animal worship

animal worship, veneration of an animal, usually because of its connection with a particular deity. The term was used by Western religionists in a pejorative manner and by ancient Greek and Roman polemicists against theriomorphic religions—those religions whose gods are represented in animal form. Most examples given for animal worship, however, are not instances of worship of an animal itself. Instead, the sacred power of a deity was believed to be manifested in an appropriate animal that was regarded as a representation, epiphany, or incarnation of the deity.

Animal symbolism in religious iconography and allegory has been used in associating certain qualities with certain animal species. This phenomenon is evident in many religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and the religions of the classical Greeks and Romans. For instance, the Greeks associated wisdom with the owl and believed that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, had a particular affiliation with birds; hence, she is frequently represented with an owl. A similar association occurs between Jesus Christ and the lamb in Christian traditions. This associative factor does not imply, as polemicists have strongly suggested, an earlier stage of development in which an animal itself was worshipped and then later rationalized into an anthropomorphic figure or abstract quality.

The universal practice among hunting and gathering peoples of respect for and ceremonial behaviour toward animals stems from the religious customs attendant on the conducting of the hunt and not from worship of the animal itself. Another phenomenon that has been confused with animal worship is totemism, in which animal or plant categories are part of a social classificatory system that does not imply worship of the animal. In contemporary scholarship, the term animal worship seldom occurs, because it has been rejected as a misleading interpretive category.