Article here:
Ignoble nomination? IMHO this definitely fits
Brian
Was going to mention face-masks (not the covid kind but the Halloween kind) worn by people to ward off lion attacks, but the article covered that. BTW, the comments are pure gold.
It’s really too bad the report was not on Arse Technica.
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VERY Interesting. In my book, Medusa, I argued that gorgon faces (with their outsized, staring eyes) ended up on antefixes along roof edges, and in a follow-up article argued that oscillae and protome also used those intense eye imates to scare birds away from roof edges and fruit trees and even graves. The same thing, I argued, is responsible for gargoyles (keep birds from nesting in roof-draining downspouts) and Daruma figures placed in Japanese rice fields (keep birds away). The same principle is used today with ceramic owls and “Scare-Eyes”: and “Terror-Eyes” balloons (which were the subject of a scientific study that verified their efficiency in reducing bird attacks on fruit trees).
Looks like the same “startle eye” effect works on lions, too.
In— Spell of the Tiger, I believe it was— Montgomery reports that locals in the Sundarbans tried wearing a mask of a face on the back of their heads for protection against man-eating tigers, reasoning that tigers pounce on their prey from behind and would not approach if it looked like they could be seen. It worked like a charm— for about six months. Then the tigers figured it out.
Don’t have a cow, man. But if you do, might as well paint some eyes on its butt.
Have they tried painting Chris Hansen yet?
I read a cracked article once that claimed there was a study where money was left in a room something’s with a painting of a large pair of eyes and that those people in that room were less likely to steal the money than people without the painting, interesting.
In one of my childhood Babar books, the elephants painted eyes on their asses to scare off their enemies. And they wore grass skirts, to look like hair. It worked.