Insects and Human Culture

Insect Art, Fear & Folklore

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

Eating her curds and whey

There came a big spider

And sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away

Mother Goose 1916

Entomophobia One of many phobias (irrational or unreasonable fear)

Entomophobia is classified as a simple phobia and is grouped with such phobias as:

animal phobias - Entomophobia ranks high

fear of heights

fear of closed spaces

agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)

Most phobics recognize their fear is unfounded, yet have involuntary response:

apprehension	increased heart rate
feelings of impending doom	faintness
fear of losing self-control	trembling
shortness of breath	sweaty palms

Age and Gender

children are more phobic than adults

equal probability in girls and boys

women phobics outnumber men

A description of a large mans fear of insects, especially cockroaches.

"I see one in the kitchen and I am terrified, paralyzed, unable to speak or move. It is so small and I am so big. that is part of the horror. It is not the least afraid of me . . . it pays no attention to me at all . . . and its presence seems to fill the whole room. Kill one? That would be impossible. It is, psychically, too big to kill. When I look at it, it is everything. So huge". Besides, even if I were able to kill it, another would come, another just like it. And that is too frightening even to consider." (Hubbell, S. p 157-)

Special phobias

Arachniphobia = fear of spiders

tipulophobia = fear of tipulids (crane flies) which are leggy, harmless insects that resemble huge mosquitoes.

delusory parasitosis = sufferer routinely picks specks scraped from his skin to prove he is infested with bugs.

"Bugaboo" and "bogeyman" are derived from the same root word as bug, bugge or bough which is an old Anglo-Saxon word meaning a terror, ghost, a devil.

However, A fear of bugs or a loathing of insects seems to be a learned-cultural trait and is not universal.

JAPAN - crickets, ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, silkworms and their moths are admired.

CHINA - spiders are considered lucky.

AFRICA - The Ashanti tell stories about Anansi, a cunning and clever spider.

EGYPT - In ancient Egypt the Golden Scarab was worshiped and associated with the sun.

CREATION STORIES In many folk stories, the creator was a bug.

South American Indian creation myth. The creator was a very large beetle who made men and women from grains of earth leftover from when the world was made. (Hubbell, S. p38)

Ancient Semitic deity, Beelzebub, was the "Lord of Flies". It was thought that Beelzebub would protect his worshipers from flies. Book titled: Lord of Flies by William Golding, 1954.

WESTERN CULTURE

Ants are considered wise and virtuous

"The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Aesop extols the virtues of hard work and preparation.

"Go thou to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise", Proverbs 6:6

Solomon states that there are four things on earth that are little but exceedingly wise. These included: "The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.", Proverbs 30:25

Great teachers, "None teaches better than the ant, and she says nothing." Proverbs

Ants - associated with fidgeting, "have ants in their pants."

Bees are industrious.

Spiders are wise (Charlotte's Web)

Ill omens and curses

Dragonflies -sometimes called the devil's darning needle, if they caught you they would sew up your mouth, nostrils, eyelids, or ears. Snake doctor, thought to guard snakes.

Deathwatch beetles - portents of a death to come

Locusts and locust swarms were used as curses in the bible:

"Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.
All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume." Exodus 10:15

Flies are mentioned 9 times in the bible. 2 of the 10 plagues of ancient Egypt were flies. And not just a few flies "there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servant's houses" (Exodus 8:24).

No curse was more loathsome than being consumed by maggots, "They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them."

Whimsical

The firefly is a funny bug,
He hasn't any mind.
He blunders all the way through life
With his headlight on behind

From the poems of A. Nony Mouse (Jack Prelutsky)

ORTHOPTERA

Katydid- A tale told to children. A little girl named Katy who had told a fib and willfully and stubbornly compounded her error by refusing to say she had lied was struck dead by God. Thereafter, her shame lived on as even the bugs in the trees debated whether Katy did or didn't and if you listen closely you will hear that most of them think she did.

Katydid - Another story. A young woman named Katy fell in love with a handsome young man who scorned her and instead married her prettier sister. After the honeymoon, the couple were found dead, poisoned in their bed. And then the bugs began debating whether Katy did or not.

An old English definition of a "katy" is a wanton.

The Fly	Little fly,	Am not I	For I dance
	Thy summer play	A fly like thee?	And drink and sing;
	My thoughtless hand	Or art not though	Till some blind hand
	Hath brushed away.	A man like me?	Shall brush my wing.
			- Billy Blake

More Fly poems..... 

ON A FLY DRINKING OUT OF HIS CUP

I HEARD A FLY BUZZ WHEN I DIED

Busy, curious, thirsty fly! Drink with me and drink as I: Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sip it up: Make the most of life you may, Life is short and wears away. Both alike are mine and thine Hastening quick to their decline: Thine's a summer, mine's no more, Though repeated to threescore. Threescore summers, when they're gone, Will appear as short as one. -- William Oldys

I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form Was like the stillness in the air Between the heaves of storm. The eyes beside had wrung them dry, And breaths were gathering sure For that last onset, when the king Be witnessed in his power. I willed my keepsakes, signed away What portion of me I Could make assignable,--and then There interposed a fly, With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. -- Emily Dickinson

 Poems by Ogden Nash

The Fly	The Ant	The Centipede
God in his wisdom made the fly And then forgot to tell us why.	The ant has made himself illustrious Though constant industry industrious, So what? Would you be calm and placid If you were full of formic acid?	I objurgate the centipede, A bug we do not really need. At sleepy-time he beats a path Straight to the bedroom or the bath. You always wallop where he's not Or, if he is, he makes a spot.

A Moth Poem

The Lesson of the Moth
i was talking to a moth the other evening he was trying to break into an electric light bulb and fry himself on the wires why do you fellows pull this stunt i asked him because it is the conventional thing for moths or why if that had been an uncovered candle instead of an electric light bulb you would now be a small unsightly cinder have you no sense plenty of it he answered but at times we get tired of using it we get bored with the routine and crave beauty and excitement	fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while so we wad all our life up into one little toll and then we shoot the roll that is what life is for it is better to be part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty our attitude toward life is come easy go easy	we are like human beings used to be before they became too civilized to enjoy themselves and before i could argue him out of his philosophy he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter i do not agree with him myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity but at the same time i wish there was something i wanted as badly as he wanted to fry himself -- by Don Marquis

Entomological Figures of Speech

Links:

Insects and Human Society A course from the Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech. (Jan. 11, 2001).

Mark Swanson. Antlion Pit: A Doodlebug Anthology (Jan. 4, 1999). The Antlion Pit is a collection of resources related to the fascinating antlion, or "doodlebug." Inside you will find exclusive videos of antlion feeding behavior and metamorphosis, as well as information on how and where to find antlions. You can also explore areas not normally associated with entomology, such as the roles antlions and other creatures play in human culture and imagination.

Dexter Sear. BUGS: Cultural Entomology (Jan. 4, 1999). Considers the following questions: What insects do we find in art? What insects affect us psychologically? Can you think of any song, book or movie based on insects? What insects have been deified? Do insects carry any symbolism?

The North American Butterfly Association, Inc. (NABA), a non-profit organization, was formed in 1992 to educate the public about the joys of non-consumptive, recreational butterflying including listing, gardening, observation, photography, rearing and conservation.

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Last updated Dec. 29, 2000