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Animals That Carry Meaning
This category holds animals as they appear in symbolic and ritual traditions: the sacred animals attached to particular deities, the beasts of heraldry and the bestiary, clan and totem animals, and the creatures used in augury. Unlike the mythical creatures, these are real animals invested with meaning (the eagle, the serpent, the bear, the raven), though the meaning given them is a cultural matter.
Each entry stays with what a given tradition holds about an animal, since practices around sacred and totem animals vary enormously from culture to culture and a single symbolic reading would misrepresent them.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
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