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The anthropologist Lynne Isbell has argued that, as primates, the serpent as a symbol of death is built into our unconscious minds because of our evolutionary history.. Isbell argues that for millions of years snakes were the only significant predators of primates, and that this explains why fear of snakes is one of the most common phobias worldwide and why the symbol of the serpent is so ...
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.
The second book treats objects and events in the natural world, such as weather, animals, the gods and flying. The section on animals includes mammals (domestic and wild), sea creatures, reptiles, and those that fly. So in chapter 12 we find: "There is an affinity between all wild animals and our enemies. A wolf signifies a violent enemy ...
The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death and rebirth; the snake's skin-sloughing symbolises the transmigration of souls. The snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol in some religions: the tail is a phallic symbol and the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol. [9]
The Horses of Neptune, illustration by Walter Crane, 1893.. Horse symbolism is the study of the representation of the horse in mythology, religion, folklore, art, literature and psychoanalysis as a symbol, in its capacity to designate, to signify an abstract concept, beyond the physical reality of the quadruped animal.
For Dubois, hawks symbolize the ability to rise above our earthly realm and view life from a higher vantage point: "Hawks soar far above and take in the whole landscape from above.
J. E. Millais: The Return of the Dove to the Ark (1851). According to the biblical story (Genesis 8:11), a dove was released by Noah after the Flood in order to find land; it came back carrying a freshly plucked olive leaf (Hebrew: עלה זית alay zayit), [7] a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land.
The cicada is an animal replete with symbolism: recurring themes are resurrection, immortality, spiritual realization and spiritual ecstasy. For the Ancient Greeks and Romans they sang ecstatically, were sacred to Apollo and related to the dionysiac bacchae and maenads .