Mythology and Popular Culture
In African folklore, the aardvark is much admired because of its diligent quest for food and its fearless response to soldier ants. Hausa magicians make a charm from the heart, skin, forehead, and nails of the aardvark, which they then proceed to pound together with the root of a certain tree. Wrapped in a piece of skin and worn on the chest, the charm is said to give the owner the ability to pass through walls or roofs at night. The charm is said to be used by burglars and those seeking to visit young girls without their parents' permission.
The Egyptian god Set is said, by some, to have the head of an aardvark or to be part aardvark.
The villain (Cyril Sneer) and one of the heroes (Cedric Sneer) of the 1980s animated television series The Raccoons were aardvarks.
The main character of Arthur, an animated television series for children produced by WGBH, shown in more than 180 countries, is an aardvark.
One of the main characters of the 1969-1971 animated cartoon The Ant and the Aardvark is a blue aardvark voiced by John Byner, doing an impersonation of Jackie Mason. It depicts the Aardvark attempting, and failing, to catch and eat his antagonist, the Ant, also voiced by Byner impersonating Dean Martin.
The comic book series Cerebus The Aardvark (created, written and illustrated by Dave Sim) features an aardvark (an "earth pig born") as its protagonist.
As the most common regular word with two of the letter A at the start, the word Aardvark is often used when having an advantage in alphabetical order is desirable. This is most often seen with business names in printed directory listings such as the Yellow Pages such as Aardvark Taxi.
Read more about this topic: Aardvark
Famous quotes containing the words mythology, popular and/or culture:
“The Anglo-American can indeed cut down, and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech, and vote for Buchanan on its ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He ignorantly erases mythological tablets in order to print his handbills and town-meeting warrants on them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)