page_title: Human uses of birds
section_title: Mythology and religion
hierarchical_section_title: Human uses of birds / Symbolic uses / Mythology and religion
caption_attribution_description: Simurgh on the portal of Nadir Divan-Beghi Madrasah, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
context_page_description: Human uses of birds have, for thousands of years, included both economic uses such as food, and symbolic uses such as art, music, and religion.
  In terms of economic uses, birds have been hunted for food since Palaeolithic times. They have been captured and bred as poultry to provide meat and eggs since at least the time of ancient Egypt. Some species have been used, too, to help locate or to catch food, as with cormorant fishing and the use of honeyguides. Feathers have long been used for bedding, as well as for quill pens and for fletching arrows.
  Today, many species face habitat loss and other threats caused by humans; bird conservation groups work to protect birds and to influence governments to do so.
  Birds have appeared in the mythologies and religions of many cultures since ancient Sumer. For example, the dove was the symbol of the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah, and the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, had a little owl as her symbol, and, in ancient India, the peacock represented Mother Earth.
context_section_description: Birds have appeared in mythology and religion in a variety of guises.
  Birds have featured as gods from the time of ancient Egypt, where the sacred ibis was venerated as a symbol of the god Thoth. In India, the peacock is perceived as Mother Earth among Dravidian peoples, while the Mughal and Persian emperors displayed their godlike authority by sitting in a Peacock Throne. In the Yazidi religion, Melek Taus the "Peacock Angel" is the central figure of their faith. In the cult of Makemake, the Tangata manu birds of Easter Island served as chiefs.
  Birds have been seen as spirit messengers of the gods. In Norse mythology, Hugin and Munin were ravens who whispered news into the ears of the god Odin. In the Etruscan and Roman religions of ancient Italy, priests were involved in augury, interpreting the words of birds while the "auspex" watched their activities to foretell events. In the Inca and Tiwanaku empires of South America, birds are depicted transgressing the boundaries between the earthly and underground spiritual realms. Indigenous peoples of the central Andes maintain legends of birds passing to and from metaphysical worlds. The mythical chullumpi bird is said to mark the existence of a portal between such worlds, and to transform itself into a llama. Among the Parsees of India and Iran, and among practitioners of Vajrayana Buddhism who believe in the transmigration of souls in Sikkim, Mongolia, Bhutan and Nepal, sky burial has been practised for centuries. In this ritual, corpses are left exposed for griffon vultures to pick clean. The practice is declining, not least because of the loss of most of the vulture population across South Asia to accidental poisoning by the anti-inflammatory veterinary drug diclofenac.
  Birds have sometimes served as religious symbols. In ancient Mesopotamia, doves were prominent animal symbols of Inanna (later known as Ishtar), the goddess of love, sexuality, and war, and, in the ancient Levant, doves were used as symbols for the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah. In ancient Greece, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and patron deity of the city of Athens, had a little owl as her symbol. In Greek iconography, Athena is often shown accompanied by an owl and the owl was used as a symbol of Athens on Athenian coinage. In classical antiquity, doves were sacred to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who absorbed this association with doves from Inanna-Ishtar. Aphrodite frequently appears with doves in ancient Greek pottery and, during Aphrodite's main festival, the Aphrodisia, her altars would be purified with the blood of a sacrificed dove.
  In Medieval Christian iconography, the cormorant's "wing-drying" pose represents the Christian cross, and hence is a figure of Christ. In John Milton's Paradise Lost, on the other hand, the bird's cross-like pose is a travesty of Christ: "Then up he flew, and... Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life Thereby regained, but sat devising death To them who lived".
  In mythology, birds were sometimes monsters, like the Roc and the Māori's Pouākai, a giant bird capable of snatching humans. In Persian mythology, the simurgh was a gigantic bird, the first to come into existence, and it nested on the tree of plant life that grew in the great ocean beside the tree of immortality. Its task was to shake the seeds of all the plants out of the tree.
caption: Simurgh in tilework on Nadir Divan-Beghi Madrasah, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
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