Relationship With Humans
Mongooses are a common spectacle at roadside shows in Pakistan. Snake charmers keep mongooses for mock fights with snakes. In Okinawa, mongooses fight the highly venomous habu snakes (Ovophis okinavensis and Trimeresurus flavoviridis), in a closed perimeter while spectators watch. However, due to pressure from animal rights activists, the spectacle is less common today.
According to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1.35 & 1.87), Egyptians venerated native mongooses (Herpestes ichneumon) for their ability to handle venomous snakes and for their occasional diet of crocodile eggs. The Buddhist god of wealth Vaiśravaṇa, or Dzambala for Tibetans, is frequently depicted holding a mongoose that is spitting jewels from its mouth.
Rudyard Kipling's story "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" features a pet mongoose that saves its human family from two deadly cobras. The story was later made into several films, and also a song by Donovan. A mongoose also features in Bram Stoker's novel, The Lair of the White Worm. The main character, Adam Salton, purchases one to independently hunt snakes.
All mongoose species, except for Suricata suricatta, are classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 preventing them from being imported into the country.
Read more about this topic: Mongoose
Famous quotes containing the words relationship with, relationship and/or humans:
“Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn’t brotherly—who lived mostly under his parents’ roof ... who advocated one day’s work and six days “off” as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown ... is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)