updates: 2000, 2001, 2004
1 August 2000
I recently returned from 3+ weeks in southern Africa, mostly in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia (also corners of Botswana and Zambia). I camped out and stayed in a wide variety of habitats and locations from the coast, along the Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers, in thornveld woodland, and on a river island in the Zambezi marshlands.
I spent time with some of the locals of Zulu, Ndebele, Shona, and Balozi tribes, and asked them about their local owl lore.
The answers, across all these sites and cultures, was consistent with what my coauthors and I had presented in our paper on Owls in Lore and Culture.
In general, owls are viewed as harbingers of bad luck, ill health, or death.
Some examples:
- According to Gavin Robinson, the (white) director of a game and ostrich farm north of Bulawayo ("The Cawston Block") in western Zimbabwe, the local indigenous people there (Shonas, I believe) view Ground Hornbills and owls as evil or as portending death. If an owl lands on your house, it is believed that ill luck, or illness per se, will follow. This is especially believed of the Common Barn Owl (called "Screech Owl" there) because of its commensal association with humans and houses. The witch doctors take owls and use their talons and beaks for medicines which help them harm other people -- very powerful medicine.
- In Namibia, I spoke with a member of the Balozi tribe in the eastern Caprivi Strip on Impalila Island in the middle of the Zambezi River. He told me that owls in his tribe are thought to bring disease. When owls enter the village, they are shunned or shot, in part because the larger owls such as Giant Eagle-Owls take chickens, but also because they are thought to induce disease merely by their presence.
- In Bulawaya, Zimbabwe, I had a discussion with Peter Mooney, local wildlife biologist researcher and expert on birds and raptors (especially vultures). He said that Common Barn Owls are seen as a "witch's bird" among the local black population. I asked why the Barn Owl. He said, perhaps wryly, "anything white is suspect."
1 December 2001
I recently had an opportunity to spend a day hiking the
South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona with a wonderful Native American
lady, and we discussed owl lore. She comes from two pueblo tribes,
the Hopi in Northern Arizona and the Isleta which is south of Albuquerque
along the Rio Grande River, New Mexico. She relayed to me some owl
stories she was told while growing up. Owls were viewed by these
tribes as harbingers of ill health and ill fortune. An owl once came
to their house and shortly thereafter her younger brother fell ill.
If an owl was heard calling, she and her siblings would go outside and
shout at it, trying to compel it to leave.
24 September 2004
I recently returned from a month's expedition into the heart of the Congo River Basin, in western Democratic Republic of the Congo, central equatorial Africa. I visited and stayed in 8 remote villages between Mbandaka and Bikoro, and along Lac (Lake) Ntumba (Tumba), Chanel Irebu (connecting Lac Ntumba and the Congo River), the Congo River, the Ubangi (Oubangi) River, and elsewhere in the region. The villagers consisted of mostly Bantu people, with some Pygmy (Batwa) people.
In pirogues (dugout canoes), we went up the Lombambo River along the south edge of Lac Ntumba, and encountered huge (1.5+ m) paper wasp nests hanging over the river:
The local people say the wasps are ferocious and follow you for 2 km, stinging. They said that there are only two ways to get rid of the nests: burn them with fuel (often not available) ... or there is an owl here that closes its eyes and eats the wasps. Quizzing one of the local Bantu fellows (Arthur Botay Mputela) more closely, I narrowed down the owl species to Vermiculated (or Bouvier's) Fishing Owl, Scotopelia bouvieri. This was an unexpected story of a beneficial (ecologial and cultural) function of a large owl of the region. Most other owl stories relate them in negative ways. I have not read anything about this (or any other) owl species engaging in such a behavior, but whether the story is apocryphal or actual, it paints the owl in a positive light.
But other attitudes were present as well. In the village of Bongonde Drapeau (between Mbandaka and Bikoro), I asked a local Bantu about owls, and he replied that owls are viewed here as "dreaded." This was essentially repeated by other Bantu people in other villages we visited. However, I was surprised at how willing local villagers were to help me locate owls at night, once I expressed my scientific interest in finding, calling, and seeing them. Apparently, local beliefs did not inhibit at least some of the people in seeking out owls in the forest at night.
I also discussed the cultural view of owls in Cameroon, with George Akwah, one of my traveling hosts and colleagues who is from that country. He said that in Cameroon, witches are reported to transform into owls. Also, owls announce bad news or foretell death. If you make a call like an owl, people will scold you to stop, saying "Are you a witch?" In Cameroon there are also folk tales about bats which people do not distinguish as a mammal and think of as intermediate between a mammal and a bird (in fact, the French word for bat there is "duplicate").
23 November 2004
I had an interesting discussion on the role of animals, and on owl lore in particular, with Ernie Philip, Elder and Cultural Coordinator of the Shuswap Tribe. We met at the Quaaout Resort & Conference Centre on the shores of the Little Shuswap Lake outside the small town of Chase, British Columbia, Canada (east of Kamloops in south central B.C.). Ernie conveyed to me several owl stories of his people. Mostly, owls are viewed as messengers and usually portend a forthcoming death, but the messages are not always bad. You have to know how to read the messages, how to understand the owl's calls. Ernie told me that, as a youth, he was taught this by his elders. I asked if it is only the larger owls that convey the messages of death and he said no, it is all the owls, including Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, and the others as well.