Scarecrow - History

History

In Kojiki, the oldest surviving book in Japan (compiled in the year 712), a scarecrow known as Kuebiko appears as a deity who cannot walk, yet knows everything about the world.

The 1881 Household Cyclopedia of General Information gives the following advice:

Machinery of various kinds, such as wind-mills in miniature, horse rattles, etc., to be put in motion by the wind, are often employed to frighten crows; but with all of these they soon become familiar, when they cease to be of any use whatever.

The most effectual method of banishing them from a field, as far as experience goes, is to combine with one or other of the scarecrows in vogue the frequent use of the musket. Nothing strikes such terror into these sagacious animals as the sight of a fowling-piece and the explosion of gun powder, which they have known so often to be fatal to their race.

Such is their dread of a fowling-piece, that if one is placed upon a dyke or other eminence, it will for a long time prevent them from alighting on the adjacent grounds. Many persons now, however, believe that crows like most other birds, do more good by destroying insects and worms, etc., than harm by eating grain. —Henry Hartshorne, The Household Cyclopedia of General Information

Crows can be a substantial problem for gardens in the springtime: they can work down a row pulling up recently sprouted corn to eat the remaining seed/seedlings. In the southern Appalachians another common method of scaring off crows was use of a dead crow hung upside down from a pole.

Modern scarecrows, though still essentially decoys, seldom take a human shape. On California farmland, highly reflective aluminized PET film ribbons are tied to the plants to create shimmers from the sun. Another approach is automatic noise guns powered by propane gas.

In the United Kingdom, where the use of scarecrows as a protector of crops date from time immemorial, and where dialects were rife, there are a wide range of alternative names such as:

Name	Locale
Hodmedod	Berkshire
Murmet	Devon
Hay-man	England
Tattie Bogal	Isle of Skye
Tattie bogle Bodach-rocais (lit. "old man of the rooks")	Scotland
Mommet	Somerset
Mawkin	Sussex
Bwbach	Wales

Alternative names for scarecrows also include these localized versions:

Name	Locale/Language
Strašák	Czech
Hernehirmutis	Estonian
Fugleskræmsel	Danish
Vogelverschrikker	Dutch
Épouvantail	French
Vogelscheuche	German
Bijuka	Hindi
Spaventapasseri	Italian
Kakashi	Japanese
Nokku Kuthi	Malayalam
Orang-Orang	Malaysia
Nuffara	Maltese
Bujgaavane (बुजगावणे)	Marathi
Matarsack	Persian
Tao-tao	Philippines
Espantalho	Portuguese
Espantapájaros	Spanish
Fågelskrämma	Swedish
Sola Kolla Bommai	Tamil
Dishti Bomma	Telugu
Bù nhìn	Vietnamese
Flay-crow Mawpin Bird-scarer Mog Shay Guy Shuft Rook-scarer Kelson	Unknown

(Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Penguin Books, 2000)