The content I learned to share with you today is: "Why Chinese called themselves the descendants of the dragon".
Throughout the ages, hundreds of millions of Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad have called themselves "descendants of the dragon" and Chinese culture as "dragon culture".
So, what does a dragon look like?
It is said to combine the characteristics of nine animals: the head resembles a camel, the horns resemble a deer, the eyes resemble a rabbit, the ears resemble a cow, the neck resembles a snake, the abdomen resembles a mirage, the scales resemble a carp, the claws resemble an eagle, and the palm resembles a tiger.
Such features cast a mysterious color over the existence of dragons.
In ancient Chinese mythology, humans were made of loess by Nüwa. Nuwa created human beings, so who created Nuwa herself?
According to popular saying, Nuwa should have been first created by a people who worshipped snakes as a totem. The snake totem is widely distributed and is now mainly concentrated in the southeast and southwest of China.
In the continuous migration of thousands of years, the cultures of various ethnic groups have blended with each other, and the snake totem has spread throughout the north and south of the Yangtze River, and there are relics or customs of the snake totem in the High Mountain Tribe in Taiwan and the Li People in Hainan.
In areas where the snake is used as a totem, it is generally believed that "snake" is the prototype of "dragon", and "dragon" is the divine manifestation of "snake".
Therefore, in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui area called the family snake "Canglong", "Tianlong", "Family Dragon", etc., in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and other places some ethnic groups call themselves "dragon species", "dragon people", "dragon households" and build snake temples to worship snake gods.
Among the excavated artifacts, archaeologists have found much evidence of the dragon as a totem of the ancient Chinese nation.
The most primitive image of the dragon is the pottery pot dragon pattern excavated from the Yangshao cultural site in Banpo, Xi'an. It is snake-shaped and fish-shaped, and is the totem image of the yangshao culture residents and later xia people.
On the artifacts excavated from the Liangzhu culture in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, there are hook patterns that resemble snakes instead of snakes.
In the Hongshan Cultural Site in Inner Mongolia, dark green handicraft jade dragons have been unearthed.
A large number of examples prove that the worship of dragons has a history of at least five thousand years in our country.
The ancients believed that the dragon is the essence of the sun and the moon, the aura of the heavens and the earth, the shape of a hundred beasts, and the mind that embraces the four seas and the hundreds of rivers. Moreover, they also have the ability to summon the wind and rain to eliminate disasters and epidemics for people.
Since ancient times, we Chinese people have attached great importance to agricultural production, praying for smooth wind and rain, abundant grain, and people worship the ability of "dragon", so they regard it as the totem of their own nation.
In Chinese myths and legends, the dragon is a god who pioneered the world, helping Dayu to control the water and benefit millions of people. In feudal society, emperors called themselves "True Dragon Heavenly Sons", at this time, the dragon symbolized the supreme imperial power, with inviolable majesty.
In addition, the dragon is also regarded as a mascot. Chinese on festive days, there is a custom of dragon dance, which is the reason.
Nowadays, the dragon is not only a symbol of the Chinese nation, but also has a deep historical origin, but also represents the spirit of the Chinese nation, so every Chinese son and daughter will proudly call themselves "the descendants of the dragon".