In Culture
There are many legends about the Hamerkop. In some regions, people state that other birds help it build its nest. The Xam informants of Wilhelm Bleek said that when a Hamerkop flew and called over their camp, they knew that someone close to them had died.
It is known in some cultures as the lightning bird, and the Kalahari Bushmen believe or believed that being hit by lightning resulted from trying to rob a Hamerkop's nest. They also believe that the inimical god Khauna would not like anyone to kill a Hamerkop. According to an old Malagasy belief, anyone who destroys its nest will get leprosy, and a Malagasy poem calls it an "evil bird". Such beliefs have given the bird some protection.
Scopus, a database of abstracts and citations for scholarly journal articles, received its name in honor of this bird, as the Hamerkop is renowned for its superior navigation skills.
Read more about this topic: Hammerkop
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“All our civilization had meant nothing. The same culture that had nurtured the kindly enlightened people among whom I had been brought up, carried around with it war. Why should I not have known this? I did know it, but I did not believe it. I believed it as we believe we are going to die. Something that is to happen in some remote time.”
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966)
“Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.”
—Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)