The other morning on my daily walk, I encountered a dead skunk on Elm Road in Bolinas. At first, I couldn’t identify it, but then the black fur and large white tuft (and the stench) told me it was a skunk. I held my breath as I passed and warned several cars and bikes not to hit it—remembering what I had heard, that once you hit a skunk with your car, you can never get the smell out.
The next day, on the same walk, the skunk was no longer in the center of the road, but on the roadside amidst browned eucalyptus leaves and road detritus. And hovering over it was a large black buzzard—aka a turkey vulture, of the order Cathartidae, from Greek cathartes, which means “purifier”—tugging at what I took to be a long trail of crimson innards. “Ugh” was my first reaction: ugly carrion eater going about its grisly work, adding to the disgusting smell with a disgusting sight. And as I continued walking, I began to reflect on my reaction. And the question arose, “Why do we view carrion eaters as the lowest of the low?” As not noble like the great predators (including us), or even raptors like hawks to whom they’re related, but as nature’s bottom feeders: eaters of putrescent flesh. But then I also remembered reading that humans, when they first began to prowl the open savannahs, were also scavengers, of necessity—not equipped by nature with the teeth and claws of lions or leopards, or even dogs or hyenas, to bring down their own prey. So who are we to condemn scavengers, when that’s probably how we humans began our flesh-eating journey?
Then I began to recall that carrion eaters are actually a key part of the eco-system, clearing away the disease that resides in rotting flesh. So these ugly, ungainly birds (there were two more perched on a wire, eagerly awaiting—I imagined them salivating—their turn to dig into that skunky, putrescent flesh) did have a critical function. And that led to reflections on why we are so eager to bury our dead—clearly, at least in part, to keep our precious flesh from becoming a meal for one of these vile creatures whose tiny, raw-looking, red heads seemed to symbolize their lowly, repugnant status. And that in turn led to reflections about why, in fact, we are so anxious to embalm and then entomb our dead; which must come from the notion that the material body is really all we are, and keeping it inviolate is key to something—our hoped-for survival as everlasting beings, perhaps.
Then I discovered some fascinating facts about vultures. When vultures feed in a group, as they did on my skunk, they are called a “wake.” Again, this name evokes the idea of death, or perhaps more precisely, a death watch. There are also biological reasons for some of their most revolting traits: that un-feathered bald head, for example, helps keep their heads clean while feeding, and also helps prevent overheating. Peeing on themselves is yet another somewhat-disgusting (to us) means they use to keep themselves cool. And while Old World vultures locate their prey using their keen avian vision, many of our New World species do not, but rather employ a keen sense of smell, unusual for raptors, to locate carrion. They can smell a good meal from heights of a mile and more—which explains why we see them most often gliding and circling effortlessly on air currents, always signifying to us that a dead carcass must be nearby.
Their close relationship to humans goes deeper than that, however. First, they seem to know about us and our wars, and what a great opportunity are our battlefields, where large numbers of eager vultures have regularly been seen feeding on the numerous dead (again, ugh). We also have learned, via scientific investigation, how valuable vultures are to humans, particularly in hotter regions. For we now know that the stomach acid of vultures is exceptionally corrosive—which is what allows them to detoxify and digest carcasses infected with such poisons as botulinum, cholera bacteria, and even the bacteria that causes anthrax. In this way, they help remove these lethal (to us) bacteria from our environment.
This helpful function must be what has led to the adoption and near-worship of vultures in ancient cultures. The ancient Egyptians, for example, believed that all vultures were female, and were spontaneously born from eggs, with no need for male fertilization. It was for this reason that they linked vultures to purity. Perhaps more important, the vulture’s ability to “transform” the dead matter on which they feed into life, made them symbols of the recurrent cycle of death and rebirth so important to Egyptians. It is probably for this reason, too, that many of the great royal wives in Egypt actually wore vulture crowns, said to signify the protection of the goddess Nekhbet, a tutelary (patron) deity of Upper Egypt depicted as a vulture. Nekhbet thereby became the symbol of the rulers in ancient Egypt, progressing from that to become the protector of mothers and children throughout the land, worshipped as a goddess. Nekhbet’s headdress always boasted the image of the vulture.
In India and Nepal, too, vultures have always been highly valued, but the species has declined dramatically in recent years. The cause has been found to be the presence of the veterinary drug Diclofenac in animal carcasses. The government of India has finally recognized this toxic effect on vultures and banned the drug for use in animals, but it could take many years for vultures to return to their earlier population levels. And without vultures to pick corpses clean, rabid dogs have multiplied, feeding on the carcasses instead of the vultures, and multiplying the prevalence of rabies—thus demonstrating once more the crucial role vultures play in keeping the environment clean and the human population healthy.
Perhaps most dramatic are the so-called “sky burials” of the Himalayan region, particularly Tibet and the northern-Chinese province of Qinghai. Sky-burial practice is very old (in Tibetan it is called bya gator, meaning “bird-scattered”), and was also practiced among the Parsees of India. In sky burial, a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to be disposed of—either by natural decomposition, or through consumption by animals, especially carrion-eating birds like vultures. It is part of a practice called excarnation—that is, removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial. Its function is to dispose of human remains in as generous and practical a way as possible—practical because in much of the Tibetan plateau, the hard and rocky ground makes it nearly impossible to dig a grave, and with so little timber for fuel, difficult to use the traditional Buddhist method of cremation to dispose of the dead.
Buddhism is also key in my final reference to vultures, Vulture Peak, also known as Holy Eagle Peak (apparently because of its shape). Gadhrakuta (Sanskrit for Vulture Peak) is said to have been one of the Buddha’s favorite retreat and training sites. It is located in Rajagaha, in Bihar, India. It is often mentioned in Buddhist texts as the place where the Buddha gave sermons—such as the key one in the Heart Sutra, and the equally-critical sermon in the Lotus Sutra (specifically chapter 16). Again, the link to vultures and purity is reinforced in this latter sutra, with mention of the pure land.
In sum, though we moderns tend to link vultures to revulsion, filth and disease, many cultures before us linked them to just the opposite—to purity, to the indispensable function of maintaining the health of human society by keeping it free of deadly pollution from rotting flesh. Perhaps, more generally, that should lead us to become more aware of our modern fetish for cleanliness, our quick response to that in nature which seems disgusting to us, but which functions, rather, to help preserve our health and our lives.
Lawrence DiStasi
