Mystical Powers of Hyenas:Interpreting a Bedouin Belief

Abstract

animals in many social situations and prevalent in all different cultures of the world. Among the multiple uses humans make of the animal world, a particular interest lies in the role that animals play in symbolic behaviour and ritual. The anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown long ago suggested that animals and animal categories have a 'ritual value' utilized by humans in their attempts to articulate their world. As observed by Edmund Leach, the ritual value of animals is linked with taboos and rules concerning the uses humans make of animals, such as killing animals, eating them, and using animal products.' With regard to their role in symbolic thought, Levi-Strauss has suggested that symbolic thought and behaviour explore the relations between categories of significance which compel people to articulate them through symbolism and deal with, if not solve, the contradictions, ambiguities, and oppositions which make up the symbolic expression.2 This paper concerns the role of hyenas in Bedouin symbolic thought and the ways in which they are credited with certain mystical powers displayed during specific interactions which humans sometimes have with hyenas.3 Following a description of this Bedouin belief, I will attempt to explain the phenomenon, using the notion of 'transformation' between animals and humans, a phenomenon which has received some anthropological attention. The application of this notion will then be related to Bedouin religion and the prevailing tension between the monotheistic belief in Islam and the pagan roots of Bedouin culture which are still prominent. While lions are usually accorded the most noble and top ranking status among animals, the lowest ranks are usually reserved for scavengers, and among these reigns the unattractive hyena. Nature has given this animal a particularly ugly appearance. Its rough fur is coloured a shady grey or yellow spotted with brown dots. Its head is sturdy and disproportionate to a strong and bulky neck. Its back is usually lower than its front and, with its characteristically swollen stomach, it has a heavy, clumsy and unappealing appearance. An additional characteristic of hyenas is the powerful odour of their anal glands, which has skunk-like effect and is used by a hyena to socially scent its surrounds, and also as a measure of aggression and scare tactic to drive off other animals from access to available prey. Hyenas feed off carrion of all available animals. Their powerful jaws (responsible for the strange shape of their head) are able to break and chew bones and cartilage with relative ease. The development of the front of the body at the expense of the rear is explained as an adaptation to the need of the animal to haul its sometimes heavy prey to its cave, where it is communally shared among the animals. Lacking any other noble attributes, hyenas live in groups and are thus similar to humans at least in their adherence to some form of social organization. This aspect in itself makes them good candidates for symbolic attention.4 Although their number in the Negev desert is believed to be small, hyenas are frequently the topic of conversation in Bedouin tents and shacks. One often hears their far-away howling and yelping on still desert nights.