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| Turtles and Tortoises: Longevity,
Sexuality and Chastity |
July 20th, 2003.
By Professor Fabio Cupul
Permanent Member of the Mexican Association for
the Dissemination of Science and Technology. |
 In
Western culture, the image of the tortoise has been
used to symbolize a human life filled with monotony,
burdened by a large dose of slowness in the execution
of any task (laziness), while gifted with a long and
passive existence.
For tortoises, aging depends on the
rate at which its metabolism functions. Because of this,
and in order to reduce its metabolic rate (physical
exertion or wear), they are “cold blooded”,
i.e.: their body temperature cannot be controlled internally
like that of mammals and birds, but depends on the temperature
of their environment. That means that their metabolism
functions slowly (less physical exertion than a warm-blooded
animal that invests much of its energy in maintaining
the internal temperature of its body stable), but as
soon as their bodies warm up under the sun’s rays,
it speeds up.
Some records lead us to believe that
those animals can live beyond a hundred years. For example,
one tortoise that Captain Cook gave as a gift to the
King of Tonga is believed to have lived for 193 years.
The secret of the turtles’ longevity is based
on living life slowly. Even under extreme circumstances,
they only reach maximum speeds of 0.17 miles/hour and
most of the time, their metabolism is nearly shut off,
deactivated.
However despite its slow movements,
the turtle’s safety is not threatened by the onslaught
of voracious predators. The strong armor that covers
the body of various species of the group functions as
a protective shield that repels invaders. In fact this
natural shell served as inspiration for the Roman legions.
One of the military tactics they used, where soldiers
would set their shields along the perimeter of an advancing
column, was indeed called “testudo”, i.e.
tortoise.
 In
Greek mythology, the turtle is linked to sexuality.
The best expression of this is found in the myth of
Aphrodite’s birth who emerges from the foam generated
by Uranus’ genitals. Uranus was the Greek god
of the skies who was castrated by his son Kronos. The
tortoise was one of the animals sacrificed by Aphrodite
and given as an offering to the god Pan. Along with
Pan, Aphrodite is one of the Greek deities notoriously
associated with sexual appetites.
Ironically, the ancient Christian
Church used the turtle as a symbol of reticence and
chastity. It may have been assigned those attributes
because, being a slow animal, it is less prone to commit
adultery or partake in fornication.
The slow speed at which the tortoise
moves was the inspiration for Aesop’s famous fable
of “The Tortoise and the Hare”. If you recall,
the hare lost the race because it was so confident in
its own speed that it stopped to take a siesta on the
side of the road. When it awoke, its time had run out
to reach the finish line ahead of the tortoise. The
moral of that fable is: “Slow and steady wins
the race.”
In Native American mythology, the
tortoise is considered as the creator of the earth.
In their teachings, the turtle is the oldest symbol
for the planet. It is the personification of goddess
energy and the eternal Mother from which our lives evolve.
In the folklore of the Arapaho Indians, it is told that
a tortoise dove to the bottom of the ocean to pick up
fragments of clay with its back, thus creating dry,
firm land.
In Hindu mythology, in his second
incarnation, Lord Vishnu is shown in the form of half
man, half tortoise, Kurma. He placed himself at the
bottom of the sea of milk, and made his back the support
for mount Mandara for churning of the sea. When the
gods were in danger of losing their authority over the
demons, Lord Vishnu advised them to churn the ocean
so that they might procure ambrosia, which would make
them strong and immortal.
Finally, according to Chinese mythology,
the tortoise is one of the four animals who created
the world.
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