Lion, panther, jaguar, tiger

Lion, panther, jaguar, tiger

Lions are social animals that live in prides, in which the females do most of the hunting. They inhabit open plains, though their once vast range is now reduced to the savannas of Africa. Lions are often followed by scavengers from vultures to hyenas, which has contributed to the idea that lions are kings attended by a court. The male has an enormous head and luxuriant mane, which suggests the sun sending forth rays.

Tigers, by contrast, are usually solitary, and they are found in the jungles of Asia and the forbidding hillsides of Siberia. Though normally shy near human settlements, they will occasionally attack human beings.

Panthers, which are almost identical to leopards apart from the color of their fur, are smaller than either lions or tigers, and they rely more on stealth and speed in hunting. They are able to climb trees, where they can hide meat from scavengers, observe while unnoticed, and pounce suddenly upon their prey. Panthers and leopards are solitary, nocturnal hunters, often associated with chthonic realms.

Even in Paleolithic times, the great cats seem to have had a special religious significance, and they were given a place of honor among the cave paintings of Lascaux in a cavern known as the “Chamber of Felines.” At the dawn of urban civilization, people already thought of these animals as primarily feminine. Our words “female” and “feline” both ultimately come from the Latin “felare”, meaning “to suck”. Several figurines of women, possibly goddesses, accompanied by great cats have been found at Çatal Huyuk in Turkey, the earliest known walled town.

In early pantheons, the great cats are most closely associated with feminine deities. Among the foremost of these was the Egyptian Hathor, who was the goddess of love, dance, feminine arts, but was also capable of great fury. When men rebelled against the sun god Ra, she attacked them as a lioness and soon developed an insatiable thirst for blood. When Ra himself was satisfied that the rebellion had been defeated, she continued to kill, and the gods feared that she would destroy all humankind. They left out bats of red wine, and she drank them, mistaking the liquor for blood, fell asleep, and finally awakened with her anger appeased. Hathor in her incarnation as a furious avenger was known as Sekmet and was depicted with the body of a woman and the head of a lioness. The Babylonian goddess Ishtar, in her capacity as a deity of war, was represented standing upon a lion. Lions were harnessed to the chariot of Cybel, the Syrian goddess who was adopted by the Romans as their Magna Mater.

Male lions, however, are just as common in the visual arts of the ancient world. Both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians placed stone lions as guardians on each side of the doorways to temples and palaces, a practice that eventually spread eastwards all the way to China.

In Sumero-Babylonian animal proverbs, which are among the very earliest literary works to have survived, the lion is already established as the king of beasts. This motif soon became one of the most widely established literary conventions, found in fables attributed to the semi-historical Aesop. The lion often appears as a figure of brute power that terrorizes other animals, and the sly fox in one fables observes that many tracks lead into his cave but non lead out. The lion is not always dominant, however, and in another fable the ass and other animals he once tormented beat the aged lion. In African legends as well, the majestic lion frequently falls victim to weaker but cleverer creatures such as the hare. The motif of a lion as monarch has been used in the Hindu-Persian Pancatantra, the Medieval European stories of Renard the Fox, the Narnia stories by C. S. Lewis, and countless other works throughout the world.

(From The mythical zoo by Boria Sax).

Leopard in the Toronto Zoo. Photo by Elena.