Cultural Symbolism
The calamus has long been a symbol of love. The name is associated with a Greek myth: Kalamos, son of the river-god Maeander, who loved the youth Karpos, of Zephyrus (the West Wind) and Chloris (Spring). When Karpos drowned in a swimming race, Kalamos also drowned and was transformed into a reed, whose rustling in the wind was interpreted as a sigh of lamentation.
The plant was a favorite of Henry David Thoreau (who called it "sweet flag"), and also of Walt Whitman, who added a section called the "Calamus" poems, to the third edition of Leaves of Grass (1860). In the poems the calamus is used as a symbol of love, lust, and affection.
The name Sweet Flag refers to its sweet scent (it has been used as a strewing herb) and the wavy edges of the leaves which are supposed to resemble a fluttering flag.
The root of the calamus (Tamil vasambu வசம்பு). This root is cut into disc-shaped beads, and made into bracelets, which are typically worn by newborns for the first few month. A vasambu bracelet is a symbol of a newborn baby in Tamil culture.
Read more about this topic: Acorus Calamus
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or symbolism:
“All cultural change reduces itself to a difference of categories. All revolutions, whether in the sciences or world history, occur merely because spirit has changed its categories in order to understand and examine what belongs to it, in order to possess and grasp itself in a truer, deeper, more intimate and unified manner.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
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