Sacred Animal Selection Across Cultures
Flipping through one of my archaeological news feeds, I came across a story on a temple to a spider-god in Peru that's been excavated this past year. Being able to come up with only two other spider figures off the top of my head, I tried a godchecker search and came up with 22 hits.
The cultures that have spider deity figures are limited to African, Amerindian, Oceanic, or Greek cultures. I find that to be a somewhat odd distribution for cultures selecting a spider image for deification. I would have assumed that more desert cultures, like the Australian aborigines or the Assyrians, would have elevated the lowly spider, but climate doesn't really seem to be the deciding factor in this choice. Can any of you see a pattern to these cultures that might have caused them to select spiders for a portion of their sacred imagery?
Besides the obvious presence of the animal in the area where the culture thrived, what factors do you think might go into the selection of sacred animal figures from among the species surrounding a particular culture?
Snakes and dogs, for example, seem to have a much wider geographic spread in mythological iconography. What might make a particular species more frequently a part of sacred imagery across multiple cultures?
The cultures that have spider deity figures are limited to African, Amerindian, Oceanic, or Greek cultures. I find that to be a somewhat odd distribution for cultures selecting a spider image for deification. I would have assumed that more desert cultures, like the Australian aborigines or the Assyrians, would have elevated the lowly spider, but climate doesn't really seem to be the deciding factor in this choice. Can any of you see a pattern to these cultures that might have caused them to select spiders for a portion of their sacred imagery?
Besides the obvious presence of the animal in the area where the culture thrived, what factors do you think might go into the selection of sacred animal figures from among the species surrounding a particular culture?
Snakes and dogs, for example, seem to have a much wider geographic spread in mythological iconography. What might make a particular species more frequently a part of sacred imagery across multiple cultures?