Cult of Animals

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The Cult of Animals

Lord Raglan

Folklore, Vol. 46, No. 4. (Dec., 1935), pp. 331-342.

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T H E C UL T O F A NIM ALS

BY L O R D RA G L A N

A WIDELY, perhaps I might say a generally, held view of

the origin of animal cults is that they arose from the fact

that savage man does not distinguish clearly between

animals an d hum an beings.

Thus Mr. Hornblower (Man, 1932, 331) speaks of " t h ementality of hunters who lived, as it were, in community

with animals, looking on them in much the same way as

they did on their own kind, and who could easily imagine

themselves turned into animals or descended from them."

Professor Gilbert M urray , again , spea ks (Bacchae, p. 85)

of m en who " made their gods in the image of snakes and

bulls and fawns, because they hardly felt any difference ofkind between themselves and the animals."

O tto S pengler speaks (Decline of the West, p. 26) of " t h a t

similarity of h um an history to th a t of a n y oth er of th e

hig her life-groups which is th e refrain of endless beas t-

legends, sagas a nd fables."

O th er exam ples of th e belief will be found in Fraze r's

S p i ri t s of the Corn an d of the Wild.

I once told a lad y of m y acquaintanc e th a t in C entral

Africa the natives believe that certain people can take the

form of leopards, whereupon she replied, " Well, perhaps

they can. Th ey are nearer to natu re tha n we are."

T he idea is th e same. It is t h a t savages, people f a r off

in time or in space, are not really quite human ; t h a t we

ar e entitled to believe th em capable of acting and thin king

in a way in which no real hum an being could act o r think .

For no real human being, outside a lunatic asylum at any

rate, has ever been known to confuse animals with human

beings. There is no European who looks on a rabbit " in

331



The Cult of Animals

much the same way as he looks on his own kind " ; who

" feels hardly any difference " between himself and asnake ; or who regard s th e life-history of a fo x a s similar

to his own. And has there ever been a savage wh o though t

in th i s wa y ? The re is not , so far as I can learn, the s l ightest

evidence for it . T h e sava ge's rang e of ideas is narrow , an d

while this makes him credulous in matters outside his ken,

i t m akes him extremely m at ter-of-fact when dealing with

things w ith which he is familiar. No savage th a t I everm et or heard of confuses people w ith animals. H e m ay

believe t h a t people can tak e th e form of animals , bu t t h a t

is a very different m att er . People in anima l form ar e quite

different from real anim als. Between a m an an d a wolf

there is a great gulf fixed, and so there is between a were-

wolf a nd a real wolf. T h e form er always has trai t s which

m ar k i t ou t as a hu m an being in disguise. I t is, in fact , nota real an ima l a t a l l, bu t a m agic animal , th e product n ot of

confused thought but of superstition, a totally different

thing.

I t is th e same w ith chi ldren. T he y never confuse th e

fairy- tale animals , the talking bears and wolves, wi th the

real anima ls th e y see round the m . I t is quite fallacious,

therefore, to suppose that children believe instinctively or

natural ly t h a t an imals can ta lk .

I should like to see th e adject ives "inst inct ive," "in na te,"

a n d " natu ra l " exp unge d from t h e voc abu lary of science.

T he ir chief use, in anthro polog y the ir sole use, is to a ct as a

cloak fo r lazy and mu ddled thou ght. T he belief in talking

animals is neither natural nor inst inctive, but , l ike al l the

phe nom ena of h um an cu ltur e, is th e result of long an d

complex processes which we can only hope to understand

b y collecting, com paring an d classifying t he relevant facts.

Of course I cannot pretend to achieve this in the t ime

al lo t ted , bu t a t any ra t e sha ll t ry to m ake a s t a r t .

I sha ll discuss t h e religio-sociological asp ec t of an im als,



The Cult of Animals 333

that is to say their non-economic aspect ( i t is not easy to

find a suitable term) under eight heads : ( I ) Totemism ;

(2) Talking animals ; (3) T h e ceremonial we aring of horn s,

hides, etc. ; (4) Lycanthropy ; ( 5 ) Gods in animal form ;

(6) Animal sacrifice ; (7) Animals as omens ; (8) Animals

as symbols and emblems.

When we come to examine these heads, the f irs t thing

th a t we notice i s th a t in each case th e animals are a l te rn a-

t ives to hu m an beings. W here totemism exis ts , there wefind a belief that a given clan is akin not merely to a

species of animal, but to a corresponding clan in another

tr ibe. In tales of ta lkin g anim als, these animals ar e often

alterna t ives t o men. T hu s in the case of th e tr ickster ta les ,

we often find th em in one area told of a tri ck y m an ,

Odysseus or Abu Nuwas or whoever i t m a y be, while in th e

nex t a rea th e same ta les are to ld of a t r icky fox or a t r icky

hare . W hateve r pa r t he ma y p lay , however , th e t a lk ing

animal i s a lways very human.

T he wearing of horns, an im al skins, anim al masks, etc. ,

in ceremonial is parallel to the wearing of wigs and human

m asks, an d th e skins or scalps of hu m an enemies or victims.

Lycanthropy is the bel ief that cer tain people can take

th e form of a nim als, b u t i t exists alongside of th e belief t h a t

people can tak e th e form of othe r hu m an beings, even those

of opposite sex.

Gods who appear in animal or par t ly animal form have

usually if no t alw ays a pu rely hu m an fo rm as well.

An imal sacrifice is in m an y cases certa inly, a n d in all cases

probably, a su bs t i tu te fo r hu m an sacrif ice.

Auspices were ta ke n f r om th e entrai ls of hu m an as well

as anim al vict ims, an d as i t is considered lucky or unlucky

to see certain anim als on certain occasions, so it is considered

lucky to see cer tain types of men or women on cer tain

occasions.

England is represented by a l ion, a lso by Bri tannia or



334 The Cult of Animals

John Bull ; t h e U.S.A. b y a n eagle o r Uncle Sa m, an d so on.

On coins and stamps, in stained glass windows and coats-of-arm s, we find rulers, sa ints a n d symb olic figures alte r-

nat ing w ith kangaroos, e lephants, lambs, doves an d snakes.

But we have to not ice that in al l these cases there are

fur ther a l te rnat ives to human beings and animals , in the

sha pe of trees, plants, in an im ate objects an d simple signs.

T h e to te m m a y ta ke t h e form of a species of tree , of

clouds, or even of a n artefa ct. In fairy tales inan im ateobjects often ta lk, as t he wall ta lks in A Midsummer Night's

Dream. In ceremonies people disguise themselves as trees

as well as anim als ; Jack-in-the-Green is a familiar example.

Nor is i t only into animals that people are believed to be

transforme d. In Greek my thology people are transformed

into flowers an d stars. In P alestine a woman is chang ed into

a pillar of sa lt, an d in Indonesia people are often changed

int o rocks, while in th e st o ry of Pyg m alion we find th e

reverse process. W e find m an y deities takin g th e form of

trees and stones ; whether the t rees and s tones are ever

actually regarded as deit ies is questionable, but i t is also

questionab le wh ethe r animals are ever actually regarded as

deities. As well as hu m an a nd a nim al sacrifices we often

find sacrifices consisting of t h e cu tt in g of a cak e, o r th e

pou ring out of a cup of wine. Auspices m a y be ta k en by

throwing dice or bu rnin g sticks, and t h e finding of a p lan t,

white heather for example, may be considered as a good

omen. A nat ion m ay be symbolized b y a crown or a cap of

l iberty, by th e sun or moon , or even by a group of le t ters,

such as S P QR .T o get an y idea of th e scope an d me aning of anim al cults

and animal symbol ism we must then, in my opinion, t ry

to gain a view of t h e pheno men a as a whole. It is then seen

to be impossible to separate t h e cul t of animals from t h e

cult of human beings on the one hand and of inanimate

objects on th e oth er, an d impossible to different iate anim al



The Cult of Animals

symbolism from other forms of symbolism. The idea

suggests i tself that all the phenomena which I have men-tioned represent step s or stages in a ve ry long an d com plex

process of symbo lization. B y sym bolization I un der stan d

th e provision of ritually effective su bstitu tes. L et us ta k e

some of th e simpler phen om ena, num bers ( 2 ) , (3) and (4) ;

w hat do we get ? A m an pu ts on the skin of an an imal : a

man transforms himself into an animal : an animal talks.

This clearly suggests a ri te or ceremony in which a man

disguises himself as an animal, and is then supposed to be

that animal , which has come to take part in the r i te .

Th e r ites performed b y savages a t the present d ay are

pro ba bly degen erate form s of mo re complex rites, so we

can a t present merely guess a t the original form of th e

rites. Perh aps food animals had t o be present a t a rite in

order that they might be magical ly mult ipl ied ; perhaps

dangerous animals had to be present a t a r i te in order th a t

the y might be magically defeated. Vegetation and wa ter

m ight also have to be trea ted magically. It would not be

possible to have a l ive l ion present, but you might have a

lionskin, an d if the re were a ma n inside it, an d he did

ritually whatever the l ion was required to do actually, theritual would be fa r mo re convincing. If th e m an who took

the part of the lion did so successfully he would probably

have to take i t again, and eventual ly the place where he

lived and where the l ionskin was kept might come to be

particularly associated with l ions, an d those who lived there

migh t come to be known a s the lion clan. There is , I th ink ,

a good deal of e vidence to suggest th a t totemism originatedin this way. I should say tha t to temism, far f rom being

primitive, could only have originated among people who

had been soaked in magico-religious symbolism for so long

t h a t th ey could see a m an in a l ionskin a s a lion, thou gh, as

1 said earlier, th ey always distinguished him from a real lion.

When the kingship developed out of the annual human




sacrifice which was associated with the creation rite, it

would seem th a t th e king took t he p a rt of one of t he animals.W heth er i t was his totem animal , or the animal which was

considered m ost im portan t , we cannot sa y, b ut there seems

to be no doubt that the old king was sometimes kil led by

his successor, or sacrificed, in the guise of a n an im al .

Presently, however, the symbolism developed still

furth er, and th e king w as allowed to go on l iving and reign-

ing, while a vict im, human or animal, died in his stead.From the animal vict im probably came the god in animal

form , an d i t would seem t h a t over a great pa rt of th e world

the king himself went through a pretence death in animal

guise, but that instead of being actually killed, he was

released from his disguise and then again installed as king.

This is how I int er pr et th e sto ry of Beauty and the Beast,

and th e m an y stories in which, when some beast 's head hasbeen cut off, there steps from the skin a handsome prince,

who marries th e princess and becomes king. Many ex-

am ples of this ha ve been collected b y K ittre dg e in his

Gawain and the Green Knight, and also by Professor Saint-

yves in his st u d y of t h e Contes de Pe rrau lt. T h e la tte r

associates these stories with ritual, and also with were-

wolves (p . 433). I believe t h a t he is right an d th a t th e ideaof were-wolves, far from being primitive, is the'projection

in to real life of som eth ing often seen in ritual. It is, in fa ct ,

on all fours with th e idea of demon s w ith ho rns and pitch-

forks, which is undoubtedly a projection from ri tual , and

which can hardly be supposed to be primitive.

The process of symbolization is an extremely complex

one. I t involves in the first place a n idea th a t substi tution

is necessary or desirable, accompanied by a belief that it

will be effective. In th e second place, since th e sym bo l is

not a duplicate of the thing symbolized, there must be a

division of th e lat te r 's chara cterist ics into th e essential and

th e non-essential. T hird ly, there must be the selection of



The Cult of An i~a l s 337

a substitute possessing these essential characteristics, and

lastly, there m ust be th e identification of th e sub sti tute w ith

the original which consti tutes the actual symbolization.

Let us suppose that the divine king was originally sacri-

ficed by having his th roa t c ut , and th at later his place was

taken b y an animal. This process involves a great deal

more tha n th e mere physical substi tution. T he sacrifice is

a most important r i te , and the animal is not merely a

su bs t i tut e for, b u t is a symb ol of th e king. Fo r this a great

deal of abs trac t thoug ht is needed. T he attrib ute s of th e

king which make him the proper sacrifice, his strength, his

courage, his fer t i l i ty , or whatever they may be, must be

abs tracted from him and transferred to the animal . B ut

before th e king's qualit ies can be transferred to a n anim al,

the animal must have certain characterist ics which make

it a suitable recipient. W here cannibalism formed anessential part of the rite it would be necessary to select an

anim al th a t was good to e at , b u t if th e king's wisdom was

considered more important than his edible propert ies, i t

m ight be necessary to select some creature , such as a fox

or an owl, which could be supposed capable of having the

royal wisdom conferred upon it . I suggest that the at t r i -

bu tio n of hu m an qualities to anim als is alway s the result ofsom e such process. T he att rib uti on of ferocity to a lam b

is not made because i t is too obviously absurd, but i t is

not really more so th an th e at tr ib utio n of wisdom t o an owl.

Once it had been realized that the results of sacrificing

a n an im al were just as satisfac tory as those of sacrificing a

king, the process of symbolization could proceed still fur-

the r, un til i t beca me possible to rep resent a sacrifice merelyby pouring wine out of a cup, the wine representing the

victim's blood and the cup i ts body. It appears from th e

sto ry of th e Holy G rail , however, th a t i t m ight be necessary

to t r ansfer cer ta in hum an a t t r ibu tes to the cup .

Symbolism began, I suggest , with the ri tual substi tutionY 337




of men for animals or animals for m en, bu t i t h as led to th e

m ost im po rta nt results, not m erely in the sphe re of religion,b ut in general hum an thou ght . Abstract though t is a

complex process which is even now rare among savages.

It consists in separating a quality from its possessor,

strength from a strong man or wisdom from a wise one. 1suggest th a t i t arose from the sacrifice, and from th e neces-

si ty of t ransferr ing at t r ibu tes from th e hu m an to th e animal

victim.I know that the psychologists will not agree with me.

They suppose th a t symbolism is inst inctive or na tura l , an d

that i t originates in dreams and other subconscious pro-

cesses. On this question, as on m an y others, the y have

star ted a t the wrong end. Th ey are l ike a ma n who should

find a tennis-ball down a ra bbit-hole, and who should

conclude th a t tennis-balls originate in rab bit-ho les. If

sym bolism were really natu ra l, we should find sym bols used

universally in the same way, and this we do not find. I

cannot discuss this at length, but will give one example.

In p arts of China the fox is a n erotic sym bol, an d i t is

believed th a t foxes can ta ke th e sha pe of w omen, an d live

w ith men as their wives. Professor Jam eson, of Peiping,

has been kind enough to sen d m e a collection of a necdotes

showing the astonishing prevalence of this belief in that

region. In W estern Europ e, on the other hand , there is a

great deal of fox symbolism, bu t i t has nothing to do with

eroticism. T he male fox is a symbol of c unning, while th e

vixen is a sym bol of s ava gery and sp ite. It is impossible

to suppose th e cha rac ter of th e Asiatic fox to be totally

different f ro m th a t of th e European fox, and this difference

in the hum an at t i tud e towards the fox cannot, in m y view,

be due to hum an na ture , bu t can only be a t t ributed to the

permutations and combinations of certain magical beliefs.

T he whole idea th a t hum an beliefs and hum an act ivit ies

are natu ra l is, in m y view, a disastrous fallacy. Man is th e



The Cult of Animals

unnatura l animal . Nothing that he does consciously and

deliberately, wi th t h e possible e xception of eatin g wild fru itraw , is w ha t he would do if he acted na tur ally , th a t is to

sa y, if h e were allowed to grow up am on g apes. I t is no

more natural for a man to wear clothes than i t is for an

organ-gr inder 's monkey ; i t is no more natural for a man

to eat cooked food than i t is for a dog to eat dog-biscuits .

Those who suppose th a t i t is na tura l for huma n h unters to

believe themselves related to th eir prey m ust suppose th a t

it is natural for lions to believe themselves related to

antelopes.

Talking is unnatural , and that is why animals and those

born deaf do no t learn to talk . Th ere is , so fa r as I am

aware, no physiological reason why monkeys should not

make articulate sounds, and if speech were natural they

would ha ve in reality th e languages which some people hav e

fondly supposed them to have.

A child learns to ta lk, a s i t learns almost e very thing else,

by imitat ion. Long before i t has learned to ta lk i t has been

deliberately t au gh t to im itate a great var iety of movem ents

and sounds, and, in a civi l ized country, has been shown a

very large nu m be r of pictures. I t has also seen a great man y

sights, all of which have probably left some impression on

i t s mind . By the t ime th a t a child is able to express any

ideas a t all , i ts m ind is already fil led with ideas derived from

w hat i t has seen, heard , and been taugh t . The fac t th a t

when a child begins to talk it f inds it diff icult to put i ts

ideas into words does not mean th a t these ideas are natura l

or or iginal , but that they have been acquired through the

eyes and not through the ears. T h e same probably applies

to those ideas of ad ults of which we say th a t th ey a re " too

deep for words." Children, savage s, an d those who are

unaccustomed to the use of grammars and dict ionar ies

learn much more readily f rom representat ions than f rom

words. T he beliefs ab ou t animals with which I have deal t



The Cult of Animals

ar e largely comm unicated b y mean s of represe ntations-

pictures, images, dances an d drama s. Th ey are seldomcompletely formulated in words, and therefore present to

li terary persons, who ar e accustom ed t o express every thing

in wo rds, a wholly fallacious app eara nc e of n atur alne ss an d

spontanei ty.

Now let us consider these pictures an d these images. It

was once generally believed-perhaps it still is-that

art ists draw their ideas from some mysterious internalsource. Of course this is not really so ; nobody has ever

dr aw n w ha t he has no t seen. It is of course possible for a n

art ist t o combine in one picture two or more things t h a t he

has seen a t different t imes, bu t even this is not v ery common.

As all who have any knowledge of landscape or portrait

painting know, i t is very difficult to depict with success

anything th a t is not before one a t the mom ent . When,

therefore, we f ind that ar t , both savage and civi l ized,

consists largely of repre senta tions of cre atu res half hu m an

an d half anim al, half anim al and half bird an d so on, or else

of animals engaged in such human activities as carrying

flags, wielding weapons and wearing boots, we shall con-

clude, if we belong t o th e gre at class of no n-th ink ers, th a t

artists have wonderful imaginations, but if we think at all

we shal l real ize that the art ists must have seen what they

drew.

Ital ian art ists depicted th e early saints in th e costume of

the f i f teenth century, not because they imagined that that

was how the saints really dressed, but because they were

not t rying to imagine anything at a l l , but were merelypainting portraits of people dressed in their best , with

wooden haloes, to act the parts of the saints in the local

m yster y play. In th e sam e way, when we f ind them show-

ing the Paschal L am b carrying a f lag over i ts shoulder, we

m ust suppose th a t a t one t ime t he par t of the Paschal Lam b

was tak en b y a bo y in a sheepskin, and w hen we see pictures



The Cult of Animals

of people with animal heads or animal tails, we may safely

conclude that the artists, unless they were merely copyingother pictures, had before them men disguised, or partly

disguised, as animals. And we find to this day, in many

parts of the world, men disguising themselves as animals to

take part in some magical or religious drama, procession or

dance. I decline to believe that it occurs naturally to

people to make themselves an elaborate animal disguise,- .

and to put i t on once a year for the purpose of taking partin a function.

There is one other aspect of the cult of animals on which

I should like to touch, and tha t is the effect which it has had

upon human diet. Hindus may not eat the sacred cow ;

Jews and Moslems may not eat the sacred pig, and English-

men may not eat the sacred horse. It is of course generally

recognized that the cow is sacred to the Hindus, but thesacredness of the pig is less well recognized. It is generally

believed that the Jews may not eat the pig because it is

unclean, and that uncleanness is very different from sacred-

ness, but in fact they are the same thing. The Latin word

'' sacer " means both sacred in our sense and unclean, and

so does the Arabic root " haram " from which come

haram," sin, and " harlm," women. This does not imply

that the Arabs regard women as sinful, but that both sin

and women are taboo, which word also means both sacred

and unclean. Members of the Semitic religions may not

eat the pig because the pig was sacred to Adonis, the Lord

Tammiiz, who was the principal god of the Semites. If the

prohibition were really hygienic, Jews could have no grounds

for refusing to eat peach-fed ham. In the same way horse-

flesh is freely eaten in those countries in which the worship

of Odin or Woden, to whom the horse was sacred, was less

prevalent than it was in England.

It would seem that the objection to eating the flesh of

dogs which is found in Europe and Western Asia must be



The Cult of Animals

the result of a taboo, since in China and in Central Africa

dogs are bred for food. Nor m ust we forget the hare, whichsome of the inhabitants of these islands still refuse to eat

because the y believe th a t th e souls of women go into hares.

We must connect this belief with another which is not yet

ext inct , namely that wi tches can take the form of hares ,

and again we see how all these animal superst i t ions are

linked up.

W e mu st n ote in all these cases th a t i t is not th e sight ortaste of the flesh but the idea of ea ting the anim al which

fills th e sup erstitiou s w ith horror. H orro r itself is always

an irrat ional , and usually a superst i t ious, fear.

Th ere is no evidence of a n y na tur al d isinclination for an y

form of possible food. T o prim itive m an all is m ea t tha t

comes to hand, whatever animal i t may be and however

long i t m ay have been dead . I t i s only with the develop-

m en t of magic th a t we find food tabo os arising. Alongside

food taboos we find beliefs in the magical efficacy of certain

foods. F or example, i t is believed in India th a t to eat

tiger's flesh m ak es one brav e. It wo uld, however, be rash

to assume that such beliefs are primitive, since this eating

of m agically beneficial food seems alwa ys to p a rt ak e of a

sacram ental chara cter. At an y ra te I never heard of anyone

who believed th a t a diet of roast m ut to n would ma ke him

sheepish.

All the beliefs and all the practices with which I have

de alt are pa rt of th e grea t syste m of m agic, which, althou gh

b y no means prim itive, ha s formed p a rt of o ur culture for

so long that people, and even scientists, have come to

regard i t as an integral pa r t of hum an natu re. H um an

na tu re is a l iving thin g, b u t m agic is a clockwork toy, w hich

was somehow wound up a few thousa nd years ago, and is

taking an unconscionable t ime to run down.

Cult of Animals

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