Primates as Metaphors/Symbols

Abstract

A brief survey of primate symbolism among Amerindians, Balinese, Chinese, Japanese, French, and others shows a wide range of symbolic imagination—from god to the embodiment of beastliness. Of particular importance is that there are cultures in which metamorphoses between human and nonhuman primates take place. In others, nonhuman primates take on super‐human capabilities while remaining nonhuman primates. An essential consideration is whether meanings assigned to nonhuman primates are metaphors, which by definition draws the distinction between the two, and whether the meanings serve as a looking‐glass for the humans to deliberate upon themselves. The demarcation line between them is highly complex in each culture. Therefore, instead of simply posing an “either or question”—do people see continuity or discontinuity?—our focus should be to investigate the multiplicity, ambivalence, instability, and contingency in their symbolic imagination in specific historical contexts, rather than viewing symbolic structure as a hermetically sealed entity.

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