Moth and Butterfly in Myth and Folklore
by The idea of a butterfly or moth as the soul is a remarkable example of the universality of animal symbolism, since it is found in traditional cultures of every continent. The custom of scattering flowers at funerals is very ancient, and the flowers attract butterflies, which appear to have emerged from a corpse.
A butterfly or moth will hover for a time in one place or fly in a fleeting, hesitant manner, suggesting a soul that is reluctant to move on to the next world. The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly seems to provide the ultimate model for our ideas of death, burial, and resurrection. This imagery is still implicit in Christianity when people speak of being “born again.” The chrysalis of a butterfly may have even inspired the splendor of many coffins from antiquity. Many cocoons are very finely woven, with some threads that are golden or silver in color. The Greek word “psyche” means soul, but it can also designate a butterfly or moth. The Latin word “anima” has the same dual meaning.
Several gems from ancient Greece depicted a butterfly hovering over a human skull. Late Roman artifacts often portrayed Prometheus making humankind while Minerva stood nearby holding aloft a butterfly, which represented the soul. Astory inserted in the first-century novel The Golden Ass by Roman-Egyptian author Lucius Apuleius tells of a young girl named Psyche who was given in marriage to Cupid, the god of love, and contemporary illustrations often showed Psyche with the wings of a butterfly. The wings of a butterfly are frequently used to designate the soul in Western art, and they have also been painted on fairies.
In lands around the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, the idea that the soul of a person will return in the form of a butterfly that hovers around the grave of the body is widespread. In Indonesia and Burma, people have traditionally believed that if a butterfly enters your house, it is likely to be the spirit of a deceased relative or a friend. On the island of Java, it is traditionally believed that sometimes during sleep the soul flies out in the form of a butterfly. You should never kill a butterfly, since a sleeping person might then die as well. The Chinese sage Chuang-tzu, one of the disciples of Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism-used to flutter about as a butterfly at night. On waking, he would continue to feel the motion of wings in his shoulders, and he was unsure whether he was truly a butterfly or a man. Lao-tzu explained to him, “Formerly you were a white butterfly which . . . should have been immortalized, but one day you stole some peaches and flowers. . . . The guardian of the garden slew you, and that is how you came to be reincarnated” (Werner, p. 149).
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