As we mentioned in the previous article, the prototype of Jiang Ziya's divine beast mount is actually the so-called "four unlikes" of the folk - elk.
The unicorn, which includes one of the four spirit beasts, is also derived from the image of an elk.
So what kind of divine beast is this elk?
What is its place in our culture?
Today, we will talk about the past and present lives of the elk, which can be called the real-life version of the "Ancient Divine Beast".
What exactly does an elk look like?
First of all, when it comes to elk, many people may confuse it with the following brothers.
Several kinds of easy-to-confuse deer
Biologically, elk and the brothers above belong to the deer family, but belong to different genera and subfamily.
Elk belongs to the elk genus under the deer family Euphalidae subfamily, and in this genus it has a light rod commander.
It mainly lived in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, within the Great Wall in the north and the Yellow Sea in the east.
Therefore, most of the deer mentioned in ancient China refers to elk.
Some people say that the males of the deer family are all about the same length, and they all have a big tree branch, and I really can't tell who they are!
Teach you a simple way to distinguish: although these branches are either forked forward or branched backwards, the elk branches can also be extended to the side, and the fully developed branches will be horizontal, so they can stand smoothly upside down.
This skill point is something that no other antlers have.
Comparison of several antlers
Another feature of elk is that its tail is 60-75 cm long, much like a donkey's tail.
The face resembles a horse instead of a horse, the horns resemble a deer instead of a deer, the hooves resemble an ox instead of an ox, and the tail resembles a donkey instead of a donkey, which is also the origin of the elk being called "four unlike" in the folk.
Although the "four unlikes" now often contain pejorative meanings and are used as a metaphor for things that are not different, in the ancients, it is just the opposite, the more divine beasts with more mortal animal characteristics tend to be more noble and rare, such as dragons and lin, and then such as our four unlikes - elk jun.
In fact, the elk is indeed like the giant panda, a world-class rare species unique to China.
Elves from ancient times
Zoological and archaeological studies have shown that as early as three million years ago, elk have lived on the land of China and are truly relics from ancient times.
In the "Zhuangzi Thief", it is said: In the world of the gods and farmers, the people live in the lying place, and the people know their mothers, do not know their fathers, coexist with the elk, cultivate and eat, weave and cloth, and have no harmful heart.
It can be said that elk were the first partners to inhabit the earth with our ancestors.
They are docile, habitual in warm and humid plains, swamps and waters, feeding on grasses, mosses, leaves, young grasses and aquatic plants, and prefer to swim and live in groups. It is a group of elves swimming in the green mountains and blue waters.
In the Book of Verses, it is sung: "Yo yo deer singing, eating the apple of the wild." "It depicts a flock of yoyon elk grazing leisurely in the fields.
The Taizhou Museum holds 6,000-year-old elk fossils
Racial decline under the influence of natural and human factors
In the "Compendium of Materia Medica", it is recorded that the horn of the elk is used to supplement the yin, which is mainly used to treat all hemorrhages, muscles, bones, waist and knee pain, and nourishes the yin and benefits the kidneys.
Elk, which is almost entirely medicinal and edible, is relatively easy to catch, and is therefore one of the most important foods of its ancestors.
Primitive humans do not pose a threat to elk due to their small population and low level of productivity.
However, with the growth of population and the development of agriculture, large areas of land were reclaimed for farming, and the habitat of elk was gradually encroached upon.
Especially after the Shang Zhou Dynasty, the use of bronze and iron tools led to a large number of elk hunting. The oracle bone once recorded that the number of elk hunted in one ancient time reached 348.
At the same time, elk prefer a warm climate, while meteorology shows that china's temperature has gradually cooled in the past five thousand years, swamps and waters have also decreased significantly, and the livability of elk has been further reduced.
Coupled with various reasons such as its narrow feeding habits, the number of elk has decreased sharply.
After arriving in Qin, elk were already very rare and rare. Even in the Han Dynasty, the appearance of elk was regarded as a sign of good fortune.
The so-called rarity is precious, and the drastic reduction in the number of ethnic groups has made the elk gradually transcend the attributes of the animal itself, enter the field of people's aesthetics and beliefs, and continue to be endowed with more and more cultural and divine meanings.
The elk in the Han portrait stone
A symbol of royal power
The Book of Poetry, Daya Lingtai records that the king was in the lingyuan, and the deer were ambushed.
It can be said that as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, elk had entered the courtyard of the royal family as pets.
Because of its rarity, the ability to raise elk began to become a symbol of status and power, representing nobility and royal power.
In the "Chronicle of the Marquis of Huaiyin", Pu Tong advised Han Xin: Qin lost his deer, and the whole world expelled it. Since then, the central plains have become a reference to the struggle for dominance.
In the "Fengshen Yanyi", Jiang Ziya rides a divine beast based on an elk as the prototype of the four do not help the Wu King, and its political symbolism is self-evident.
Qing Kangxi antler chair
A deity that exorcises evil spirits and blesses all beings
We often say that appearance is justice, and in elk, that is, appearance is faith.
The elk itself is meek and quiet, less fighting, healthy and elegant, beautiful and spiritual personality and appearance characteristics, which are simply grown on people's aesthetic points.
In particular, their horns, the branches, are scattered around beautifully and the huge antlers of each horn point to the sky, forming a strange visual image, giving people a sense of fantasy and mystery, so they are endowed with a divinity that communicates with the gods.
They are seen as wife (not) that receive signals from heaven and are thought to be able to converse with heaven and convey the will of the gods. (In dragons, unicorns, and many other mythical beasts, we can see similar "antlers" features.) ）
This ability and authority implied by antlers is believed to have the power to fight against demons and ghosts, and can ward off evil spirits and bless well-being.
In addition, the growth pattern and renewable characteristics of the late fall of antlers are believed to have a mysterious relationship with the cycle and regeneration of life.
Therefore, the elk has become the spokesperson for immortality and immortality.
In the tombs of the Warring States period, deer are common town tomb beasts that guard the tranquility of the dead and guide the soul to ascend to heaven.
From the excavated Han Dynasty portrait stones, the image of the deer as a mount or guide for people to ascend to the wonderland can be seen in many places.
In various carvings and paintings of later generations, deer often accompanied the immortals, becoming a symbol of immortality and immortality.
In ancient literature and art, deer, especially pure white deer with genetic mutations, have always been the object of people's longevity ideals.
After the introduction of Buddhism to Middle-earth, the deer was introduced to Buddhism and, like the cattle and sheep, became one of the three yanas of the duji sentient beings.
In Chinese, deer and lu are homophonous, making it have the meaning of both official and rich.
Omen auspicious rui, dispel disasters and ward off evil spirits, bless and shelter, and become immortals and immortals, the deer can be said to have gathered almost all the best wishes of the ancients.
It is often carried with cranes, constituting the classic auspicious pattern of "deer (six) cranes (he) with spring", and has become a decorative pattern often prepared in people's homes, especially in the New Year.
At the same time, people exaggerated and strengthened the image of the deer, and other divine beast variants were derived.
For example, with the body of a deer and horns, it is fused with the dragon to derive the unicorn of the benevolent beast.
The deer and the bird are fused to form the image of the wind god Fei Lian.
The divine beast "Tianlu" that appeared in the Han Dynasty was actually "Tianlu".
Elk: But the baby is exhausted. XD
Extinction and revival in China
While elk are deified in culture, their real-life ethnic groups are crushed by the torrent of history.
The establishment of the Yuan Dynasty brought new disasters to the already sparse elk. This well-ridden royal family hunted wild elk on the Yellow Beach for the descendants of the royal family to practice shooting.
At the same time, with the continuous reclamation of wetlands, the elk population in the south has gradually disappeared.
By the end of the 19th century, China's wild elk had disappeared, and only a small number remained in captivity at the Nanhaizi Royal Hunting Garden in Beijing.
In the autumn of 1865, a French naturalist and missionary, David, stumbled upon an elk in the Royal Hunting Grounds of Nanhaizi, keenly aware that what he saw might be a deer that had not yet been recorded in animal taxonomy. Eventually he secretly sent back elk specimens from Europe, which were identified as new species that had never been discovered and were a separate genus of deer.
This discovery attracted the attention of Britain, France, Germany and other countries, who through a variety of means such as open and secret purchases, took dozens of elk from the Nanhaizi Hunting Garden and raised them in zoos in various countries.
In 1900, under the artillery fire of the Eight-Power Alliance, the Nanhaizi elk was robbed and killed by the Western powers, and the elk was exterminated in China, a land that had grown for millions of years.
Elk in captivity in European zoos are unable to adapt to the environment far from their homeland and die.
From 1898 onwards, the 11th Duke of Befort of the United Kingdom bought all 18 surviving elk in zoos across Europe and herded them in the Ubon Temple manor north of London similar to the Nanhaizi Royal Hunting Ground in Beijing.
These 18 elk became the ancestors of all the elk on The planet today.
China, the elk's homeland, has been looking forward to the elk returning home.
In 1985, thanks to the efforts of the World Wildlife Fund, the United Kingdom returned 22 elk to China.
After more than a hundred years of separation, this ancient divine beast with a difficult fate has experienced disasters and drifts, crossed thousands of miles and finally returned to the homeland where it was once born in Si and disappeared into Si.
Today, through the hard work of many parts of the country, the elk have been better bred, and the entire population has revived in the land that nurtured their ancestors. As of 2020, there are more than 8,000 elk in China.
It was as if a sad story had finally ushered in a hopeful ending, a distant myth moving towards a beautiful reality.
But the story doesn't end there, it's a new beginning.
The protection of wildlife still has a long way to go and requires the efforts of each and every one of us.
We believe that this group of elves from ancient China and the gods who have accompanied the ancestors for thousands of years will surely prosper and prosper again with the land they have grown and blessed.
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