Owl

by Desmond Morris

  ASIAN OWLS

  In Asia, as in so many regions, there are good owls and bad owls. A common Asian myth is that owls eat newborn babies or hurt children. This belief is strongest in Malaysia, where owls are known as burung hantu, meaning ghost bird. In China and Korea there is a more practical approach towards owls. There they are killed and their parts are used in medical preparations. Further north, in Mongolia, it is thought that owls will enter the home during the night to gather human fingernails. Whether this is a case of good owls cleaning up the house or bad ones stealing away a small part of the nail-owners’ souls is not clear. Those who are concerned with Mongolian burial rituals are known to hang up owl skins to ward off evil, but whether this is because the owl parts concerned possess good spirits that fend off the evil ones, or a case of evil repelling evil, is again not certain.

  On the good side, in some parts of Asia owls have been honoured as divine ancestors and have been attributed with helping to avert famine and pestilence. On the island of Sulawesi (better known as Celebes) in Indonesia, some inhabitants claim that owls are so wise that they must always be consulted when a journey is being contemplated. If someone wants to travel they first listen to the owls. The birds make two different sounds at night; one says travel and the other says stay at home. These warnings are taken seriously. No journeys are undertaken if the owls give the stay-at-home cry.

  AUSTRALIAN OWLS

  Among the Australian Aborigines the owl does not hold an important place in tribal mythology but when it is mentioned it creates, yet again, the usual contradiction between the bad owl and the good owl. In its wicked form it is the messenger of the evil god Muurup, who eats children and kills people. And there is the familiar superstition, found in so many parts of the world, that if an owl hangs around the home site for a few days it means that someone is going to die. On the good side, there is a belief that owls represent the souls of women, or that they guard their souls. Women are therefore asked to protect owls as a way of protecting their female kin. Some authorities go so far as to say that this makes the owl a sacred bird, because ‘your sister is an Owl – and the Owl is your sister’. (The souls of men, incidentally, are represented by bats.)

  AMERICAN INDIAN OWLS

  We are all aware of the popular image of a gigantic totem pole bearing the carved face of a severe owl that stares angrily down at us, but what precisely is the relationship between the tribes of North America and this nocturnal, predatory bird? Many of the tribes have complicated legends concerning supernatural owls and frequently these birds are associated with death, but not necessarily in a negative way. They are more likely to appear as helpful assistants in the process of making fruitful connections between the living and the dead. Native American tribes often have shamans, or medicine men, whose tasks include communicating with the dead and they may enlist the owls to aid them in this. Indeed, the owl is sometimes referred to as the Bird of Sorcerers.

  A heart-shaped charm of painted wood: when opened it reveals an owl representing the soul of one who has recently died. Pacific Northwest coast.

  To give a specific example, in the Pima tribe a feather moulted by a living owl is placed in the hand of a dying person so that the owl will be able to guide that individual on the long journey to the afterlife. In other tribes owl feathers are also often used as magic talismans. Among the Navajo, following death the human soul actually assumes the form of an owl. The same is true of the Tsimshian people of the Pacific Northwest coast. In one of their imaginative dances a male performer is thrown into a fire where his body appears to be consumed by the flames. Following this clever illusion, he emerges wearing a skull-like mask, but with his heart displayed intact. This heart, in the form of a carved wooden box, had been cunningly concealed in his clothing during the dance and is now magically revealed and opened to show a small owl, representing his surviving soul, sitting inside it.1

  The Wise Messenger Owl from the legend of Kwakwaka’wakw; 20th century, red cedar wood carving with cedar rope and bark tufts, by Wally Bernard, North Vancouver Island.

  Because Native American tribes visualized such a strong link between owls and death it was inevitable that this would create ambivalent attitudes towards these birds. One tribe would see the owls as providers of helpful warnings about death, whereas another would see them as evil messengers who actually caused death. So, starting from the same premise, one tribe would come to respect owls while another would end up hating them. Those tribes that respected the owl included the Pawnee, who saw it as a symbol of protection; the Yakama, for whom it was a respected totemic figure; the Yupik, who wore ceremonial owl masks on special occasions and where owls were said to be helpful spirits; the Cherokee, who saw the owls as helpful consultants for the shaman, bringing prophetic news; the Lenape, who believed that if you dreamed of an owl it would become your guardian; the Tlingit, who claimed that owls would warn them of impending danger, and whose warriors hooted like owls when they went into battle, because they had faith that the owl would give them victory; the Oglala, whose warriors wore caps of snowy owl feathers to indicate their bravery; the Sioux, who believed that a man wearing owl feathers would have stronger, sharper vision; the Zuni, who placed an owl feather next to a baby to help it sleep; the Lakota, whose medicine men wore owl feathers and promised never to harm an owl in case they lost their magical powers; the Mohave, who became reincarnated as owls when they died; and the Kwakiutl, who owned owl-masks and who believed that each human is connected with a particular owl and that if someone killed your owl-half you too would die.

  Those tribes that disliked owls include the Hopi, for whom the owl was a harbinger of ill fortune; the Apache, who feared owls and said that if you dreamed about one of these birds it was a sign of approaching death; the Cajun, who believed that if they were awoken by the cries of an owl, this was an ill omen; the Ojibway, who saw the owl as a symbol of evil and death; and the Caddo, the Catawba, the Choctaw, the Creek, the Menomini and the Seminole who all looked upon the owl as a bad omen and a sign of imminent death, often associated with witches.

  Kuna Indian artist, ‘Five Owls’, late 20th century, reverse appliqué needlework, San Blas Islands, Panama.

  Yet again the contradictory nature of the owl is evident. Because it was active at night and made strange, eerie noises, it became a ghostly bird and from there, in the hands of expert tribal storytellers, it soon became exaggerated into a benign and friendly ghost or a wicked, harmful one. Which kind of symbolic owl you met as a child and grew to know more intimately as an adult depended simply on which tribe you happened to be born into. But one thing is certain – it was rare for a North American Indian to know no spirit owl at all.

  To find New World tribal owls that are portrayed simply for their own sake, as attractive birds without any haunting messages, we have to move south to the Central American country of Panama. There, among the Kuna Indians who inhabit the small islands of the San Blas Archipelago off the northern coast, there is a fascination with birds of many kinds, including the local owls. Images of the owls, and many other animals besides, appear on the clothing of the women who, unlike their male counterparts, have stubbornly retained the traditional costumes of their tribe, even in modern times. They wear decorative chest panels on their dresses, called molas. These are laboriously created by a process of reverse appliqué. It takes about 250 hours of meticulous needlework to complete a good example of one of these molas and they have recently become collected as serious works of tribal art.

  There are fifteen kinds of owls living in Panama, but none of them has whiskers like a cat. But whenever a Kuna artist shows a face in front view there seems to be an overpowering urge to bewhisker it. There are cat-faced humans as well as cat-faced birds and it does not always stop at whiskers. With these owls the sharp-pointed beak of nature has become a blunt-ended nose, the eyes have grown eyelashes (or perhaps eyebrows) and the mouth has widened and grown teeth and conspicuous lips. In fact these are feline-humanoid-owls with a
n endearingly primitive character all their own – one of the most charming inventions of the Kuna artists. The fact that they have protruding ear-tufts suggests that the real species on which they are based is the horned owl. Just for once these are owls employed for some visual fun, without the heavy burdens of legend, myth or symbolism to weigh them down.

  Wounaan Indian owl mask of woven palm-frond fibre, a modern mask from Panama.

  On the rainforest mainland of Panama, in the Darien region not far from the Kuna, live another small group of surviving indigenous people, the Wounaan Indians. Their special skill is basket-weaving, an art-form the women of this tribe have been refining for hundreds of years. As with the Kuna, their tribal works of art have recently become known to the outside world and are now collectors’ items. Occasionally the Wounaan also employ this skill to make masks and, when they do, a horned owl is one of their subjects. Each mask they create is made up of thousands of precise stitches, with intricate colour patterns. The making of one of these works of art involves five separate stages. First, locating, identifying and cutting the palm fronds from which the fibres will be made. This has to be done at the right time of year and using only two species of palm, the Black Palm and the Navala Palm. Second, drying, bleaching and stripping the fronds to obtain the individual fibres. Third, collecting the plant dyes with which to colour the fibres and then dying and redrying the fronds. Fourth, working out the complex design of the mask. Finally, stitching the fibres together to make the finished work, a process that by itself may take several weeks.

  Wounaan Indian cloth appliqué molita: ‘Owl on a branch’.

  A less arduous creative process enjoyed by the Wounaan women is the making of small cloth appliqué patches called molitas. On these too the owl is a favoured subject. As with the Kuna, the Wounaan seem to employ owls simply as design motifs rather than as mythological or symbolic statements. This may explain why the Wounaan owls, like the Kuna ones, with all thoughts of witchcraft and sorcery swept away, are more decorative and warmly appealing than many of the owl images from other tribal cultures.

  Kenojuak Ashevak, The Enchanted Owl, 1971, stonecut print.

  ESKIMO OWLS

  Although technically another group of North American Indians, the Eskimo deserve separate treatment if only because owls appear more frequently in their art than in the work of any other ethnic group today. The best known of the Eskimo artists is Kenojuak Ashevak, and one of her owl stonecuts has become so famous that in 1970 Canada Post placed her 1960 print The Enchanted Owl on a 6 cent stamp to commemorate the centennial of the Northwest Territories. In this composition the way in which Kenojuak exaggerates the owl’s plumage to create an unforgettable image is remarkable. When asked about her decision to modify the owl in this way, she replied that it was done to ‘drive away the darkness’.

  Kenojuak Ashevak, Eskimo Spirit Owl, 1971, stonecut print.

  Over the years the owl has appeared many times in Kenojuak’s pictures. In a monograph about her work, the image of an owl appears in no fewer than 89 of the 161 prints illustrated.2Sometimes she refers to it as a ‘Spirit Bird’ and may combine it with other birds such as gulls. When she does this, however, the owl remains the central feature, with the heads of the other birds growing out of the owl’s feathers. In one of her Spirit Owls she adorns the bird with a forked fish-tail, emerging from behind the owl’s head. In another work the image is called a ‘Sun Owl’. Here the bird’s rounded head becomes the sun and its radiating feathers become the rays of the sun. This association between the owl and the sun must be unique in owl symbolism. It is, of course, the result of the fact that the owl encountered by the Eskimo artist is the snowy owl, a daytime hunter that, unlike other owl species, is not averse to sunlight. Anyone who has visited the Arctic Circle will understand that, for the Eskimo, ‘The arrival of the sun in the Arctic is a thing wonderful to behold’,3 and this means that by associating the owl with the sun Kenojuak has elevated this bird to the level of the wonderful.

  Kenojuak Ashevak, Sun Owl, 1979, lithograph.

  Iyola Kingwatsiak, Three Owls, 1966, etching.

  Born in an igloo in 1927, Kenojuak has lived long enough to see her work honoured in her home country, where she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2001. In 2004 she created the first ever Eskimo-designed stained glass window and this can now be seen in the John Bell Chapel at Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario. In 1964 a documentary film about her work was nominated for an Oscar.

  Lucy, an older Eskimo artist born in 1915, has also created some memorable owls, her liveliest one being her ‘Dancing Bird’ of 1967. Much stiffer, more restrained owls are portrayed by a male Eskimo artist, Iyola Kingwatsiak (1933–2000), whose 1966 work ‘Three Owls’ strangely shows one bird clasping the heads of two others, one in each foot.

  If owls seem unduly important to tribal peoples all over the world, this should not surprise us. For tribes live in small settlements, where owls will be encountered more freely than in towns or cities. Their cries will be more often heard and their silent shapes, hovering and floating through the dusk will be glimpsed far more frequently. The harsh mechanical sounds and the glaring artificial lights of the noisy urban centres mean that owls, once a spooky neighbour, are now more likely to become a rare and distant memory.

  8 Owls and Artists

  There must be more paintings of owls than of any other bird. It is such an easy shape to make that everyone feels the urge to draw, paint, model or sculpt one. There are sentimental owls, cartoon owls, kitsch owls, twee owls and comic owls. In addition to drawings, paintings and figures, the image of the owl appears repeatedly on household objects and whole books have been written on owls as collectables.

  In modern times the owl has suffered the indignity of becoming the knick-knack bird. There are owl key-rings, owl paperweights, owl oven-gloves, owl bottle-openers, owl money-boxes, owl ashtrays, owl playing cards, owl feeding-bottles, owl teapots, owl inkstands, and on and on through almost every kind of ornamental object you can imagine. Owls have also appeared on banknotes, coins, medals, phone cards, matchbox labels and countless posters and advertisements. With the new craze for tattooing, owls have even managed to alight permanently on human skin.

  Owl postage stamps from the USA and the Marshall Islands.

  In the realm of philately owls are everywhere. New Zealander Mike Duggan, whose obsession with acquiring every known postage stamp bearing the image of an owl has led to a huge collection, is currently offering for sale no fewer than 1,224 different owl stamps from 192 countries across the globe. Most nations have only produced a few owl stamps but some seem to have a special weakness for this particular subject. Angola has issued at least 30; Ivory Coast 32; Guinea Bissau 33; Benin 43 and Congo 44.

  Owl tattoo by Claudia of Frith Street Tattoo, London, on Linsay Trerise’s arm.

  The obsession with collecting owl artefacts sometimes gets out of hand. In 1978 Monika Kirk was on holiday in Greece and bought a small owl pendant as a souvenir. Thirty years later she has no fewer than 1,950 owls making up the ‘owl world’ (Eulenwelt) displayed in her house, including 250 examples of owl jewellery: lockets, brooches, rings, ear-drops and earrings.

  Owl with Spread Wings, 20th century, brass, by a local artist of Aqaba, Jordan.

  Despite their undeniable appeal, owl collectables are usually, at best, modest works of art. There are a few exceptions to this rule, however. From time to time, a master artist has been attracted to the owl image and has left us with an exceptional work. Great names that have given us owls to remember include Bosch, Dürer, Michelangelo, Goya and Picasso.

  HIERONYMUS BOSCH (1450–1516)

  Hieronymus Bosch, arguably the most darkly imaginative of all the Western masters, employed the image of the owl repeatedly in his work and nearly always gave it some kind of symbolic significance. One of the earliest of his owls is to be seen peering out of a niche above a door in Gluttony, one of the scenes from The Seven Deadly Sins that he completed i
n the 1470s or 1480s. The bird looks soberly down upon a scene of excessive human greed and drunkenness. According to a French art historian, this ‘staring owl [is] a symbol of those who prefer the darkness of sin and heresy to the light of faith.’1

  Part of Monika Kirk’s Eulenwelt, a collection of 1,950 owl artefacts.

  In another early work he employs the same device, an owl staring down at a scene of human debauchery and disarray. In The Ship of Fools he shows us a monk and two nuns enjoying some drunken fun and games with a group of peasants. The mast of their little boat sprouts out into a tree in the branches of which sits the solemn owl, again apparently a nocturnal symbol of dark wickedness. One critic sees this curious mast as a Bosch metaphor for the Tree of Life, in which ‘the staring owl, the bird of darkness, takes the place of the wily serpent’ – another nocturnal predator.2

  Hieronymus Bosch, The Conjuror, late 15th century, oil on wood.

  Owl nesting in the Fountain of Life in ‘The Garden of Eden’ of Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503–4, oil on panel.

  In The Conjuror Bosch’s placing of an owl is truly bizarre. This bird, clearly a barn owl, appears as no more than a head peeping out of a small basket hanging from the belt of the magician. The man is seen in the act of performing a trick for a rapt audience and the artist offers no explanation of the mysterious presence of the owl, or why it does not simply fly away, since the basket has an open top. It is hard to guess what possible trick the magician will do next that might involve a tame owl. Its presence has therefore again been seen as purely symbolic by art historians making a close study of this painting. They do not all agree, however, on the nature of this symbolism. Some see it as a sexual symbolism, with the spherical basket representingthe magician’s genitals. For them: ‘The bird of wisdom has thus taken the place of the seminal forces, which had to be removed to make room for it.’3 Others see the owl as symbolizing the evil trickery of the conjuror/magician who is in the act of leading astray the foolish, gullible public, who are taken in by his tricks. For them, ‘The frog on the table, the owl half-hidden in the basket, the dog with the clown’s hat, are the symbolic expressions of credulity, heresy, the vile and ridiculous aspect of demonic power . . .’.4