Donald A. Mackenzie

“ The spirit-dwellings are of gold and jade, and in the groves and gardens the trees and plants bear pearls and precious stones. Those who eat of the fungus, or of perfumed fruit, renew their youth and acquire the power of floating like down through the air from island to island. ”

“ In China, as in Egypt and Western Europe, the Great Mother was the reproductive principle in Nature, the source of the moisture of life, the blood which is life, the sap of trees, the soul-substance in herbs, in fruit, in pearls, and in precious stones and precious metals—precious because of their close association with her. ”

“ The Tree of Immortality, as has been seen, is closely associated with the Far Eastern Mother Goddess, who may appear before favoured mortals either as a beautiful woman, as a dragon, or as a woman riding on a dragon, or as half woman and half fish, or half woman and half serpent. It is from the goddess that the tree receives its “soul substance”; in a sense, she is the tree, as she is the moon and the pot of life-water, or the mead in the moon. The fruits of the tree are symbols of her as the mother, and the sap of the tree is her blood. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Associated with the search for metals was the immemorial quest of the elixir of life, which was undoubtedly a priestly business—one that required the performance of religious ceremonies of an elaborate character. Metals and jewels, as we have seen, as well as plants, contained the “soul substance” that was required to promote health and to ensure longevity in this world and in the next. It was, no doubt, the priestly prospectors, and not the traders and working miners, who first imparted to jade its religious value as a substitute for gold and jewels. ”

“ The tiger is an enemy of the dragon, but there are references to tiger-headed dragons. The dragon is a divinity of water and rain, and the tiger a divinity of mountains and woods.1 The white tiger is a god of the west.
Like the deities of other countries, the Chinese dragon-god (and the Japanese dragon) may appear in different shapes—as a youth or aged man, as a lovely girl or an old hag, as a rat, a snake, a fish, a tree, a weapon, or an implement. But no matter what its shape may be, the dragon is intimately connected with water. ”

“ Touching on the problem of culture mixing in China, Laufer writes:
“In opposition to the prevalent opinion of the day, it cannot be emphasized strongly enough 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; briefly stated, this means China is not a nation, but an empire, a political, but not an ethnical unit. ”

“ As we have seen, the Mikados were reputed to be descended from the sun-goddess, and from the daughter of the Dragon King of Ocean, called the “Abundant-Pearl Princess”, a Japanese Melusina.
It is far from correct, therefore, to refer, as has been done, to Shinto religion as “the worship of nature-gods and ancestors”. Even the term “nature-worship” is misleading. The adoration in sacred shrines of the mi-tama (the “August jewel”, or “Dragon-pearl”, or “spirit”, or “double”) of a deity is not “the worship of Nature”, but the worship of “the imperishable principle of life wherever found”. ”

“ New experiences and new inventions imparted “local colour” to colonial culture, but the leading religious principles that veined that culture underwent little change. The immemorial quest for the elixir of life was never forgotten. It was not to purchase their daily bread alone that men lived laborious days washing gold dust from river sands, crushing quartz among the Altai Mountains, or quarrying and fishing jade in Chinese Turkestan; they were chiefly concerned about “purchasing” the “food of life” so as to secure immortality. ”

“ 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 [5] to achieve progress? If so, how does it come about that some peoples have failed to move until brought into contact with progressive races? ”

“ The value attached to gold, which is a comparatively useless metal, has always been a fictitious value. As we have seen, it became precious in ancient times, not because of its purchasing power, but for the reason that it had religious associations. The early peoples regarded the precious metal as an “avatar” of the life-giving and [190] life-sustaining Great Mother goddess—the “Golden Hathor”, the “Golden Aphrodite”.
In Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, India, and China the cow- and sky-goddess, the source of fertilizing water, was, in the literal sense, a goddess of gold. ”

“ The persistent and enterprising search for wealth in ancient times, which, as will be shown in this chapter, had so much to do with the spread of civilization, may seem quite a natural thing to modern man. But it is really as remarkable, when we consider the circumstances, to find the early peoples possessed of the greed of gold as it would be to find hungry men who have been ship-wrecked on a lonely island more concerned about its mineral resources than the food and water they were absolutely in need of. What was the good of gold in an ancient civilization that had no coinage? ”

“ The Chinese dragon is as closely connected with water as was the serpent form of Osiris with the Nile in ancient Egypt, and as was Indra with the “drought dragon” in India. The dragon dwells in pools, it rises to the clouds, it thunders and brings rain, it floods rivers, it is in the ocean, and controls the tides and causes the waters to ebb and flow as do its magic pearls (the “Jewels of Flood and Ebb”) , and it is a symbol of the emperor. ”

“ The dragons are supposed to sleep in their pools during the dry spell, and that is why, in the old Chinese work, Yih Lin, it is stated that “a dragon hidden in water is useless”. The dragons are supposed to sleep so that they may “preserve their bodies”. They begin to stir and rise in spring. Soon they fight with one another, so that there is no need for a Horus, a Merodach, or an Indra to compel them, by waging battle, to bring benefits to mankind. The Chinese welcome what they called a “dragon battle” after the dry season. Thunder-storms break out, and rain pours down in torrents. ”

“ The sage of the Chinese Emperor Wu Ti, who followed the course of the Yellow River so as to reach the celestial Paradise, saw, in addition to the moon-rabbit, or hare, the “Old Man of the Moon”, the Chinese Wu Kang and Japanese Gekkawo, the god of love and marriage. He is supposed to unite lovers by binding their feet with invisible red silk cords. The “Old Man in the Moon” is, in Chinese legend, engaged in chopping branches from the cassia tree of immortality. ”

“ The palace of the dragon king is situated in the Underworld, which can be entered through a deep mountain cave or a dragon-guarded well. In some of the Chinese stories the dragon palace is located right below a remote island in the Eastern Sea. This island is not easily approached, for on the calmest of days great billows dash against its shelving crags. When the tide is high, it is entirely covered by water and hidden from sight. Junks may then pass it or even sail over it, without their crews being aware that they are nigh to the palace of the sea-god. ”

“ In Japan, ginseng, mushroom, and fungus are, like pearls, promoters of longevity, and sometimes, says Joly, “masquerade as phalli”: they are “Plants of Life” and “Plants of Birth”, like the plants searched for by the Babylonian heroes Gilgamesh and Etana, and like the dragon-herbs of China.25
In Shinto, the ancient religion of the Japanese, prominence is given to pearls and other precious jewels, and even to ornaments like artificial beads, which were not, of course, used merely for personal decoration in the modern sense of the term; beads had a religious significance. ”

“ Chinese emperors were compared to potters. They [20] were credited with the power to control a nation as the potter controlled his wheel. The ancient peoples who adopted the Egyptian potter’s wheel evidently learned that it was of divine origin. They adopted the Egyptian beliefs and myths associated with it. Withal, the wheel was associated with the agricultural mode of life, having originated in a country of agriculturists. Ptah, the divine potter, was, like all the other prominent gods of Egypt, fused with Osiris—the god who was, among other things, the “culture hero”. ”

“ In Ceylon, Burmah, Tibet, and China it is the sacred colour of the Buddhists.
Blue, the sky colour, and therefore the colour of the sky-deity, was likewise holy. Torquoise and lapis-lazuli were connected with the Great Mother. The sacredness of green has a more complex history. It was not reverenced simply because of the greenness of vegetation. The mysterious substance that makes plants green was derived from the supreme source of life—the green form of the water-goddess or god—and was to be found in concentrated form in green gems and stones, including green jade. ”

“ The Shinto deities figured as avatars of Buddha in the cult of Ryobu-Shinto. Even the Mikados came under the spell of Buddhism.
In the eighteenth century began the movement known as the “Revival of Pure Shinto”. It was promoted chiefly by Motöori and his disciple Hirata. In time it did much to bring about the revolution which restored to supreme political power, as the hereditary high priest and living representative of the sun-goddess, the Mikado of Japan. Shinto is the official religion of modern Japan; but Buddhism, impregnated with Shinto elements, is the religion of the masses. ”

“ But there can be little doubt that the traditions surviving from his age were mixed with the older traditions regarding the Babylonian flood. Yu is no mere canal cutter. He hews the rocks and forms chasms between the mountains, like Pʼan Ku, the Chinese Ptah or Indra, he constructs the embankments of lakes, and makes channels for the great rivers, and he drains the marshes. The grounds are made habitable and fit for cultivation. There are even faint echoes of the Osirian legend in the stories regarding his achievements. ”

“ The islands are, in Chinese legend, reputed to be inhabited by those who have won immortality, or by those who have been transported to their Paradise to dwell there in bliss for a prolonged period so that they may be reborn on earth, or pass to a higher state of existence.
It is of special interest to note in connection with these islands that they have Wells of Life and Trees or Herbs of Life. The souls drink the water and eat the herb or fruit of the tree to prolong their existence. One Chinese “plant of life” is li chih, “the fungus of immortality”. ”

“ A new culture was introduced into backward communities by the early prospectors and trading colonists, and these communities in time acquired weapons, reared the domesticated horse, and took to the sea after having learned how to build and navigate ships similar to those introduced by the traders.
When the potter’s wheel was introduced into Korea, the clay vessels were shaped in imitation of Chinese pottery. There can remain no doubt, therefore, as to whence the wheel came. China was the chief centre of early civilization in the Far East, and its influence spread far and wide. ”

“ The herbalist continued to ascend the mountain, searching for the herb, and when he reached the summit was surprised to find that the sky had become completely overcast. Great masses of black and yellow clouds had risen over the Eastern Sea, and a thunder-storm was threatening. Wang Shuh then realized that the blue boy he had seen riding on the back of the red carp was no other than the thunder-dragon. ”

“ In the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt the east is held by the solar cult “to be the most sacred of all regions”, while the west is the sacred “airt” of the Osirian cult.42 In the east the sun-god, to whom the soul of the dead Pharaoh went, was supposed to be reborn every morning. The Chinese regarded the east “as the quarter”, says De Groot, “in which is rooted the life of everything, the great genitor of life (the sun) being born there every day”.43 As we have seen, there was in China, as in Egypt, a rival cult of the west. ”

“ 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.... ”