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These sorts of symbols were often incorporated into vanitas paintings, a variety of early still life. Certain animals such as crows, cats, owls, moths, vultures and bats are associated with death; some because they feed on carrion, others because they are nocturnal. [3] Along with death, vultures can also represent transformation and renewal. [3]
In religions where a single god is the primary object of worship, the representation of death is usually that god's antagonist, and the struggle between the two is central to the folklore of the culture. In such dualistic models, the primary deity usually represents good, and the death god embodies evil.
Ammut – female demon, funerary deity and animal hybrid (Egypt) Bakunawa – Serpent-like Dragon in Philippines (Philippines) Basilisk – king of serpents, has the power to cause death with a single glance (Europe) Black Tortoise – one of the four symbols of the Chinese constellations; Chalkydri
The art of the Middle Ages was mainly religious, reflecting the relationship between God and man, created in His image. The animal often appears confronted or dominated by man, but a second current of thought stemming from Saint Paul and Aristotle, which developed from the 12th century onwards, includes animals and humans in the same community of living creatures.
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed a structuralist theory that suggests the raven (like the coyote) obtained mythic status because it was a mediator animal between life and death. [1] As a carrion bird, ravens became associated with the dead and with lost souls.
Nephthys's association with the kite or the Egyptian hawk (and its piercing, mournful cries) evidently reminded the ancients of the lamentations usually offered for the dead by wailing women. In this capacity, it is easy to see how Nephthys could be associated with death and putrefaction in the Pyramid Texts.
This story makes use of folktales where black dogs symbolize death. [citation needed] Another famous ghostly black dog may be found in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series: the "Grim", a "giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards" [108] is "the worst omen of death" [108] according to Harry Potter's divination teacher, Professor Trelawney.
The Buddha, represented by the Bodhi tree, attended by animals, Sanchi vihara. The position and treatment of animals in Buddhism is important for the light it sheds on Buddhists' perception of their own relation to the natural world, on Buddhist humanitarian concerns in general, and on the relationship between Buddhist theory and Buddhist practice.