Myths of China and Japan 1923

Front matter

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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 vi PREFACE 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 archzologists 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

PREFACE vil

“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 /Egean influences are traceable in the Celtic field, the charmlink between Gaelic Scotland and China may not, after all, be regarded as “‘far-fetched”. The same may be said

Vili PREFACE 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 longdiscarded 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 Bhuddists, 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

PREFACE 1X 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.

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Contents

Tue Dawn oF / CIVILIZATION = = P A Far-TRAVELLED INVENTION - - _ = Ancient Mariners aND EXpLoRERs - - Tue Worup-wibE SearcH ror WEALTH - CuinesE Dracon Lore = és A o: Birp and Serpent Myrus - = 3 o Dracon FoLk-sToRIES - = 2 z Z Tue KincboM UNDER THE SEA~ - - * Tue Istanps oF THE BLEsT - : - a Tue Moruer-coppess oF CHINA AND JAPAN - Tree-, Hers-, anD STONE-LORE - . e How Copper-CULTURE REACHED CHINA - -

Tue SyMsBoLisM oF JADE - - . -

Creation Myrus anp THE Gop anp GopDEss

Chapter I

Chinese Culture—Had it Independent Origin ?—Evolution in Human A ffairs—Stratification Theory—The Mystery of Mind—Man’s First Philosophy of Life—Influences exercised by Ancient Civilizations—Culture Mixing —The Idea of Progress—Art in the Pleistocene Age—Introduction of Agriculture—Birth of Osirian Civilization—The “ Water of Greenness” as “‘ Water of Life”—How Commerce Began—Introduction of Copper-working—The Oldest Calendar in the World—The “Kings of Mankind”—Ancient Man and Modern Man.

Tue destinies of a people are shaped by their modes of thought, and their real history is therefore the history of their culture. The Chinese frame of mind has made the Chinese the people they are and China the country it is. Every section of society has been swayed by this. far-reaching and enduring influence, the sources of which lie in remote antiquity. It is the force that has even been shaping public opinion and directing political movements. Emperors and leaders of thought have been uplifted by it or cast down by it.

To understand China, it is necessary that we should inquire into its inner history—the history of its culture— (D 71) 1 2 so as to get at the Chinese point of view and look at things through Chinese eyes. That inner history is in part a record of its early experiences among the nations of the earth. There was a time when China was “in the making’, when the little leaven that leavened the whole lump began to move, when that culture which spread over a vast area was confined to a small centre and to a comparatively small group of people. Who were this people, where were they situated, what influences were at.

work to stir them and shape their ambitions, and what secret did they learn which gave them power over the minds and bodies of about a third of the inhabitants of the globe? In short, how and where did Chinese culture originate, and how did it spread and become firmly established? Was it a thing of purely local growth? Did it begin to be quite independently of all other cultures? Does it owe its virility and distinctiveness among the cultures of ancient and modern times to the influence of the locality in which it had “independent origin”? Had it an independent origin?

These queries open up the larger problem as to the origin of civilization in the world. At this point, therefore, we must decide whether or not we are to accept the idea of evolution in human affairs. Can the principles of biological evolution be applied to the problems of ethnology (using the term in its widest sense to include the physical and cultural history of mankind)? Can we accept the theory that in isolated quarters of the globe separated communities were stirred by natural laws to make progress in adapting themselves to their environments, and that, once a beginning was made, separated communities developed on similar lines? Did each ancient civilization have its natural periods of growth and decay? Were separated communities uninfluenced during these periods by human minds and wills? Were their destinies shaped by natural laws, or by the cumulative force of public opinion? Was it a natural law that made men abandon the hunting and adopt the agricultural mode of life? Did certain communities of men, influenced by natural laws in ancient times, begin to shape their religious systems by first worshipping groups of spirits and ultimately, having passed through a sequence of welldefined stages, find themselves elevated by these natural laws to the stage of monotheism? Is it because certain races have, for some mysterious reason, been prompted to pass through these stages more quickly than others, that they are deserving of the term “ progressive” while others must be characterized as “‘ backward.”’ ?

If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we must assume that we have solved the riddle of Mind. Those who apply the principles of biological evolution to human affairs are in the habit of referring to laws that control the workings of the human mind. But what do we really know about the workings of the human mind? This question has only to be asked so that the hazardous character of the fashion of thinking adopted by extreme exponents of the Evolution School may be emphasized. It cannot but be admitted that we know little or nothing regarding the human mind. What happens when we think? How are memories stored in the brain? How are emotions caused? What is Consciousness? How does the Will operate? Grave psychological problems have to be solved before we can undertake the responsibility of discussing with any degree of confidence the laws that are supposed to govern human thought and action.

The researches into the early history of man, of about a generation ago, were believed by some to “‘have revealed the essential similarity with which, under many superficial differences, the human mind has elaborated its first crude philosophy of life”. It was found that similar beliefs and practices obtained among widely separated communities, and it was not suspected that the influence exercised by direct and indirect cultural contact between “ progressive’’ and “backward”? communities extended to such great distances as has since been found to be the case. Prospecting routes by land and sea were the avenues along which cultural influences “drifted”. Early man was much more enterprising as a trader and explorer than was believed in Tylor’s day. The evidence accumulated of late years tends to show that almost no part of the globe remained immune to the influences exercised by the great ancient civilizations, and that these civilizations were never in a state of “splendid isolation” at any period in their histories. In the light of this knowledge it is becoming more and more clear that Victorian ethnologists were inclined to make too much of resemblances, and failed to take into account the differences that a more intensive study of local cultures have revealed. There were, of course, resemblances, which suggest the influence of cultural contact and the settlement among backward peoples of colonists from progressive communities, but there were also differences of beliefs and customs which were of local origin and can hardly be characterized as “superficial”.” One of the results of contact was the process of “culture mixing”. Customs and fashions of thinking were introduced into a country and blended with local customs and local modes of thought. In early China, as will be shown, there was “culture mixing”, The Chinese frame of mind is the result of compromises effected in remote times.

How, then, did the idea of progress originate? Is there in the human mind an instinct which stirs mankind to achieve progress? If so, how does it come about that some peoples have failed to move until brought into contact with progressive races? Why did the Melanesians, for instance, remain in the Stone Age until reached by the missionary and the sandal-wood trader? ‘The missionaries and the traders caused them to advance in a brief period from the Stone Age to the Age of Steel and Machinery. Can it be maintained that in ancient days no sudden changes took place? Did the people, for instance, who introduced bronze-working into a country introduce nothing else? Did they leave behind their beliefs, their myths, their customs, and their stories?

When it is asked how progress originated, we can only turn to such evidence as is available regarding the early history of “ Modern Man”. Ata remote period, dating back in Europe to the Pleistocene Age, men lived in organized communities and pursued the hunting mode of life. Their culture is revealed by their pictorial art in the prehistoric cave-dwellings of France and Spain, and their decorative art by their finely engraved implements and weapons.! This art reached a high state of perfection. In some aspects it compares favourably with modern art.2. Evidently it had a long history, and was practised by those who were endowed with the artistic faculty and had received a training. These early men, who belonged to the Cro-Magnon races, were traders as well as hunters. In some of their “inland stations” have been found shells that had been imported from the Mediterranean coast.

The hunting mode of life prevailed also among the proto-Egyptians in the Nile valley, an area which was less capable in remote times of maintaining a large popu-

1 Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, pp. 26 et seq. 2 Ibid. See illustrations opposite p. 20.

lation than were the wide and fertile plains of Europe. Egypt was thinly peopled until the agricultural mode of life was introduced. Someone discovered how to make use of the barley that grew wild in the Nile valley and western Asia. In time the seeds were cultivated, and some little community thus provided itself with an abundant food-supply. Men’s minds were afterwards engaged in solving the problem how to extend the area available for cultivation in the narrow Nile valley. Nature was at hand to make suggestions to them. Each year the River Nile came down in flood and fertilized the parched and sun-burnt wastes. The waters caused the desert to “blossom like the rose”. Intelligent observers perceived that if the process of water-fertilization were maintained, as in the Delta region, they could extend their little farms and form new ones. The art of irrigation was discovered and gradually adopted, with the result that the narrow river valley, which had been thinly peopled during the Hunting Period, became capable of maintaining a large population. | In what particular area the agricultural mode of life was first introduced, it is impossible to say. Some favour southern Palestine and some southern Mesopotamia. Those who favour Egypt’ can refer to interesting and important evidence in support of their view. It is the only ancient country, for instance, in which there are traditions regarding the man’ who introduced the agricultural mode of life. This was Osiris, a priest-king? who was deified, or a god to whom was credited the discovery, made by a

* Professor Cherry The Origin of Agriculture (Mem. and Proc. Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1920).

7 In Babylonian legends civilization is introduced by the “ goat-fish”? god Ea, who came from the Persian Gulf,

3 Those who give Osiris a Libyan origin believe his name signifies “The Old One”’, or “The Old Man”.

man or group of men, of how to grow corn. Plutarch’s version of the Egyptian legend states: “ Osiris, being now become King of Egypt, applied himself towards civilizing his countrymen, by turning them from their former indigent and barbarous course of life; he moreover taught them how to cultivate and improve the fruits of the earth”. Evidence has been forthcoming that the pre-Dynastic Egyptians were agriculturists. The bodies of many of them have been found preserved in their graves in the hot dry sands of Upper Egypt. “ From the stomachs and intestines of these prehistoric people”, writes Professor G. Elliot Smith, “I was able to recover large quantities of food materials, in fact, the last meals eaten before death.” Careful examination was made of the contents of the stomachs. “Almost every sample contained husks of barley, and in about 10 per cent of the specimens husks of millet could be identified with certainty.” The millet found in these bodies is nearly related to the variety “which is now cultivated in the East Indies’’.*

Here we have proof that the agricultural mode of life obtained in the Nile valley over sixty centuries ago, and that the seeds of the cultivated variety of millet, which grows wild in North Africa and southern Asia, were carried to far-distant areas by ancient traders and colonists. These facts have, as will be found, an important bearing on the early history of Chinese civilization.

Our immediate concern, however, is with the history of early civilization. In the Nile valley man made progress when he was able to provide something which he required, by the intelligent utilization of means at his disposal. No natural law prompted him to cultivate corn and irrigate the sun-parched soil. He did not

1 The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 41-42.

g MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN become an agriculturist by instinct. He conducted observations, exercised his reasoning faculty, made experiments, and a great discovery was forthcoming. The man whose memory is enshrined in that of Osiris was one of the great benefactors of the human race. When he solved the problem of how to provide an abundant supply of food, he made it possible for a large population to live ina small area. It is told of Osiris that “he gave them (the Egyptians) a body of laws to regulate their conduct by”. No doubt the early hunters observed laws which regulated conduct in the cave-home as well as on the hunting-field. The fact that a great pictorial art was cultivated by Aurignacian man in western Europe, about 20,000 years ago, indicates that the social organization had been sufficiently well developed to permit of certain individuals of a class—possibly the priestly class—devoting themselves to the study of art, while others attended to the food-supply. Aurignacian art could never have reached the degree of excellence it did had there not been a school of art—apparently religious art—and a system of laws that promoted its welfare. When, in Egypt, the agricultural mode of life was introduced, and an abundant supply of food was assured, new laws became a necessity, so that the growing communities might be kept under control. These laws were given a religious significance. Osiris “instructed them (the Egyptians) in that reverence and worship which they were to pay to the gods”. Society was united by the bonds of a religious organization, and, as is found, Nilotic religion had a close association with the agricultural mode of life. It reflected the experiences of the early farmers ; it reflected, too, the natural phenomena of the Nile valley. Water—the Nile water—was the fertilizing agency. It was the “water of life”. The god Osiris was closely associated with the Nile; he was the “fresh” or the “ new’ water that flowed in due season after the trying period of “the low Nile”, during which the land was parched by the burning sun and every green thing was coated by the sand-storms. ‘Ho, Osiris! the inundation comes,” cried the priest when the Nile began to rise. “ Horus comes; he recognizes his father in thee, youthful in thy name of Fresh Water.”! The literal rendering is: “Horus comes; he beholds his father in thee, greenness in thy name of Water of Greenness”. The reference 1s to the “new water” which flows quite green for the first few days of the annual inundation. The “new water” entered the soil and vegetation sprang up. Osiris was the principle of life; he was also the ghost-god who controlled the river. As the Nile, Osiris was regarded as the source of all life—the creator and sustainer and ruler in one.

When the discovery of how to grow corn was passed from people to people and from land to land, not only the seeds and agricultural implements were passed along, but the ceremonies and religious beliefs connected with the agricultural mode of life in the area of origin. The ceremonies were regarded as of as much importance as the implements.

It need not surprise us, therefore, to find, as we do find, not only North African millet in the East Indies, but North African religious beliefs connected with agriculture in widely separated countries. Osirian religious ideas and myths were, it would appear, distributed over wide areas and among various races. There is therefore a germ of historical truth in the account given by Plutarch of the missionary efforts of Osiris. ‘“ With the same disposition”, we read, “he (Osiris) afterwards

1 Breasted’s Religion and Thought in Egypt, p. 18.

to MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN travelled over the rest of the world, inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline. . . . The Greeks conclude him to have been the same person with their Dionysos or Bacchus.”?

In the process of time the Egyptians found that they were able to produce a larger food-supply than they required for their own needs. They were consequently able to devote their surplus to stimulating trade, so as to obtain from other countries things which were not to behad in Egypt. They were thus brought into touch with other communities, and these communities, such as the wood-cutters of Lebanon, were influenced by Egyptian civilization and stimulated to adopt new modes of life. Their food-supply was assured by the Egyptian demand for timber. They received corn from the Nile valley in payment for their labour. There are references in the Egyptian texts to the exports of wheat to North Syria and Asia Minor.

When the great discovery was made of how to work copper, the early agriculturists achieved rapid progress. Boats were built more easily and in larger numbers, new weapons were produced, and the Upper Egyptians conquered the Lower Egyptians, with the result that Egypt was united under a single king. With this union, which was followed by a period of remarkable activity, begins the history of Ancient Egypt.

The man, remembered as Osiris, who first sowed his little corn patch, sowed also the seeds from which grew a mighty empire and a great civilization. His discovery spread from people to people, and from land to land, and a new era was inaugurated in the history of the world. Progress was made possible when mankind were led from the wide hunting-fields to the little fields of the Stone

1S. Squire, Plutarch’s Treatise of Isis and Osiris (Cambridge, 1744).

THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION II

Age! farmer, and shown how they could live pleasant and well-ordered lives in large communities.

The early Egyptian farmers found it necessary to measure time and take account of the seasons. A Calendar was introduced and adopted during the prehistoric (Paleolithic) period,? and was used by the Egyptians for thousands of years. Julius Casar adapted this Calendar for use in Rome. It was subsequently adjusted by Pope Gregory and others, and is now in use all over the civilized world. Each time we hang up a new calendar, therefore, we are reminded of the man who stimulated progress over vast areas by sowing corn, so as to provide food for his family in a distant land at a far-distant period of time.

When we consider the problem of the origin of progress, let us not forget him and others. like him—those early thinkers and discoverers to whom all humanity owe a debt of gratitude. The few invent, the many adopt; the few think and lead, and the many follow.

“No abstract doctrine”, writes Sir James F. Frazer in this connection, “is more false and mischievous than that of the natural equality of men. . . . The experience of common life sufficiently contradicts such a vain imagination. . . . The men of keenest intelligence and strongest characters lead the rest and shape the moulds into which, outwardly at least, society is cast... . The true rulers of men are the thinkers who advance knowledge. . . . It is knowledge which, in the long run, directs and controls the forces of society. Thus the discoverers of new truths are the real though uncrowned and unsceptred kings of mankind.”®

1In Egypt this was the Solutrean stage of the so-called “ Paleolithic Age”. 2 There was no “ Neolithic Age” in Egypt. 8 The Scope of Socia’ Anthropology (London, 1908), pp. 12-13.

Progress has its origin in Mind. It has been manifested in the past in those districts in which the mind of man was applied to overcome natural obstacles and to develop natural resources. The histories of the great ancient civilizations do not support the idea of an evolutionary process which had its origin in human instinct. “There has”, Professor G. Elliot Smith writes, “ been no general or widespread tendency on the part of human societies to strive after what by Europeans is regarded ~ as intellectual or material progress. Progressive societies are rare because it requires a very complex series of factors to compel men to embark upon the hazardous process of striving after such artificial advancement.”

Professor Elliot Smith will have none of what Dr. W. H.R. Rivers refers to as “crude evolutionary ideas”. “The history of man”, he writes, “will be truly interpreted, not by means of hazardous and mistaken analogies with biological evolution, but by the application of the true historical method. The causes of the modern actions of mankind are deeply rooted in the past. But the spirit of man has ever been the same: and the course of ancient history can only be properly appreciated when it is realized that the same human motives whose nature can be studied in our fellow-men to-day actuated the men of old also.”

In the chapters that immediately follow it will be shown that separated communities were brought into close touch by traders. The term “ trading”, however, refers, especially in early times, chiefly to prospecting and the exploiting of locally unappreciated forms of wealth. It was not until after civilization had spread far and wide that permanent trade routes were established. Some overland routes became less important when sea routes were ultimately opened.

1 Primitive Man (Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VII), p. 50.

CHAPTER II A Far-travelled Invention

The Potter’s Wheel—An Egyptian Invention—The Wheel in Theology —Clay Pots and Stone Vessels—Skilled Artisans produce Poor Pottery—The Yakut Evidence—Female Potters—Pot Symbol of Mother-goddess—Potter’s Wheel worked by Men—Egyptian “Wheel” adopted in Crete, Babylonia, Iran, India, and China—No “ Wheel” in America—Secular and Religious Pottery in China, Japan, India, and Rome—Coarse Grave-Pottery—Potter’s Wheel as Symbol of Creator—Chinese Emperors as Potters—Culture Heroes— Association of Agriculture with Pottery—Egyptian Ideas in Far East.

Wuart bearing, it may be asked, have the discoveries made in Egypt on the early history of China? Is there evidence to show that these widely-separated countries were brought into contact in remote times? Did the primitive Chinese receive and adopt Egyptian inventions, and if so, how were such inventions conveyed across the wide and difhcult country lying between the Mediterranean coast and the Yellow Sea? Is there any proof that trade routes extended in ancient times right across Asia? Did prospecting and trading ancient mariners cross the Indian Ocean and coast round to Chinese waters?