Owls have long been an important bird in the human psyche. One of the oldest pieces of art in the world is a 32,000 year old cave drawing in Chauvet Cave in southern France of an owl looking over its shoulder*: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/page6.php And owls have figured in the mythology of almost every culture from the Australian aborigines who believe owls are the symbols of the souls of women, to the Welsh who believe that hearing an owl hooting while pregnant bestows a blessing on the unborn child. In many cultures the nocturnal owl is closely associated with darkness, death, and wisdom of the unknown. And today owls have symbolic importance for the environmental movement: the Northern Spotted Owl, most notably, has become a symbol of the importance of habitat preservation for species protection.
Why the talk of owls? Well, I recently started a scratchboard of a Great-Horned Owl – nothing I can show yet, but soon I’ll have some progress to post.
One of the things that struck me as I read about owls was the concern that many wildlife conservationists have for the fate of owls in countries where the cultural view of owls is poor. For example, in certain parts of Africa, owls are viewed as evil. And I’m not referring to mere symbolism of bad spirits, but actual evil with a capital “E”. Not so suprisingly then, it’s difficult to rally the support of local people to preserve and protect owls when their cultural history tells them they would be better off if the birds were dead.
I found this particularly curious because I’ve never really thought of animals that way. I mean, I was raised on a farm, so I’m intimately familiar with the concept of relative value when it comes to animals: our farm dog was pretty high up on the food chain until he started killing the chickens. I know what it’s like to be afraid of an animal: spiders, for instance (yes, silly isn’t it?). But I don’t think spiders are evil any more than I thought my dog was being evil when he killed chickens, he was just being a dog the same as spiders are just being, well, spiders.
I’m curious because I wonder how these beliefs began? How does an animal get a reputation for evil? Does believing owls are evil say something about the nocturnal habits of the birds or is it more an indication of just how scared of the dark humans are?
*The drawing is actually etched into the stone wall of the cave. This technique is known as sgraffito meaning “scratched” and is used to describe an etching process by which the artist scratches through a surface of one colour to expose another colour to create the drawing. I believe this ancient scratched owl could be the ancestor of modern-day scratchboard!
