08 Arts in society Animals as metaphor John Berger ‘The 19th century, in western Europe and North America, saw the beginning of a process, today "being completed by 20th entury corporate capitalism, by which every tradition which had previously ‘mediated between ‘man and nature was broken, Before this rupture, snimals com stituted the first circle of what surrounded man. Perhaps that already suggests. too great a distance. They were with man at the centre of his world. Such centrality was of course economic and productive. What ever the changes in productive means and Social “organisation, men depended upon Animals for food, work, transport, clothing "Yet to suppose that animals fist entered the human imagination as meat or leather fo horn is to project a 19th century attitude backwards across the millenia, Animals first entered the imagination as messengers ‘and promises. For example, the domest ition of cattle did not begin as a simple Prospect of milk and meat. Cattle had ‘magical functions, sometimes oracular, Sometimes sacrificial, And the choice of a given species as magical, tameable and ‘alimentary was originally’ determined "by the habits, proximity and “invitation” of the animal in_question ‘White ox good is my mother ‘And we the people of my sister, ‘The people of Nyariau Bul Friend, great ox of the spreading horns, which ever bellows amid the her (Ox of the son of Bul Matos. (The Nuer! @ description of the modes of livelthood and. polltleal institurions of a Nilotie people, by EvansPritchard.) ‘Animals are born, are sentient and are ‘mortal. In these things they resemble man In their superficial anatomy—less in thelr deep anatomy-—in their habits, in their time, in their physical capacities, they differ from man. They are both like and unlike, “We Know what animals do and what beaver and bears and salmon and other creatures need, because. once our men were ‘married to them and they acquired this Knowledge from their animal wives.” (Hawaiian Indians quoted by LéviStrauss Jn The Savage Mind.) The eyes of an animal when they con: sider aman are attentive and. wary. The Same animal may well look at other species in the same way. He does not reserve a special look for man. But by no. other 2 Species except man will the animal's Took 72 | be recognised as familiar. Other animals are held by the look. Man becomes aware of himselt returning the look. The animal scrutinise him across a nar row abyss of non-compreheasion. This is ‘why the man ean sueprise the animal. Yet the animal—even if domesticated—can also surprise the man. ‘The man too is looking across a similar, but not identical, abyss fof non-comprehension. And this is 50 Wherever he looks. He is always looking across ignorance and fear. And so, when he is being seen by the animal, he is being seen as his surroundings are seen by him. His recognition of this is what makes the ook of the animal familiar. And yet the animal is distinet, and can never be con fused with man. ‘Thus, a power is ascribed to. the animal, comparable with human power but never. coinciding with it. The Animal has secrets which, unlike the secrets fof caves, mountains, seas, are. specifically Sddressed to man, The relation may become clearer by com paring the look of an animal with the look 5 another man. Between to men the two bysses are, in. principle, bridged by lane ‘Runge. Even if the encounter is hostile and hho Words are used (even if the (Wo speak different languages), the existence of lan- fuage allows that at least one of them, if fot both mutually, is confirmed by. the ther. Language allows men to reckon with tach other as with themselves. (nthe cor firmation made possible by language, human ignorance snd fear may also be Confirmed. Whereas in animals fear is 2 response (0 signal, jn men itis endemic.) 'No animal confirms man, either positively for negatively. The animal can be Killed and eaten <0 that ite energy Is added to that ‘which the hunter already possesses. The ani- tal can be tamed 30 that it supplies and works for the peasant. But always its lack of Common language, is sllence, guarantees its Sistance, its distinctness, ite exclusion, from fand of man, “just Because of this distinctness, how. ever, an animals life, never to be confused Now Society 10 March 1977 with man’s, can be seen to ran parallel {o his. Only in death do'the two parallel lines “converge” and. after death, perhaps, toss over to become parallel again hence the widenprend belt {nthe tasmigration of soul. With their parallel lives, animals offer sana companionship. which diferent from ‘any. ofered. by man exchange Different” because. itis '&_ companionship offered tothe loneliness of maa as 2 species Such a Unspeaking. companionship was fele to be 0 equal that fien one. finds the convetion that it was man Who lacked the capacity to speak with apimals—hence the “Mlories and legends of exceptional beings, Tike Orpheus, Who could talk with shimals in their own language ‘What were the secrets of the animal's likeness with, snd unlikeness from man? ‘The sextet whose existence man recon ised as soon as he intercepted an animal’ Tock Ta one sense the whole of anthropology, concerned With the passage from nature to ‘calture, js an answer to that question. But there is also a. general answer. All the secrets were about animals. as an iter- Cestion “between man. and. his ofiin. Darwin's “evolutionary theory, indelibly amped) as itis. with the masks of the European 9th century, nevertheless belongs to's tradition, almost ab old as man him fell. Animals interceded between man and their origin Because they. were. both ike snd unlike maa, "Animals came fram over the horizon. ‘they. belonged) there and. here. Likewise they wore mortal and immortal. An animal's blood’ flowed lke’ human blood, ‘but its Species was undying and_exch tion was Ton, each. ox was Ox. This—maybe, the frst existential dualism was reflected in 2 the treatment of animals. They Were sub jected and worshipped, bred and sacrified BP Today the vestiges of this dualism re main among those who live intimately with, Zand’ depend upon, animals A. peasant be Eames fond of his pig and is glad to salt Zaway it pork. What is significant, and is So ditict for the urban stranger to under Sond, is that the two statements ia. that J entenee are connected by an and and not bya but ‘The parallelism of their simitar/ssimi- lar lve! allowed animals to provoke some ff the first questions and. offer answers ‘The frst subject matter for painting was animal, Probably the frst pai was anim blood. Prior to that, itis not unreasonable to wuppose thatthe first metaphor animal, Rousteau, in his Essay on the Orivins of Languages, maintained tat la ffuage, itself began with. metaphor" “AS Emotions were the frst motives which In duced man to speak, his fist_utterances were tropes (metaphors) Figurative lan tuage wa the fst to be bom, proper mea ings were the last to be found” TE the fst metaphor was animal, i¢ was because the esenia! relation Between man Snd_ animal was metaphoric. Within that Felation what the, two. erms—man and Snimal_shaced in common revealed whatNow Soctety 10 March 1977 lifferentated them. And vice versa nis book on iotemism, Lévi-Strauss ‘comments on Rousseau's reasoning: “It is because man originally felt himscit iden- cal to all those like him (among which, as Rousseau explicitly says, we must include animals) that he came to acquire the capa city to distinguish himself ashe distin: Bushes shem—ie, to use the diversity of Species for conceptual support for social dilferentiation.” To accept Rousseau's explanation of the ie origins of language is, of course, to beg certain questions (what was the minimal Social organisation necessary for the Break: through of language?). Yet no search for origin can ever be fully satisfied. The inter- ession of animals in that search was 10 common precisely because animals remain ambiguous ‘All theories of ultimate origin are only ways of better defining what followed ‘Those who disagree with Rousseau are con testing a view of man, not a historical fact. What we are trying to define, because the experience is almost lost, is the univer: sal use of animal-signs for charting the experience of the world ‘Animals were seen in eight out of twelve signs of the zodiae. Among the Greeks, the Sign of each of the twelve hours of the day was an animal. (The first a cat, the last a Hrocodile) The Hindus envisaged the earth being carried on the back of an elephant and the elephant on a tortoise. For the Nuer of the southern Sudan (see Roy Will's Man and Beast), “all creatures, in- sluding ‘man, originally lived together in ¥ ellowship in one camp. Dissension’ began fer Fox persuaded Mongoose to throw ‘lub into Elephant’s face, A quarrel ‘nsued and the animals separated; each vent its own way and began to live as they ‘ow are, and to kill each other. Stomach, ‘hich af first lived a life of its own in the ‘ash, entered into man s0 that now he is = signers “of something other than them always hungry. The sexual organs, which hhad also been separate, attached. them selves {0 men and Women, causing them to esire one another constantly. Elephant taught man how to pound millet so. that now he satisfies his hunger only by cease= less labour. Mouse taught man to beget and women to hear. And Dog brought fire ‘The examples are endless. Everywhere animals offered explanations, or more pre Cisely, lent their name of character to a ‘quality, which like all qualities, was, in its essence, mysterious ‘What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was. insepar~ able from the development of language in Which words were not mere signals, but selves. Yel the first symbols were animals. $ What distinguished men from animals was = orn of their relationship with them, "The Wiad is one of the earliest texts available 10 us, and in it the use of meta Dhor still revesis the proximity of man and Animal, the proximity from which meta: phor itself arose, Flomer describes the eath of a soldier on the battlefield and then the death of a horse. Both deaths are equally transparent 10 Homer's eyes, there jsvno more refraction in one case than the other “Meanwhile, Idomeneus struck Erymas fon the mouth with his relentless bronze ‘The metal point of the spear pasted right through the lower part of his skoll, under the brain and smashed the White bones. His teeth were shattered: “both his eyes ‘were filled with blood; and he spurted blood through his nostrils and his gaping mouth ‘Then the black cloud of Death descended con him.” That was & man, ‘Three pages further on, it is 9 horse who falls: “Satpedon, casting second with his shining spear, missed Patrocids but struck his horse Pedasus on the right shoulder. ‘The horse whinnied in the throes of Death, then fell down in the dust and with a great sigh gave up his life” That was animal Book 17 of the Ilfad opens with Mene- Iaus standing over the corpse of Patraclus to prevent the Trojans sipping it. Here Homer uses animals as metaphoric’ refer fences to convey. with irony oF admiration, the excessive or superlative qualities of different moments. Without the example of animale. such momente wotld have te mained indescribable. "Menelaus bestrode his body like a-fretful mother caw standing lover the frst calf she has brought into the 2 world.” ‘A. Trojan threatens him, and ironically Menelaus shouts out to Zeus: "Have you fever seen such arrogance? We know the courage of the panther and the lion and the fierce wild-boar, the most high-spirited and self-reliant Beast of all, but that, Tt seems, is nothing {0 the prowese of these sons of Panthous 1 Menelaus then” kills the ‘Trojan who threatened him, and nobody dares approach hhim. “He was like a mountain lion. who believes in his own strength and pounces fon the finest heifer in a grazing herd. He breaks her neck with his powerful jaws, and then he tears her to pieces and devours hher blood and entrails, ‘while all around him the herdsmen and their dogs create a din but keep. their distance—they are heartily scared of him and nothing would induce them to close in.” Centuries after Homer, Aristotle, in his History of Animals, the ‘rst major scien tific work on the subject, systematises the comparative relation of man and animal In the great majority of animals there are traces ‘of physical qualities and atti tudes, which qualities are more markedly differentiated in the case of human beings. For just as we pointed out resemblances Jn the physical organs, so in a aumber of animals) we observe gentleness and flerce- ness, mildness or eross-temper, courage oF timidity, fear or confidence, high spirits oF low cunning, and, with regard to. intelli. gence, something akin to sagacity. Some of these ‘qualities Inman, as compared with the corresponding qualities in animals, die only quantitatively: that is to say, man has more or less of this quality, and an animal hhas more of less of some other; other quali- ties in-man ate represented by analogous and not identical qualities; for example, just as in man we find knowledge, wisdom and sagacity, so in certain animals there exists some other natural potentiality akin to these. The truth of this statement will be the more clearly apprehended if we have regard to the phenomena Bf childhood: {OF in children we observe the traces and seeds ‘of what will one day be settled psycholo- gical habits, though psychologically child for the time being from an ‘To most modern “educated” readers, this passage, I think, will seem noble but 00 anthropomorphic. Gentleness, crosttemper, Sagacity, they would argue, are not mora qualities which ean be ascribed to animals ‘And the behaviourists would support this objection. ‘Until the 19th century, however, anthro: pomorphism was integral to. the’ relation between man and animal and was an ex: pression of their proximity. Anthropomor- Dhism was the residue of the continuous use Of animal metaphor. Tn the last two cen turies, animals have gradually disappeared, ‘Today’ we live without them. And in this new solitude, anthropomorphism makes us doubly uneasy. . Tis wil be followed by word arte By John Berger, on the disappdarance of animals