Chinese Monster Story Club "Mandrill"

#中国妖怪故事会 #

Names are regarded as an important identifier of a person, and they are closely linked to the spirit, soul and life condition of the individual. The ancients gave names mysterious and important symbolic meanings, which is reflected in many ancient cultures. As a result, the ancients believed that once their name became known to others, they lost control of themselves and were vulnerable to threats and scourge. This is why, in many legends, mandrills and other demons are eager to know their true names in order to dominate them.

When a name is used maliciously, it affects its owner. Therefore, the ancients were wary of their real names, fearing that they would be known and used by others.

Witchcraft against names also emerged in ancient China, which can be divided into two categories, one is to change fate and avoid disasters, and the other is used to attack and kill enemies.

I believe that many people have seen or heard of soul calling when they are children, especially in remote areas, soul calling is a kind of "witchcraft" that is widely spread in children.

Especially when children are mentally weak, noisy at night, or constantly ill, adults will blame this situation on "lost soul".

Since the soul is lost, it is natural to be recovered, and the methods of recovering the child's soul in various parts of ancient China vary from region to region.

In most parts of ancient China, the most common way to call the soul was by the mother or the eldest woman in the family, holding the child's intimate clothing, shouting in the place where the child often moved, generally the content was two sentences: "Xiaobao come back, go home with mother!" ”

Some areas will find another person to cooperate with the mother and answer: "Oh, back, back!"

Among China's ethnic minorities, the Yi, Miao, Dong, Shui and other ethnic minorities also have the phenomenon of calling souls, but some are held at the water's edge, and some need to hold a big rooster.

Some require the eldest woman in the family to call them, but in addition to the differences in external rituals, calling names is the most important part of all soul calling customs.

In ancient times, the custom of calling the soul was actually the simplest "disgust of victory", and the name was the core of the disgust of witchcraft, and even animals with names would become objects of witchcraft.

In other cultures, such as the beliefs of the North American Indians, names are seen as equivalent to organs and parts of the body, and if the name is damaged, it also means harm to the body. Therefore, they keep their real names tightly hidden and only use them in intimate situations. Instead, they replace their names with a part of their body, such as "red hair, big hands, long arms" and so on. As for the name, it can only be known by one's own relatives, and cannot be told to outsiders until old age and death, because once known by the wicked, there will be trouble with witchcraft.

In ancient China, giving names was a mystical ritual that represented the power to control or dominate objects. In beliefs such as ancient Chinese shamanism, the name itself has some kind of power or magic. If this magic power is known by the demon, it will be used by it to have a negative effect, so not letting the demon know the name is a way to protect yourself.

Therefore, the term "name witchcraft" reflects the cultural psychology of the ancients who gave supernatural meanings to names. It makes names an important tool of witchcraft and social control, and it also creates a sense of jealousy of the malicious use of real names. These are all worth considering when understanding ancient cultures. The term "name witchcraft" allows us to see a very meaningful cultural phenomenon in ancient society, which reveals an aspect of the way of thinking of the ancients, and also allows us to understand more comprehensively the witchcraft and superstitious elements in ancient Chinese society, which is actually related to the social and cultural environment and the level of scientific and technological development at that time, which makes plots and themes such as mandrills thirsting for real names widely spread in folklore.

In the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas, mandrills were depicted as gods or mysterious objects. It lives in the Yue Mountains, can call the wind and rain, and dominate the weather. This shows the ancient people's worship of high mountains and mountains as a source of mystical power. After the Yin Shang Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, mandrills were gradually demonized. It is seen as a source of evils that cause droughts and floods, and is the object of fear and removal from them. This shows that the ancients began to shift from nature worship to fear of the unknown. After the Han Dynasty, mandrills evolved into the embodiment of various demons and appeared frequently in folklore and stories. It is no longer the master of natural phenomena, but an evil spirit that likes to plague human beings, and its characters are basically stereotyped as monsters and demons. This shows a major shift in the attitude of the ancients towards the mysterious forces of nature. After the Tang and Song dynasties, mandrills have completely become frequent guests in ancient monster legends and stories, alongside all kinds of demons and monsters, and are rendered as evil spirits that harm people and troubles in operas novels. This shows a further evolution of the ancients' horrible attitude towards the unknown.

The ancients had that the phrase "rather meet a jackal than touch a mandrill" sums up the attitude of the people towards mandrills - it is better to encounter other fierce beasts than to have anything to do with mandrills. This shows that the mandrill is a very threatening symbol among the people, and people have a deep fear and taboo about it. There are mainly the following reasons: Mandrills have powerful and mysterious powers. The mandrill is seen as a magical demon with the ability to change shape, which makes it fickle, elusive, and difficult to guard against. This unknown power is daunting. Mandrills are difficult to get rid of. Because mandrills are powerful, once entangled in the world, it is not easy to get rid of them, which makes people feel hopeless and anxious. Mandrills are difficult to expel. Once mandrills stir up, it is difficult to drive them away by conventional means, and the consequences are unbearable. The troubled nature of the mandrill. Once it is possessed by the WTO, it often causes disasters such as diseases, droughts and floods, and brings great damage to the world, which is why people fear it. The thirst for a real name. The mandrill regards the real name of the human creature as a rare treasure, and once it knows it, it can exert control over the person through the set of the name, which makes people shroud it in the shadows, for fear that the real name will be exposed. Therefore, the saying "rather meet a jackal than touch a mandrill" can very well represent people's disgust and taboo for this demon, which is also an important reason why the mandrill has become a very threatening symbol in the minds of the ancients. The appearance of this sentence largely reflects the fear of supernatural forces in ancient China. In short, this is a proverb that can accurately summarize the attitude and cognition of mandrills among the people, and the cultural psychology contained in it is worthy of our appreciation and interpretation. Regarding mandrills, in addition to myths and legends, there is no real spiritual object correspondence, which has led to many speculations. It has been suggested that the mandrill was probably based on some ancient man-eating animal, such as a polar bear or tiger. These beasts live deep in the mountains and have elusive whereabouts, coupled with the harm they produce, it is easy for the ancients to have supernatural associations, and eventually evolve into demon symbols such as mandrills. There is also a perception that the source of mandrills is the personification of certain natural disasters or diseases that are difficult to understand. Such as drought, flood, plague, etc., the ancients often regarded as mandrills and other demons due to their limited understanding. Over time, these calamities themselves were anthropomorphized as spiritual objects such as mandrills. In addition, the supernatural features of some elusive animals, such as foxes and snakes, have also been used to construct prototypes and symbols of mandrills. For example, its fickle nature makes it an agent of all kinds of disasters and is regarded as the embodiment of demons. Of course, the true counterpart of mandrill may also be some paleontological or natural phenomenon that modern people have no way of understanding. With the development of science and technology, many natural mysteries beyond the understanding of the ancients were revealed, but in ancient times they were given a mysterious color and evolved into symbolism. Therefore, it can be seen that the source of the symbol of the mandrill is very complex, it may be affected by man-eating animals, natural disasters, mysterious creatures and other aspects, and finally integrated and evolved in the imagination and legends of the ancients, becoming a literary symbol with rich meaning. The true counterpart of the mandrill has been difficult to examine or determine, but the cultural psychology and understanding it embodies provides us with important clues to interpret the spiritual world of the ancients. In short, the formation of the symbol of mandrill is the result of the interaction of various complex factors such as culture, environment, and understanding ability, and its true source is difficult to verify, but the way of thinking and aesthetic taste it reflects are still worthy of our interpretation and consideration. This is why the study of folklore is important. In modern times, mandrills have become part of ancient legends and folk culture, and are used as the subject of folk art, and it is difficult to make people feel feared in real life. This shows the development of human rational thinking, which has fundamentally changed our perceptions and attitudes. From the Classic of Mountains and Seas to the present day, the evolution of mandrills in Chinese myths and legends, literature and art vividly reflects the transformation of ancient Chinese people's concepts of nature, mysterious things and unknown worlds from worship to horror to rationality. This is also an important symbol of ideological emancipation and conceptual progress in ancient China.

It can be seen that the widespread recognition of the mystery and potential threat of names in ancient societies also made names an important object of witchcraft and magic. This cognition gradually dissolved only after scientific reason gradually replaced the mystical imagination. Today, the primary meaning of the name has been transformed into a tool for social interaction and understanding, and no longer has such a strong mystical connotation.