MUSINGS
Magical Insects
Ron Cherry
T
he anthropologist Sir James Frazer
(1854–1941) was the author of the
famous work on magical philosophy,
The Golden Bough, first published in 1890.
This book, which became an instant classic,
is a fascinating overview of the relationships
of magic, religion, mythology, and science.
Frazer first defined and discussed a branch
of magic called “imitative magic.” Imitative
magic is based on the simple assumption
“that like produces like” (Frazer 1998).
Hence, individuals can produce any effect
they want merely by imitating it. Examples
of imitative magic abound, even in everyday
life. At athletic events you may find yourself
tensing and straining to imitate a surge of
energy in an athlete, in the magical hope of
spurring him on. Another simple example is
seen in bowling, when a player gestures with
his arms and curves his body to persuade the
ball to curve in a way he wishes (Cavendish
1985).
Imitative magic is frequently found in
the rituals of aboriginal people around
the world. For example, when an Ojibway
Indian of North America desired to work
evil on anyone, he made a little wooden
image of his enemy and ran a needle into
its head or heart, believing that wherever
the needle pierced the image, his foe would
feel a sharp pain in the corresponding part
of his body. Among the Bataks of Sumatra,
a barren woman who wanted to become a
mother made a wooden image of a child
and held it in her lap, believing that this
would lead to the fulfillment of her wish.
And, to multiply emus, an important food
for Australian aborigines, men of the emu
totem paint an emu design on the ground.
Thereafter, the men sit and sing around the
design and wear costumes that mimic the
emu (Frazer 1998).
Interestingly, imitative magic is still used
in psychotherapy that involves techniques
of “active imagination.” For example, in
“guided imagery” techniques used in cancer
American Entomologist • Volume 51, Number 1
treatment, the patient may be asked to visualize the cancerous growth as a “dragon” that
is gradually overcome by the patient in the
form of a “knight in armor” (Drury 1985).
The most common use of insects in imitative magic is to obtain a behavior, a type of
“power,” or a morphological trait associated
with the insect. For example, Huis (2003)
noted that in sub-Saharan Africa, it is often
believed that a morphological trait or specific
behavior of an arthropod can be procured
by humans when they treat themselves with
the animal or a preparation made from it.
The best-known and most written-about
mythological insect is the sacred scarab
of ancient Egypt, Scarabaeus sacer L. The
culmination of several myths concerning S.
sacer was that this insect became the “sacred scarab” intimately associated with the
religious concept of rebirth (Fig. 1). Thus,
amulets to protect the dead were carved in
the form of scarabs and were buried with the
body. Millions of these scarabs were buried
in Egyptian tombs to ensure rebirth of the
dead (Cherry 1985).
Similarly, cicadas were used in China as
imitative magic to help ensure life after death.
In China, the cicada was a symbol of rebirth
(Fig. 2). It was thought that the nymph crawling out of the ground, shedding its nymphal
Fig. 1. Scarab glyph on black schist
sarcophagus, 530 B.C., from Thebes, located
at the British Museum, London. Scarabs were
used in Egypt to help ensure life after death.
Fig. 2. Chinese jade cicada from the period
of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD). Like
Egyptian scarabs, jade cicadas were used to
ensure life after death in China.
skin, and transforming into an adult was
symbolic of resurrection. The nymph becomes
very still prior to molting and thus appears
to “die.” The adult cicada comes out of the
“dead” shell, just as the spirit of a deceased
person should emerge out of his dead body
(Kritsky and Cherry 2000). Again, using the
principle of “like produces like,” stylized cicadas called “tongue cicadas” were carved from
jade and placed in the mouth of the deceased.
Readers wanting a more extensive overview
of the use of cicadas in Chinese folklore may
consult Riegel (1994).
Another insect, the butterfly, sometimes
appears in funerary art as a symbol of death
and rebirth (Cooper 1992). Examples of
this may be seen in J. Brewer’s Butterflies
(1976).
Besides regeneration after death, insects
have also been used in imitative magic to
gain the ferociousness of the insect. Note,
11
however, that the use of insects such as wasps
and ants to inflict pain solely to determine
the “toughness” of a warrior is not imitative
magic. However, if it is believed that a person actually obtains the ferociousness of the
insects used, then the procedure is defined as
imitative magic. Wasps are the insects most
commonly used to obtain ferociousness. In
Africa, wasps are crushed and then put into
incisions on the back of the hand in order
to give a person a punch like sting of a wasp
(Huis 2003). Native Americans of Vancouver
Island encouraged warriors going into battle
to rub their faces with the ashes of burned
wasps to make them as pugnacious as the
insects (Leach 1984). Starr and Wille (1990)
report that among the Bribri of Costa Rica,
a wasp was bound in cotton and tied to the
back of a pregnant woman. This would
ensure that the child of this woman would
be a good builder, fierce, and feared by other
people. The Salish peoples of North America
believed that yellowjackets wanted humans
to die because the insects are “gravediggers”;
hence, these people poisoned their arrows
with yellowjackets’ nests, and sometimes a
gun that failed to kill was washed out with a
boiled yellowjacket nest (Hitchcock 1962).
Insects have frequently been used as
medicine to obtain some feature of the insect based on the belief of imitative magic.
Berenbaum (1995) provides an excellent
discussion and examples of this subject. She
notes that it was presumed that God, in his
infinite wisdom, not only created all things
for human use, but also provided things with
a sign such as shape or color to show their
use. Thus was formulated the “doctrine of
signatures,” being loosely defined as “let
likes be cured by likes.” Hairy insects, such
as flies and bees, were used to cure baldness. Termites, because of their perceived
high powers of reproduction, were used
to enhance fertility. And caterpillars of the
genus Cossus were used to stimulate lactation in pregnant women, possibly because
the caterpillar, on being disturbed, secretes
a white, oily substance.
Some of the best examples of this medical magic occur in sub-Saharan Africa and
were recently discussed by Huis (2003). For
example, in Chad, children who are slow in
learning to walk can be stimulated by using
fast-running ants, which are crushed into
powder and rubbed into incisions made on
the legs. Loud, singing insects have been associated with having a clear voice. Hence,
in several countries in Africa, cicadas or
crickets may be mixed with herbs and eaten
to obtain a pleasantly high and clear voice,
especially among women.
Besides using imitative magic to try to
obtain insect traits, the magic has also been
used in an attempt to manipulate insect
12
populations. Frazer (1998) notes an example of this among Australian aborigines.
There, the men of the witchetty grub totem
perform ceremonies for multiplying the grub
Xyleutes leucomochla Turn. (Lepidoptera:
Cossidae), which members of the tribe use as
food. One of the ceremonies is a pantomime
representing the insect emerging from its
pupal cocoon. A long, narrow structure of
branches is set up to imitate the cocoon. Men
enter this structure and sit and sing praises
of the insect. Eventually, the men leave the
structure while singing of the insect emerging
from its cocoon. This ceremony is supposed
to multiply the number of grubs.
Similarly, the Pygmies of Africa used imitative magic to enhance their honey harvest
from bees (Campbell 1988). In an elaborate
ceremony, men pretend to be honey gatherers
and the women are the bees. After a simulated hunt involving dancing and singing,
the ceremony culminates in a great honey
fire. This fire is accompanied by a song of
magic that will travel with the smoke and
call the bees to come and make more honey
(Fig. 3).
In contrast to trying to increase insect
populations, imitative magic has also been
used to try to control locusts. In West Africa,
where locusts are pests, the people have a
scapegoat ceremony for driving them away.
One person is selected, given riches, and
sent out of the country forever. Because
the locusts supposedly accompany this
person, death is the penalty for return since
the locusts would also return. In India, the
Dravidians practiced conciliatory control for
locusts. The custom was to catch one locust,
decorate it, revere it, and let it go, which in
Fig. 3. Rock painting depicting honey gathering
discovered in the Cuevas de la Arana near
Bicorp in Valencia, Spain. Drawing from Smith
et al. 1973.
Fig. 4. Blackfoot butterfly symbol. The Blackfeet
peoples associated butterflies with sleep and
dreams and used the symbol to cause sleep in
infants. Drawing from Grinnell 1899.
turn would cause the swarm to depart (Leach
1984). And in Albania, when locusts were
destroying crops, the women would go in a
funeral procession to a stream and drown a
few of the insects in the hope of eliminating
them all (Armstrong 1985). Besides imitative magic, other exotic measures such as
spells, incantations, and excommunication
have been used to try to control locusts;
and Berenbaum (1995) provides an excellent
discussion of this topic.
Besides obtaining insect traits and manipulating insect populations, there are
other odd examples of insects in imitative
magic. For example, Frazer (1998) notes
that in Laos, lac was produced by attaching
the insects to young branches of trees by
hand. All who engaged in the gathering of
the gum abstained from washing themselves
and especially from cleansing their heads,
lest by removing the parasites from their
hair they should detach the lac insects from
the boughs.
Among the Blackfeet peoples of North
America, the butterfly was believed to bring
sleep and dreams (Grinnell 1899). Hence, it
was the custom of Blackfeet women to sew
the symbol of the butterfly in beads or quills
on a small piece of buckskin and to tie this
in her baby’s hair when she wished it to go
to sleep (Fig. 4).
In West African mythology, termites are
frequently associated with water flow (Fairhead and Leach 2003). Thus, where termite
mounds are found at water sources or beside
swamps and rivers, there are often shrines to
the serenity of water flow and sites for offering prayers and sacrifices to ensure it. The
mythical association of humidity and water
flow with termite mounds seems to be fairly
general in West Africa.
Lastly, among Australian aborigines,
there are physical “rock-holes” associated
with mythical men and lice, in which lice
American Entomologist • Spring 2005
are represented as variously colored stones.
Should an aboriginal man wish to punish
his enemy with an infestation of head lice,
he would visit the rock-holes. Thereafter,
he would rub together the stones associated
with the mythical lice and chant a song to
cause an infestation of lice in his enemy
(Mountford 1976). Australian aboriginal
mythology is very rich in animal mythology,
and Cherry (1991) gives several examples of
insects in Australian mythology.
In summary, imitative magic is an interesting phenomenon noted in anthropological, psychological, and mythological books.
However, although insects provide many
interesting examples of imitative magic, the
topic has not been seriously approached
from an entomological perspective. I hope
this article helps to fill that void and will
stimulate some readers to pursue other areas
of cultural entomology not yet brought to the
attention of entomologists.
References Cited
Armstrong, F. 1985. Insects, pp. 1446–1451. In
R. Cavendish [Ed.]. Man, myth, and magic.
Marshall Cavendish, New York.
Berenbaum, M. 1995. Bugs in the system. Addison-Wesley, New York.
Brewer, J. 1976. Butterflies. H. N. Abrams, New
York.
Campbell, J. 1988. Mythologies of the primitive
American Entomologist • Volume 51, Number 1
hunters and gatherers. Harper and Row, New
York.
Cavendish, R. 1985. Imitative magic, pp. 1406–
1412. In R. Cavendish [Ed.], Man, myth, and
magic. Marshall Cavendish, New York.
Cherry, R. 1985. Sacred scarabs of ancient Egypt.
Bull. Entomol. Soc. Am. 31(2):14-16.
Cherry, R. 1991. Use of insects by Australian
aborigines. Am. Entomol. 37: 8-13.
Cooper, J. 1992. Dictionary of symbolic and
mythological animals. Thorsons, San Francisco.
Drury, N. 1985. Dictionary of mysticism and the
occult. Harper and Row, San Francisco.
Fairhead, J., and M. Leach. 2003. Termite society
and ecology: perspectives from West Africa, pp.
197-219. In E. Motte-Florac and J. Thomas
[Eds.], Insects in oral literature and traditions.
Peeters, Paris.
Frazer, J. 1998. The golden bough. Oxford University Press. New York.
Grinnell, G. 1899. The butterfly and the spider
among the Blackfeet. Am. Anthropol. 1:
194–196.
Hitchcock, S. 1962. Insects and Indians of
the Americas. Bull. Entomol. Soc. Am. 8:
181–187.
Huis, A. 2003. Medical and stimulating properties ascribed to arthropods and their products
in sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 367–382. In E.
Motte-Florac and J. Thomas [Eds.]. Insects
in oral literature and traditions. Peeters,
Paris.
Kritsky, G., and R. Cherry. 2000. Insect mythology. Writers Club Press, New York.
Leach, M. 1984. Funk and Wagnall’s standard
dictionary of folklore, mythology, and
legend. Harper, San Francisco.
Mountford, C. 1976. Nomads of the Australian desert. Rigby, Adelaide, South
Australia.
Riegel, G. 1994. The cicada in Chinese folklore.
Cult. Entomol. Dig. 3: 18–19.
Smith, R., T. Mittler, and C. Smith. 1973.
History of entomology. Annual Reviews,
Palo Alto, CA.
Starr. C., and M. Wille. 1990. Social wasps
among the Bribri of Costa Rica. Proc.
Int. Congr. Ethnobiol. (Belen, Brazil). 1:
187–194.
Ron Cherry is with the University of
Florida (IFAS) at the Everglades Research
and Education Center, 3200 E. Palm
Beach Road, Belle Glade, FL 33430. His
research interests are insect pests of rice,
sugarcane, and turf. He also has a passion
for mythology and has published several
papers on insect mythology. In 2000,
he and Gene Kritsky published Insect
Mythology, the first book dedicated specifically to showing the important roles
insects have played in mythology (see
References Cited).

13