Vulture funds are in the news these days. These funds purchase bad debt, the sort of debt which has long given up its ghost. In other words, there is no chance of getting any money back on this debt. So, the vulture funds purchase this stuff, and then negotiate with the debt holders to get some return. If the negotiations fail, then they go to court to force the debt holder to pony up the debt amount and interest on the outstanding debt. So far so good!

Donegal International, a vulture fund based in the USA, has taken Zambia to court and the court has granted some monies to the fund. The trouble is that this money is one third of Zambia's total debt relief savings for this year under the various international debt relief arrangements.

I don't need to tell you what the reaction was. Apoplectic fits around the world, fingers dancing the St. Vitus dance on the keyboards, table thumping on various forums. Vulture funds are in the cross-hairs, and by Jove, they will be stopped. I have a problem with the morality of this angst and second, I have serious issues about calling them vultures.

Vultures are a species which has been massively discriminated against. Poor birds can't help having a bald head and feeding on dead animals. They are a vital cog in the great Gaia circle of life. I used to hate them as well when I was a kid and when I first saw a big, bald, Great Indian Vulture tearing at the carcass of a dead calf in a meadow.

What was to like in a vulture? The great big dangerous looking beak, the bald head, the mottled wrinkly skin, the black beady eyes, the sheer terrifyingly wide wing span, the strength in ripping the skin and getting to the meat, the fearlessness in being on the ground while humans were just a few feet away and the fact that they were eating carrion. All this was perfectly apparent in the photograph taken by Kevin Carter. That particular picture got him the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography and showed a starving Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture. http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.htm

Thankfully, my real life contacts with vultures were few and far between. But within literature, vultures always appeared with a dark threatening perspective. Evil people were frequently described as vultures. Old wicked women were sometimes portrayed as a vulture.

But, I slowly changed my mind about these beautiful birds as I grew up. A big thanks goes to my sister who helped me to see these birds in the historical context. Besides the natural reason of loving all nature's animals and birds, the reason why I started liking them was that I came to know about the way the Parsi's lay out their dead inside the Towers of Silence, so that the vultures can eat them as a way of disposing of the dead bodies. Different interpretations are offered, but mainly the idea seems to be that the dead body is considered to be unclean and to avoid contamination of the earth, vultures help in removing this contamination. Also, gifting the dead body is the last act of charity that one can perform. By offering one's own meat to the birds, something which might otherwise be wasted by cremation or burial, one performs a last service to nature. If nothing else, this is carbon neutral!

Vultures have a long history around the world. There was a god in pre-Islamic times called as Nesra, also known as the Eagle God; Nekhbet was the ancient Egyptian vulture goddess and Neret was the male counterpart. Interestingly enough, the ancient Egyptians loved the vulture because of its close bonds with its children. So, the vulture stood for motherhood and apple pie (well, the last is a stretch). Even the hieroglyph of the vulture was related to motherhood, bonding, pairing, etc. The vulture was venerated by the Assyrians as a god. Native Americans loved and still love the vulture, sometimes calling them as "Grandfather Buzzard". Iroquois have myths around how the Vulture eats carrion, but also flies in clean air and bathes in clean water.

Sir Richard Palmer identified old Nigerian bronze statues of the old Nupe Kingdom around 700BC which had vulture gods. The Maya's had a vulture god and the vulture was used in various religious representations relating to agriculture, rainmaking and warfare.

In Southern African tribal mythology, vultures represent lovers, because of the fact that vultures bond for life. Tribes in Suriname worship a vulture god called as Opete. The vulture is associated with Pallas, Ares/Mars and Apollo and is Saturn's mount.