ABSTRACT
Culturally shared metaphors originate in universal aspects of bodily functioning. Cultural variation in metaphor use is constrained by the wider context of social norms, ideology, and ecology.
Some years ago I visited the Smithsonian art galleries in Washington, D.C. (who can resist free admission?). One gallery exhibited works from India and the Himalayas in the fifth century BCE. While studying the brightly painted ceremonial plates and bowls, I detected a pattern by virtue of my acute powers of semiotic deconstruction (okay, I read about it in the exhibit catalogue). On those pieces depicting multiple deities, the larger deities ruled over the smaller ones. Another gallery displayed Iranian pieces from the thirteenth century. Guess what? Ancestral spirits of greater stature were portrayed as larger than their human or superhuman counterparts.
