Chapter 30 Chapter Ten Final Words

The ancient myths and legends mentioned above, no matter the types or the works themselves, are far from the whole picture, but only a very rough outline.In the usual mythological works, the creation of the world is placed in the first chapter.That is to use modern consciousness to understand the thinking progress of primitive people.Human beings are curious about the universe and want to be explained, which is only possible after the thinking ability has reached a higher level.This book tries to sort out the myths in the order of their generation and development. Generally, the types of myths that appear first are arranged in order.There are also some exceptions, such as cultural heroes and gods, from the fishing and hunting society, farming society, to the end of primitive society to slave society, with the development of culture, they have not stopped producing.A god who created writing cannot exist in a society without writing.The emergence of characters is the result of long-term practice of human beings, such as knotting ropes to record events, substituting objects for words, and drawing pictographic symbols. Naturally, it is not the credit of a single person.The creation of characters has an irreplaceable role in promoting human civilization.

The ancients had a direct experience of the function of characters, but it was impossible to scientifically summarize the process and laws of the origin of characters. This is how the theory of Cangjie’s creation of characters came about.It is said that Cangjie has four eyes, which are radiant with aura.Both smart and virtuous.Looks like a dragon.Able to write from birth. (See "Shiben") It also said that after Cangjie created writing, "the sky is raining millet, ghosts are crying at night, and dragons are hiding." exaggerate.It's completely mythical in the way it's stated.Cangjie, a cultural hero, should be a descendant of cultural heroes in primitive society.Any individual cultural hero can find its place in a specific historical stage, but the myths and legends of cultural heroes are a large category, and it is not easy to rigidly divide them into periods.

In the past, foreign scholars misunderstood that there were few or no Chinese myths and legends because they did not understand Chinese myths and legends.In fact, our country is very rich in myths and legends, but because there are no epics handed down from ancient times, the systematization and literaryization of myths are not sufficient.However, ancient China left a large number of strange novels, legendary novels, and works of philosophers, historians, geographers, etc., objectively preserving a large number of myths for future generations.In recent decades, hundreds of epics of ethnic minorities have been discovered in our country, some of which have systematized the myths and legends of a nation.As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Dai epic "Bada Maga Pairing Shangluo" (that is, "The God of Creation") described at the beginning is a vast space, only rolling smoke and rising air waves, coupled with howling winds and sloshing waters.From the air wave was born the space giant Yingba (the god of air wave or light wave).The mother of this god is the air wave, and the father is the great wind.Later, another water god fish appeared in the water.The giant god Yingba pinched a big fruit (that is, the earth) and an elephant out of the dirt on his body.There are 16 layers of heaven, and the gods created by Yingba live in the 16 layers of heaven, forming a huge god system.Human beings created by gods mate with each other, and more and more people reproduce. Under the lure of the green snake, they eat the disease fruit of the gods, and people will die from then on. However, the snake can only shed its skin, but it can live a long life.The first generation was destroyed by floods and fires; the second generation was wiped out by the gods because of incest; the third generation was the descendants of brothers and sisters who survived in the gourd, that is, the "gourd people".This epic not only has a systematic and rich mythology, but also preserves a large number of ancient customs and legends.Finally, it describes the process of the two branches of the Dai nationality, from branching, migration to settlement, one of which is called "Xishuangbang", "Xishuang" is twelve, and "Bang" refers to tribal groups.In addition, there are still a considerable number of prose myths among ethnic minorities in our country.All of these are the extremely precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, providing us with many reference materials for understanding the infancy of human beings.Therefore, scientific methods and correct viewpoints should be used to criticize and accept the cultural treasure house of Chinese myths and legends.

Mythology is not only a kind of primitive literature, but also a cultural phenomenon with its own system.Later generations can use it to understand and describe the world of primitive people. First, ancient myths and legends are the unity of ancient social ideology.People at that time could not have a clear and detailed division of labor in philosophy, religion, ethics, history, literature and art, etc. like our modern people, and these are all reflected in mythology. From a philosophical point of view, ancient myths and legends reflect the primitive holistic view of the ancient people.Starting from their sensibility, they regard the world they feel as a huge and huge whole, in which all things are interdependent, interrelated and transformed into each other.The myth creators believe that this whole is absolutely inseparable. The sky cannot live without the earth, and the changes on the earth are related to the sky. If there is a gap in the sky, the earth will inevitably flood.Humans and animals not only have a close relationship with each other, but even human beings and animals, plants and inanimate things are at the same level, they can change positions with each other, things can change people, and people can change things.Based on this idea, the order of time can be reversed.So the subjective imagination is very active, and things can be connected or even confused with the help of imagination.All spaces and all historical processes have become the background and stage for the active mythology.This is naturally very absurd and bizarre, but it contains valuable original cultural history data, proving that human thinking has indeed experienced a stage lacking an analytical and comprehensive holistic view.This is the fruit of the collective unconscious.It is not based on rational knowledge, and is fundamentally different from the holistic view of science.

Observed from a religious point of view, the relationship between mythology and religion is particularly close.Primitive people believed that there were gods everywhere, and this polytheistic worship was the first religion. People had the concept of gods, which was the beginning of human beings from ignorance to creation of culture.Religion itself is one of the earliest cultural phenomena.Going from ignorance to understanding the world with the help of gods is a progress, and it will naturally be a greater progress for human beings to go from religious belief to the disappearance of religion in the future.According to our country's survey of ethnic minorities, the main function of their mythology is the Bible of primitive religion. In all major festivals and sacrificial activities, the authoritative senior wizard must recite the creation of the nation, that is, the poetic scriptures. Myths and legends.In the world, many religious researchers also study mythology.

The development and evolution of mythology has a projection of social development.A mythological female god who later became a male god.Xihe, the mother of the sun, and Changxi, the god of the moon, were probably the early sun gods and moon gods. Later, they both became the wives of Emperor Jun. This is obviously a change after polygamy, indicating that the status of goddesses has plummeted. .Later, the sun became a symbol of the ruler.People's attitudes towards the sun have changed. There are worship, fear, curse and hatred.In the legends and stories of some ethnic groups in the later period, such as the "Yang Asha" (Miss Qingshui) of the Miao nationality that has been introduced, the sun is completely negative.Xing Tian is the most famous god of rebellion. He wanted to compete with the Emperor of Heaven, but the Emperor of Heaven chopped off his head. He used his nipples as eyes, his navel as his mouth, and he held a shield and swung an axe.The Emperor of Heaven cut off his hand again, making his body incomplete, and was buried on Changyang Mountain. (See "Shan Hai Jing · Overseas Western Classics") and "Huainanzi · Terrain Training") It is generally believed that this myth is a reflection of the oppressed wanting to overthrow the supreme ruler. distinct.

Second, the original natural scientific value of ancient myths and legends. Primitive ancestors generally lacked a scientific understanding of the relationship between man and nature, and man and man.But in their long-term production practice, they have continuously expanded their knowledge, and it is possible to draw some conjectures and understandings close to the facts of objective things, and only then can they invent and create. Although it is still not science, it can at least be said to be Herald of primitive natural science.It is not unreasonable for Chinese scholars to regard this collection of mythology as a comprehensive encyclopedia at the same time.Contemporary scholars have also studied it from different aspects such as geography, astronomy and meteorology, medicine, physics, chemistry, animals, plants, and minerals.Some people believe that Ba, the Goddess of Drought, was placed in the Chishui area, and the God of Rain came to the south with the dragon, which correctly described the climate characteristics of the southern part of my country that is prone to waterlogging and the northern part that is prone to drought.Some made preliminary statistics from the medical point of view, listing a total of 135 drug names, including five minerals, 28 plants, 23 woods, 16 beasts, 25 birds, and 30 aquariums. The other five kinds reflect the earlier nature in the medical process of our country.Others believe that a total of 435 species of animals and plants can be regarded as a biological distribution chart in ancient my country.There are even records about oil and natural gas in the book; there are about 29 categories and 92 kinds of minerals recorded, including gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, jade and stone.In addition to Gun and Yu, the gods of water control also include Gonggong and Xiangliu. From their failures and successes, we can understand the general situation of the development of water conservancy engineering technology in ancient my country.The "savages" that the scientific community is searching for today, and the "Giant Giants" mentioned in "Shan Hai Jing Hai Nei Jing" may be related to it.The original text reads, "There is a giant from Jiangxi in the south, with a human face and long arms, a black body with hair, and heels turned back. He smiles when he sees people, and covers his face with his lips, so he can run away."

Scholars have paid attention to the origin of human beings since ancient times, proposing that water is the source of all things, that man came from soil, and man evolved from fish, etc.In fact, ancient myths and legends have germinated the theory of human spontaneous generation, such as the egg-laying myth, which is common in many nations.At that time, this kind of discovery was still very remarkable, indicating that the primitive people had been inspired by animals, and felt that the evolution of human beings was somewhat similar to that of birds, and later developed into raw meat and eggs, and the explanation that humans came out of meat and eggs, this is the explanation. It is close to the fact that the baby is conceived in the fetal bag.The history of human cognition is always from absurd to not absurd, from childish to not childish.If we understand the egg-born myth in this way, we can grasp some reasonableness in the myth.

The myth of days and months in the sky vividly reflects that our country once had a humid and hot period.Zhu Kezhen, a famous scientist in my country, combined ancient documents and research results of modern scientists, and found that peach blossoms, azaleas singing, and barn swallows arrived earlier in ancient times than in modern times.Some scientists have found that there are many bamboos on the ground in the Shang Dynasty, and there are elephants in the Yellow River Basin.The elephants are tropical animals, indicating that those places in the Shang Dynasty were hot.There is no such record in the literature of the Zhou Dynasty.It can also be known from the myths and legends of the ethnic minorities in our country that most of the myths that lasted for many days and months appeared in the hot southern regions.All this shows that the myths of the sun and moon are related to astronomy and meteorology.

Today's scientists have invented rockets and spaceships, are capable of space navigation, conquering space, and regard stepping on another planet as an ideal to be realized soon.Has all this not gained the light of wisdom from the imagination of primitive ancestors conquering nature! Myths are the product of primitive thinking, and we are the transcendents of primitive thinking.We neither believe in God nor create God.The worship of the gods of primitive primitive people requires us to unravel the cloak of mystery and make scientific explanations. This is exactly the purpose of interesting fugues.