The Scarecrow Phenomenon that began in Ancient Egypt Thousands of Years Ago
by Shahinda Abdalla
More than three thousand years ago began a phenomenon in ancient Egypt that would become one of the most popular representations of Halloween — the Scarecrow. Back then, when the scarecrow first popped up in ancient Egypt, its main purpose wasn’t to scare people but rather the birds that would often pick at the little seedlings barely peeking out of the ground shortly after they had been planted or the birds that came with the arrival of harvest season and would get to much of the produce before it could be harvested. For farmers back then as well as now, birds can be a serious problem and pose a great risk to how much produce they are able to grow and harvest. Sometimes that would result in famine. So to many farmers, the scarecrow is a hero, a silent and free laborer that protects their fields. For many farmers, the scarecrow is the guardian of their lands. Though when the scarecrow first made an appearance in ancient Egypt, it was far more basic than the elaborate ones we see today. Initially made of wooden sticks and a net draped over them, these ancient scarecrows would serve two functions — to keep the birds from destroying the wheat fields, particularly pigeon and quail, while at the same time trapping the quail and pigeon which made for a good dinner. This method of using netting on wooden frames along the Nile River was the earliest recorded use of protection measures on the land to scare birds and protect the crop. According to a paper by Walaa Abdelhakim titled Scaring Birds: The concept of the Scarecrow in Ancient Egypt, the ancient Egyptian farmers would then tie long cords of white fabric to their bodies and hid to surprise the birds and catch the unsuspecting birds with the help of the nets.
Old Kingdom scenes of scaring and trapping birds by means of the Scarer and the tree net; a. Tomb of Iymery G 6020 at Giza; b. Tomb of Niankhnesut at Saqqara; c. Tomb of Sekhemkare LG 89 at Giza; d. Tomb of Niankh-khnum and Khnumhotep at Saqqara; e. Tomb of Hetepherakhti at Saqqara; f. Tomb of Neferirtenef at Saqqara. (Image Source)
Later we would see these evolve into more elaborate designs made of corn straw known as corn dollys. It is unclear how we ended up with the human-like versions of scarecrows we see today. Though one folk story tells of a time when yields were very low and crops failed to grow on the ancient lands and people began to believe that it was because the gods were angry at the killing of the birds, and so the use of netting to trap any birds on the fields was banned and any one who used such methods would be sentenced to death and hung on a wooden stick on the land for people to see. These sticks with dead humans on them seemed to not only deter people from killing birds but served too the function of scaring the birds away, and slowly but surely crops began to grow again and harvests were abundant once more.
Another much less terrifying and more economic story notes that young boys were hired to chase after birds in ancient Egypt and that it was observed that one could simply place wooden or straw life-size versions of these boys and it would have the same scaring effect on the birds, and it was much cheaper! In fact, one of the reasons the scarecrow remains to be a farmer’s best-friend in modern-day Egypt is for economic reasons. The scarecrow is an unpaid security guard that not only protects the crops from birds but also from theft by other people. They cost almost nothing to make and can stay there all hours of the day and night. If you’re driving past an agricultural strip or any rural area in Egypt, you might notice from a distance what appears to be farmers in their galabeyas (traditional dress) working on the land, but in fact a majority of those are scarecrows. Today, people even add bells to their scarecrows that make sounds when the wind blows as an extra feature to help keep birds away. It’s not a stretch to say that the scarecrow is a key agricultural tool that has been used by farmers for millennia to keep a certain type of pest away — the birds. And without this cheap and useful tool, who knows where our agricultural civilizations would be. Thank you scarecrows for protecting our food!