Ape
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"How vain the opinion is of some certain people of the East Indies, who think that apes and baboons, which are with them in great numbers, are imbued with understanding, and that they can speak but will not, for fear they should be imployed and set to work."—Antoine Le Grand, c. 1675 |
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An ape is an animal of a class of primates generally larger than monkeys and distinguished from them by having no tail. Technically this class includes humans. Ape is also a derogatory term for an uncivilized person.
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Cultural aspects of non-human apes
Often, non-human apes are said to be the result of a curse—a Jewish folktale claims that one of the races who built the Tower of Babel became apes as punishment, while Muslim lore says that the Jews of Eilat became non-human apes as punishment for fishing on the Sabbath. Some sects of Christianity have folklore that claims that these apes are a symbol of lust and were created by Satan in response to God's creation of humans. It is uncertain whether any of these references are to any specific apes. All of these concepts date from a period when neither the distinction between apes and monkeys, nor the fact that humans are apes, was widely understood, if understood at all.
Apes in popular culture
Namesakes
- Super Ape aka Scratch the Super Ape (1976), a Lee Perry album
- Return of the Super Ape (1978), a Lee Perry album
- Planet of the Apes
See also
