03-01-04 13:11, Joao wrote:
> (...)Fourth, fifteen species of ox, the white, mud-colored, red, yellow,
> black, and dappled, the elk, the buffalo, the camel-leopard ox, the
> fish-chewing ox, the Fars ox, the Kajau, and other species of ox. (...)
>
> 1- What is a camel-leopard ox? A giraffe (camelopardalis in Greek)?
Yes, of course the giraffe is meant. The Bundahishn is an early
Mediaeval text (from the 8th/9th c.), and it contains a summary of the
zoological knowledge of the period.
> 2- What is a fish-chewing ox ?
What the Pahlavi text suggests is some kind of "fish-ox" or "bullfish",
presumably a sea animal resembling a bull. I don't know if it can be
identified with any real species -- perhaps a slightly fantastic
representation of a cetacean. Don't read the list too literally. If you
read on, a few chapters later you'll find a detailed description of a
giant ass that lives in the ocean; it has three feet, six eyes, nine
mouths, two ears and one horn, not to mention some even more miraculous
features. The author also believed, among other things, that deer
destroyed snakes.
I've seen "the Kajau" translated as "the sea-cow" (that is, in modern
scientific terms, the dugong, which still occurs in the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf).
Piotr