I pretty much have China covered. I just need stories from everywhere else. I'm particularly interested to read stories from Africa.

Swami, thanks for answering. Having read the Ramayana (I should have mentioned that earlier), I know all about Hanuman and the rest of the vanara race. Hopefully I can find more stories via your google suggestion.

Hello Mr. McClanahan, this is a link about folklore originated in Indonesia, esp. from West Java. i hope you like this folklore.

http://ceritarakyatnusantara.com/en/folklore/80-Lutung-Kasarung#

Hello, Sir,

Nice to see that you are writing a book that collect folklore abt primates from all over the world....

pls find the link related to indian folktales http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-folktales/index.html

The book 'Men and Apes' by Desmond and Ramona Morris (1966) has a very interesting cultural collection of stories about our relationship with apes (other primates are also featured). Stories are explored in relation to myth, religion etc., why some primates were revered and the impact this had on them and their relationship with indigenous culture. Pictures are great too.

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments. Tara, I've never heard of the book before. Thank you very much for pointing me in that direction. I tried to find out if such books were written when I first decided to do my little project, but nothing turned up. I'm definitely glad I asked this question on RG. I will check the book out. I'm sure the Morris' work will influence my own. I hope to make it pretty in depth, so one could look at it like a continuation of 'Men and Apes.'

Hello, sir. I have send the link with this discussion to my uncle who lives for the past 3 decades in the South African Republic. He is not a trained scientist, but I think that he will have some interesting stories for you. All the best.

Medieval bestiaries! bestiary.ca is an online version though there is also an available bestiary translated by T. H. White

Jelena, I look forward to what your uncle shares with me. I am having problems finding African folklore. Larry, I will definitely look that up. Thanks to both of you.

My archaeology professor, an expert in Meso and South America, told me about some Maya myths concerning monkeys, the most prominent coming from the 'Popol Vuh.' Monkeys are looked at as tricksters who are patrons of artists, musicians, and scribes. He also showed me a website which displays almost 70 vases depicting monkeys. You can see them in the linked page (for anyone who is interested).

http://research.mayavase.com/kerrmaya_list.php?_allSearch=&hold_search=&x=38&y=16&vase_number=&date_added=&ms_number=&site=&icon_elements[]=Monkey

I had a Master's student do research on the subject at my site in Senegal. I can either send you her paper or put you in touch with her, if you like.

Dr. Pruetz, I'm a big fan of your work (I'm also one of your YouTube subscribers). I would love to read the paper and contact your MA student. You can contact me via the email on my profile.

My primatology professor told me a legend that he had heard about the Aye-Ayes of Madagascar, so this has influenced me to add Prosimians to the book. That only seems natural since they are apart of our family tree (more distantly of course).

What about the story of Monkey from China?

Apes brought to Europe in 16th century were often pictured doing foolish things and became used as a symbol of Man's foolishness in works of art of that time.

You are looking to delve into what is a very diverse and scattered (yet fascinating!) literature. In broad terms, the book you are proposing could be regarded as an aspect of "ethnoprimatology" (see, Sponsel, L., 1997. "The human niche in Amazonia: explorations in ethnoprimatology"; pp. 143-166 in: New World primates: ecology, evolution, and behavior (W.G. Kinzey, ed.). New York: Aldine de Gruyter). It was in this 1997 chapter by Sponsel that the term "ethnoprimatology" was coined.

You briefly mentioned traditional beliefs about the aye-aye that rural Malagasy hold -- you'll find a nice overview paper on this by Simons and Meyers (2001), "Folklore and beliefs about the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis)", Lemur News 6: 11-16.

("Lemur News" is available online through the Association Europeenne pour l'Etude et la Conservation des Lemuriens (AEECL) at: http://www.aeecl.org/lemurnews.shtml ).

I also touched on the aye-aye, as well as some other traditional Malagasy beliefs surrounding various lemuriform species in a 2005 chapter entitled: "Primates in the Forest: Sakalava Ethnoprimatology and Synecological Relations with Black Lemurs at Ambato Massif, Madagascar" (pp. 90-117 in: Commensalism and Conflict: The human - primate interface, James D. Paterson and Janette Wallis (eds.). Special Topics in Primatology, Series Editor, J. Wallis. Norman, Oklahoma: American Society of Primatologists). A copy of this chapter is available on my ResearchGate page.

A detailed examination of the complex nature of human--nonhuman primate interactions can be found in Loretta Cormier's (2003) book, "Kinship with Monkeys: The Guajá Foragers of Eastern Amazonia" (New York: Columbia University Press; ISBN: 978-0-231-12525-3). Cormier (2002) also presents a chapter entitled "Monkey as food, monkey as child: Guaja symbolic cannibalism" (pp. 63-84) in the book, "Primates Face to Face: The conservation implications of human-nonhuman primate interconnections", edited by A. Fuentes and L. Wolfe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-10: 0-521-79109-x). Indeed, the entire "Primates Face to Face" edited volume by Fuentes and Wolfe would provide a wealth of information as well as other reference sources. Cormier also published a review paper in Ecological and Enviornmental Anthropology, EEA (2006), entitled: "A Preliminary Review of Neotropical Primates in the Subsistence and Symbolism of Indigenous Lowland South American Peoples" (pdf available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/icwdmeea/ ). Likewise, Agustin Fuentes (2006) had a paper in the same issue of EEA entitled: "Human-Nonhuman Primate Interconnections and Their Relevance to Anthropology". Erin Riley, Linda Wolfe and Agustin Fuentes (2011) teamed up on a chapter entitled, "Ethnoprimatology: Contextualizing Human and Nonhuman Primate Interactions", which appears as chapter 46 in the second edition of "Primates In Perspective", edited by Christina Campbell et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press; ISBN-10: 0195390431).

An early, but still useful, examination of the ethnoprimatological dimensions and dynamics between humans and a nonhuman primate species (in this case, the crab-eater, or long-tailed, macacque, Macaca fascicularis) is Bruce Wheatley's (1999), "The Sacred Monkeys of Bali" (Waveland Press: Prospect Heights, Illinois; ISBN-10: 1577660595). An even earlier source, which is now, unfortunately, out of print, is the 1967 book by R.H. van Gulik, entitled, "The Gibbon in China: An Essay in Chinese Animal Lore" (Leiden: E.J. Brill). A partial version of van Gulik's book is available at:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=g8gUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Van Gulik's monograph also figures in the recent review paper by Thomas Geissmann (2008) on the use of gibbon depictions, and their symbolism, in east Asian art: "Gibbon paintings in China, Japan, and Korea: Historical distribution, production rate and context"; Gibbon Journal 4: 1-38. Gibbon Journal is available on the website of the Gibbon Conservation Alliance, www.gibbonconservation.org, and a pdf of this particular paper by Geissmann can be found at:

www.gibbons.de/main/papers/pdf_files/2008gibbon_paintings.pdf

Finally, there is a recent review paper by Alves et al. (2010), entitled, "Primates in traditional folk medicine: a world overview", which appeared in the journal Mammal Review, Volume 40, No. 2, pp. 155–180 -- you can link to this journal through the Smithsonian Institution Libraries website at: http://www.sil.si.edu/eresources/silpurl.cfm?purl=03051838 .

This is by no means an exhaustive list of relevant titles, but will certainly put you on the lead to a large range of useful material. Good luck with your project!

In the Aztec "Legend of the Suns", people of the Second Sun are turned into monkeys when the sun is taken by the wind and the age ends. If you're also interested in gods that are often represented at monkeys you can look at the Egyptian Thoth and the Hindu Hanuman. Finally, I guess you're familiar with Thompson's motif-index, but maybe not with Wilbert and Simoneau's series Folk Literature of the South American Indians. You may find useful references in the index volume. Good Luck!

Hi Yaniv, that reminds me

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2279-babel-tower-of

see the reference of man to ape

Thanks to everyone who has recently provided information, especially Ian Colquhoun.

I finally got a chance to record some material from a Maasai tribesman who came to visit my university for a lecture. He is going to ask around for more folklore when he gets back to Africa.

More on the storytelling side, there’s a beautiful anonymous chinese story from the XVI century were a monkey is the main hero, Voyage (Pilgrimage) to the West, The Adventures of The Monkey King, published in english under the same title or also “The Journey to the West”, where it describes the pilgrimage of Tripitaka, a budist monk, in search of Buda´s writings, aided by Sun Wu-Kung, the Monkey King.

Lynne, that would be wonderful. I'll send you an email about it.

Lynne,

here are some sources you might find useful:

(1) These are Pygmy and Bantu farmer tales reflecting apes in the context of African equatorial forest:

Giles-Vernick, Tamara;Rupp, Stephanie: Visions of Apes, Reflections on Change: Telling Tales of Great Apes in Equatorial Africa African Studies Review; Apr 2006; 49, 1; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) pg. 51

(2) This publication is maybe not too relevant, but you may consider the contrary situation - stories about humans considered as animals as well... In this book the authors introduce to the stories and destiny of Ota Benga, human - Pygmy, who was considered as an animal:

PHILLIPS VERNER BRADFORD and HARVEY BLUME, Ota Benga: the pygmy in the zoo. New York: St Martin's Press, 1992, 296 pp., US$30.00, ISBN 0 312 08276 2.

I am so sorry about that, I mixed up the names :)

thanks for telling me, I wanted to address it to J.R.

The story of monkey demi-God Hanuman can be found in Vedic texts such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayan. Also if you look into the legend of 'Adam's Bridge' off the northern coast of Sri Lanka ( in the context of the ancient Kingdom of Lanka) -you will find a fascinating story that has at least some physical truth to it --which relates to the story in the Ramayan. In terms of books in English (am assuming you do not read Sanskrit) I would suggest the publications of ISKCON as they have excellent purports and full translations.

You would have to contact the The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International http://www.bbti.org/ (which happens to be HQ'ed in Florida) as not all libraries carry these versions.

You may wish to try this book

Vanamali, Mataji Devi (2010). Hanuman: The Devotion and Power of the Monkey God Inner Traditions, USA. ISBN 1-59477-337-8.

Hope this is useful.

cheers

Sunil

The monkeys are very important at the Mayan mithology. There are three species of monkeys in the Maya Area: Howler monkeys (Alouatta palliate and Alouatta pigra), spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus capuchinus). The monkeys participate in the Mayan myths as creators gods and art protectors (see Popol Vuh or Ritual of the Bacabs); the glyph for god is inspired in its face. You can read:

Ringle, William M. (1988) “Of Mice and Monkeys: the Value and Meaning of T1016, the God C Hieroglyph”. Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, 18. Washington: Center for Maya Research.

The Ritual of the Bacabs (1965). Edición y traducción al inglés de Ralph L. Roys. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Tedlock, Dennis (1986) Popol Vuh. The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life. New York: Simon & Shuster, Inc.

Christenson, Allen J. (2003) Popol Vuh. The Sacred Book of the Maya. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

In spanish, Nájera Coronado has written many papers about the monkeys in Maya Religion:

Nájera Coronado, Martha Ilia (1989) “Sobre el carácter naturalista de los seres divinos de la creación quiché en el Popol Vuh” en Memorias del Segundo Coloquio Internacional de Mayistas. 17-21 de agosto de 1987. Vol. II, pp. 1343-1360. México: UNAM

Nájera Coronado, Martha Ilia (2000) “Análisis e interpretación de una imagen maya a través de diferentes tipos de documentos” en Jornadas Filológicas. 1999. Memoria, pp. 97- 120. México: UNAM

Nájera Coronado, Martha Ilia (2002) “Imágenes del inframundo en las danzas rituales” en Estudios Mesoamericanos, núm. 3-4, pp. 134-141. México: UNAM.

I wrote a paper in spanish about the concept of art in Mayan thought, in that paper I study the monkeys as the gods of art and crafts.

Morales Damián, Manuel Alberto (2002) “La creación de imágenes en la cultura maya” en Estudios Mesoamericanos, núm. 3-4, pp. 111-119. México: UNAM.

http://www.iifilologicas.unam.mx/estmesoam/uploads/Vol%C3%BAmenes/Volumen%203/creaciondeimagenes_alberto_morales2.pdf

The link to Ringle (1988)

http://www.mesoweb.com/bearc/cmr/18.html

For more on human-macaque folklore in Indonesia see:

Riley, E.P. 2010. The importance of human-macaque folklore for conservation in Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Oryx 44(2): 235-240.

Also,

Peterson & Riley 2013: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-3967-7_10

Thank you to everyone who has posted material recently.

You may also see my publication on the myth of 'Tisso Jonding- invisible ape-like creature' prevalent among the Karbi tribes of NE India.

Robindra Teron

Thanks for contributing, Robindra.

This is all taken from the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols:

- The white dog-faced baboon was an incarnation of the Egyptian god Thoth. He was the god of wisdom and writing and time, an artist, and he was at times aggressive and libidinous and quarrelsome (like a baboon). The hieroglyph for "to be angry" is a baboon.

- In Babylon, the baboon was the sun.

- The Aztecs, like the Mayans, associated the baboon with the blacksmith. So did the Fali of the northern Cameroons, and the black baboon was the avatar of the blacksmith that stole fire.

- A Bororo Indian myth has the monkey discover fire and, after deceiving a jaguar and being devoured, tricks the jaguar into throwing him back up.

- The Egyptians believed that in the Underworld, monkeys would cast nets attempting to capture their souls.

- The Greeks believed the highwaymen called Cercopes attacked Hercules in his sleep (he won), and Zeus was angry and turned them into monkeys.

- The Amerindian monkey seems like a trickster, but he better aligns with the archetype of the joggler (the Fool in the Tarot Major Arcanum)

Monkeys seem to represent humans at our best and our worst.

Thanks, Janine. You are correct. Primates are cast as divine, devils, keepers of great knowledge, and ignorant. I think we see a little bit of ourselves in them.

There were a class of primates in Lemurian times. Lemuria was a continent which sank in the Indian ocean before Atlantean times, IF you can accept these timescales and legends. This class of primates were highly intelligent and communicative, akin to the first humans of those times, the Aryans and their mention in the Ramayana is worth having a look.

A second source are the Jataka tales and also the Panchatantra, from which most of European "Maerchen' ,Bruder Grimm tales and Aesop's fables have sprung from.

Hope this helps.

Orangutans have an important place in Indonesia/Malaysian folklore. Check out an unpublished paper by Prof. Anne Russon (Glendon College, York University). https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_ZcUbWZ14TgREplNE1XLW4wSUU/edit

I've also done a post on this for my blog, based on a lecture I did for a Humans as Primates course http://humanapeinterface.blogspot.ca/2014/03/aristotles-rubicon-historical-western.html

A little note. Long ago I was debating the Ramayana with a lady from Hindu Bengal (West Bengal), and I asked her what the image of monkeys was in India. As you no doubt know, the monkey Hanuman is the hero's Rama brother in arms and chief helper, and monkeys play a fundamental role in the epic. Clearly, I said, no European narrative would ascribe such a role to monkeys; we regard monkeys as primarily comical, also tricky and feckless, and sort of a bad caricature of the worst features of man. (In fact, looking back, the European image of the monkey can be best seen in The Jungle Book, by the half-Indian Rudyard Kipling.) She thought about it a little while, and then said: "monkeys, we think they are brave."

Dear Fabio,

I would like to clear up what appears to be a misunderstanding.

Normal monkeys in India enter urban and rural areas because their habitats are encroached upon by man. As you said they can be mischievious and are regarded a s a pest by farmers. Nonetheless they are not killed because of the reverence for nature and also because of the monkey's place in folklore. There are temples devoted to monkeys where they are fed and taken care of.

But the real point is that the Ramayana, an epic handed down from ancient times, is more than one million years old(!). It is the description of a narrative that includes three types of men. The monkeys you mentioned in your post are not present day monkeys but Vanaras, Lemurians from the continent of Lemuria. They were intelligent and could converse with human beings. The lower lemurians multiplied by laying eggs and the higher later lemurians reproduced just like humans. After them came the Atlanteans represented by the Emperor Ravana who could change forms at will, a hyperborean who could take uu any form. Rama is the third part of the narrative and he is the foremost of the human Aryans. Thus the Ramayana is the narrative of three different types of people from three epochs interacting with each other..

The lemurian vanaras were on the wane at the time of the Ramayana narrative as were the hyperboreans. The Aryan humans had just emerged and the conflict of the three is the Ramayana.

So what the Indian lady said was true, because the Ramayana is full of brave narratives and sacrifices made by the Vanaras. But instead of monkeys, she should have used the word Vanaras or Lemurians.

Hope this helps.

Regards

P.S: The Kiplingesque description of modern day monkeys is very true. They are known to bite people when prevented from stealing food. So the farmers bring a forest 'Langur' whose mere sight makes the monkeys disappear from the scene.

It is also interesting to note that the monkeys never touch the fruit known as the custard apple(Sitaphal) and the Ramaphal, while devastating the orchards of other fruits. Please note that the Rama and sita are the hero and heroine of the Ramayana.