Human uses of reptiles have for centuries included both symbolic and practical interactions. Symbolic uses of reptiles include accounts in mythology, religion, and folklore as well as pictorial symbols such as medicine's serpent-entwined caduceus. Myths of creatures with snake-like or reptilian attributes are found around the world, from Chinese and European dragons to the Woolunga of Australia. Classical myths told of the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, the Gorgon sisters including the snake-haired Medusa, and the snake-legged Titans. Crocodiles appear in the religions of Ancient Egypt, in Hinduism, and in Aztec and other Latin American cultures. Practical uses of reptiles include the manufacture of snake antivenom and the farming of crocodiles, principally for leather but also for meat. Reptiles still pose a threat to human populations, as snakes kill some tens of thousands each year, while crocodiles attack and kill hundreds of people per year in Southeast Asia and Africa. However, people keep some reptiles such as iguanas, turtles, and the docile corn snake as pets. Soon after their discovery in the nineteenth century, dinosaurs were represented to the public as the large-scale sculptures of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, while in the twentieth century they became important elements in the popular imagination, thought of as maladapted and obsolete failures, but also as fantastic and terrifying creatures in monster movies. In folklore, crocodiles were thought to weep to lure their prey, or in sorrow for their prey, a tale told in the classical era, and repeated by Sir John Mandeville and William Shakespeare. Negative attitudes to reptiles, especially snakes, have led to widespread persecution, contributing to the challenge of conserving reptiles in the face of the effects of human activity such as habitat loss and pollution.
Context
Culture consists of the social behaviour and norms found in human societies and transmitted through social learning. Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing. The concept of material culture covers physical expressions such as technology, architecture and art, whereas immaterial culture includes principles of social organization, mythology, philosophy, literature, and science. The ethnobiologist Luis Ceriaco reviews the place of reptiles in culture, as studied by ethnoherpetology, considering their practical uses, namely food, medicine, and other materials; their contribution to "ecological equilibrium", the balance of nature; and negative or fearful attitudes to them (especially snakes), causing persecution, an additional challenge for conservation. This persecution, Ceriaco states, is related to and perhaps caused by myths and folklore about the animals. More broadly, ethnozoology studies the place of animals in human life, spanning topics including using animals for food, whether by hunting or by domestication and farming; animals as pets, in entertainment, and in sport; reports of mythical animals; human attitudes towards animals; medicinal and magic religious uses; and the exploitation of traditional knowledge of animals, such as in conservation. A more recent perspective is to view the interactions of humans and reptiles as something of "more-than-human agency", in other words the subject of a multi-species study. For example, the behaviour of crocodiles "is constructed in interaction, both between people and crocodiles, and among people"; markedly different results depended on "institutional arrangements and attitudes towards sharing a dam with crocodiles" in different villages in Benin, where knowledge of crocodile habits reduced attacks.
Symbolic interactions
In mythology and religion
Reptiles both real, like crocodiles and snakes, and imaginary, like dragons, appear in mythology and religions around the world. A widespread theme is the World Turtle that supports the world; it is found in the mythologies of Hinduism, China and the Americas. Romulo Alves and colleagues recorded the use of 13 species of reptiles (crocodilians and snakes) in Brazil for magic religious purposes such as magic spells, attracting sexual partners, and as amulets to protect against the evil eye. A dragon is a reptile-like legendary creature in the myths of European and Chinese cultures, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian countries. The (genuine) plesiosaur Woolungasaurus is named after the Woolunga, a mythical reptile of Australia. In Greek mythology snakes are associated with deadly antagonists, as a chthonic symbol, roughly translated as 'earthbound'. The nine-headed Lernaean Hydra that Hercules defeated and the three Gorgon sisters are children of Gaia, the earth. Medusa was one of the three Gorgon sisters who Perseus defeated. Medusa is described as a hideous mortal, with snakes instead of hair and the power to turn men to stone with her gaze. After killing her, Perseus gave her head to Athena who fixed it to her shield called the Aegis. The Titans are also depicted in art with snakes instead of legs and feet for the same reason—they are children of Gaia and Uranus, so they are bound to the earth.
Crocodiles have appeared in religions across the world. Ancient Egypt had Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, with his cult-city Crocodilopolis, as well as Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, with the back and tail of a crocodile. In Hinduism, Varuna, a Vedic and Hindu god, rides a makara, a water-beast like a crocodile, and he is called Nāgarāja, lord of snakes. Similarly the goddess personifications of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers are often depicted as riding crocodiles. In Goa, crocodile worship is practised, as at the annual Mannge Thapnee ceremony. In Latin America, Cipactli was the giant earth crocodile of the Aztec and other Nahua peoples.
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