The Foot in Language, Symbols, and Myths

Abstract

In the history of evolution, the human foot is the youngest part of our skeleton and allows plane bipedal walking due to development of a longitudinal and transverse arch of the foot, with a stable, parallel first ray, but sacrificing the ability to grasp. Due to the loss of grasping, the hominoid mothers had to lay down their babies while working. To prevent babies from crying in dangerous surroundings with wild animals, mothers had to calm them with sounds and singing that likely led to language. A third somehow synchronous step was growth of the telencephalon and the development of specialised hands that could produce tools for fishing and hunting. As these elementary changes allowed upright walking and the discovery of new worlds, the foot is really deeply anchored in our speech and has become a symbol for life itself, for the human being as a "pars pro toto", for freedom, power and subjection. According to many myths, metaphors and symbols for the foot also represent life-spending fertility, eroticism, and sexuality. But nevertheless the foot is also a symbol of respect, reverence, and subservience, feet washing and anointing is an act of humility and love. At least we know nowadays that the foot is a subconscious ambassador of our emotions in non-verbal communication. With the help of our feet, we can hunt each other or approach each other, not only symbolically, but also in fact.