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Animal Series
Hyena
Hyenas are almost universally regarded as nasty, scheming charlatans that skulk in the back alleyways of the animal kingdom. They have been scorned for centuries as little more than scavenging carrion-eaters, vandals, and thieves. Here to restore the Hyena’s reputation is Mikita Brottman, who offers an alternate view of these mistreated and misunderstood creatures and proves that they are complex, intelligent, and highly sociable animals.
Investigating representations of the hyena throughout history, Brottman divulges that the hyena, though shrouded in taboo, has been the source of talismanic objects since the ancient Greek and Roman empires. She discovers that many cultures use parts of the hyena—from excrement and blood to genitalia and hair—to make charms that both avert evil and promote fertility. Brottman also considers representations of hyenas in today’s popular fiction, including The Lion King and The Life of Pi ,where they are often depicted as villains, cowardly henchmen, or clowns, while ignoring their more noble qualities. Rightly returning hyenas to their proper place in the animal pantheon, this richly illustrated book will be enjoyed by any animal lover with an interest in the unusual and offbeat.
Investigating representations of the hyena throughout history, Brottman divulges that the hyena, though shrouded in taboo, has been the source of talismanic objects since the ancient Greek and Roman empires. She discovers that many cultures use parts of the hyena—from excrement and blood to genitalia and hair—to make charms that both avert evil and promote fertility. Brottman also considers representations of hyenas in today’s popular fiction, including The Lion King and The Life of Pi ,where they are often depicted as villains, cowardly henchmen, or clowns, while ignoring their more noble qualities. Rightly returning hyenas to their proper place in the animal pantheon, this richly illustrated book will be enjoyed by any animal lover with an interest in the unusual and offbeat.
167 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2012
3 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Mikita Brottman
30 books219 followersMikita Brottman (born 30 October 1966) is a British scholar, psychoanalyst, author and cultural critic known for her psychological readings of the dark and pathological elements of contemporary culture. She received a D.Phil in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, was a Visiting Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, and was Chair of the program in Engaged Humanities with an emphasis in Depth Psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute from 2008 to 2010. She currently teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Brottman's articles and case studies have appeared in Film Quarterly, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, New Literary History, and American Imago. She has written influentially on horror films, critical theory, reading, psychoanalysis, and the work of the American folklorist, Gershon Legman.
Brottman also writes for mainstream and counterculture journals and magazines. Her work has appeared in such diverse venues as The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bad Subjects, The Fortean Times, Headpress, and Popmatters, where her column, "Sub Rosa", ran from January 2007 to July 2009. Her essays have also appeared in a number of books and anthologies.
She is the author of the cult film books Meat is Murder and Hollywood Hex, as well as books on psychoanalysis, critical theory and contemporary popular culture. Her most recent book, The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (Counterpoint, 2008) was selected as one of the Best Books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, who said: "Sharp, whimsical and impassioned, Brottman's look at the pleasures and perils of compulsive reading is itself compulsively readable and will connect with any book lover."
Brottman's partner is the film critic David Sterritt.
(from Wikipedia)
Brottman also writes for mainstream and counterculture journals and magazines. Her work has appeared in such diverse venues as The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Bad Subjects, The Fortean Times, Headpress, and Popmatters, where her column, "Sub Rosa", ran from January 2007 to July 2009. Her essays have also appeared in a number of books and anthologies.
She is the author of the cult film books Meat is Murder and Hollywood Hex, as well as books on psychoanalysis, critical theory and contemporary popular culture. Her most recent book, The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (Counterpoint, 2008) was selected as one of the Best Books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, who said: "Sharp, whimsical and impassioned, Brottman's look at the pleasures and perils of compulsive reading is itself compulsively readable and will connect with any book lover."
Brottman's partner is the film critic David Sterritt.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 18, 2018
Another entry into British publisher Reaktion’s excellent series on animal history. This short book presents itself as a cross-cultural history of the hyena, with literary references from antiquity up to pop culture ephemera from the 20th century woven into the narrative. I appreciated the variety of sources used in the book — many of which were fascinating in their own right — though I felt that the coverage of many of the sources was only glancing, with a number of missed opportunities to question what sort of ideological work these sources from the past were doing in their time, and what sort of work they do on us now today.
Brottman is right on the nose, though, when writing about how humans have almost always — nearly without exception in the case of the hyena — projected all manner of insecurities, often based in falsehoods or partial understandings of hyena culture and lifeways, onto hyenas. Their presumed scavenging or predatory nature (in fact, we learn, hyenas have a greater hunting success rate than those lazy lions), their self-evident “hideousness” (never mind that they bear striking resemble to our favorite dogs and to noble ursines both), and their sexual “deviancy” (rather than possibly offering for us a model of a social structure that is not predicated on dominance by aggressive males, for once). The book is at its most devastating when we realize how these misunderstandings, willfully sustained in the face of scientific and cultural evidence to the contrary, have real-life impacts for the remaining wild hyenas. When we project our worst — and for the hyena, it is always the worst — onto an animal that is simply attempting to live its life in a world of shrinking habitat and ever-more-violent humans, we make it that much easier to kill these animals with wanton disregard or to not mourn their passing.
When we vilify hyenas as exemplars of our own hideous vices, we condemn them to suffering and extirpation in the real world. Brottman ends with asking us to push back on language that lumps entire groups of animals as devils. Our metaphors matter.
Brottman is right on the nose, though, when writing about how humans have almost always — nearly without exception in the case of the hyena — projected all manner of insecurities, often based in falsehoods or partial understandings of hyena culture and lifeways, onto hyenas. Their presumed scavenging or predatory nature (in fact, we learn, hyenas have a greater hunting success rate than those lazy lions), their self-evident “hideousness” (never mind that they bear striking resemble to our favorite dogs and to noble ursines both), and their sexual “deviancy” (rather than possibly offering for us a model of a social structure that is not predicated on dominance by aggressive males, for once). The book is at its most devastating when we realize how these misunderstandings, willfully sustained in the face of scientific and cultural evidence to the contrary, have real-life impacts for the remaining wild hyenas. When we project our worst — and for the hyena, it is always the worst — onto an animal that is simply attempting to live its life in a world of shrinking habitat and ever-more-violent humans, we make it that much easier to kill these animals with wanton disregard or to not mourn their passing.
When we vilify hyenas as exemplars of our own hideous vices, we condemn them to suffering and extirpation in the real world. Brottman ends with asking us to push back on language that lumps entire groups of animals as devils. Our metaphors matter.
August 9, 2021
Before I read this book, I didn't know anything about hyenas, and I only had the vague notions that had infused popular culture about the species--crazed, disgusting, filthy, and so on. This book has made me a champion of hyenas. It is a brilliantly written book deflating all the hoary myths about the animal. As the author points out, hyenas are fabulous animals: They live in a matriarchal society, where the males slink around in the background and try to impregnate some alpha females when they get the chance. They are very pack (family) oriented and take care of each other. There are four subspecies, of which by far the dominant is the spotted hyena, which ranges from the African savannah to India and Pakistan. The spotted hyena has a large and variable vocal range, including a call that sounds like a laugh or a hoot, which is where the term "laughing hyena" comes from. They have more p0werful teeth than any other mammal, so they can eat bones that lions or other apex predators leave behind. When they defecate, they release so much calcium that the feces eventually dry up in the air and blow away. They have long had a nefarious reputation, based on their laugh and the fact that they can and do dig up graves to finish off the bones of corpses, that they are werewolf-like and dirty.
The author points out that they have been given a bad rap, partly because they look so unusual (their front legs are taller than their back legs, so they don't run as much as scuttle) as well as their laugh and their grave-robbing. In the end, they are wild, fierce animals, but can often be domesticized and serve as massive pets. Since their ugly, centuries-long myth presents them as undesirable animals who should be killed whenever encountered, two of the four subspecies are on the endangered species list, and the habitat for the two hardier species is rapidly diminishing. Actually, they are a fascinating sociological and anthropological study because of their matriarchal society (similar to bonobos). They are a freak of nature (the females have three- to four-inch long clitorises), and they should be protected.
If you read this book, you will never feel the same way about hyenas again, and will become their ally and promoter. This is an outstanding book.
The author points out that they have been given a bad rap, partly because they look so unusual (their front legs are taller than their back legs, so they don't run as much as scuttle) as well as their laugh and their grave-robbing. In the end, they are wild, fierce animals, but can often be domesticized and serve as massive pets. Since their ugly, centuries-long myth presents them as undesirable animals who should be killed whenever encountered, two of the four subspecies are on the endangered species list, and the habitat for the two hardier species is rapidly diminishing. Actually, they are a fascinating sociological and anthropological study because of their matriarchal society (similar to bonobos). They are a freak of nature (the females have three- to four-inch long clitorises), and they should be protected.
If you read this book, you will never feel the same way about hyenas again, and will become their ally and promoter. This is an outstanding book.
July 17, 2020
"... anthropologists from J.G. Frazer onward have pointed out that animals are vehicles for embodying emotionally charged ideas. Foolishly, we humans tend to conflate ugliness with evil, and since we find the hyena viscerally repulsive, we class it with 'every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth', all condemned by Leviticus as 'abominations'. But watch out. As Freud suggests, whatever we repress will come back to bite us--and the hyena's jaws are built to crush bone."
I've been a Mikita Brottman fan since An Unexplained Death (bios of her state that she writes about literature, animals, and violent crime--how much cooler does a person get??), and a vague, if ignorant, admirer of the hyena for as long as I can recall--I've never been obsessed with them, but they did seem unfairly vilified and possessed of their own weird, rather Goth stain of beauty. Needless to say, this book was exactly what I hoped it'd be. Four stars since I usually prefer my nonfiction with more of an element of narrative or memoir (like An Unexplained Death or I'll Be Gone in the Dark), but I'm so glad I read this and learned more about these misunderstood, weirdly gorgeous creatures. Highly recommend for anyone who loves animals and questions mainstream ideas about the less-beloved creatures of this planet.
I've been a Mikita Brottman fan since An Unexplained Death (bios of her state that she writes about literature, animals, and violent crime--how much cooler does a person get??), and a vague, if ignorant, admirer of the hyena for as long as I can recall--I've never been obsessed with them, but they did seem unfairly vilified and possessed of their own weird, rather Goth stain of beauty. Needless to say, this book was exactly what I hoped it'd be. Four stars since I usually prefer my nonfiction with more of an element of narrative or memoir (like An Unexplained Death or I'll Be Gone in the Dark), but I'm so glad I read this and learned more about these misunderstood, weirdly gorgeous creatures. Highly recommend for anyone who loves animals and questions mainstream ideas about the less-beloved creatures of this planet.
September 17, 2025
I don't remember why I started loving hyenas, just that it happened early, maybe because of or maybe despite The Lion King. I've always had a soft spot for scavengers and I remember presenting a whole presentation on jackals for some class in junior high that I'm sure my classmates were super thrilled by. Anyway, you can imagine my heartbroken dismay when I played my first game of Baldur's Gate 3 and the whole hyena/gnoll thing happened in Act 1.
It's because of playing that set of encounters well over half a dozen times that I started looking for books on hyenas, and thank God my library had this one, because it soothes my hyena-loving soul. I wish there had been more citations for some of the claims wrt their magical uses, because by this point "needs more sources" is my catchphrase; I also wish there had been more photos of real hyenas, because after a certain amount of terrible, inaccurate drawings from the 1800s, you start to forget what a hyena actually looks like. But I still really enjoy learning more about them, especially when the writer does, in fact, like hyenas as much or more as I do.
It's because of playing that set of encounters well over half a dozen times that I started looking for books on hyenas, and thank God my library had this one, because it soothes my hyena-loving soul. I wish there had been more citations for some of the claims wrt their magical uses, because by this point "needs more sources" is my catchphrase; I also wish there had been more photos of real hyenas, because after a certain amount of terrible, inaccurate drawings from the 1800s, you start to forget what a hyena actually looks like. But I still really enjoy learning more about them, especially when the writer does, in fact, like hyenas as much or more as I do.
August 13, 2017
A fascinating look at what hyenas have meant to humans throughout history. It was especially interesting to see artwork hundreds of years old, and learn that much of western opinions were actually shaped around the striped hyena.
January 30, 2018
I really enjoyed this book! I've always loved hyenas and it was very surprising learning the variety of lore that surrounds them.
December 28, 2019
I am slowly trying to learn more about Hyena and this was a brilliant book to start that off.
I have learnt a lot from this book.
I have learnt a lot from this book.
August 8, 2014
This book explores and demystifies the world of hyenas who have been constantly vilified throughout human history.
Nicely illustrated and very instructive.
I found out that Andy Warhol, one of my favorite artists, illustrated a children's book entitled Sophocles the Hyena: A Fable. Now I need to get my hands on that!
Nicely illustrated and very instructive.
I found out that Andy Warhol, one of my favorite artists, illustrated a children's book entitled Sophocles the Hyena: A Fable. Now I need to get my hands on that!
March 24, 2014
Fantastic, in-depth look at the hyena. You can tell Brottman truly loves this animal, and that comes across in her story. Truly fascinating look at how science, culture, art, and society intersect around the topic of the hyena. Highly recommended.
April 24, 2016
Great book. Very informative and full of heart. Though you learnt much, the narrative of your journey remained tethered to a human narrator. Loved it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews