Chapter I: Preface

This volume deals with the myths of China and Japan, and it is shown that these throw light on the origin and growth of civilization and the widespread dissemination of complex ideas associated with certain modes of life. The Far East does not appear to have remained immune to outside cultural influences in ancient times. Modern research has established that the old school of opinions which insisted on the complete isolation of China can no longer obtain. As Laufer says: “It cannot be strongly enough emphasized on every occasion that Chinese civilization, as it appears now, is not a unit and not the exclusive production of the Chinese, but the final result of the cultural efforts of a vast conglomeration of the most varied tribes, an amalgamation of ideas accumulated from manifold quarters and widely differentiated in space and time.... No graver error can hence be committed than to attribute any culture idea at the outset to the Chinese, for no other reason than because it appears within the precincts of their empire.”

Even the Chinese records have to be regarded with caution. It is impossible nowadays to accept as serious contributions to history the inflated chronology and the obvious fables compiled and invented by Chinese scholars for political and other purposes during the Han and later dynasties. These scholars had really little knowledge of the early history of their country and people. They were puzzled even by certain existing customs and religious practices, and provided ingenious “secondary explanations” which, like their accounts of the early dynasties, do not accord with the data accumulated by archæologists and other workers in the scientific field. The complex religious ideas of the Chinese were obviously not of spontaneous generation. Many of these resemble too closely the complexes found elsewhere, and their history cannot be traced within the limits of the Chinese empire. Indeed, as is shown, some of them are undoubtedly products of human experiences obtained elsewhere, and they reveal traces of the influences to which they were subjected during the process of gradual transmission from areas of origin. Nor, would it appear, was Chinese civilization nearly as ancient as the native scholars would have us believe.

When the early Chinese entered China, they found non-Chinese peoples in different parts of that vast area which they ultimately welded into an empire. They were an inland people and did not invent boats; they did not originate the agricultural mode of life but adopted it, using the seeds and implements they had acquired; nor did they invent the potter’s wheel with which they were familiar from the earliest times in China, having evidently become possessed of it, along with the complex culture associated with it, before they migrated into the province of Shensi. Nor could an agrarian people like the Chinese have been the originators of the belief in the existence of “Isles of the Blest” in the Eastern Ocean; they were not alone in Asia in believing in a Western Paradise situated among the mountains.

The Chinese, as Laufer demonstrates in his Jade, did not pass through in China that culture stage called the “Neolithic”. When they first settled in Shensi, they searched for and found jade, as did the carriers of bronze who first entered Europe. There was obviously an acquired psychological motive for the search for jade, and the evidence of Chinese jade symbolism demonstrates to the full that it had been acquired from those who had transferred to jade the earlier symbolism of shells, pearls, and precious metals. In the chapter devoted to jade it is shown that this view is confirmed by the evidence afforded by Chinese customs connected with jade, shells, pearls, &c.

In no country in the world are the processes of culture drifting and culture mixing made more manifest than in China. The Chinese dragon is, as Professor Elliot Smith puts it, a “composite wonder beast”. Throughout this volume it is shown to yield, when dissected, remarkable evidence regarding the varied influences under which it acquired its highly complex character. The fact that a Chinese dragon charm closely resembles a Scottish serpent charm is of special interest in this connection. When, however, it is found that China obtained certain myths and practices from the area called by its writers “Fu-lin” (the Byzantine Empire), and that not only Byzantine but Ægean influences are traceable in the Celtic field, the charm-link between Gaelic Scotland and China may not, after all, be regarded as “far-fetched”. The same may be said regarding the curious similarity between the myths and practices connected with shells, and especially cockle-shells, in Japan and the Scottish Hebrides. Although the West Highlanders and the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun were never brought into contact, it may be that similar cultural influences drifted east and west from their area of origin, and that the carriers were the ancient mariners who introduced the same type of vessel into far-separated oceans.

As in China, we do not in Japan find a culture of purely native origin, but rather one which has grown up from a mass of imported elements as varied as the racial types that compose the present-day population. Both in China and Japan these imported elements have been subjected to the influences of time and locality and infused with national ideas and ideals. The processes of growth and change have not, however, concealed the sources from which certain of the early ideas emanated in varying degrees of development.

The early native history of Japan is, like that of China, no more worthy of acceptance than are the long-discarded English and Scottish fables regarding Brute and Scota.

The data accumulated in this volume tend to show, although we have no direct evidence of systematic missionary enterprise earlier than that of the Buddhists, that the influential religious cults of ancient times that flourished in Mesopotamia and in the Egyptian Empire (which included part of Western Asia) appear to have left their impress on the intellectual life of even far-distant peoples. Apparently modes of thought were transmitted along direct and indirect avenues of intercourse by groups of traders. Even before trade routes were opened, religious beliefs and practices appear to have been introduced into distant lands by prospectors and by settlers who founded colonies from which later colonies “budded”. When the same set of complexes are found in widely separated areas, it is difficult to accept the view that they originated from the same particular experiences and the same set of circumstances, especially when it is made manifest that the complexes in the older centre of culture reflect strictly local physical conditions, and even the local political conditions that resulted in a fusion of peoples and of their myths, symbols, and religious beliefs and practices.

DONALD A. MACKENZIE.

CONTENTS

Chap. Page

I. The Dawn of Civilization 1
II. A Far-travelled Invention 13
III. Ancient Mariners and Explorers 24
IV. The World-wide Search for Wealth 36
V. Chinese Dragon Lore 46
VI. Bird and Serpent Myths 66
VII. Dragon Folk-stories 76
VIII. The Kingdom under the Sea 95
IX. The Islands of the Blest 106
X. The Mother-goddess of China and Japan 131
XI. Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore 158
XII. How Copper-culture reached China 189
XIII. The Symbolism of Jade 211
XIV. Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults 256
XV. Mythical and Legendary Kings 274
XVI. Myths and Doctrines of Taoism 297
XVII. Culture Mixing in Japan 324
XVIII. Japanese Gods and Dragons 345
XIX. Rival Deities of Life and Death, Sunshine and Storm 357
XX. The Dragon-slayer and His Rival 371
XXI. Ancient Mikados and Heroes 378

LIST OF PLATES

Facing Page

THE GOD OF THUNDER (in colour) Frontispiece

From a Chinese picture in the John Rylands Library, Manchester

POTTER’S WHEEL, SIMLA, INDIA 16

From a sketch by J. Lockwood Kipling in the Victoria and Albert
Museum

A MODERN CHINESE JUNK ON THE CANTON RIVER 24

CHINESE DRAGON-BOAT FESTIVAL 40

From a picture woven in coloured silks and gold thread in the
Victoria and Albert Museum

CHINESE DRAGONS AMONG THE CLOUDS 48

From a painting in the British Museum

CHINESE DRAGON VASE WITH CARVED WOOD STAND 56

(Victoria and Albert Museum)

CARP LEAPING FROM WAVES 81

From a Japanese painting in the British Museum

CHINESE PORCELAIN VASE DECORATED WITH FIVE-CLAWED DRAGONS RISING FROM WAVES 88

(Victoria and Albert Museum)

RESONANT STONE OF JADE SHOWING DRAGON WITH CLOUD ORNAMENTS, SUSPENDED FROM CARVED BLACKWOOD FRAME 96

By courtesy of B. Laufer, Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago

TORTOISE AND SNAKE 104

From a rubbing in the British Museum of a Chinese original

GATHERING FRUITS OF LONGEVITY 112

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

SHOU SHAN (i.e. “HILLS OF LONGEVITY”), THE TAOIST PARADISE 124

From a woven silk picture in the Victoria and Albert Museum

THE CHINESE SI WANG MU (JAPANESE SEIOBO) AND MAO NU 136

From a Japanese painting (by Hidenobu) in the British Museum

MOUNTAIN VIEW WITH SCHOLAR’S RETREAT 140

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

GENII AT THE COURT OF SI WANG MU 152

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

SQUARE BRICK OF THE HAN DYNASTY, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURES AND INSCRIPTIONS 160

CHINESE BOWL WITH SYMBOL OF LONGEVITY 168

(Victoria and Albert Museum)

GOATS CROPPING PLANT OF LIFE 172

From the jade sculpture in the Scottish National Museum,
Edinburgh

THE GODDESS OF THE DEW 184

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

AN OFFERING TO THE GODS, PEKING 200

From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.

ANCIENT BRONZE ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS ON THE CITY WALL, PEKING 208

MORTUARY FISH IN JADE, OF HAN PERIOD 212

FIGURE OF BUTTERFLY IN WHITE AND BROWNISH-YELLOW JADE, TSʼIN OR HAN PERIOD 212

AMULETS FOR THE DEAD, AND OTHER OBJECTS IN JADE 220

The subjects on pages 212 and 220 are reproduced by courtesy
of B. Laufer, author of “Jade”, Field Museum, Chicago

THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN, PEKING 228

From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.

THREE SAGES STUDYING SYMBOL OF YIN AND YANG 230

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

KWAN-YIN, THE CHINESE “GODDESS OF MERCY” 271

From a porcelain figure decorated in soft enamels in the Victoria
and Albert Museum

LAO TZE AND DISCIPLES 300

From a Chinese painting in the British Museum

THE MOST FAMOUS PAI-LO (GODDESS SYMBOL) IN CHINA: AT THE MENG TOMBS, NEAR PEKING 328

From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.

THE FAMOUS OLD TORI-WI (GODDESS SYMBOL), MIYAJIMA, JAPAN 338

From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.

THE JAPANESE TREASURE SHIP 352

From a woodcut in the British Museum

SUSA-NO-WO MAKING A COMPACT WITH DISEASE SPIRITS 360

From a Japanese painting (by Hoga) in the British Museum

AMATERÂSU, THE SUN GODDESS, EMERGING FROM HER CAVE 368

From a Japanese painting in the British Museum

SEIOBO (= THE CHINESE SI WANG MU) WITH ATTENDANT AND THREE RISHI 380

From a Japanese painting (by Sanraku) in the British Museum

MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN