The saga of Ichneumon

This is a really interesting curiosity that I stumbled on while looking up the etymology of the word mongoose. The entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

mongoose: "snake-killing ichneumon of India," 1698, perhaps via Portugal, from an Indic language (cf. Marathi mangus "mongoose"), probably ult. from Dravidian (cf. Telugu mangisu, Kannada mungisi). The form of the Eng. word altered by folk-etymology.

The surprise was the use of the term ichneumon for mongooses, as I had always heard the term being used with respect to the ichneumon wasps. Well, a little further investigation cleared that up, well sort of.

So:

• Mongooses belong to the family Herpestidae. The Egyptian mongoose is classified as the species Herpestes ichneumon. But there is also a genus in the family called Ichneumia with a single species the white-tailed mongoose
  Ichneumia albicauda (which is the literal Latin translation)
  
  
• On the other hand, the ichneumon wasps belong to the family Ichneumonidae

The word ichneumon is a Greek word which literally means ‘tracker’, with variants meaning 'to track or trace out', and 'track, footstep'. [from the Oxford English Dictionary]. It is still unclear to me why the Greeks came to associate the word with the mongoose and also with the wasp.

• Aristotle in The History of Animals: Book IX(350 BC) uses it both for the wasp and the mongoose:
  • "..The eagle and the snake are enemies, for the eagle lives on snakes; so are the ichneumon and the venom-spider, for the ichneumon preys upon the latter." (Here referring to the wasp)
    
  • "...The Egyptian ichneumon, when it sees the serpent called the asp, does not attack it until it has called in other ichneumons to help; to meet the blows and bites of their enemy the assailants beplaster themselves with mud, by first soaking in the river and then rolling on the ground." (Here referring to the mongoose, with some imaginative extrapolations)
  
  [interestingly this book was translated into English by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson of On Growth and Form(1917) fame]
  
  
• I imagine that the Greeks' familiarity with mongooses comes from their high status in neighboring Egypt. From the blurb on the Coffin of an Ichneumon in the form of the goddess Wadjet:Last period (7th-5th century BCE) at the Israel Museum website:
  

  The ichneumon (mongoose) was revered for its ability to kill snakes and crush crocodile eggs. Together with the shrew-mouse, it was regarded as the animal manifestation of the sun god Horus at Letopolis in the Delta, whose name, "the Blind and the Seeing", reflects the complete daily cycle of day and night. The ichneumon, active during the day, represented daytime sunlight, while the shrew-mouse, a nocturnal animal, symbolized the darkness of night.
  The ichneumon became a sacred animal of the lion-headed goddess Wadjet as a result of religious developments of the Late Period, when local traditions were frequently linked, and new mythic associations were established. The deities of the Delta cities of Letopolis and Buto became associated through myth, and the ichneumon - a sacred animal of Horus of Letopolis - became a sacred animal of the goddess Wadjet of Buto.
  Unlike other sacred animals, which were usually placed in coffins made in their form or in boxes surmounted by figurines depicting their image, mummified ichneumons were occasionally placed in statuettes of the lion-headed goddess Wadjet. The most common type depicts the goddess seated on a throne, usually crowned by the uraeus - the rearing fire-spewing cobra at the king's brow, with which Wadjet was identified. The throne, or a base attached to it, which was usually hollow, contained the mummified ichneumon.

  
  
  
• Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) in Naturalis Historiae(apparently drawing on Aristotle) says:

  As for the little Wasps, called Ichneumones (and lesse they be than others) they use to kill one kind of Spiders called Phalangia, and carrie them into their nests: they besmeare them all over with a liniment, sit over them, and so procreate their owne kind. Moreover, all the sort of these live upon flesh, contrarie to the manner of Bees, which will not touch a dead carcasse. But Waspes hunt after the greater flies: and when they have whipt off their heads, carrie away the rest of their bodies for that provision.

  
  
  
• Now, it all begins to get extremely confusing with writers beginning to confuse ichneumons with crocodiles, serpents, otters, etc to produce a composite beast called the cockatrice. The Oxford Dictionary has a really interesting history of the word, and this is a reasonable summary (from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia):
  

  kok'-a-tris, kok'-a-tris (tsepha'; tsph'oni; Septuagint, basiliskos, "basilisk" (which see), and aspis, "asp" (see ADDER; ASP; SERPENT)): A fabulous, deadly, monster. The name "cockatrice" appears to be a corruption of Latin calcatrix, from calcare, "to tread," calcatrix being in turn a translation of the Greek ichneumon, from ichnos, "track" or "footstep." Herpestes ichneumon, the ichneumon, Pharaoh's rat, or mongoose, a weasel-like animal, is a native of northern Africa and southern Spain...
  
  Pliny (see Oxford Dictionary, under the word "Cockatrice") relates that the ichneumon darts down the open mouth of the crocodile, and destroys it by gnawing through its belly. In the course of time, as the story underwent changes, the animal was metamorphosed into a water snake, and was confused with the crocodile itself, and also with the basilisk. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, the cockatrice was believed as late as the 17th century to be produced from a cock's egg and hatched by a serpent, and "to possess the most deadly powers, plants withering at its touch, and men and animals being poisoned by its look. It stood in awe however of the cock, the sound of whose crowing killed it. .... The weasel alone among animals was unaffected by the glance of its evil eye, and attacked it at all times successfully; for when wounded by the monster's teeth it found a ready remedy in rue, the only plant which the cockatrice could not wither." The real ichneumon does kill the most deadly snakes, and has been supposed to resort to a vegetable antidote when bitten. It actually dies however when bitten by a deadly snake, and does not possess a knowledge of herbs, but its extraordinary agility enables it ordinarily to escape injury. It is interesting to see how the changing tale of this creature with its marvelous powers has made a hodge-podge of ichneumon, weasel, crocodile, and serpent.
  

So there it is: the saga of ichneumon.


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