[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
life and joy.
Also on Fiji we find Ratu-Mai-Mbula, the snake god who is ruler of the dead. Elsewhere
in Polynesia, we find a legend about a monster snake [ or perhaps here an eel] among the
Tuamotua peoples. The symbol of the serpent can often be depicted as an eel, a creature
more familiar to island people than the water snake and certainly more common than any
land snake.
Page 33
The same sort of god found in the Gilbert Islands is called Riiti . Hina, who can still be
seen in the moon was the wife of the monster snake Te Tuna [ the 'phallus'] She ran away
from him and became the wife of Maui, who then killed Te Tuna, and on the advice of
her mother, planted his head, from which grew the first coconut tree.
The Daribi people, who live in the highlands of New Guinea have legends which present
snakes as superior to humans. The snake shed its skin and so they rejuvenate themselves,
whereas human skin ages and shows the mark of mortality. These same people and these
legends are also found in New Britain.
The Philippine Islands are rife with serpent beings. The distinguishing traits are basically
that of a snake or crocodile with scales, and the head of a fierce animal or bird. We find
the birdlike serpents: baua and minokwa; the fishlike: baconauaua; the saurian = the
buwaya and the pure snakelike = mameleu, marcupo. Macupo and sawa. This does not
count the many dragons.
In the islands of Melanesia we find Koevasi, a snake goddess, and Walutahanga, a fire
snake god. The people of New Guinea have a snake god among their pantheon, called
Wunekau, and we also find a Kiribati sea snake god named Ruki
In the New Hebrides Islands we have a group of serpent spirits called the Mae These are
serpents who can appear in other disguises, and are seen as guiding spirits of all who
encounter them. If a young man returns home after a day of fishing, at sunset he might
see a young girl sitting on a rock , her head covered with flowers . She will beckon him to
climb the steep cliff and when he approaches her he will notice that she has the face of a
girl from his own village. Afraid that she is a Mae he will look closer and see that her
elbows and knees are on backwards; this betrays her true nature and the young man will
run away. Should he, however, hit her with the leaf of the dracaena she will assume her
true form and slip away as a snake.
East of Indonesia, Melanesia and Australia, throughout the island-studded triangle of
Polynesia, which has Hawaii at its apex, New Zealand at one angle and Easter Island at
the other, the mythological image of the murdered divine being whose body became a
food plant has been adjusted to the natural elements of an oceanic environment. Snakes,
by and large, are unknown in the islands. The role of divine serpent has to be played,
therefore, by the closest possible counterpart of the serpent, a monster eel. The force of
the serpent role has been greatly increased rather than diminished by this substitution.
Page 34
Plant origin legends abound using either the monster eel or another serpent figure. The
breadfruit tree first appeared, for example, according to Hawaiian myth when a man
named Ulu, who lived near Hilo, died of famine. He and his wife had a sickly baby by
whose life was in danger from the famine. The baby was taken to a temple at Puueo
whose resident god was a mo'o which is a Hawaiian word meaning reptile.
The only reptile in Hawaii is a harmless, even affectionately regarded little lizard that
runs up and down the walls of houses catching insects. The manner in which the
mythological system of the islands has magnified this innocuous little creature into the
proportions of a dangerous, powerful divine serpent-dragon is a goo example of the
mythological process and the power of the serpent in divine symbolism.
ASIA:
China
In Asia we have one rich source and more leaner sources. China, for example, with its
concentration on social ethics and personal behavior [ Confucianism and Taoism] has
little room for gods or goddesses. We do find reference to the AO or four Dragon kings;
Ao Chi'in, Ao Kuang, Ao Jun and Ao Shun. [ These four main kinds of Lung had
alternate names: Tien-Lung, the Celestial Dragon, who protects the places of the gods,
Shen-Lung, the Spiritual Dragon, who controls the wind and the rain, Ti-Lung, the Earth
Dragon, who controls the rivers, and Fut's-Lung, the Underworld Dragon who guards
precious metals and gems] The commander of all the River Dragons is Cien-Tang, who is
blood red, has a fiery mane and is 900 feet long. These great serpent/dragon kings were
the faithful servants and guards of Y-Huang-Shang-Ti, the "Father Heaven, the supreme
Emperor of Jade who ruled all. One time, according to legend. When the land was
enduring famine because of drought, the dragons appealed to the Jade Emperor for rain.
The emperor stalled and the dragon, upset, carried water to the people in their mouths.
The emperor was furious at the disobedience of the dragons and had them imprisoned
under four mountains. Determined to do good for the people forever, they turned
themselves into for rivers, which flowed past high mountains and deep valleys, crossing
the land from west to east until finally emptying into the sea.
And so China's four great rivers were formed: the Heilongijan [Black Dragon] in the far
north; the Huanghe [Yellow River] in central China; the Yangtze [ Long River] farther
south and the Zhujiang [Pearl] in the very far south.
Page 35
Also, related to to Ao, we find Lung, a benevolent serpent bringer of rain, who is held in
high regard. Fuxi, a creature with human top and serpent bottom is seen as the father of
mankind. He is the first of the "Three Sovereigns" and the inventor of the trigrams used
in Chinese divination.
The Chinese dragons were shape-shifters, who could make themselves as large as the
whole universe or as small as a silkworm. They could also change color and disappear in
a flash. The classic work, I-Ching, uses the symbol of the serpent to illuminate the truths
of inner growth of the person, the society and the universe.
These Eastern dragons are usually portrayed as good, kind and intelligent. Oriental
dragons have the most recorded history in the world, stretching back thousands of years.
It has been said that the worst flooding in Asian history were caused when a mortal has
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]