#Zevoa

[thecreatureawaits]

Creature Awaits #185

Each week I plan to feature an amazing creature, admiring God's fantastic artistry.  Hopefully it’ll brighten someone’s day to see something new and interesting if they haven’t seen it before. : )

For this December, we're featuring animals from the Middle East. Who knows, maybe the Christ Child saw some of these! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays whatever you believe! - 💕

(Beautiful captures by the extremely skilled photographer, Ucumari (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0))

The Striped Hyena

A.K.A: Tzebua (Hebrew), γλάνος (Greek)

Scientific Name: Hyaena hyaena

Region: Northwestern Africa eastward through India

Size: About 24"-31" (~60cm–80cm) tall and 33"-51" (~85cm-130cm) long, not including the tail

Interesting Notes: References to the striped hyena are found in folklore and mythology throughout the Middle East - usually describing them as ghastly vampiric beasts.  Arabian tales mention how the hyena's gaze can place a person into a trance.  Greek legends warn that if a werewolf body is not completely destroyed, it'll return as a ghostly hyena vampire that would seek out dying soldiers and drain the last of their blood.  Persian folklore tells of the existence of half-man, half-hyena cannibals that mesmerize their prey before sucking their blood.

Of course, in reality, the hyena is a beautiful creature that plays a very important role - helping carcasses other animals leave behind to decay faster to keep harmful bacteria from washing into the surrounding water and soil. 

[ainawgsd]

Striped Hyena

The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is a species of hyaena native to North and East Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It is the smallest of the true hyenas and retains many primitive viverrid characteristics lost in larger species, having a smaller and less specialized skull. Adult weight can range from 49 to 121 pounds, averaging at about 77 pounds. The striped hyena features prominently in Middle Eastern and Asian folklore. In some areas, its body parts are considered magical, and are used as charms or talismans. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, where it is referred to as tzebua or zevoa, though the species is absent in some Bible translations into English.

The striped hyena is a primarily nocturnal animal, which typically only leaves its den at the onset of total darkness, returning before sunrise. Striped hyenas typically live in groups of 1–2 animals, though groups of up to seven animals are known in Libya. They are generally not territorial animals, with home ranges of different groups often overlapping each other.  The species is not as vocal as the spotted hyena, its vocalizations being limited to a chattering laugh and howling. 

The striped hyena is primarily a scavenger which feeds mainly on ungulate carcasses. It crushes long bones into fine particles and swallows them, though sometimes entire bones are eaten whole. The striped hyena is not a fussy eater, though it has an aversion to vulture flesh. It will occasionally attack and kill any animal it can overcome.  It has been suggested that only the large hyenas of the Middle East, Asia minor, central Asia and the Indian subcontinent attack large prey, with no evidence of their smaller Arabian and east African cousins doing so.

Striped hyenas are frequently referenced in Middle Eastern literature and folklore, typically as symbols of treachery and stupidity. In the Near and Middle East, striped hyenas are generally regarded as physical incarnations of jinns. Until the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the bodies of werewolves, if not destroyed, would haunt battlefields as vampiric hyenas which drank the blood of dying soldiers. The image of striped hyenas in Afghanistan, India and Palestine is more varied. Though feared, striped hyenas were also symbolic for love and fertility, leading to numerous varieties of love medicine derived from hyena body parts. Among the Baloch people and in North India, witches or magicians are said to ride striped hyenas at night.

The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed the blood, excrement, rectum, genitalia, eyes, tongue, hair, skin, and fat, as well as the ash of different parts of the striped hyena's body, were effective means to ward off evil and to ensure love and fertility. The Greeks and Romans believed that the genitalia of a hyena "would hold a couple peaceably together" and that a hyena anus worn as an amulet on the upper arm would make its male possessor irresistible to women.

In West and South Asia, hyena body parts apparently play an important role in love magic and in the making of amulets.  In Iran, a dried striped hyena pelt is considered a potent charm which forces all to succumb to the possessors attraction. In Afghanistan and Pakistan striped hyena hair is used either in love magic or as a charm in sickness. In the Khyber area, burned striped hyena fat is applied to a man's genitals or sometimes taken orally to ensure virility, while in India the fat is believed to be a cure for rheumatism.  In the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, the Pakhtun keep the vulva in vermilion powder, itself having aphrodesic connotations. 

In Afghanistan, some mullahs wear the vulva (kus) of a female striped hyena wrapped in silk under their armpits for a week. If a man peers through the vulva at the woman of his desire, he will invariably get hold of her. This has led to the proverbial expression in Dari of kus-e kaftar bay, as well as in Pashto of kus-e kaftar which literally mean "it happens as smoothly as if you would look through the vulva of a female striped hyena". The rectum of a freshly killed striped hyena is likewise used by homosexuals and bisexuals to attract young men. This has led to the expression "to possess the anus of a [striped] hyena" which denotes somebody who is attractive and has many lovers. A striped hyena's penis kept in a small box filled with vermilion powder can be used for the same reasons.