed back into birds. The Adjule is also called a Bush Dog. Strangely perhaps, given its poor press in Europe, carrying the dried and powdered heart of a bat in your front pocket was supposed to protect you from bleeding to death and later to stop bullets. A detailed list of all the African gods and goddesses wuld be endless, but these twelve from the Orisha Pantheon are a good placde to start. It is merely a passing reference, along with moles, to represent animals that live with things that have been discarded. Below, we will be taking a look at some of the most popular bat myths from around the globe. However, consumption was influenced by religious beliefs, food taboos, and some myths about bats. Bats play an important role in the ecosystem by eating large quantities of insects. The king ordered that Emiong be arrested and thrown into prison. In pre-Columbian Central and South America, the bat played an important role in the religions and social structures of the various cultures, most notably with the Moche people of Peru and the Maya of Guatemala. Bats are truly remarkable creatures, and fossil records indicate that they first appeared in the Eocene, some 5055 million years ago [1]. A legend tells that in Fiji, a giant white vampire bat acts as a messenger, and one finds bats as gods in both Tikopian and Tongan myths. This is because people thought that bats were associated with witches and black magic. They have fur and teeth and nurse their young like other mammals, but they dont walk on four legs. Bat Out of over 13,000 species, there are only three that feed on blood. Rompo is a legendary monster with the head of a rabbit, arms like a badger, legs like a bear, a skeletal middle and human ears. The diversity of South American bats is impressive as there are more bats, and more bat species, than in any other part of the world [51, 52]. Often seen in movies and even written in books, bats have always been portrayed as mysterious creatures throughout the years. These names can be misleading as often, megabats can be smaller while microbats can be bigger. 1. considers bat as harm meaning that it is forbidden as food. And because of this, many myths, superstitions, and folklore have been created about them. Bat in the Cultures of the World | Gotham in . Samoan people prize flying fox meat as a delicacy and as a gift to elders, but commercial hunting and export of the meat are culturally frowned. However, more recently, the habit has become much more common. Most students wanted to participate in bat conservation activities, including some students who disliked bats. Many mythological stories from different cultures have been passed down throughout the years about bats. Folklore of Bats: From Mythology to Witchcraft to Bat Myths and Folktales from Around the World. Experience the wonder of bats. The duality of bats is mentioned in one of Aesops Fables, which tells how a bat fell to the ground and was Betwixt and Between. Should the bat stay and eat the fruit in the house, bad luck will befall the owner [27]. Lately, education seems to have some effect, and more and more people have started to appreciate how useful and amazing bats truly are. He told her he would make some tasty soup like Emiong had taught him for when she returned. Since the fourteenth century, Chinese culture has regarded bats as lucky animals, and these blessing bat symbols have been prevalent in Chinese arts over the centuries [33]. 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. In this article, we will be taking a deep dive into the world of bats in mythology, folklore, and superstition. Microchiroptera Cheiromeles torquatus is eaten in Borneo and Tadarida sp. Shockingly, US news media recently reported shortages of Halloween decorationsplastic bats among them, doubtlessdue to the world supply crunch [63]. They called themselves Zotzil uinic (batmen), claiming that their ancestors discovered a stone bat, which they took as their god, and their chief town was named Zinacantlan (=place of the bats) by Nahuatl merchants from Mexico [53]. Among the rambling stories and folklore that make up the tales of the Australian Aboriginal Dream-time, there is one of a confrontation between Tjinimin the Bat God and the Great Rainbow-Snake. #FolkloreThursday 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, United Kingdom, WC1N 3AX. A world without bats would look very different than the one you know and not for the better. Belief systems of people have always been closely related to animals, which are symbolized in traditional narratives.