1 Familiar and unfamiliar Dong creation myths
It is said that the divine bird Samon, hatched the egg and gave birth to a pair of siblings, the sister is called Shensang, and the younger brother is called Shen En.
At the beginning of this story, the amount of information is very large. The first is the creation of the divine bird and the creation of man, which is relevant in the mythology of various Chinese peoples. For example, Pangu opened the heavens and the earth, which also means that the heavens and the earth are like an egg, and Pangu is in it.
Don't forget that Pangu's image is like a hump on the top of the head, a mouth and nose like a big bird, and wings on the back, which is completely like a bird. After Pangu's death, his soul turned into Lei Gong, the Chinese god of thunder.
What does Lei Gong look like? It is the appearance of Lei Zhenzi in the God Sealing List, and he is also a birdman.
Some scholars believe that Pangu is the candle dragon in the Classic of Mountains and Seas
Of course, there are also legends that say that Pangu is the image of a dragon. Dragons and birds have a deep relationship, from an evolutionary point of view, reptile dinosaurs, and later evolved birds.
In addition, the creation epic "Genesis" of the Naxi people in Yunnan says that the beginning of the universe was an egg, and a white chicken was born in the egg. The white chicken laid nine more pairs of white eggs. Then the whole heaven and earth were born.
Why do humans always have divine bird worship? I borrow the explanation of the author of "Chronicles of the Earth", Zachariasitsyn: because the gods are aliens, they flew flying machines to the earth, like divine birds from the sky, created human beings, and helped human beings build civilization. Therefore, ancient human beings always felt that gods and birds had a great relationship, they all fell from the sky and could fly. I don't know if you agree with this interpretation.
And then tell the story. This sacred bird is called Samon and also sounds like a shaman. I don't know if it has anything to do with shamanism, maybe it's pure coincidence. This Samon divine bird hatched eggs and gave birth to two siblings, and naturally married each other. The story of the siblings is in many myths, the most famous in China are Fuxi and Nuwa, Sumerian mythology also has Enji and Nyingmacher, and Hera and Zeus in ancient Greek mythology.
In order to maintain their blood purity, the pharaohs of ancient Egypt also married their sisters and sisters. Perhaps it's a mythical approach. However, pharaohs are not gods, but ordinary human beings, and the result is that the ancient Egyptian royal family is married by close relatives, resulting in the royal genetics being inferior from generation to generation, and pharaohs always suffer from strange diseases.
Sanxingdui bronze divine bird
This Shensang and Shen Grace sisters and brothers gave birth to twelve god kings together. There are Meng Lei, Meng Long, Meng Snake, Meng Hu, Meng Ji, Meng Gou, and Meng Shuo. This Meng Shuo was a goddess of wisdom, and later settled on the moon and became the goddess of the moon.
What does Meng mean here? In the Dong language, Meng means king. In the Chinese character Meng, it also means boss, such as Meng Zhongshuji, Meng ranked boss. So these children should be called Thunder King, Dragon King, Snake King, Tiger King, Chicken King, and Dog King. But there seems to be no one in it. Of course, there are also two human ancestors in it, which are a pair of brothers and sisters, the elder brother is called Noah, and the younger sister is called Nowa, also called Nomei.
It is estimated that some friends will be shocked when they hear this. How did Noah pop up? Noah's ark in the Western Bible, who doesn't know? You have to make up a story, or you have to change the name.
This is really not made up by me, in the mythology of the Dong people, it is called Noah, and it is much earlier than Noah in the West.
This is probably familiar to you. That's right, in Chinese, this character is written as this "傩".
Sichuan's face change, the face of drama, may have originated from puppet play
In many areas in the south, there are still puppet dances and puppet plays, which are a ritual to drive away epidemics and ghosts, and are one of the original witch dances. In fact, Sichuan's face change also evolved from the puppet play.
With the help of Meng Shuo, the god of wisdom, Noah and Nomei learned to see wood for fire, and used fire attacks to drive Meng Lei, the Thunder King, to the sky, the Serpent King into the cave, and the Tiger King into the forest... But Meng Lei, who had the greatest ability, was not willing, so he chased Meng Shuo and took revenge on her with a thunder slash. Meng Shuo used a trick to put Meng Lei in a cage, and also went to buy salt to marinate Meng Lei and eat bacon. So he asked Noah and Nomei to watch over Meng Lei.
Meng Lei pretended to be pitiful and said that he was thirsty, so he tricked Nuomei into sending him rice water. Later, he tricked the clear spring water. Meng Lei drank the clear spring water, recovered his divine power, and used thunder to split the cage and flew into the sky. Then there will be a flood of retaliation. But in order to repay Nuomei's life-saving grace, he pulled out two teeth and gave them to Nuomei. Say that the flood is coming, plant these two teeth into the ground, and two gourds will grow. Just sit in the gourd and avoid the flood.
Later, there was a big flood, the flood rose higher and higher, it was almost up to the sky, Nuomei sat on a gourd boat, escaped the flood, and saved many animals along the way. Finally, he saw Meng Lei at the South Heavenly Gate and asked Meng Lei to recede the flood. Meng Lei didn't listen, and those bee ants and poisonous insects that were saved by Nuo Mei went to bite Meng Lei together. Meng Lei's head was covered with bags, and the soles of his feet were draining pus, so he had to agree to retreat the flood.
How did he recede the floodwater? He released 12 suns to dry the flood. The Central Plains myth is that ten days come out together, and he this is twelve. It is conceivable that the twelve suns, the flood was dried, and the creatures of the world had to be sunburned.
Huaihua Dong ethnic group, Hunan Province
Nuo Mei then asked the queen ant. The queen ant took his long knife and went to cut the sun.
This posterior ant is the ant's ant. But it is strikingly similar to the story of Houyi Shooting Day. This rear ant, in one breath
Nine suns were chopped, and the remaining three were hiding everywhere.
One touched the knife edge and scattered into stars all over the sky.
One escaped to the edge of the sky and turned into the moon shining on the mountains and rivers.
So that's all that's left of the sun.
Interestingly, the moon turned out to be a sun change released by Meng Lei. In fact, in many national myths, the moon appeared very late.
In the mythology of the Yao region, in ancient times, there was only the sun and stars in the sky, and there was no moon. One night, a feverish, eight-cornered mountain-like thing suddenly appeared, radiating a poisonous heat, very close to the world. The story of the origin of the moon of the Yao people is very consistent with our inference that "the sky is the moon" said in the second issue.
Keep telling the story. Finally, the world was peaceful, but Noah and Noah found that there was no one on earth. And here Noah appeared. As mentioned earlier, there was nothing about Noah. Like the story we told in the previous issue, in the face of the prehistoric flood, it was also Nuwa Niangniang who went to replenish the sky and cure the water, and nothing happened to Fuxi.
What if there are no more humans? At this time, another divine bird appeared, telling them: The people under the sky are dead, and you brothers and sisters should quickly become relatives and descendants.
So the brothers and sisters obeyed God's will and became husband and wife. After marriage, he gave birth to a meat gourd with a large mouth. That is, a gourd baby, born to speak. Noah and Noah don't seem to like this gourd baby, and one wants to throw him up the mountain and the other down the river. In the end, there was a commotion operation, chopping this meat gourd into countless pieces, and then scattering it on the flat ground and hills, growing as it was sprinkled. White meat becomes Qianmin, belly becomes Miaomin, bones become Yaomin, and heart becomes Han. Qianmin is white and pure, Miao Min is intestinal, Yaomin has hard bones, and Han people have a clever heart...
This Qianmin is the self-proclaimed name of the Dong people, because the Dong are mainly in Guizhou and Qianyang in Hunan.
2 Surprising details of Dong mythology
At the end of the story, there are also two hidden details. One is that after the Great Flood, the previous generation of civilization and the previous generation of humanity are gone, and it was Noah and Noah who gave birth to mankind again. Therefore, Noah and Nomei were revered by the Dong people as ancient ancestors. This is strikingly consistent with the story of Noah in the Bible. God also sent a flood to destroy mankind, and only Noah's family survived, so later human beings are all descendants of Noah.
The second detail is the way they reproduce human beings, like sowing seeds, so that people of all nationalities are planted from the ground. This is in line with Dr. Li Weidong's conjecture, who believes that human beings were created by alien civilizations. The legend of making people out of clay in various peoples actually implies that the first wave of humans was mass-produced. Precisely because they were made and not evolved in nature, humans do not conform to the theory of evolution.
Dong ethnic village in Guizhou
The "Creation Myth" of the Dong people is completely a hybrid version of Eastern and Western myths. Han mythology is that the water god worked together to cause the flood, here is Meng Lei, that is, the thunder god created the flood, and the west is the god who caused the flood. The Han myth is that Nuwa replenishes the sky and Nuwa cures water to save mankind, and here is Nuomei, that is, Nowa solved the flood. The Han myth is the Dayi Shooting Sun, where the ants cut the sun. The later creation of people is also very similar to the creation of people by Nuwa.
Previously, we may have overlooked a detail, which thing happened first when Nuwa made up the sky and Nuwa created people? In the past, we all took it for granted that there must be Nuwa to create people first, otherwise what do we need to make up for the sky?
But looking at the myth of the Dong people, we can't help but think again. Perhaps the original intention of Nuwa to create people is the same as the creation myth of the Dong people. It is because the vast majority of the first generation of human beings of the first generation of civilization perished in the Great Flood, so Nuwa needs to rebuild people. And the human beings before the Great Flood were not created by Nuwa. Before the Great Flood, it was an era of coexistence between humans and gods, and many human beings at that time were still half-humans and half-gods, which is why there were such strange half-man, half-beast, giant and other strange species in the Mountain and Sea Classics, ancient Greek mythology, ancient Egyptian mythology, and Norse mythology. Perhaps, as the dark Bible Book of Enoch says, God created a great flood that destroyed the heavens and the earth in order to destroy the giants and orcs born of fallen angels and earthly women. And leaving Noah's lineage, that is, only retaining human beings, let God and man, completely break off the relationship. Just like the Jedi Tiantong of the Emperor Zhuan in Chinese mythology, it is also to avoid the mixing of gods and people and give birth to monsters that are a scourge in the world.
In this way, Nuwa created human beings, creating pure people, and human beings after the Great Flood no longer have the blood of God. It is only up to humans to reproduce on their own. In Dong mythology, the divine bird Samon hatched eggs, and the twelve god kings who gave birth, in addition to Noah and Nomei are Terrans, other thunder kings, snake kings, tiger kings, chicken kings, dog kings... Doesn't it imply that they are all half-human, half-beast, half-god.
3 Is an ark a square boat? Non-also, non-also
Some friends are already impatient, doesn't the title of this issue say Ark? What about the Ark?
Don't worry, let's talk about the ark now.
Look at the above Dong myth, doesn't it contain a Chinese version of the story of "Noah's Ark"?
In the Western Bible, Noah built the ark according to God's will and brought many animals with him. Noah's family survived and became the ancestors of the new humanity. Noah's three sons are considered by Westerners to be the ancestors of the peoples of the world.
In Dong mythology, it was the two teeth of the thunder king that grew two gourds on the ground. Turned into a gourd boat and saved Noah and Nomei. And they also saved a lot of birds and beasts. In the end, they also became the common ancestors of the new generation of Chinese ethnic groups.
Some friends are not happy again, the Bible says the ark, you are two gourds here. Which Ark is it?
Calm, calm. Does an ark have to be a square boat?
Noah's ark in the Bible, according to the original text, was indeed a large square ship. It's like a big cabinet. So some people believe that Noah's ark is another incarnation of the Ark of the Covenant. The ark of the covenant is also called the ark of law because it contains the covenant made between God and the Israelites. This covenant is the two codes of the Ten Commandments that Moses received from God Jehovah on Mount Monet. So the Israelites, who claimed to be God's chosen people, were God's chosen ones.
Noah's ark was indeed square, like the ark of the covenant. But Noah and Noah's gourd boat is actually called the ark.
The myth of the Dong people in the folding fan
You must have scolded me again for talking nonsense, a gourd is a gourd, how did it become an ark? If you say break the sky, the gourd can't be square.
It is true that the gourd is not square, but in the Baiyue native dialect, the boat and the gourd are the same sound. Even from the glyph, doesn't this "boat" look like a gourd?
Perhaps ancient humans were inspired by the gourd floating in the water and invented the boat. So the gourd is the boat, which makes sense.
How to explain the Ark? And I ask you, what is the original meaning of Fang? Does it only mean square? In fact, there is also an original meaning, which is the meaning of comparison and juxtaposition. For example, for example, for example, non-square objects.
The idiom of incomprehensible things comes from "Under the Chinese Chu Language":
"And the decline of the less, the nine li chaotic virtues, the mixture of the people and gods, and the incomprehensible things."
It is said that during the Shaohao period, the strength declined, the moral character of the Jiuli tribe of Chi You was corrupted, and the people and gods were mixed, which said that the Chi You tribe and human mixed blood, resulting in many monsters that were half-human and half-god. Non-square means that it is impossible to distinguish and cannot recognize whether it is man or God.
You see, even classics like "Chinese" talk about the mixture of people and gods, indicating that during the Shaohao period, there was also a situation of mixed blood between people and gods.
It seems to have gone astray again, and then said Fang. Square means that two identical things are juxtaposed side by side, which is called square.
Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty said in his "Speaking Wen Xie Zi":
"Fang, and the ship too."
This means that two ships side by side are called squares.
And Meng Lei turned the two teeth of Nuo Mei into two gourds, and then side by side to make a gourd boat, isn't that an ark? The so-called ark is two gourds strung together.
In "Erya Shishui", it is clearly recorded what kind of ship from the Son of Heaven to the commoners. Here's what it says:
"The Son of Heaven makes a boat, the princes make a boat, the Doctor Ark, and the Ark."
The Son of Heaven makes a boat, meaning the boat on which the Son of Heaven sits, is a row of boats connected like a pontoon bridge.
The princes and boats are four boats connected together.
The Doctor's Ark means that Dr. Qing can only sit on a boat connected by two boats, and the ark is also a double boat.
Stecan. The warriors were left to take only one boat.
As for the common people, they can only take the rope, that is, with wooden rafts.
Therefore, Cao Cao was willing to accept Pang Tong's serial scheme and connected the big ships, on the one hand, he rode and fought like a flat, on the other hand, it was also Cao Cheng who floated and vanity. Because this is the Son of Heaven to build a boat, it is the etiquette of the Son of Heaven.
The real ark is even and detachable, and Cao Cao killed Cai Yao, naturally not understanding the mystery
Well, the ark did mean double boat in ancient times, and it has nothing to do with whether the ship is square or not.
The word "square" in the Chinese Dictionary:
"Fang, and the ship also, and also, through."
The Etymology says:
"The ark means that the two boats go side by side. Two things go hand in hand. ”
So "analogy" is to compare two things side by side.
The inscription of the Zhou Festival of the State of Chu records: "Tun San Zhou is the boat". Grandpa Mao's Qinyuan Spring Changsha said:
"The river is clear, and a hundred boats compete for the current."
This "boat" means that three ships are merged, of which the middle one is a large ship and the two sides are small boats. It can be connected and detached, stable and fast, and will not roll over. So the ancient books recorded,
"Southern Chu Jiangxiang, where the ship is big, it is called the boat."
It is said that in the area of Hunan, the big ship is called a ship. Therefore, what Grandpa Mao said about a hundred boats competing for the current, instead of saying "a thousand sails competing for the current", is very realistic. Because the Xiangjiang River has been a gang since ancient times, not a later sailing ship.
Many people do not know that the shipping industry in Hunan has been very developed since ancient times. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Three Kingdoms, the Changsha area was able to produce a large "ark" loaded with 10,000 Hu grain, about 200 tons.
Cao Cao's serial warship was the largest ark at that time. It was precisely because large and small arks could be found everywhere in the south that Cao Cao accepted the suggestion to connect the warships. Because the ships in the south are all boats of double boats, or boats of three boats. Cao Cao was just building the biggest ark. Who expected that Zhuge Liang could borrow the east wind?
Tang dynasty Changsha kiln porcelain
By the time of the Tang Dynasty, Changsha kiln porcelain, through the big ships in Hunan, had crossed the sea and was exported to the Persian Gulf in the Middle East. It was hundreds of years before Zheng He went to the West.
Perhaps the Chinese ark went south to sea so early that an ark with sails was popular in the Pacific Ocean.