Today is the 51st Earth Day, which has been the beginning of the modern environmental movement since April 22, 1970, and this festival has also promoted our attention and understanding of the earth for half a century, and for thousands of years, human beings have explored every corner of the world in various ways.
The British writer Marathi Telek and illustrator Katie Scott illustrate the tortuous perceptions of our ancestors in their exploration of the island. In Tales of the Islands, the authors collect stories of 24 non-existent islands around the world that were first discovered but later proven non-existent, some appearing on maps for thousands of years before eventually erasing them. From the well-known Island of Atlantis to the mysterious Far North, from the Island of Blessing in Western mythology to the land of Fuso in the East... Each island has a little-known history and story that takes you on a fascinating adventure to explore the mysterious, forgotten corners of the planet.
Oriental legend: Fuso Island
In ancient China, emperors were very attached to immortality. Despite their great wealth and power, they are still mortal and as powerless in the face of death as ordinary people. Chinese Taoist alchemists are similar to the shamans of the North American continent and Europe, who are both spiritual teachers and doctors, as well as alchemists and wizards. These anxious emperors would seek medical advice from the alchemists. According to legend, there are elixirs on the 5 islands in the East China Sea, and people can live forever after eating them. Here once staged the "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea". All the flora and fauna of the island are white, and the palaces are made of gold.
One problem with getting to the island is that the boats will be blown away by the wind when they get closer. Difficulties did not stop the emperors from sending expeditions to find the islands. The most well-known is that in 219 BC and 210 BC, the alchemist Xu Fu led a fleet of ships to the sea to search. He did not go lightly, and on his second voyage he took 3,000 boys and girls, a total of 60 ships, but none returned. Some believe that they reached Japan, and with it Chinese agricultural technology, and that the tremendous progress of Japanese civilization in the decades that followed was due to Xu Fu.
More than 700 years later, people have heard the legend of another mysterious island. According to the Book of Liang, a monk named Hui Shen came to Jingzhou in 499 AD and claimed to be from Fusang, 20,000 miles away. The word Fuso is well known Chinese and has become part of Chinese mythology.
Fuso tree
Fuso is a very magical tree, growing in the far east, can produce red mulberries, is the tree of life. 10 three-legged crows inhabit the branches of the Fuso tree, and every day a crow hunches the sun on its back. Fuso is at the foot of the Valley of the Sun, the land of the sunrise. However, Hui Shen's description of this place is bland. The land of Fuso is full of Fuso trees, hence the name of this tree.
But according to his description, there is nothing mysterious about Fuso wood, but more practical. Pear-shaped fruits hang from the branches, and the bark can be woven. Local residents also use Fuso wood to make paper because they have writing. Huishen also mentioned that the islanders only converted to Buddhism 40 years ago. He also elaborated on local customs of marriage and funeral and the manner in which offenders were punished.
HuiShen said that Fuso was a hierarchical society, with the highest status being the king and the third class nobles below. The Fuso people raise longhorn cattle, horses and deer, and use deer milk to make cheese. He said there was no money here, and gold and silver were worthless here. This description seems plausible, there is nothing obviously wrong with it, and apart from the name, the Fuso described here seems to have nothing to do with mythology.
However, there is one point to be noted, HuiShen also described another place, located in the east of Fuso, where there are only women. Hui Shen said that these women jumped into the holy river and would get pregnant and give birth in June and July. The woman has no breasts on her chest and has special hairs on the back of her neck that secrete milk; babies are 4 years old and adults.
At least from a biological point of view, this part does not stand up to scrutiny. But what about the rest? If the place of Fuso really exists, then it must be far away from Jingzhou. "In" is a unit of length that is still in use today, but its exact length has changed a lot over time. 1500 years ago, it was about 400 meters, which means that Fuso is 8000 kilometers away from Jingzhou. In this way, it is not surprising that some European scholars believe that Fuso is on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
The theory first gained attention in the 18th century, and was soon endorsed by some French cartographers who labeled the location of present-day British Columbia, Canada, as Fuso. Of course, there are many problems with this theory, not just because horses on the American continent were extinct at that time.
Others have made many observations about Fuso's location, some of which are reasonable and some of which are unfounded. Some people say that the mystery is northeast Siberia, Sakhalin Island, Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, and some people say that it is Mongolia and Hokkaido in Japan.
In Chinese poetry, Fuso became synonymous with the East, just as Tulle was synonymous with the North in Europe. Occasionally Fusang also refers to Penglai, the Immortal Mountain that Xu Fu went to sea more than 2,000 years ago to look for.
But in most cases Fuso refers to Japan, or to an island between Japan and China. In the centuries after Huishen, Japan not only absorbed elements of the Chinese Chinese dialect and culture, but also absorbed the concept of Fuso as Japan, and once used the word "Fuso" as its name. Just as the myth and legend of Fuso refers to the place where each day begins, the name of the country "Japan", which was later used and used to this day, also means the place of sunrise.
The Sunken Myth: The Island of Atlantis
There are many ancient flood myths in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, and the legend of Noah's Ark is just one of them. Whether these legends represent cultural memories of rising sea levels or tsunamis is impossible to verify, but one thing is clear that land sinking has always been an important theme in such stories. It is not surprising that Atlantis would become a strange land mass that would disappear into the ocean as a standard "ex-island". Although it is seen as a fiction, it now plays a completely different role: a sponge that carries human fantasies.
Strictly speaking, Atlantis is not an undiscovered island, it is a fictitious island invented by Plato for the sake of metaphor. Plato tells this story in both the Timeo and the Crittius. Of course, the story is not credible, and scholars today agree that these works are not only vague in content, but also have many elements of speculation and pseudoscience.
The details mentioned in these two dialogues are largely half-truths. According to the dialogue, atlantis is a large island, located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The kings who ruled here were descendants of Poseidon, the god of the sea, but they "frequently intermarried with mortals", so the divinity was diluted. They become proud, conceited and depraved. 9,000 years before plato's time, their king waged war against the Mediterraneans, conquering much of the region.
The Crititians provide a wealth of information, not only about the geography and politics of Atlantis, but also about the architecture of its capital, the design of irrigation canals, and the characteristics of the sacrificial ceremonies. The Timaiot only mentions the most crucial element of the story: the bloodthirsty Atlanteans were defeated by the Athenian warriors. The island of Atlantis was destroyed overnight by earthquakes and floods, and Athens was not spared. The dialogue does not refer to the story of atlantis as fiction, but rather Plato regards it as historical fact.
But that doesn't mean it's historical. Even leaving aside its mythological elements, it is easy to conclude that we are dealing with an elaborate fable, not an ancient history.
It wasn't until Europeans began their exploration of the American continent in the 16th century that the idea of Atlantis as a geographical fact, and even as a key to unlocking the world's deeper secrets, really became popular. Since then, hundreds of books have been published on the island of Atlantis, as well as TV shows and movies. This sunken island played only a small role in Plato's work and has now risen to an integral part of our cultural landscape.
Legend of Atlantis
There are some speculations about the myth of Atlantis that have some scientific basis. The researchers tried to link this legend to real historical events. Some believe that the eruption of Mount Minoan around 1600 BC (a huge volcano that destroyed the island of Sheila , present-day Santorini ) provided historical revelations. Some believe that atlantis is Doglan, which once connected the eastern British Isles with the European continent and sank more than 8,000 years ago. Some believe that it was the ancient Greek Herrick, a city destroyed by a tsunami during the time when Plato lived. In addition to these claims, there is a main line of investigation, which is not highly credible but has endured. Although the statements vary, the central idea is that no matter where Atlantis is, it is the birthplace of civilization and a vanishing utopia.
In 1882, Ignatius Donnelly completed The Antediluvian World, the most influential book of its kind, and in his own words, atlantis was once home to "a great, intelligent, and civilized race." Some migrated to Egypt, Europe, North and South America, bringing with them technology, writing, and legends of kings and queens, who were eventually worshipped as gods. Later, the island of Atlantis was inundated by a terrible flood. The flood was as big as the Bible and similar legendary floods on both sides of the Atlantic. Donnelly's view is indeed very crazy, but he is far more than the only one who holds it.
In fact, about atlantis, you'll be able to find almost everything you want to know, and basically every word is crap. Theories emerge one after another, and then they are overthrown because of their own stupidity and replaced by other equally stupid theories. Confirming these theories is tantamount to confronting a ridiculous forest that is simply impossible to cross, and no one should walk into it. The paradox is that, fundamentally, these theories do not deviate too far from Plato's original intentions, for Plato also imagined a perfect society that had disappeared.
To Plato, Atlantis was nothing more than an imaginary enemy. Classical scholar Desmond Lee called the legend of Atlantis "the first attempt at the art of science fiction." Atlantis is a small pawn in a rhetorical game that was created to sink it. More than 2,300 years later, we are still telling this story, and it is undoubtedly the most incredible place on the island of Atlantis.
A lie that doesn't exist: Sioux, Java
Islands are usually discovered by people who have left their homeland to go out to sea in search of land and adventure, but there is one island that comes to the door on its own, and this island follows a mysterious woman wearing a black turban.
The story takes place on April 3, 1817. That night, a woman about 25 years old came to a village called Ammondsbury near Bristol, walked under the eaves of a house and knocked on the door. In addition to wearing a headscarf, the woman wore a black skirt with frills on the collar and a red and black shawl draped over her shoulders. Wearing leather shoes and wool socks on his feet, his hands are clean and delicate, and he does not look like a person who works regularly.
She was supposed to be looking for a place to spend the night, but she wasn't speaking English. In fact, what she said was completely unintelligible to the locals. Villagers suspected the woman was a wanderer, possibly even a spy, so they took her to the aid station and then to the home of samuel Waller, the local sheriff.
There was a servant in Waller's house who would speak european Chinese, and he called the servant out, but the servant was also confused, and he could not understand what the woman was saying. This woman had no documents, no luggage, no one could understand her speech, just a blank, nameless person. Had it not been for the intervention of Waller's wife, the woman would most likely have been thrown into prison or deported.
What exactly this woman came from, Elizabeth Waller was eager to solve the mystery. Over the next few days, she began to stitch together the clues she could find, but there were not many. The woman seemed to be called Calab, at least that's the word she used when she spoke of herself. She could recognize images of China, she could recognize furniture imported from China, but she didn't look like Chinese. This woman has a lot of very strange habits. She seemed reluctant to sleep in bed, preferring to sleep on the floor; she drank only tea and water and did not eat meat; she covered her eyes with one hand when she prayed. Other than that, the villagers knew nothing about her.
It is particularly confusing to suspect that Calab is not a foreigner, that she looks like a European, but does not speak or behave in a manner that resembles a European. Her sudden appearance in the village was equally confusing. The villagers continued to search for answers, inviting well-informed people to the village to interrogate the woman, and finally there was a breakthrough.
A Portuguese man named Manuel Ineso came to the village, and Inesso had been to the Far East, so he could tell that the woman spoke in some sumatran dialect. Although he didn't say it well, he basically translated her situation. He said she was an important figure , perhaps a princess — who was kidnapped in her hometown of Sioux, Java, in the East Indies, and forcibly taken to Britain.
A mysterious woman who brings the legend of the Javanese island of Sue
After learning this information, the villagers found another person, who was familiar with the woman's hometown. He spoke several times with Calab and then told the Worrells about the woman's origins. According to this man, Karabu's mother was Malaysian and his father was a Chinese with white skin. His father was powerful and powerful, and the people of Sioux Java respected him. She explained that the water around Java's Sioux island is shallow and large ships cannot get close. No one in the West knows about the island so far, probably for this reason.
With regard to the island's produce, she mentioned cassia seeds, rice and white pepper. She also said there are flying fish in the waters around Java's Sioux Island. Since then, the woman has been very popular in Knoll Park. After all, she was a princess from an eastern country.
After the princess's identity is determined, Calab uses some strange behavior to please the Worrell family and visitors. She could make bows and arrows, she could skillfully do fences; she could tie feathers in her hair and beat tambourines; she could dance very strange dances and swim without clothes. She is famous. She was depicted in a white turban and in a golden robe. Several newspapers reported the news and published her portrait.
Things are bad here. Later Princess Calab was often portrayed as a liar and a fraudster, which was unfair. She was identified by the original landlady and her true identity was revealed, her original name was Mary Wilcox, from Wether Ridge, Devonshire, but this false identity was not made up by herself, but given by someone else. Mary was a poor man who had been forced to abandon a child the previous year, and the child died. She used to follow the gypsies around and learn some vocabulary from the gypsies. She is very smart, but there must be something wrong with her spirit. Her reluctance to speak English may be an attempt to escape reality. She didn't want to be famous, nor did she cheat the Worrell family's belongings. It wasn't that she had come to the village herself, and she had tried to escape more than once. Mary's life, in almost every detail, was provided by someone else , Manuel Inesso and the second person ( whose name was not recorded at the time ) . The two men most likely thought that Mary was indeed a foreigner, so they felt that she should not understand their lies and could not question them.
Elizabeth Worrell was eager to solve the mystery, longing for Calab to be a foreigner, and their explanation was right in the middle. Mary just cooperated in this role. She overheard conversations from people she didn't think she understood, and changed accordingly. She found that the people around her were very fascinated by the East, so she threw herself into its favor. She seemed to turn into a mirror. Embarrassingly, Mary's true identity was revealed, so Mrs. Waller selected 3 escorts to send her to the United States.
In the United States, she was treated like a celebrity. She returned to England a few years later, at one point trying to make a living from a fading celebrity aura. But it wasn't long before she began wandering around again, wandering around to Spain and France, then getting married and eventually settling down in Bristol. She died in Bristol in 1864 at the age of 75 and was buried in Bristol with no inscription written on the tombstone.
The island of Sioux, Java, has since disappeared and no one has ever heard of it again.
The above content is selected from "Legends of Islands: Legends of Non-Existent Islands and Their Existence", and is published with permission from the publishing house.
[English] Malachi Telek / [English] Katie Scott "Legend of the Island" translated by Li Mingjie Purui Culture Hunan Science and Technology Press April 2020
(Editor / Li Yinan, Judge / Ren Hui)