THE HISTORY OF SCARECROWS
For thousands of years scarecrows have helped save crops from birds and other animals and provided an outlet for human creativity. Scarecrow genealogy is rooted in a rural lifestyle. The Egyptians used the first scarecrows in recorded history to protect wheat fields along the river Nile from quail flocks. Farmers installed wooden frames in their fields and covered them with nets. Then they hid in the fields, scared the quail into the nets and took the bird’s home to eat.
Greek farmers in 2,500 BC carved wooden scarecrows to look like Priapus (the son of the god Dionysus and the goddess Aphrodite) who was supposedly ugly enough to scare birds away from the vineyards and ensure good harvests. The scarecrows were painted purple with one hand holding a club to scare the birds and a sickle in the other for good harvests. As the Romans marched across Europe they followed the Greeks and introduced Priapus scarecrows. Simultaneously the Japanese had scarecrows called kakashis shaped like people. They dressed them in raincoats and a straw hat and often added bows and arrows to look more threatening. Kojiki the oldest surviving Japanese book from 712 features a scarecrow known as Kuebiko who appears as a deity who cannot walk but knows everything about the world.
In Germany scarecrows were made to look like witches whilst in medieval Britain children were used to patrol the crops and wave their arms and throw stones. Later on farmers stuffed sacks of straw, made faces from gourds and leaned the straw man against a pole.
During the Great Depression in America scarecrows could be found across the whole country until after the Second World War when farming began to use chemicals to protect their crops. For thousands of years scarecrows have helped save crops from birds and other animals and provided an outlet for human creativity. Scarecrow genealogy is rooted in a rural lifestyle. The Egyptians used the first scarecrows in recorded history to protect wheat fields along the river Nile from quail flocks. Farmers installed wooden frames in their fields and covered them with nets. Then they hid in the fields, scared the quail into the nets and took the bird’s home to eat.
Greek farmers in 2,500 BC carved wooden scarecrows to look like Priapus (the son of the god Dionysus and the goddess Aphrodite) who was supposedly ugly enough to scare birds away from the vineyards and ensure good harvests. The scarecrows were painted purple with one hand holding a club to scare the birds and a sickle in the other for good harvests. As the Romans marched across Europe they followed the Greeks and introduced Priapus scarecrows. Simultaneously the Japanese had scarecrows called kakashis shaped like people. They dressed them in raincoats and a straw hat and often added bows and arrows to look more threatening. Kojiki the oldest surviving Japanese book from 712 features a scarecrow known as Kuebiko who appears as a deity who cannot walk but knows everything about the world.
In Germany scarecrows were made to look like witches whilst in medieval Britain children were used to patrol the crops and wave their arms and throw stones. Later on farmers stuffed sacks of straw, made faces from gourds and leaned the straw man against a pole.
During the Great Depression in America scarecrows could be found across the whole country until after the Second World War when farming began to use chemicals to protect their crops.