Due to the great influence of "Journey to the West", it is generally fashionable that monkey spirits and monkey demons are not matched with a stick, which always makes people feel that it is not a taste. If possible, add a headband.
In fact, this underestimates the pattern of the monkey clan, as one of the four major groups of beasts, the monkey clan (called "Yu class" in the "Three Talents Picture Society") members Ji Ji, there are seventeen members in the "He Han Sancai Map Society" alone, and this is certainly not complete.
"Yu Class" in "Hehan Sancai Tuhui"
There are some monkey members I've introduced before. So I won't go into detail here. So what kind of monkey is Sun Wukong?
Because of the spirituality of apes, they have become the object of people's attention. Because they are so similar to people, in fact, they are also a family that is easy to become a spirit in mythology, so there are many related legends. In fact, many times it is difficult to tell whether they are human or animal. For example, there is a saying: "Orangutans can speak, and they do not leave the beasts." "In this way, the orangutans should not be modern animals, gorillas, chimpanzees, or even orangutans, but more likely wildlings, or other humanoids." Because they can speak and act intellectually. There is a story in the Taiping Cantonese that Fengxi County (now northwest of Ha Shan Binh Province, Vietnam) caught a lot of orangutans, and whenever they wanted to slaughter, they let the orangutans pick a fat one and push it out. Later, he took an orangutan and a pot of wine and gave it to the county order. Put them in cages and cover them with cloth. The county order did not know what was inside, so he began to inquire. Unexpectedly, the orangutan said in the cage, "It's just me and a jug of wine here." "The orangutan was lucky not to be killed. But not necessarily in its other kind. Where an orangutan is considered most useful is that its blood can be used as a red dye. Because the traditional dye is generally grass dyeing, it will fade over time, but the cloth felt dyed red with orangutan blood can always remain bright red. So it led to the killing of orangutans. But now the orangutan blood does not seem to have this function. The Taiping Guangji also says that orangutans are "as beautiful as a beauty". And today's orangutans will never give us this kind of imagination.
So in the end whether these orangutans are human or beasts is very difficult to say. Some people don't skimp on eating the same kind, let alone the outliers. Sometimes even if you are the same kind, there are ways to beat you into an outlier. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, there was a rule: good and lowly do not marry. This is the intention to make the good and the untouchables into two races, and even genes cannot communicate. Once violated, the head of the person falls to the ground. There are still similar remnants of this act, like the caste system in India.
"Yu class" in the Compendium of Materia Medica
Many times we have been unable to verify where the ancient yu were. Just by chance discovery of the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum, we found an unheard of "gentleman gibbon", and we don't know how many more. Many of today's ape-like creatures, such as baboons, orangutans, mountain fish, etc., have problems at the root of the problem. The appearance of existing creatures and the records in ancient books are completely two kinds of creatures. It is easy to believe that the ancients were nonsense, but they often miss some historical truths.
Archaeology has proven that there was once more than one species of humanoid on Earth. But now there is only one kind of modern man left. Other extinction estimates are inseparable from modern humans. In fact, from a political point of view, sometimes the closer the blood is, the more dangerous it is, just like Xuanwumen. Li Shimin killed the eldest brother and younger brother of the same father and mother, but he was very kind to the brothers of other different mothers. Because he knew that only these two brothers could really threaten their position. The same is true in human history. When confronted with races that are different from their own bloodlines, but are equally intelligent, it is difficult for humans not to demonize them. In India, for example, the dominant Aryans once referred to the indigenous people who occupied the south at that time, Dravidian, as "Rakshasas." China first called the Europeans who crossed the sea "red haired ghosts", and now they are also called "foreign devils". Because the closer you are to blood, the more likely it is to pose a fundamental threat to you. It can be seen that most demons are actually our own kind. And the real demons are hidden in our hearts.
More critically, such discrimination is not necessarily unilateral, but often two-sided. That is to say, if you treat others with the heart of the Virgin, others may not repay you with the same heart. Refugee incidents abroad, the black life gui incident is typical. The reason is simple, people who can put together individual interests and overall interests will always be in the minority. Especially abroad, there is a certain pride that lasts for hundreds or even thousands of years. In reality, people are originally divided into three, six, nine and so on. There is a gap in everyone's understanding, and the difference between different ethnic groups is even greater. Not to mention foreign countries, the crowd in the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou at home and the crowd in the new Qinghai-Tibet are two worlds. 2020 has taught us a lot. The road to mutual understanding within modern people themselves is still far from being, let alone with other races.
So here, we can only introduce the general monkey species, which is the standard of the primate with a flattened face and a long tail like a human. But within this range, there are also more than 200 species of monkeys around the world. There are also 15 species in China. If you want to go into details one by one, it is not possible, and you can only roughly divide it into three types: macaque, langur, and golden snub-nosed monkey.
Macaques, of course, are the most common monkeys in China. There are six main subspecies of Chinese macaques, namely the guinea pig-tailed monkey, the bear monkey, the Tibetan chief monkey, the Taiwanese monkey, the short-tailed monkey, and the rhesus macaque. The most common is the rhesus monkey, that is, the common macaque, which is considered to be the prototype of Sun Wukong, so it is named after the Ganges river because it is also found in India. In China it is distributed in the southern provinces. One of its common is the Tibetan macaque, which is mainly distributed in the area from Tibet to Sichuan. In general, the hair of Tibetan macaques is thicker than that of ordinary macaques. The color is also darker. But the Tibetan macaque has a sibling, the Tibetan chief monkey, and the two look very similar and have similar distribution areas. So the two are often confused. In fact, the biggest difference between them is that the tail of the Tibetan chief monkey is much shorter than that of the Tibetan macaque, only about 10 centimeters, while the tail of the Tibetan macaque is 20-30 centimeters long, about half of the body. In fact, the tail of the macaque is generally this length. The Emei monkey that Sichuanese are familiar with is actually a Tibetan chief monkey.
Chinese macaques
The short-tailed monkey is a species of monkey distributed in the southeast, very similar to the Tibetan chief monkey, and some places call it "big green monkey" or "mud monkey". The biggest difference between the two is that short-tailed monkeys are small, have sparse and long body hair, and have bright red patches on the faces of adult monkeys. This is extremely obvious.
The Taiwanese monkey is endemic to Taiwan, with grayer coats and a longer tail.
Next up is the Golden Snub-nosed Monkey, a player who has the strength to challenge the popularity of the macaque. And it is also a national first-level protected animal, the same level as the giant panda. Because the nostrils of this monkey are all uplifted, it is also called "upward nose monkey." "Their tails are almost the same length as their bodies.
There are four species of golden snub-nosed monkeys in China, and the most familiar one is the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey. It is also the most veritable golden snub-nosed monkey. Yellow hair and blue face, very beautiful. It may be the marmoset in the ancient books, that is, the Great Saint Yu Marmoset King.
The golden snub-nosed monkey seems to be more precious. Because of its dark coat color, it is also called "gray golden snub-nosed monkey". In ancient texts, it is called "Guoran Beast", and it is also the most standard "Yu". Ancient books say that its tail end is forked and can be used to stuff it in the nose on rainy days to prevent it from being dripped in. Moreover, he likes to live in groups and talk about benevolence and righteousness, and was said by the ancients to represent the "benevolent beast" of ethics and morality.
The fur of the Yunnan golden snub-nosed monkey in Yunnan is black and gray, so it is also called "black golden snub-nosed monkey". It lives in high mountains above 5,000 meters above sea level, so it is considered to be the highest primate living at the highest altitude.
In contrast, the "Nujiang Golden Snub-nosed Monkey", which was officially confirmed in 2010, is darker, but the white hair on its cheeks is more pronounced. It is less different from the Yunnan golden snub-nosed monkey, but the Nujiang golden snub-nosed monkey is also distributed in Myanmar, so it is also called "Burmese golden snub-nosed monkey".
In addition, Vietnam also has a golden snub-nosed monkey, which is a unique species of monkey there, and the only golden snub-nosed monkey species that does not exist in China, this monkey has more white parts, the inside of the limbs is light yellow, and the chest and abdomen are black. However, this area of Vietnam is actually a treasure land of yu, and many supernatural yu species appear here, such as Wuyang, Wild Po and so on. The rainforest here may have been a thousand years ago that could have bred some creatures that have been lost to modern times.
Golden Snub-nosed Monkey
The third type of monkey owned by China is the langur. So it is called "leaf" because this monkey mainly feeds on leaves. It is slender, with long hands and feet, a tail longer than its body, and is fully adapted to arboreal life, rarely reaching the ground. On the ground, langurs are like fish thrown ashore, and it is difficult to walk. They also have towering hairs on their heads that also look like a leaf.
There are five main species of langurs in China, namely the long-tailed langur, the hat-wearing langur, the golden langur, the grey langur, the black langur, and a white-rumped langur that is close to it. The black langur has another famous subspecies, which is the white-headed langur. This monkey is the only one in the world, and China is only distributed in a small area of Guangxi. It is still in a critically endangered state, with only a few hundred.
Langurs
The black langur is also known as the "black ape", in fact, the classification standards of monkeys and apes have changed after the introduction of Western zoology to China. Previously, "apes" were supposed to refer to pure arboreal primates, while monkeys were running around the mountains. That's why in "Taoist Descending the Mountain", it is said that apes only eat dew, while monkeys are omnivorous. Guangxi once had a tradition of using black apes to brew wine, but now of course it is illegal.
Of course, there are still some legendary species, it is said that there is a kind of "fox", although small, but the claws are very sharp, the strength is also very large, love to feed on tiger brain. However, because its size is too far from the tiger,there are also claims that the tiger was eaten by the way of flattery. This is certainly not possible. The source of this claim is only a short story from the Tang Dynasty. However, it is not known that the hedgehog has another special way of predation. There was a shop in Beijing that got a black monkey-like biological specimen, which is said to be a roe deer, but hundreds of years later, it may have been lost a long time ago.
There used to be a kind of "ink monkey", which was no more than the size of a fist and was a high-class pet in the study. After domestication, you can take the initiative to help the owner grind ink. After the owner finishes writing, he can also lick the residual ink dry, and he can also kill mosquitoes indoors in the summer, which is really well-behaved. But it is really pitiful that such a clever monkey is abused like this. And it's now extinct.
There are also "water monkeys". Chinese also called it "water ghost", Tianjin called it "mud pulling", Jiangsu called it "waterhole cat", Zhejiang called it "cat monkey", guangxi called it "water man bear". In Japan, it is called "Kappa" or "Water Tiger", and it is said that the sand monk is also a kappa. It appears to be an aquatic primate. It is also difficult to find now. However, it is recorded that in 2000, a college student in Wuhan once saw an unidentified aquatic humanoid animal with a height of one meter on the lake side of the campus.
Mysterious animal water monkey
Man and monkey were once only one step away from forming a symbiotic relationship, and some families still have monkeys, such as the famous six-year-old child, but animal protection is becoming more and more popular, and such people are becoming less and less. In the past, the mountain people in Wuyi Mountain used monkeys as nannies to raise. The job is also qualified, but it can't be allowed to do two things. One is cooking, because as soon as the monkeys play with the fire, it is easy to burn the whole house. The other is to bathe the children. Because monkeys don't test the water temperature, it's hard to boil the child.
Because animals are animals in the end, monkeys are quite naughty in people's opinions, and one of their major sins is to flirt with women and children. In fact, out of animal instinct, it is more likely that the monkey is curious about the brightly colored and delicate things in the women and children, and the women and children lack the ability to scare the monkeys off. But the human brain hole has come up here again. Especially like monkeys, which are similar to humans. According to the logic of human fear, their "misdeeds" against women and children have other purposes, such as eating children and abducting women for their reproduction. And this imagination also increases the fear of women and children about wild monkeys, and it is often difficult to control themselves when they see monkeys, such as screaming, which in turn stimulates the monkeys. The result is often tragedy.
Before Sun Wukong, the usual appearance of monkey demons appeared as "adulterous demons". The most famous is the white ape in "Chen Patrol Meiling's Lost Wife". In fact, this story is a combination of two more ancient stories. The first is the legend of the white ape from the pre-Qin to the later. This theory is derived from the "Wu Yue Chunqiu", which tells that there is a white ape with superb sword skills, who transforms into a human form and fights swords with Yue nu. Later generations also tried to explain this myth, and some said that the ape was actually the Emei ancestor Situ Xuankong, whose Dao name was "White Ape True Man". However, this is only seen in the "Emei Mountain Chronicle", most of which is to historicalize the legend of the white ape.
White Ape Ancestor Situ Xuankong
Another story is from the "Biography of the White Ape of The Supplementary River". This is more likely to be a political framing. Ouyang Qing is famous for his calligraphy, but his appearance is not good, and he is ridiculed as a monkey. Therefore, it may be from the good deeds, or it may be Ouyang Que's political enemies, fabricating the story that Ouyang Que's mother was abducted by the ape demon, and after being rescued, she gave birth to Ouyang Que. The white ape inside is also a sword fairy, and its avatar is a six-foot-long haired husband. Although a little shorter, many places influenced the later creation of "Journey to the West".
It is worth noting that the forest resources of the Sichuan Basin at that time were far richer than they are now, and there should be more primates than today. Li Bai's famous sentence "The apes on both sides of the strait can't stop crying" is a clear proof. More likely to be the legendary Ancient Great Ape. The Taiping Guangji also records the story of a Tang Dynasty official named Zhang Feng passing through Bashi County (about the border between present-day Chongqing and Sichuan) and encountering a Brazilian marquis who was transformed into a giant ape. The monkey is "Hou", which is one of the most common word games in ancient China. So people often use monkeys to express their blessings to others. Because in Chinese history, the marquis was one of the most important titles, and it was generally impossible for ordinary people to obtain a higher title than it. Zeng Guofan made great contributions to the Qing Dynasty, but he was only given a marquis. From being a monkey, it also became an auspicious beast representing Guan Lu.
Wood carving: Immediately sealed
In fact, humans have done a good enough job with monkeys now, and in "Full Of Han", the act of eating monkey brains is accused of abusing animals, and even attracts the police. Don't think about taking it to the next level. Because there is a difference between humans and beasts, as wild animals, apes can freely live and reproduce in the big forest is the greatest happiness. All humans have to do is try not to disturb them. To this end, humans have set up various protected areas and tried to reduce traces of human activities in protected areas. But if you think about it a little deeper, is there another creature that observes us from outside the Ninth Heaven like we observe wild monkeys? We humans have not yet found other life outside the earth, is it in fact that the earth is also a protected area? Think about the Fermi paradox, it's really scary.