La Lechuza is a Mexican shape shifting witch.
Mictlantecuhtli., Aztec god of the dead, was associated with the mythical owl chicuatli.
Chicuahtli isn’t mythical, it’s the Nahuatl word the barred owl. I’ve found a lot of online and books that will interchange the barred owl for a barn owl, but the barn owl in Nahuatl is chichtli.
Edit: didn’t realize it was you anon! Sorry we’ve had this conversation like 3 times now.
Lol no problem. You’re one of the people here able to teach me owl stuff.
I thought there were your everyday, natural chicuahtli, but also the Chicuahtli that was the companion of the god of the underworld. I could very well be wrong there though. That was the mythical one I referred to.
I’m just glad you were here! When I looked up the right way to spell your username to take you, it looked like you hadn’t posted anything for a couple weeks.
Think of it in terms of bat, vampire, vampire bat, and Dracula. There are bats, vampires can turn into bats, and Dracula is a lord of vampires. Not all bats are the species vampire bat and usually you wouldn’t go around calling bats Dracula (unless you’re in a situation involving vampires and/or you’re hunting Dracula). Dracula can turn into other forms other than bats.
When Teotl shapeshift they turn into forms of specific animals known to the indigenous people. The core important animal forms get names (like a Dracula) while they are in that form and are considered gods themselves. As far as I’m aware there isn’t a specific owl deity or at least I haven’t found a reference yet.
As far as my posting history is concerned, I’m both a hermit in cyber and meat space.
Lol well I am glad you de-hermited temporarily for my sake! I always learn some very cool stuff when you pop up.
Thank you for the explanation!
I’m surprised the article talks about owls as if they’re all the same. I would think the symbolism of a barn owl would be quite different from that of a burrowing owl, for instance.
There is at least some differentiation in some cultures. I’ve talked to @MisterNeon@lemmy.world before about different owls from Meso American codices. Modern Mexican Spanish still has a number of regional words for different types of owls. Búho, lechuza, tecolote, and I’m sure there are more that are less common.
I have been summoned.
So the article doesn’t cover Mesoamerican areas which is weird that they’ll use the term “Native American” and have the term stop applying past the Rio Grande.
I got a couple of tidbits of owl folklore in regards to Nahua people located in central Mexico (Aztecs).
You have two owls built into the holy calendar the Tonalpolhualli. In each 13 day week “trecena” you have the barred owl “chicuatli” represents the 6th day and you have the great horned owl “tecolotl” that represents the 10th day. I’ve heard the myth that when a person dies part of their soul is escorted by the corresponding bird from their birth date.
Tecolotl was one of the animal forms that Tezcatlipoca (smoking mirror) would shape shift into on the regular. Chicuahtli is associated with Mictlantecuhtli (lord of the dead lands) which makes sense given the skull-like appearance of the bird.
The last bit I’ll go into is the Tlacatecolotl “owl man” who was said to be (unlike Anon6789) a malevolent shapeshifter being possessed by the more sinister spirits and forces of the cosmos. I believe when you see an owl in a temple in some of the codices that is what is being depicted, but don’t quote me on that.
So the article doesn’t cover Mesoamerican areas which is weird that they’ll use the term “Native American” and have the term stop applying past the Rio Grande.
I didn’t read much into it at first, as that seems “normal” if they were a US based org, so I went to look up who they are (were), and it turns out they were a Koch funded climate change denial group!
Who Is the Environmental Literacy Council?
I won’t go into it more than that to not derail the actual decent talk coming out of this. It is part of the reason I normally don’t talk about this topic though. There are many cultures who have negative associations with owls, different African and Indian (as in the country of India) people will kill owls due to beliefs of them being bad, and while I don’t believe killing them is right, I didn’t have enough cultural awareness to speak much about it in a way fair to the people so I just shut up usually.
From all I’ve seen of the Meso American owl content, that feels more reverent rather than negative, but that’s why I was hoping you were around, both to represent some of the other American beliefs, and because you have undoubtedly better cultural context than I do, so I didn’t want to mess anything up if you were available to comment instead.
Being able to call you in for this made me feel like I have some special insider to call in for the situation like when they call in some obscure expert on Pawn Stars or the like. “Let me call my Meso American owl expert to see what they say!” 😆
who was said to be (unlike Anon6789) a malevolent shapeshifter being possessed by the more sinister spirits and forces of the cosmos.
Yeah, I am much more chaotic neutral. 😉
Hmmm. I’m no expert, but my brief experience with NA oral tradition is that it doesn’t make fine distinctions between the species. It’s not “the gray wolf said to the brown wolf”; it’s just “wolf”.
The article does point out tribe-specific differences in animalism associations; perhaps those differences derive from which owls were most common in those local regions, and their behaviors? But if the legends themselves don’t distinguish which owl species is represented in the story, all we could do is speculate.
Shhhhh Dirt Owl might hear you lol
The owls are not what they seem.
Hm, I need to do a rewatch and look out for owl references specifically
Late Night with the Devil is a really neat and scary recent movie, and it packs more owl symbolism per hour than anything else I can think of. I recommend it!
