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我国古老传说中有很多看上去荒唐的故事，其实有它的道理； 这里由伐夏商得玉讲起：
“伊尹相成汤，伐桀，。。。桀败走三朡，遂伐三朡，俘厥宝玉，放桀于南巢”
“武王浮商舊寶玉萬四千，佩玉億有八萬。”
为什么帝王这么紧张去抢玉？因为玉是用来作权力的象征：
左传有“十五年春，邾隐公来朝。子贡观焉。邾子执玉高、其容仰；公受玉卑，其容俯”尚书说舜继位会见诸侯牧守以后，把敛取的瑞玉还给他们。孔颖达解释敛玉、还玉的原因说： “瑞（玉）本受于尧，敛而又还之，若言舜新付之，改为舜臣，与之正新君之始也" 史记又有“禹合诸侯于涂山，执玉帛者万国” 直到汉朝时，诸侯朝见皇帝还要献玉和币，表示臣服
帛同币是丝绸；献丝绸也有臣服之义，“黄帝斩蚩尤，蚕神献丝”便是一例，丝绸既然重要，织的人要有些身份，所以常有公主织布的故事：
"帝颛顼之苗裔孙曰女修。女修织，玄鸟陨卵，女修吞之，生子大业。至大费，佐舜调驯鸟兽"
"皇娥处璇宫而夜织，或乘桴木而昼游，。。遇到一神童，自称是白帝之子"
春秋汉朝还有贵妇人纺织的事情：
左传“文伯退朝，朝敬姜，敬姜方績。。。詩曰：「婦元公事，休其蠶織。」言婦人以織績為公事者也。休之非禮”
史记“薄姬輸織室。。。漢王入織室，見薄姬有色，詔內后宮”
汉书“汉景帝：“朕亲耕，后亲蚕，以给宗庙粢盛祭服，为天下先”
这不只是鼓励勤俭，还有宗教礼节意义。西方也有同类的故事，但已经变形，睡美人故事中公主不能碰纺锤，否则有生命危险；又有村女得妖怪帮助纺稻草成金嫁国王事
女修吞蛋怀孕，此外另有公主吞蛋故事：
"三人行浴，见玄鸟堕其卵，简狄取而吞之，因孕生契"
"有娀氏有二佚女，為之九成之臺，飲食必以鼓。帝令燕往視之，鳴若謚隘。二女愛而爭搏之，覆以玉筐。少選發而視之，燕遺二卵"
行浴，吞蛋，是鸟族的生殖崇拜仪式，但仪式不会令简狄女修怀孕，受孕是因为有男子来参加仪式，同女子野合
牛郎织女故事，晋朝成书，但是远古之事；仙女来瑶池洗澡，不是因为身体肮脏，而是举行求子仪式；织女天帝之女，也是公主织布；牛郎同金牛，被赶出天庭，不是因为他们思，而是因为母系社会制度，男子成年必须离开，以免跟同族女子乱伦，只有每年一次的 机会参加他族仪式同女子交配；织女不听话，仪式完后不回家，要天帝派天兵天将去追
传说又有几件公主失踪故事
"宓妃，伏羲女，溺死洛水，遂為洛水之神"
"赤帝女，学道得仙，居南阳愕山桑树上。正月一日，衔柴作巢，至十五日成，或作白鹊，或作女人。赤帝见之悲恸，诱之不得，以火焚之，女即升天，因名帝女桑"
"帝之季女也，名曰瑶姬，未行而亡，封巫山之台，精魂依草"
诸故事共同点是帝女死后复活，有了某种浪漫功能，桑是生命树，又同织女故事拉上了关系；西亚也有生命树，但是棕榈，有火鸟（凤凰）在生命树上复活故事，又像帝女化精卫白鹊.
"帝女溺死东海中，化为精卫，其名自呼。每衔西山木石填东海"
伏羲女娲洪水故事其实是海啸，整族人都冲走了剩下两个；精卫故事也是海啸冲走女娃族，生存者投奔鸟族，举行投石入海的仪式纪念死者
传说中的扶桑树，原是一种棕榈；棕榈有干无枝，叶子长在干顶，所以有扶桑无枝之说。《梁书·诸夷传》记载，公元499年慧深和尚从扶桑国来到中国荆州。他说，中国的东面有一个很远的国家盛产扶桑木。扶桑木的叶子像梧桐，初生如竹笋；扶桑皮可以织布；由此推测, 我国先民也用过扶桑织布; 后来先民由海边迁向内陆无棕榈可用，代以麻同桑丝, 保留桑之名,并思之为生命树，太阳树：
“汤谷上有扶桑，十日所浴，在黑齿北。居水中，有大木，九日居下枝，一日居上枝”，即天干以十日为一旬的原始历法。大荒西经：“有女子方浴月。帝俊妻常羲，生月十有二，此始浴之”，这其实是一年有十二月的历法。常曦生月即是月神常娥。
蚕桑之人神。东汉称“菀窳妇人，寓氏公主”，见《后汉书·礼仪志; 这两位蚕桑神，又同织女/帝女桑/公主逃走有关
"太古之时，有大人远征，家无余人，唯有一女。牡马一匹，女亲养之。穷居幽处，思念其父，乃戏马曰：‘尔能为我迎得父还，吾将嫁汝。’马既承此言，乃绝 尘而去，径至父所。……（父）亟乘以归。为畜生有非常之情，故厚加刍养。马不肯食， 每见女出入，辄喜怒奋击，如此非一。 父怪之，密以问女，女具以告父，…… 于是伏弩射杀之，暴皮于庭。父行，女与邻女于皮所戏，以足蹙之曰：‘汝是畜生， 而欲取人为妇耶？招此屠剥，如何自苦？’言未及竟，马皮蹶然而起，卷女以行。 邻女走告其父。后经数曰，得于大树枝间，女及马皮尽化为蚕"
"上古时，高辛皇后耳痛三年，后从耳中取出一虫，育于盘中，后变成龙犬，高辛帝赐名龙期，号称盘瓠。其时犬戎兴兵来犯，帝下诏求贤，提出：能斩番王头者以三公主嫁他为妻。龙犬揭榜后即往敌国，乘番王酒醉，咬断其头，回国献给高辛帝。高辛帝因他是犬而想悔婚。盘瓠作人语说：“将我放在金钟内，七昼夜可变成人。”盘瓠入钟六天，公主怕他饿死，打开金钟。见他身已成人形，但头未变。于是盘瓠与公主结婚"
菀窳 盘瓠，音相近，皇后耳中取出一虫，又像是同蚕有关;似是同一公主出走故事变形成二
很多传说说提到空桑/穷桑：
“蚩尤出自羊水，八肱八趾疏首，登九淖以伐空桑”
“榆罔(炎帝）居空桑......帝所居也”."封禅泰山,又居空桑”
"颛顼始都穷桑， 徙商丘"“颛顼生自若水， 实处空桑”
"少昊邑于穷桑，以登帝位，徙都曲阜。"
"皇娥，处璇宫而夜织，或乘桴木而昼游，经历穷桑沧茫之浦。"
"共工振滔洪水，以薄空桑"
"伊尹生于空桑其母化为空桑"
"重为句芒，该为蓐收，修及熙为玄冥，世不失职，遂济穷桑"
"穷桑者，西海之滨，有孤桑之树，直上千寻，叶红椹紫，万岁一实"
"羿有穷氏，未闻其姓，其先帝喾. 后羿自鉏迁于穷石，因夏民以代夏"
"孔子生于空桑"
这地名到底什么意思？再看：
"黄帝自穷桑徙曲阜。穷桑在鲁城之北"
"轩辕之国在此穷山之际，其不寿者八百岁。在女子国北。人面蛇身，尾交首上"
黄帝族名有熊，应来自北方寒冷地区；后羿善射，也较可能来自西伯利亚猎手族；所以空桑/穷桑应是寒冷无桑之地，空/穷即无/尽头之意；尾交首上，又同符合甘肃发现的人面鱼陶瓶同北方的玉猪龙。商先祖王亥，在易水地区有易族放牛被杀，也可见商族来自北方
西藏史书称东方人为夏，显示夏人离西藏青海不远；商人用大批和田玉，也表示同新疆交流日久，极可能夏人西来已知道新疆有美玉，商人继续; 黄帝的遗迹多数在西北；伏羲黄帝出自华胥氏；华胥应同华山有关；黄土造人传说显示先民回忆自己源自黄土高原；所以禹族黄帝族都应是由西北迁来，但舜应是由东方西迁的，时间方向同良渚先民逃避洪水符合；陶鼎起自东方，但为中原各族采用为拜神重器；丝绸也是由东去西的；用玉的制度，东方讲究，西方简单，也是由东方去中原的
颛顼同尧之间有个历史缺环,原因是同共工氏战争加上洪水;书上说中间有个帝皓（喾）, 是很不可靠的;帝皓的事绩都飘渺,如曦和生十日常曦生十二月,可见他的传说其实比颛顼黄帝更早,但是姜塬简狄无夫生子稷契,是天帝之子,所以帝皓变成稷契尧的爸爸早一代, 填了空,其实还是空,这缺环正是禹族由西,舜族由东,跟中原尧族融合的时代,但史料空白, 以致华族来源很多不清楚
猪龙同西亚uroboros吞尾蛇有关，猪龙同西坪陶瓶尾交首人面鱼，象征有无（头尾）相生循环不息（老子后来发明无为而治）我国传说里有一古老猪龙故事，却同后羿常娥有关：后羿同洛神相爱射她丈夫河伯，名冯夷，同后羿杀封豨夺玄妻，应是同一故事，冯夷封豨同音不同字；天问有玄妻杀羿事："浞娶纯狐 眩妻爰谋 何羿之射革而交吞揆之"，即常娥偷不死药逢蒙杀羿事；后羿有新欢，玄妻心中不平，勾结逢（冯）蒙杀羿.
河伯是龙，封豨是猪，所以是猪龙，玄妻同常娥纯狐九尾狐应是一人；羿族拜日，常娥族似乎是拜月的，所以她逃回本族是奔月；月能由无变有，死而复生，所以有不死之药.黄帝战蚩尤大禹治水得玄女帮助，黄帝娶蠋山氏，大禹娶涂山氏九尾狐，是和同一玄女族联盟;
传说中多次提到玄字:
"颛顼黑灵玄冥（北方帝）"
"高阳乃命（禹于）玄宫。禹亲把天之瑞令，以征有苗"
"天生玄鸟，降而生商";" 玄王为契，佐禹治水，受封大国"
月宫又叫广玄宫即玄宫，所以常娥杀羿后奔月即是逃回老家玄宫；玄的本义是黑色，因为常娥族黑夜拜月亮。现在有些民族还有跳月的生殖崇拜仪式，月神是生殖神即高媒即月下老人。拜月族相信玄宫/玄女有很大的法力
传说又有素女，最多人知道的是素女经房中术，其实这也是因为她是生殖女神；素女又同音乐有关：
"太帝使素女鼓五十絃瑟，悲，帝禁不止，故破其瑟為二十五絃"
但搞音乐又是同一原因，为生殖丰收崇拜：
"昔古朱襄氏之治天下也，多風而陽氣畜積，萬物散解，果實不成，故士達作五弦，以來陰氣，以定群生。”
在這段記載中，我們看到了五弦的琴（瑟）之功能是驅陽氣而來陰氣，使萬物可以生長."昔者舜作五弦之琴，以歌南風"类似。
玄女也有搞音乐；《黄帝内传》称： 黄帝伐蚩尤，玄女为帝制夔牛鼓八十面，一震五百里，连震三千八百里
《老子》“谷神不死谓玄牝，玄牝之门，是谓在地根”，“玄牝”即女性生殖器， “谷神”即生殖女神。玄武图案，常出现在古建筑物上，直被认为是龟蛇合体的灵物，可是据考证，它其实是蛙蛇合体，蛙象征女阴，蛇象征男根，所以“玄武” 实在是男女性交合的象征. 佤人认为：“木鼓”既是拯救过本族始祖的“木槽”，是强壮母体的化身，又是“木依吉”灵魂的居住地，而成为万物繁茂成长的通天神器。因此，以舞蹈形式表现从“木鼓”的制作，到最后以敲击“木鼓”来沟通神灵，达到天赐福泽目的的《木鼓舞》苗族地区的“鼓社祭，踩鼓时象征交媾。所以鼓的起因不是战争；战鼓是后来的东西。玄女经也是房中术。
素玄丝三字相关，所以玄女素女即是丝神蚕神桑神，即黄帝妻躅山氏螺祖,她有发明养蚕之功；桑是生命树通天树，所以玄女素女都是神通广大.
《墨子?明鬼》载：“燕之有祖，当齐之有社稷，宋之有桑林，楚之有云梦，此男女之所属而观也".《天问》"禹之力献功，降省下土四方。焉得彼涂山女，而通之於台桑？”桑林台桑是先民举行生殖崇拜的地方，所以桑神是生殖丰收神。很多名人“生于空桑”也是这个原因。"皇帝生阴阳，上骈生耳目，桑林生臂手，此女娲所以七十化也",把创世也连到桑林上去了。
古书又有讲尧传舜:“乃作《大韶》之乐《箫韶》九成凤凰来仪击石拊石百兽率舞"
这其实是讲有虞氏祭天仪式,奏韶乐九章后,部落领袖扮凤凰上台受拜;各族人穿本族图腾服饰,因此有百兽;良渚神人戴羽冠,正是这鸟族族主装饰;而这又同刑天有关,因为同是以乳为目以脐为口
《左传》又说:“郑子臧好聚鹬冠，郑文公恶之，使盗杀之”
因为这羽冠是王者才能带的；好聚鹬冠显示太大野心惹来杀身之祸.皇字就是王者带羽冠，古字为羽在王上。有趣的是帝字源于束捆麦秆；欧洲现在还有收麦仪式，把田里最后一束麦绑起来做庆祝丰收拜的神像（意思是割麦时谷神会躲避，收割完时躲在最后一束里）. 周时楚国必须进贡包茅用以缩酒，包茅原是用来束神像的，酒倒在神身让茅草吸收象征神喝酒；后来简化，铺茅在地洒酒；由此可见皇帝两字来源不同，一来自猎鸟族，一来自农业族。
莊子.秋水》篇中載: 「南方有鳥，其名鵷鶵(鳳凰)….非梧桐不止，非練實(竹實)不食，非醴泉不飲…」，另《韓詩外傳》謂:「黃帝時鳳凰棲帝梧桐，食帝竹實]
上面谈过，梧桐扶桑相似,同是神树,所以能引来凤凰。[琴書」上說：「伏羲削桐為琴」. 桓譚《新論．琴道》說「昔神農繼伏羲王天下，梧桐作琴; 」三国时故事，蔡邕救出火中一块桐木制做了焦尾之琴；神树之木做琴才能奏圣乐。
禹三过家门，生子不顾，通常看作自我牺牲，这其实误解了古代社会；母系社会中子女由母族抚养，夫既无权利也无责任；禹化熊挖山泥，妻羞愧化石，裂开生子故事，是禹生于熊图腾族，加入妻族，再带子离开；这有些违反母系社会的惯例，已有向父系社会过渡的迹象。
《吕氏春秋·慎大览》：“禹之裸国，裸入衣出。”又《战国策·赵策》：“禹祖入裸国。” 这里用以说明入乡随俗的必要。但这也是误会：古俗有生殖崇拜，禹裸身参加涂山族仪式，获得公主喜爱，得到领导地位.纣王有酒池肉林，男女裸身追逐说法，也是后人误会了商人的生殖崇拜仪式；周人比较务实，不大了解商人楚人的浪漫风气
传说有尧让位许由，许由洗耳的故事；尚书又有尧让位四岳，四岳荐舜故事；这两件事其实是一件；许氏是姜姓一分支，四岳（共工孙）也是姜姓，其实是同一人
儒家学者常把尧舜传贤不传子讲得很理想化，但这又是误解了古代社会；母系社会，财产地位由母传女，男人只能由“嫁”女人得到；尧的领导地位得于其妻女皇，传给女儿，所以一选定舜，马上要他娶女儿娥皇女英 – 姐妹同嫁一夫，以后没有两个女婿争遗产的问题.媵妻制度周朝还是常用的
禹治水得极高威望，不是女婿也能继位，但舜还是有心提拔益，选他做女婿，准备禹过后继位，不过禹子启靠父亲威名成功推翻了这个计划，开启父传子制度；
黄帝"乃命少昊清司马鸟师,以正五帝之官",就是派他的儿子青阳到东夷族去做驸马当领导.“东海之外大壑，少昊之国。少吴孺帝颛顼于此，弃其琴瑟",说颛顼在少昊族长大,后来“嫁”去做北方之帝;"弃其琴瑟",大概是说有不同方式做生殖崇拜,不再用桐木琴了.
搜神记卷十六有：
昔颛顼氏有三子，死而为疫鬼：一居江水，为疟鬼；一居若水，为魍魉鬼；一居人宫室，善惊人小儿，为小鬼。于是正岁，命方相氏帅肆傩以驱疫鬼。似乎说颛顼派他的儿子去各地做领导，但他们很不得人心。颛顼同共工争帝位，共工撞不周山令天下大乱，似由此而起。
犹太人旧约圣经，保存很多远古传说同我国相合：
亚当夏娃原罪是否即伏羲女娲乱伦? 伏羲女娲蛇身,夏娃同蛇讲话,可见同是蛇图腾；伏羲女娲是兄妹，夏娃由亚当肋骨变出，所以都是同出一体
罗德妻回头看天火烧城,身变盐柱,是否同伊尹母亲回头看洪水身变空桑?
神农母安登，舜母握登是否即亚当(原为女族主,后因由母系社会进化成父系社会, 即由拜女娲变成拜伏羲,女变男.天问有：“登立为帝，孰道尚之？女娲有体，孰制匠之？” 已将安登同女娲对比。)
诺亚（noah)同女娲(nuwa）音近，同有洪水不死事；女娲挥藤泥水滴化人，是否同希腊洪水故事夫妇丢石块化人？
西藏有以下金城公主争子故事：
“那囊妃随后赶来，霍地揪住公主怀中的孩子就抢，嚷着：“你这汉女人，孩子是我生的，你争什么？”襁褓中的婴儿哇一声哭了。公主怕扯坏了孩子，松了手”
同所罗门王判争子案相同
传说公元640年藏吐蕃首领松赞干布命大相禄东赞来长安求婚。唐太宗李世民答应嫁宗室女文成公主，但许嫁之前曾五难婚使，其中一“难”是要他将丝线通过九曲珍珠从另一端引出。禄东赞涂蜜于线用蚂蚁牵引过了这一关
但汉朝小说已有
“孔子去卫适陈，途中见二女采桑。子曰：“南枝窈窕北枝长。”答曰：“夫子游陈必绝粮。九曲明珠穿不得，著来问我采桑娘。”夫子至陈，大夫发兵围之，令穿九曲珠乃释其厄。夫子不能，使回赐返问之。其家谬言女外出，以一瓜献二子。子贡曰：“瓜，子在内也。”女乃出语曰：“用蜜涂珠，丝将系蚁。蚁将系丝，如不肯过，用烟熏之”
妙的是希腊神话有同类故事，主角是大匠daedalus引线穿海螺；可见故事非常古老；另有禄东赞喝醉，用预先准备好的绳子引路回家，是希腊提修士杀牛怪后出迷宫故事另一型
daedalus又有同子 icarus用腊做翅膀飞走逃命，但icarus飞太高太近太阳，所以翅膀熔化掉进海里淹死；这其实同夸夫追日，太近干死，是同一故事。由各故事可见东西方先民关系密切
西藏王统记有这一段
“王复变化化身，筑墙四昼夜，木工六昼夜，盖顶两昼夜，共七昼夜，即将绕萨下殿，全部修造完毕。又于四门画坛城图，令喇嘛等喜悦。殿柱画金刚撅形，令咒师喜悦。四角画万字（卍）纹，令苯教徒喜悦，又画网格纹，令藏民喜悦”
网格纹常见于我国新石器时代陶器玉器，同农业土葬养猪相连；万字纹来自西亚印欧游牧民族，时代较迟因牛羊马比猪难驯养，印欧人信火葬；藏民应是新旧先民东西混合而成；华字繁体有几个方格，也可能是由网格纹衍出；西亚陶器也有过网格纹。
西藏古制度，王子一成年，老王就得退位消失:
"天之子作人間之王，後又為人們目睹直接返回天宮……以上諸王大致相同，王子能騎馬時父王即逝歸天界"
这其实是一种杀老王祭天，让新王登基的宗教仪式；华夏族有同样历史：
“天上派一黄龙来接黄帝升天，老百姓舍不得放他走，就拽着他的衣服靴子和宝剑不放，结果天命难违，黄帝还是驾着龙升天去了“
《山海经·海内经》“鲧死，三岁不腐，剖之以吴刀，化为黄龙”。《初学记》： “大副之吴刀，是用出禹”。
“禹之为水，以身解于阳盱之河”“ 阳盱请而洪灾息”
“共工氏作乱，帝命重黎杀而不尽。帝以庚寅日杀重黎，以其弟吴回代重黎，复居火正为祝融”
“炎旱七年. 汤祷桑林. 祈福于天. 翦发离爪. 自以为牲”
即是说：族主开始老或能力不足时就得死，让给年轻有力的新王； 《高丽好大王碑》。永乐□位，因遣黄龙来下迎王，王于忽本东冈黄龙负升天。欧洲有同样的杀王故事，在“金枝”一书中有详述。逢蒙杀羿也是类似。
《山海经》载：“夏后開上三嬪于天，得《九辨》與《九歌》以下”；“大乐（即天穆）之野，夏后启于此舞《九代》。”
《九韶》《九辨>《九歌>《九代》为同一祭天乐舞;上三嬪于天,似乎有人殉的意思；开（即启）似乎自己有上天再“下”
唐李商隐诗. “上帝钧天会众灵，昔人因梦到青冥。 伶伦吹裂孤生竹，却为知音不得听” ; 源自《史记》：“赵简子疾，五日不知人。居二日半。简子寤，语大夫曰：‘我之帝所甚乐，与百神游于钧天，广乐九奏万舞。’”秦穆公也有“游天府，闻钧天之乐，七日而苏。”
为什么有那么多昏迷几天梦见上天听音乐的事? 再看山海经又有:
“有鱼偏枯，名曰鱼妇。颛顼死即复苏。风道北来，天及大水泉，蛇乃化为鱼，是为鱼妇。颛顼死即复苏。”
昏死上天然后复苏,似乎是一宗教仪式,可能由杀老王祭天让新王登基仪式衍出;老王不想死所以复苏做自己的继承人。大水泉蛇化鱼，似是讲崇蛇族避洪水同鱼族融合.《淮南子坠形训》称："后稷垄在建木西，其人死复苏，其半鱼在其间。”又是同类事。
希腊同中国都有盗火的故事：
“商伯本是天上火神，他将天火的火种藏在蒿绳之中，偷偷送至人间；天帝乃怒发洪水，欲以淹没人间火种，并惩罚商伯；商伯在众人帮助下建成高台，自己一日在高台上护守火种；待洪水退去，民众发现商伯已饿死，而火种犹存；后人遂名此土台为火神台，而附近一带则称之为商丘”
又有寒食故事，通常误为介子推事，其实起于上天取火
“春城无处不飞花， 寒食东风御柳斜。日暮汉宫传蜡烛， 轻烟散入五侯家”
寒食一天，各家不得生火，需等日暮后由宫中传出“天火”，方可再生火，这又同颛顼分天地有关：颛顼天族有神火拜天，他族不准自有天火，要自天族那里取得，其实也是臣服之意；分天地的工作由火正重黎负责，因为是分天火地火。
商伯即閼伯：
“昔高辛氏有二子、伯曰閼伯、季曰實沈、居于曠林、不相能也、日尋干戈、以相征討。后帝不臧、遷閼伯于商丘、主辰。商人是因、故辰爲商星。遷實沈于大夏、主參、唐人是因、以服事夏?商。其季世曰唐叔虞”
纳西族东巴经有黑白大战故事，讲董沈二族，董即重即重黎，为高辛氏火正，沈即实沈，所以即高辛二子不和事;尧族有陶唐之名,继承人舜称有虞氏,同唐叔虞又有关, 大夏在晋南陶寺遗迹一带,也符合;但又有尧姓伊出自有莘氏的说法;总之很混乱
自古称普通百姓为黎民，源自蚩尤九黎族，又称苗民。苗族有故事，黄龙公，赤龙公，黄龙公的妹妹垂耳妖婆和雷公之子雷老五攻苗民杀格蚩尤老，与汉文古籍关于涿鹿之战的记载基本一致。“蚩尤作兵伐黄帝，黄帝使应龙攻之冀州之野。应龙畜水。蚩尤请风伯雨师，纵大风雨。黄帝乃下天女曰魃，雨止，遂杀蚩尤”。
苗和黎都同农业有关，他们是神农氏留在中原的后代；黄帝族同炎帝族也是，但早时顺黄河渭河西迁，一部分进入山区牧羊，成为羌人；一部分在山谷以农为主，成为氐人；姜姓炎帝族姬性黄帝族由此出，东向回中原；传到颛顼分天地，九黎之一拜天，其余八族由火正重黎带领，只能拜地，即是祝融八族；共工氏不服，重黎攻之不利被杀，天下大乱，形成共工撞倒天柱不周山故事，祝融八族向南逃亡，后成为楚人苗人等；北方后来有尧舜禹收拾残局，重建部落连盟
神农氏起初应是神龙氏，由人面蛇身伏羲女娲氏发展出来。古代（现在还有）多崇蛇族，其中有些看到春夏发生龙卷风，像神蛇冬眠醒来升空，尾巴扫地极大威力，头在云中引起风雨雷电，所以产生龙的概念，一开头时，查海，赵宝沟，翁牛特旗出土的龙都是没有脚的，后来才加了麟身，鹿角，鱼尾，鸟爪等附件
汉人从哪里来？基因研究显示全世界人口都源自非洲；从非洲来中国有三条路；打鱼为生的沿海经印度东南亚来东岸，打猎为生的跟兽群由西伯利亚来东北，游牧为生的赶着畜群，由山谷到山谷，绿洲到绿洲，经河西走廊来西北，不过这难度较大，是较后的事
西北，东北和海边都有七八千年前的遗址；还有更老更原始的吗？应该是有的，但一万多年前气候转暖冰川融化海水升高，海边的旧遗址淹没了；最早的先民应是海路来的，再沿海向北，顺黄河长江向西迁移；向北的会遇见打猎族，向西的遇见游牧族，形成更多种的文化
伏羲女娲传说，既同西亚传说相连，应是先民未来华前有的，两蛇交尾站立，应是眼镜蛇，可能在印度；东来者形成汉人，西去者形成犹太人同其他semite人；西亚无眼镜蛇，所以有上帝惩罚蛇令他爬地不再站立的说法；后羿常娥传说较近打猎族生活方式，可能经东北再到东夷地区；欧洲也有月神兔子故事，复活节有兔子，蛋等生殖崇拜习俗，同我国月神故事有些关联；炎黄故事，中国才有
神话中有历史我们只能见到一麟半爪。把历史真实地重新恢复，要靠科学的思维，结合考古，史料和传说，找出一个附合当时客观情境和古人生活方式的解释。很多工作有待努力。 

    一、原始
    中国各地找到好些原始人遗迹，如北京人、原谋人、蓝田人等，不过只是些零星的骨齿化石和石器工具，无法用文化演变或基因遗传来判断他们是否现代中国人的祖先。世界各地很多原始人种没有后代，基因测试基本肯定了全世界人都来自5-6万年前离开非洲的一小群人，不久后一部分已经到达了澳大利亚，但来中国似乎是比较迟的事。在中国西北，东北和东南地区可以找到的遗迹都是7-8千年前的；甘肃大地湾遗迹出了丰富的彩陶，东北兴隆洼查海出了大型石塑龙和玉器，浙江河姆渡出了大批日常生活的资料如食物房屋等。是不是有更老的遗迹，因为一万多年前开始冰川融化，被淹没在东海黄海浅水地带，现在还无法确定。这些新石器时代早期文化同较后的西北仰韶文化，东北的红山文化，山东的大汶口文化和江苏浙江的良渚文化的详细关联和演变过程也还在研究中。
    比较起来7-8千年前中东的新石器文化在农业和建筑是比中国走早了一步，而4500前的埃及的金字塔在规模和精确度上都远超差不多时候的红山和良渚墓葬。新石器时代中国比全世界都先进的地方是用玉做了宗教礼器和权力财富的象征。这玉文化后世延续下去开出了高度发展的用玉雕玉艺术，到现在还是领先世界的。
    自80年代后中国各地有大量考古发现，大大增加了我们对石器时代生活方式的认识，但对远古历史认识帮助反而不很大，因为这些信息同民间传说和历史文献（即后来得到官方纪录的远古传说）配合不起来。5千年前的遗迹同黄帝炎帝，更早的遗迹同伏羲女娲，甚至4千年前的二里头文化同夏朝，都无法建立起明确的关联。这些考古发现在历史研究上的主要功能，是让我们看到和某时代的科技水平，生活方式和宗教信仰有关的一些信息，从而对传说中的一些含糊细节增加了解和判断的能力。
    传说汉人的祖先是伏羲女娲；周朝的史书中是没有伏羲女娲炎帝的，偶然提到黄帝，如国语中展禽“有虞氏禘黄帝而祖颛顼，郊尧而宗舜；夏后氏禘黄帝而祖颛顼，郊鲧而宗禹；商人禘舜而祖契，郊冥而宗汤；周人禘喾而郊稷，祖文王而宗武王”，已经是较后的作品了。但这三位在山海经、楚辞中出现，表示他们是南方民族的传说，虽然这些民族当初可能是由北方迁移过去的。

    二、伏羲女娲
    中国北方有很多女娲庙，女娲墓也有好几个；伏羲的少些，但加起来也很多。南方较少这类遗址但南北都有各种有关他们的传说，如：1、创世故事，即女娲用黄土造人；2、洪水故事，即兄妹成婚再造人类；3、报应遵神故事, 即兄妹因某善事得洪水预警，但又因忽略某神令而受难。汉代的壁画中两人都是蛇身，交尾站立，通常一人持圆规一人持三角尺，即规矩，也有持日月或金鸟玉兔（或蟾蜍）代表天地阴阳。规划圆距画方即天圆地方之意。
    同圣经中亚当夏娃故事比较可看到以下同点:
    1、崇蛇：夏娃能同蛇讲话，听了蛇的话才懂得性交；这就是以蛇为主角的生殖崇拜，与伏羲女娲蛇身交尾意义相同。
    2、同体：夏娃用亚当肋骨做成，和伏羲女娲原是兄妹同意义。
    3、原罪：兄妹成婚有罪（圣经禁欲思想其实同远古文化不合；远古生殖崇拜把性交作为人口兴旺农业丰收的重要仪式一部分，所以原罪另有意义）。
    4、洪水：洪水后再造人类的诺亚，功用和读音都同女娲十分相近；希腊洪水故事中抛石头块造人同女娲用藤条挥泥水造人很像。
    5、遵神：天火焚城故事中罗德妻回头看火化成盐柱就是不遵神命遭罚的另一种；中国另有伊尹母得神命逃离洪水回头看变空桑的故事，也是另一变型。
    6、另外上规下矩的图形在欧洲常有出现，包括共济会freemason的会徽。
    这些都显示伏羲女娲故事内容是东西共同的，发源在先民到达中国以前；蛇身站立，应该是眼镜蛇，所以地点很可能是印度，该族人后来向东西两方迁移，成为汉人和犹太人。犹太人后来到了没有眼镜蛇的地方，才发明了蛇给神诅咒一生爬地的说法，也就证明了他们朦胧回忆中，蛇以前能不爬地。
    汉人西来的另一批证据是红山玉猪龙甘肃西坪出土陶瓶上人面鱼都是尾交首上，同西亚uroboros自吞尾蛇有同样意义，即有无（首尾）相生循环不息，伏羲轩辕都说是尾交首上。

    三、神农
    《系辞》说“庖羲氏没，神农氏作。”神农氏是古先民发展的一个新阶段，由渔猎经济进化到生活比较稳定的农业经济。陈即淮阳有称号是神农之墟，但神农传说在黄河南北都流传，而西方的羌人也自称神农后代。可见神农族不但周围扩散耕种各地的农田，还有部分进入山区以牧羊为生因此有了羌-姜这个族名。楚国地区又有很多炎帝传说，同神农既有共同点又有分歧，应该是神农族部分在比较靠南的地区长时间演变出来的。
    中国新石器农业社会同其他地区农业社会一个大不同点是养蚕；这在神农传说中不那么明显，但在炎帝传说中一再有帝女桑等故事，且有各个不同版本：女娃在东海淹死，化为精卫鸟含石填海，一个简单的解释是神农氏一子族遭到海啸，多数人丧生，生存者投奔一崇鸟族，投石入海纪念死者，但是需要跟一串好象有点关系的故事一起看：1、伏羲之女淹死化为洛神；2、炎帝女瑶姬早逝化为相思女神（并在云梦会楚王）；3、炎帝女得道，在帝女桑上化白鹤；4、“马头娘故事”某大人女儿失踪化蚕；5、“紫姑故事”高辛女早逝成蚕神；6、“盘觚故事”皇后耳中虫化龙狗娶高辛女一起出走；7、汉蚕神称宛觚妇人寓氏公主；8、“西亚故事”火鸟（即凤凰）在生命树上重生——西亚生命树是棕榈，中国生命树是桑。
    古代帝女是生殖女神，也是丝神、蚕神、桑神，所以这些故事同相思，重生牵连在一起，而公主早死或出走又同重生，化神扯在一起，已经很难弄清楚故事的真面目了。
    神农族的原名很可能是神龙，而崇龙的概念出自崇蛇。这同东夷崇鸟和百越崇蛟龙显然不同。濮阳西水坡和湖北黄梅挖锯的墓葬都找到5-6千年前的石塑龙，所以判断当时神农族人分布在中原一带，问题不大。山东的大汶口文化，东北的红山文化和江苏浙江一带的遗迹就不那么容易判定了。仰韶先民是从东方西迁或来自甘肃也不那么容易说。丝绸、玉器、陶鼎似乎是由东向西传播的，而彩陶艺术是西向东来的。
    夷是大弓，而制造箭要用于毛，所以东夷族必然同鸟有关。《山海经·海内经》曰：“伯夷父生西岳，西岳生先龙，先龙生氐羌乞姓。”这位伯夷父却是崇龙族人。良渚文化神人带羽冠，龙山文化玉器多鸟纹，都像是崇鸟的，但他们比神农时代迟了很多。红山也出土玉鸟，但更多是猪龙，这同传说里的河伯冯夷-丰豨（河伯是龙、丰豨是猪，所以是猪龙）有什么关系，也是难说的。住山东西部的蚩尤九黎族，又称苗（庄稼）人，也应该是崇龙（蚩字从虫字即蛇）的农业族（因此也崇牛）。

    四、黄帝
    史记说炎黄是兄弟族，出自少典氏和有蹻氏，住在姬水姜水因而以此为姓。为了弄清这些家谱地理做研究的人很多，不过到头来还是一笔糊涂账。比较可靠的故事是黄帝同养蚕族结盟，因为“黄帝杀蚩尤，蚕神献丝”，黄帝妻螺祖开创养蚕，黄帝同蜀山氏通婚（蜀字下有虫字上有蚕型），都是同一意思。而当时养蚕族是在黄河流域的，四川有“教民养蚕”的蚕丛氏是后来的事，这还得到三星堆商代文物的目纵青铜像旁证。所以黄帝蚩尤大战也只可能是在黄河边发生的事。苗族现在还有回忆蚩尤死后苗人渡过浑水河向南逃亡的故事。郑有“有熊氏之墟”的称呼，似乎可信。后来的姬姓周人和姜族由黄河上游东向中原；更后来的羌人氐人也来自西部地区（可能偏南在青海甘肃和四川交界地区）。而黄土造人故事显示姬姓黄帝族起初是在黄土高原一带的。
    当时处置战败族有两个方法:小的族，把有战斗力的男子杀了，把女人和小孩留作奴棣；大的族，派自己的儿子，或亲自出动，做那族的女婿领导他们。所以黄帝派了儿子青杨，即少昊，去管理九黎族。国语说黄帝有25子12姓，正是因为他在12个不同族生了儿子，包括跟着他到处迁移的妻子生的。螺祖半途死去，模母做葬礼的驱鬼方相，似乎也是个真实的故事。那时还没有秦的中央集权或周的封建礼仪，各族基本上是自治的，因为当时还不会养马，通讯不便，就算是自己的儿子管理某某族，也是鞭长莫及，无法经常命令指导，最多是偶然巡行一次看看情况。<易经·系辞>说“黄帝尧舜垂衣裳而天下治”，好像很有智慧，其实是逼不得以只能这样宽松。

    五、颛顼
    少昊居住的地方叫空桑（穷桑），即无桑之地；他的儿子颛顼在空桑长大，后来去了黄河北岸的濮阳做驸马，领导九黎族其中之一，他的儿子重（即董）后来回去空桑领导留在那里的八个黎族，所以又叫重黎。他是“天帝”的火正，负责保管火种，每年在适合的时机拿出来让各族放火烧掉草木以便开始耕种；挑选时候需要观察星象预知季节，所以火正要有天文历法知识。这些知识以前只是少数“天族”人士才有的，其他人要依靠他们。西方和中国都有上天取火的传说，即是族民对远古习俗的朦胧回忆。火正重黎又称为祝融，领导的八个黎族称为祝融八族。
    颛顼分天地，是一个富有政治含义的宗教改革：只有他自己领导的天族可以有拜天神火，其余族只能拜地，而且必须每年一次上天取火，那天就是寒食节，各族必须熄火，到晚上天火传到才能重新生火。这是一种向颛顼族臣服的表示。但是共工氏不服抗命，负责分天火地火的火正重黎带领祝融八族征讨，但共工氏善用水利工程保护地盘，因此引起洪（共）水。重黎作战不利被处决，天下大乱。祝融八族向南逃亡，分散在汉水一带的后来成为楚人；迁去长江南边的后来成为苗族。
    大约四千年前良渚文化在江浙地区消失，而同时广东石峡文化出现相似良渚的玉器，而山东龙山有神面鸟纹的玉圭也出现，合理的假释是近海地区有大规模的洪水先民被逼迁移。这跟共工氏用水利工程作防御，和伏羲女娲遭洪水应该是三件不同的事。可能为了躲避洪水或土地耕种多年后失去肥沃，共工族自己也向西迁移，在太行山一带成为四岳族；天帝族一部分也去了山西即是陶唐氏尧族，东方另一个向西迁移的舜族，和西方迁来的一个禹族，三族联盟，合作起来解决了各地的洪水问题，也因此获得了各族的臣服。大一统的概念由此产生，但真正实现还要很长久的过程。

    六、大国商周
    由四千年前到三千年前夏商周三代，由石器技术发展到青铜技术，但统治阶级的替代并不改变多数人民基本的桑农文化；这在诗经里表现的很清楚。不但有很多桑农的诗，还有很多男女恋爱，生殖崇拜的内容”《周礼 地官》有：“仲春之月，令会男女，于是时也，奔走不禁。”也就是说极古老的生殖崇拜男女野合的习俗，周朝还很普通，不过不是每一国都有，《左传》庄公如齐观社，属非礼之举，曹刿用“君举必书”等话反对，就是因为本国没有这种仪式，庄公要特地跑去齐国看，好像失了一国之主的身份；周人说商纣王有酒池肉林，男女裸体追述，其实就是这种桑林拜社的求子仪式，是在商朝延续的神农族习俗。
    大国殷商，赶牛出身，很早学会了养马、冶铜，架着战车由北方来，战无不胜，安阳城的宏大宫殿坟墓都是商人建的，有各种青铜重器、玉雕；但有一日他们失去了天命，商王妹夫的儿子周武王，因为他父亲文王功高震主，被商王监禁死在狱中（也可能是处死），起兵复仇，轻轻易易打败了大十倍的商军；周人得胜后自己也有点莫名其妙，好在周王的弟弟周公有治国之才，制作了一套方案；先把商族臣民集中在伊水洛水之间叫他们建了一座新城洛阳，再分配土地给他们耕种，城内驻了重兵，放了由商那里缴获的九鼎，把几位亲属分封在周围齐，鲁，卫，郑各地监视商的原住民，再把商王的哥哥封在宋地守着商的祖庙，大家都有面子，能平平安安过过日子。
    周公又制作了一套周礼让士官诸侯遵守，包括周王在内；必须按时朝见，巡行，表现上下尊卑，每国都要全国人一起祭祖，表现团结一致，而且必须有祖先合礼继存人主持，才能令祖先满意，所以这些都是有维持统治的目的在内；周王诸侯都要按时举行籍 田礼表示尊重农业，射礼尊军人，乡饮尊老，明堂尊文士等等；各国诸侯士官都把子弟送来都城文史馆学习周礼，回去以尊礼的方式治国；商人只要求各族按时进贡 珍宝美女，别的不管，周人真的有全国的政府。但结果这一套也垮了，周王诸侯都做不到尽礼，尤其是继位之礼；极常见的是年轻的妃子挖空心思要让自己的儿子继位取代已定的太子，引起兄弟争斗；有时也因其他因素，如鲁世家：
    武公九年春，武公与长子括，少子戏，西朝周宣王。宣王爱戏，欲立戏为鲁太子。周之樊仲山父谏，宣王弗听，卒立戏为鲁太子。夏，武公归而卒，戏立，是为懿公。懿公九年，懿公兄括之子伯御与鲁人攻弒懿公，而立伯御为君。伯御即位十一年，周宣王伐鲁，杀其君伯御。乃立称于夷宫，是为孝公。自是后，诸侯多畔王命。似乎是武公原有传戏之意，带两人朝宣王希望得到同意，结果引起双方受害；更后来就是因为幽王废太子，太子得到外公申候和犬戎兴兵支持，结果周廷失去了西方的土地，到了孔子的时代周王能够命令的只是洛阳城而已。
    周代原有不少各地史料，但秦焚各国史书,又令民间不得私藏经史，引至史料缺乏，但诸子百家书籍得以保存，其中传说，历史和自己编的故事混杂。汉令民间献书，堆积宫中。司马迁用宫中藏书作材料编写史记，去除三皇和更早神怪故事，由五帝起头。但常把讲人的故事当作历史。其中很多故事，是纵横家用来做辩论或娱乐君王的材料，或哲学家的寓言，以内容刺激纵听为上，多不可靠。几件周朝的大事的记录都需要谨慎分析
    历史总归是由胜利者写的；胜利后的宣传话，说商纣王嗜酒，听妇人言，淫祭，无故处死诸侯，杀进言忠臣，酒池肉林，开妇人腹看婴儿，因老人不怕涉冷水砍他腿看什么缘故，等等，有多少真多少水分，是不容易知道的；也有些故事产生，是儒家作者有意无意把某些人说得太崇高，比方泰伯让位：长子太伯、虞仲知古公欲立季历以传昌，乃二人亡如荆蛮，文身断发，以让季历。
    真的有先见之明，文王刚出世就看到他有天命吗？但具体看来，太王古公带周族由西北来到渭河下游，向商臣服，季历娶商贵族女大任，地位提高，商王可能还用了些说服，要自己的亲族女婿继位，太伯、虞仲并无选择，谈不上高德谦让。季历起初得商王信任，得到方伯征讨职权，子文王还做了商王女婿（公主无子；武王出自有莘氏妃子）但功高震主，被文丁借故处死；又有武乙射天，被雷震死故事，但正好发生在渭河一带，令人怀疑是征周兵败战死；又有纣杀伯邑考，文王被囚得释故事，但武王征商载文王神主，又有“父死不葬“之讥，似乎文王死于非命，武王出兵报仇。这件事在周史中含含糊糊，反而因为伯夷叔齐故事保留痕迹。
    另一件大事是周厉王被国人驱逐，有一段共和时代，但共和的意义有周公召、公共同执政，或是共伯和执政，两种版本。而共伯和到底是谁也不很清楚，郭沫若考证找到青铜器上有名字的师马共、伯和父等人，是否就是共伯和，同史记卫世家中卫武公之兄共伯和，或卫武公自己，有什么关系，也无法肯定；这件事甚至同赵氏孤儿的故事张冠李戴；国人愤而起义，攻袭厉王，厉王逃奔到彘(今山西霍县)。太子静藏在召穆公家，被国人包围，召公以自己之子代替，太子才得免难。赵氏孤儿原状在左传可见：
    晉趙嬰通于趙莊姬......晉趙莊姬為趙嬰之亡故，譖之于晉侯，曰：“原、屏將為亂。”欒、郤為徵。六月，晉討趙同、趙括。武從姬氏畜于公宮。以其田與祁奚。韓厥言於晉侯曰：“成季之勛，宣孟之忠，而無後，為善者其懼矣。三代之令王皆數百年保天之祿。夫豈無辟王？賴前哲以免也。周書曰：‘不敢侮鰥寡’，所以明德也。”乃立武，而反其田焉。
    可见赵氏灭门，赵武在宫中受到庄姬保护，并无程婴用自己的儿子替死，保存上司继承人之事；但这件事加了周厉王的事比较刺激流传极广：
    又如烽火戏诸侯，幽王死，平王东迁故事有很多漏洞；烽火跟长城都是战国时代秦赵燕三国对抗匈奴开始有的，到秦汉才大规模应用。再看：“杀幽王骊山下。虏襃姒，尽取周赂而去。”
    如果犬戎攻占镐京，为什么幽王死在郦山离京这么远的地方？犬戎是游牧民族，对占领土地，并无多大兴趣。虽然打垮周兵后攻镐，并不想认真攻城，拿了财宝就离开了。所以平王东迁，并不是因为镐京给犬戎占据。再看：
   《左傳.昭公二十六年 》：至於幽王，天不弔周，王昏不若，用愆厥位，攜王奸命。
   《竹书纪年>》：幽王死后，申侯、鲁侯、许文公等共立原太子宜臼于申，虢公翰又另立王子余臣于携...二十一年，晋文侯杀王子余臣于携。
    就是说，平王东迁。是因为镐京由余臣及支持者占据，过了二十年才靠晋出兵解决了二王并立的问题；尚书：“平王锡晋文侯秬鬯、圭瓒，作《文侯之命》”，即褒奖文侯替平王“正名”之大功。周无携地，攜王之称，大概是因为登基时年幼要人抱携，不是因地名；攜王应是在镐京的，即幽王同伯服战死后，镐京的幽王襃姒派拥立襃姒幼子，阻止太子派回京。杀幽王骊山下，是因为太子投奔外公申侯，幽王带兵征申，申侯联合犬戎半路袭击幽王。
    史记又说，平王东迁时，秦襄公率兵护送。平王封襄公为诸侯，并将岐山以西之地赐秦。平王有外公申侯支持，为什么还要在西边很远的秦国出兵护送？再说护送小功，值得赏大片土地的奖励吗？正确的情形是二十一年秦晋联合出兵消灭攜王一派；晋秦两国瓜分了西周土地，东周变成一小国。晋占领的地在渭河北黄河西，即西河之地，晋惠公战败割让与秦，战国初期魏吴起占领，商鞅时秦才夺回。 史记另说秦襄公击退犬戎救周，应该是救了镐京的攜王一派，不会因此得到平王奖励；对平王有功是后来的事。其实周申秦戎四角关系由来已久；史记有：
    非子居犬丘，好馬及畜，善養息之。犬丘人言之周孝王，孝王召使主馬于汧渭之閒，馬大蕃息。孝王欲以為大駱適嗣。申侯之女為大駱妻，生子成為適。申侯乃言孝王曰：“昔我先酈山之女，為戎胥軒妻，生中潏，以親故歸周，保西垂，西垂以其故和睦。今我復與大駱妻，生適子成。申駱重婚，西戎皆服，所以為王。王其圖之。”於是孝王曰：“昔伯翳為舜主，畜多息，故有土，賜姓嬴。今其後世亦為朕息馬，朕其分土為附庸。”邑之秦，使復續嬴氏祀，號曰秦嬴。亦不廢申侯之女子為駱適者，以和西戎。
    《诗经·大雅·崧高》云：“维申及甫，维周之翰，……王命申伯，式是南邦。……往迹王舅，南土是保。”
    纪念周宣王封舅父申侯在南阳事。厉王出奔后宣王复位，应得到舅父帮助。周申世为姻亲，孝王时申侯同外孙（大骆子）和西戎亲善，维持边境和平，伺此有些不卖周王帐的趋向；而周孝王则有意培植秦非子一派作为平衡。所以周申关系多少有一些紧张因素。等幽王废申后太子，就不可收拾了东周初期，周王自己属下的资源虽然有限，王室威望尚在，可以命令诸侯动用各国兵力出征；但是因为搞坏了同东迁后有力支持者郑的关系，弄到号令不行，这一串事件左传讲得很清楚。
    总之到孔子时代周王朝和周礼都已经名存实亡，各国内部统治和国际关系已经建立起另一套机制

Round Heaven Square Earth

Author: Chung Kwong Yuen

1. Heaven-Earth, Yin-Yang

Empty is the sky, Endless is the earth;
When winds blow grass low, look for the herd
- Mongolian folk song

Round heaven square earth is an ancient and long lasting concept inChina. A few years ago, when the Shanghai Museum designed a new building, it used a round heaven, square earth structure.
Earth is round, and the so called blue sky is only blue light being deflected downwards when sunlight passes the upper atmosphere, letting us see the colour blue in the space above; there is no actual existence of a blue sky. From the scientific point of view, there is neither round heaven nor square earth, just a poetic, philosophical expression, even a kind of superstition.
But even superstitions have good causes. If a person stands on an open plain and looks around, he would see the horizon in all directions at the same distance, forming a circle, while the blue sky covers this circle, high in the middle and low at the edge like a hemisphere; on the other hand, the ground one sees is obviously flat, spreading out in all four directions in straight lines, and any figure formed by straight lines on four sides must be square.

The Chinese also had the concept of yin and yang at an early age. The Book of Change has the passage The Ultimate brings about two Aspects; the two Aspects bring about four Appearances; the four Appearances bring about the eight Representations , expressing the act of classifying objects and events. While this was a Zhou Dynasty book, its contents often refer back to ideas already existing in the Neolithic age. Things that divide into two aspects include heaven and earth, day and night, man and woman, black and white From a philosophical point of view, these are all just manifestations of the same abstract concept of yin and yang and are all equivalent in nature.

Having the opposites of yin and yang allows a dynamic world to arise, such as the interchange of day and night producing the flow of time, and sexual union between man and woman producing the continuation of human race Yin and yang are co-existent, mutually enhancing yet mutually limiting; yin cannot exist without yang and yang cannot exist without yin, since each needs the other to define it; there is yin in yang and yang in yin, as in the Ultimate (Taiji) diagram, with a white dot inside the black and a black dot inside the white.

The Taiji diagram is a symbol of the Taoists. Like the Buddhist swastika ( , also the symbol of the Animist cult of Tibet and the tribal sign of the ancient Qiangs), it was derived from a very old shaman diagram of two entangled snakes. The black dot in white and white dot in black were originally the eyes of the two snakes. Snakes tangled together in order to have sex, and ancient snake-worshipping tribes used the diagram as the symbol of fertility and reproduction, which then became identified with the productivity of farming, fishing and hunting, such that the figure took on the meaning of the basic elements of existence of the snake worshippers.

The Chinese Hua-Xia tribe was snake worshipping, such that its ancestral divinities, Fuxi, Nuwa and Yellow Emperor, were all human headed snakes. The ancient Hebrews also worshiped the snake: Eve could converse with the serpent, before she learnt to have sex with Adam, which was just a snake-centered fertility ritual. Ancient Egypt and many other regions also had the practice of snake worship. Wall paintings showing Fuxi and Nuwa with entangled tails were numerous in Han Dynasty tombs, but have also been found in Xinjiang indicating that in historical times those localities had similar rites.

In such diagrams Fuxi-Nuwa sometimes held up the sun and the moon, or a golden bird (representing the sun) and a jade hare (for moon, sometimes toad instead of hare), but more commonly they had a compass and triangle (gui-ju), which actually represented heaven and earth: the compass is used to draw the round and triangle to draw the square, in other words, round heaven and square earth. Therefore, Fuxi and Nuwa represented heaven-earth, male-female, as well as other yin-yang concepts.

In a picture above is a compass from above crosses with a triangle below, representing the joining of heave with earth as well as sex between man and woman. Strangely, such compass-triangle diagrams have not been seen in China, but appear frequently in Europe, such as in Greek myths (see illustration above from a Greek mythology book), witchcraft, even as the symbols of an international organization. Is this just coincidence? Or is there some fundamental reason for this?

2. Freemasons

My Father s house has many mansions Jesus Christ

In the West there is an international organization called the Freemasons, whose origin was the craftsmen s guilds of medieval European towns. Today s Freemasons are more likely to be in some other lines of work, especially vocations in which group cohesion is particularly important, such as policemen, with Masons membership making it easier to maintain mutual support and advancement with fellow members. The organization has various secret rites and worship practices, not to be divulged to outsiders, often giving rise to rumours that Masons are a cult that engages in witchcraft. Is there any solid information? The diagram on the previous page is from their own literature. The presence of the compass and triangle is of course familiar to craftsmen, but it happens to fit the legend of Fuxi-Nuwa. Mere coincidence? The earlier diagram had two figures which were symbols taken from material for European witchcraft. One has the compass and triangle, and the other is similar overall but has instead the Jewish Star of David, six pointed like the compass-triangle combination.

In short, compass-triangle not only appears in Chinese legend, Greek mythology, Freemason tradition and European witchcraft, but also has some connection to the ancient Hebrews; its presence is not coincidental, but systematic. (In each figure there is a serpent swallowing its own tail surrounding the six-point object, also a frequently seen item in European witchcraft; this will be further discussed below.)

Freemasons arose from the Knights Templar of the Crusades, who werededicated to the defense of the Jerusalem Temple, where they discovered ancient documents describing worship practices of the old Jewish tribes. On the basis of these, they formulated some unusual rites to be held in the Temple, which even then aroused suspicion among the other crusading groups, but these were tolerated in the interest of solidarity against immediate enemies. After the failure of the Crusades, the Templars brought the practices back to Europe where they encountered serious opposition, eventually leading to their banning by the French court. Under some pressure, the Pope dissolved the Knights Templar groups, confiscated their properties, and agreed to the execution of some of the leaders. A number of members found refuge in Scotland, where they defused into the local craft organizations, gradually expanding their presence into an international one.

We see from the foregoing that the Freemasons preserved some very ancient worship practices and symbols, and these were shared between East and West. However, as each locality underwent centuries of belief system changes, the old practices fell into disuse and were forgotten, leaving just minor bits, often too fragmentary to make sense of and to be taken seriously.

3.The Mesh

The gods mesh is loose, but it is everywhere Chinese proverb

In the diagram of the Masonic hall we can see a checkerboard floor, a common enough floor decoration, but again this happens to coincide with ancient Chinese artifacts, namely the mesh pattern frequently seen on Neolithic pottery and jade. While the major presence of such pottery was in the Yangshao sites of Gansu and Shanxi, it is common enough in other regions, and appears to have been connected to agriculture, the practice of burial after death, and pig raising; the old ideogram for Hua (one name for the Chinese people) contains several squares, possibly due to its being derived from the mesh pattern. Also, the Jerusalem Cross used by the Crusaders may have had the same mesh origin.

In comparison, the swastika came from the Indo-European nomads of west Asia, later in age because it was more difficult to domesticate cattle, goats and horses compared to pigs. Indo-Europeans practised cremation, and used little pottery which is difficult to move around and easily broken, keeping their things more often in sheepskin or woven wool sacks. The origin of the mesh pattern might have been fish scales, snake skin or fishing nets; the ancient texts claim that Fuxi invented the fishing net, so that the mesh pattern may have been his personal sign.

The wide spread of the mesh pattern was shown by the following passage from the Record of the Kings Reigns of Tibet: The King furthertransformed into a new Presence, and soon completed the construction of all of the Rosha Hall. He had drawn on the four doors the figure of the stupa, to please the lamas; on the hall pillars the shape of the Rod, to please the chanter monks; on the four corners the swastika, to please the animists; and also the mesh pattern, to please the Tibetans. While the books was supposedly describing events during Tang times, it was mentioning ancient folk practices. The Tibetans and the ancient Qiangs had some characteristics of the Indo-Europeans as well as the Easterners, and appear to have been the product of a merging of people from east and west. Also, some jade human figures, uncovered from tombs of the Zhongshan state from the Warring States period, have the mesh pattern on their skirts. Zhongshan was known as White Savages, and appear to be former nomads. The mesh pattern also appears on skirts, sometimes sleeves, of jade dancing girls of the Eastern Zhou period.

The mesh pattern is also connected to dragons. From the 80s onward, a number of Neolithic sites and artifacts were discovered in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province, collectively known as Hongshan Culture. Most notable among the artifacts were the jade objects, in particular jade dragons with pig heads and snake bodies, some with joined head-tail known as pig-dragons or beast-shaped slit rings , some with separated head and tail looking like the English letter c, known as C-dragons. Further, somewhat earlier or later sites and stylistically related artifacts were also discovered in nearby localities like Zhahai,Xinglongwa, Zhaobaogou, Xiajiadian and others.

The mesh pattern is present on the forehead and chin of the C-dragon, on the dragon bodies on a pottery urn from Zhaobaogou, and on a human-faced fish, with tail curled back to touch the head, found on a pottery jar unearthed in a distant site in Xiping, Gansu. Now tail joining head brings us back to the snake swallowing its own tail in the European witchcraft figures we have travelled a full circle.

4. Pig dragons

In my end is the beginning T S Eliot

The tail-swallowing snake of western witchcraft has some resemblance to the human-faced fish of Xiping, but even greater resemblance with the Hongshan pig dragon.Pig dragons may either have the tail joined to the head or separate by asmall gap, but generally the joined ones look more primitive and older, later evolving to the separate type. Tail joining head expresses the idea of have and have not , or begin and end, being the same, in a perpetually evolving cosmos. This is a Taoist concept, but has its origin in ancient shaman practices. The contribution of Laozi and others was about extending the abstract philosophy to apply to society and life, deriving such political ideals as a nihilist/naturalist government.

There is however an ancient pig-dragon story in Chinese legends, related to Chang-e the moon goddess: the archer Hou-yi fell in love with the fairy of Luo River, and shot her husband the River God whose name was Feng-yi, which is actually the same story as Hou-yi killing Feng-xi and capturing his wife Xuan-qi the Dark Lady Feng-yi and Feng-xi are just different pronunciations of the same name. In Quyuan s poem Divine Queries there was a passage concerning Dark Lady murdering Yi: Zhuo marrying the Fair Fox, Lady Xuan co-conspiring; for all Yi s archer skills, he was jointly eaten , which referred to the same event as the story of Chang-e stealing Yi s life-elixir and Feng-meng killing Yi: as Yi found new women, Lady Xuan avenged herself by conspiring with Feng-meng to have him killed.

The River God Feng-yi was a dragon, and Feng-xi was a pig (in some stories known as Feng-zhu); so he was a pig-dragon; Lady Xuan, Chang-e, Fair Fox, Nine-tailed fox were different names used to various stories to refer to the same woman (Zhuo was a Xia Dynasty usurper who killed an earlier usurper called Yi it is not clear whether the two Yi s are the same man.) Hou-yi s tribe worshipped the sun, while Chang-e s tribe would have worshipped the moon, so that she was said to have gone to the moon when she escaped back to her own tribe after murdering Yi. The moon waxes and wanes, showing the ability to return to life after death , hence the moon tribe was said to have the elixir of life. (Other issues relating the to moon tribe or Xuan tribe will be discussed later.)

The idea of the dragon also had many variations. Some of the ancient snake worshipping tribes noted tornadoes occurring in spring and summer, looking to them like a divine serpent waking up from winter hibernation and rising to heaven, with its devastatingly powerful tail on the ground and its head in the clouds where wind, rain, thunder and lightening all occur, thus acquiring the idea of the dragon as the god for water and thunder. The ancient site associated with Shen-nong (Divine Cultivator), the town of Chen (Huai-yang today), has an ideogram that was originally the same as that for lightening, and Shen-nong tribe probably started off as Shen-long or Divine Dragon tribe, evolving from the human-headed, snake-bodied Fuxi-Nuwa tribe. In the beginning the dragons had no legs, as those unearthed in Zhahai, Zhaobaogou and Wengniute County all show, and such attachments as body scales, deer horns, fish tail, bird claws, etc, were added later. An earlier diagram shows the stone assembly dragons of Puyang and Zhahai.

Another type of jade object unearthed in Hongshan in large quantities was the so called curvy cloud. The primitive versions had four arms like the swastika, also presenting the idea of entangled serpents, and the curvy lines resembled the dragon pattern on the Zhaobaogou pottery urn shown earlier but without the mesh patterns. Later, two such objects were joined together into the more complex, large curvy cloud object, whose middle part was then shrunk and peripheral parts expanded to produce the ghost face cloud objects, finally simplifying into a bird-like object. However, joining two simple cloud objects with one upside down starts a different line of evolvement, leading to a completely different final result.

Jade has a special importance in ancient China because it was supposed to be food for the gods and essential offerings during ritual sacrifices, which were led by the tribal chiefs, who therefore needed to decorate themselves with jade hangings. Further, the jade stones great strength allows them to be ground into sharp points and thin blades as weaponry, and jade axes and spears were carried by the tribal chiefs, so that jade objects became the symbols of power and status.

Various fragments in historical records about the Xia and Shang dynasty downfalls mention the acquisition of jade:

Chancellor Yi was aide to Cheng-tang as he conquered King Jie the jade treasures were captured, and Jie was exiled to Nanchao

King Wu picked up Shang s archived jade treasures amounting to fourteen thousand, and jade pendants one hundred eighty thousand

This is because jade represented power, leading the rulers to urgently capture the palace jade collections. Zuozhuan also has Spring of Year 15 Lord Zhu arrived for an audience. Lord Zhu held the jade too high and his expression was lofty; Our Duke stooped to receive the jade and his expression had condescension

The Ancient Book also mentions that Shun, after his succession, met with his lords and governors, handing back the jade objects received from them afterwards. The editor Kong Xida explained the reasons for receiving and returning jade:

The ceremonial (jade) was originally granted by Yao. Receiving and returning, it was as if Shun granted these anew, so that they subordinated themselves to Shun, to officiate the start of a new overlordship.

In short, a whole set of ceremonial rituals were related to jade. When a vassal went to see an overlord, he presented jade to express his subordination, while the superior returning the jade expressed his satisfaction with the subordinate, who was being allowed to retain his position. (This procedure may have originated from visitors putting down weapons upon arrival, retrieving them upon departure.)

5. Silk

Spring breezes never cross Jade Pass Tang Poet Wang Zihuan

The Han dynasty opened the Silk Road to central asia. Silk was the export but what was the import? The fact that the mountain pass at the end is called Yu-men or Jade Pass, showed the importance of Eastern Turkistan jade for the demand in China, and it came from Hetian in the Kunlun Mountains, beginning to be imported in large amounts during Shang Dynasty.

But silk was also of great importance in Chinese culture. Historical Records has Yu met his lords at Tushan, with ten thousand states presenting jade and cloth , and even in Han times, lords presented jade and note during imperial audiences to express submission.

Cloth and note were both silk, and presentation of silk as a sign of subordination was illustrated in legends by After Yellow Emperor killed Chi-you, the Silkworm Goddess submitted silk .

Since silk was important, only persons of status were allowed to do weaving, with frequent mentions of weaving princesses:

The grandchild of Emperor Zhuanxu was Maid Xiu. Maid Xiu was weaving, and an egg descended from the black bird; Maid Xiu swallowed it, to give birth to Da-ye

Queen E lived in Xuan Palace, weaving at night; sometimes she toured in the day riding on the floating wood she met a divine boy, calling himself son of White Emperor

During Spring-Autumn and Han periods there were still high ladies doing weaving:

Zuozhuan: When Lord Wen returned from the palace, he bowed to (his mother) Lady Jingjiang, who was weaving Book of Poems says Ladies formal task, silkworm weaving to halt meaning that weaving was the official task of ladies, not to be halted without ritual cause

Historical Records Concubine Bo was dispatched to the Palace Weaving House the Han King entered Weaving House, saw the beauty of Concubine Bo, and ordered her to be sent in to his Harem

Book of Han King Jing of Han: I personally plow, and the Queen personally keeps silkworms, to provide for the food offerings and ceremonial cloths of the ancestral temple, an example for the realm

This is not just for the purpose of encouraging work and frugality, but also embodies concepts of religious rituals. There are actually similar stories in the west, though greatly altered: in Sleeping Beauty, the princess was forbidden to touch a spindle, at risk to life; there is also the story of the village girl weaving straw into gold with the help of demon Rumplestiltskin, enabling her to marry the King.

Earlier it was mentioned Lady Xiu became pregnant after swallowing an egg while weaving; there are other stories of princesses swallowing eggs:

The three maidens were bathing, and saw the Black Bird dropping its eggs; Jiandi took one and swallowed it, hence became pregnant with Qi (founder of Shang tribe)

The Yourong tribe had two exiled maidens, for whom a nine storey tower was constructed, and whose meals were accompanied by music. The Emperor sent the swallow to visit them, and it sang enchantingly. The two maidens loved it and strived to catch, covering it with a jade basket. Later they uncovered it to see; the swallow left two eggs.

Bathing and egg-swallowing were part of the fertility ritual of the black bird tribe, but rituals would not have got Jiandi and Lady Xiu pregnant; pregnancy was due to men participating in the rituals and engaging in sex with the women. These ancient rites were forgotten by the times of Zhou and Han, but some traces were left behind:

The story of Cowboy and Weaving Girl was written into a book in the Jin Dynasty, but was mentioned in Zhou and Han poems and related to very ancient events. The fairies from heaven went to Yao Pond to bathe, not because they got sweaty bodies, but to hold a fertility ritual; the Weaving Girl was a daughter of the Heavenly Emperor, in other words, a princess who did weaving; Legends also have several stories of princesses getting lost, with mulberries making an appearance:

Red Emperor s daughter learnt divine craft and lived on the mulberry tree of Nanyang E Hill. On New Year s Day she gathered sticks to build a nest, completing it on 15 January. Sometimes she appeared as a white bird, sometimes as a woman. The Emperor was sorrowful seeing this. Unable to tempt her to descend, he set the tree on fire, and the maiden rose to heaven; hence the name Princess s Mulberry.

The various stories had the commonality of the Emperor s daughter coming back after death and being identified with some nature-related romantic role; this is because they were versions of fertility maiden. The mulberry was the tree of life in Chinese mythology,.

West Asian traditions also have a tree of life, originally a palm, with some similarity between the story of Phoenix resurrecting on the tree of life and that of the heavenly Emperor s daughter turning into the white bird, and to the following

The Emperor s daughter drowned in the East Sea, turning into the Jingwei bird, which called its own name, and constantly picked sticks and stones of West Hill to fill up the East Sea

6. Xuan

The source of all wonders Laozi

Legends frequently use the character xuan

Zhuanxu the black spirit Xuan-min, Emperor of the North

Gaoyang then gave the commission to Yu in Xuan Palace

Xuan bird with Heaven s mandate, descend to give Shang birth

Qi was the Xuan King, assisting Yu in the flood work and was granted a major state

One meaning of xuan was the colour black, arising from the moon worshipping clan that held fertility rites at night, a tradition still maintained in some minority tribes in China. The name xuan-wu is used for the snake-turtle combination, originally a snake-frog combination with snake representing male and frog female, in other words a fertility symbol. Guang Xuan Palace was the moon palace to which Chang-e escaped after murdering her husband Hou-yi. Xuan is also a word frequently mentioned in relation to Laozi, with its meaning commonly taken as abstract and obscure. This reflects the primeval nature of fertility being linked to an even more fundamental role in the cosmos, and then to philosophical discussions about the fundamental abstractions of thought.

The xuan idea of thing-nothing being equivalent and able to change into each other, expressed in the snake swallowing its own tail, actually comes from observations of the real world: if you make some people better off, then in relative or even absolute terms, others become worse off; hence, more and less create each other, and by extension, thing and nothing create each other. By further extension, everything in the world came from nothing, and it is unnecessary to ask where the world came from, when it started and when it will end. Since everything is nothing, we ought to live according to the principle, and since richer rulers usually means they are taking too much from the people making them worse off, governments should be minimal. Trying too hard is counter productive, and simple minded citizens produce a peaceful state.

There was some argument over what era Laozi lived in, since some of his most cynical thoughts seem to be the product of a turbulent and harsh age, such as late Warring States. However, not long ago a version of hisDaodejing was unearthed in graves of the Warring State period, showing that his writings existed at least by early Warring States period, and the current versions included editing by later people. The biography contained in Historical Records, putting him into the same era as Confucius but slightly older in age, seems realistic. Warring States / early Han books like Zhuangzi and Hanfeizi frequently mention Laozi and quote from his book, thus providing independent confirmation of his and his writings earlier existence.

Laozi s thoughts have considerable exploitability, with the result that he was elevated to the status of a great divine, not mere sage. Whenever governments find some things beyond their control, they would justfiy their own inactivity by citing Laozi; Zhuangzi s nihilist ideas are quite different from Laozi s social and political agenda, but he wanted to drag Laozi along as his fellow hermit; the Taoist movements that arose later were based on ancient shamanism mixed with later propaganda methods, but claimed Laozi as their founder; Hanfeizi also tried to be Laozi s disciple, because he wanted rulers to maintain a obscure and deep demeanour so that subordinates act according to explicitly specified rules rather than try to outguess how to please the boss.

Around the time, the Hebrews also happened to be writing down their own abstract thoughts, probably from the same concept of nothingness: God had no shape, no name and no locality, but was all powerful and everywhere, in contrast to other middle east tribes that worshipped ore concrete objects, whether images, statues, or objects in nature. The namelessness of God actually was linguistic: Jehova was initially an all vowel chant I-E-O-U-A which could not be written as the early Semetic alphabets only had consonants. It was the Greeks who invented vowels later, by taking some of the Phoenician letters for consonants that have no counterparts in Greek and denoting vowels with them.

7. Music

Where sincerity reaches, metal and gold open Chinese proverb

Besides legends of the Xuan (Dark) Maiden, there is also the Su (Fair) Maiden, about whom the most familiar is the Su-nu Book, on sexual techniques, which reflects her original role of fertility goddess. Su-nu also happens to be related to music

The Great Emperor asked Su-nu to play the 50-string thither, which sounded mournful and the Emperor could not stop weeping; hence the thither was cut down to 25 strings

but the musical involvement was due to the same cause, for fertility and harvest worship:

In the days when the Rustic Soil Clan ruled the world, winds were excessive and hot air settled, with all vegetation growing loose and fruits failing to ripen; so Scholar Da made the 5-string thither, to bring cool air and pacify the living things

From this fragment, we see that the five string harp had the function of producing plant fertility, allowing the living things to thrive. During his time, Shun made the five string harp to serenade the south wind was along the same line.

The Dark Maiden also played music, inventing the war drum for Yellow Emperor. However, the drum was originally used for fertility rites too, and is still used this way today among some minority tribes, with the pounding of sticks on the drum thought of as being analogous to sexual intercourse. That was before the idea of war existed at all. Xuan-nu Book is another text about sex. The Chinese ideograms for both Su and Xuan contain part of the ideogram for silk, showing that Su-nu and Xuan-nu were originally the silk-mulberry goddesses, associated with the mulberry tree of life.

Another set of ancient texts relate music with the phoenix and Shun:

He then composed the Great Shao tune; after nice verses of the Piped Shao, the phoenix joined the rites, the stones were pounded, and theanimals danced

which described the heaven-worship of his tribe: after nice verses of Shao has been played, the tribal chief, dressed as the phoenix, descends on the stage to be honoured by his subordinates, who were dressed in their totem costumes. The Shun tribe made music with thither, pipe and stone chimes; later bronze bells were used, and the mention of spirit metal and stone above was really about music.

8. Selecting the wise

Throne or love? Chinese saying

Yu was supposed to be so preoccupied with flood work that he passed byhis home three times without going in to see his family, and paid no attention to his son, an example of dedication and self sacrifice. In actual fact, this was merely a misunderstanding of ancient world: In matriarchal societies children were brought up in their mother s tribe, with the husband having neither rights nor duties towards them. The fairy tale of Yu turning into a bear to dig soil, and his embarrassed wife turning into a stone, which split to return his son to him, hinted that Yu s original tribe had the bear totem, and after joining his wife s tribe for a period, he left with his son, an act that deviated from matriarchal practice and signaled a transition towards a patriarchal system.Stories about Yu going nude into the tribe of the naked people, taken to mean in Rome do as the Romans , was also a misunderstanding: he was participating in the fertility rites of the Tushan tribe, and found favour with the princess, thus attaining chiefdom. King Zhou of Shang was supposed to have build ponds of wine and forests of meat, among which naked men and women chased each other, was just holding fertility rites, which the later, less romantic people no longer understood.

In matriarchal societies, property and power descended from mother to daughter, and men attained these by marrying the right women. When Yao chose Shun as his successor, it was immediately necessary to marry Shun to his two daughters (no competition for inheritance from multiple sons in law). Yao himself attained his position by marrying his wife Nuhuang, Female Sovereign. The flood relief achievements of Yu provided him with an unusual status, without having to be son in law of Shun (who was only slightly older), but Shun showed favour to Yi, choosing him as son-in-law with planned succession after Yu, but Yu s son exploited his father s prestige to overthrow the plan, firmly establishing the practice of patriarchal succession.

Yellow Emperor was supposed to have exiled his sons, actually just sending them to other tribes to be son-in-laws and future chiefs. Similarly, Zhuanxu was supposed to have been raised in the tribe of Shaohao, but later went north to be chief of a tribe. However, he story of his three sons all turning into demons elsewhere, appears to mean that they were extremely unpopular with the people they were sent to govern, and may explain the story of disasters and wars of Zhuanxu s reign, to be further discussed later.
Because the male chiefs in matriarchal societies were just managers employed by their wives, their positions were often unstable and replaceable. Even in patriarchal times there were residual practices, with the clearest records in the Tibetan history texts, whereby a king was supposed to abdicate and disappear when his son reached adulthood:

The son of heaven acting as king in human world, returning to heaven afterwards as people witnessed with their eyes all the kingsmentioned above were like this, ascending to heaven when the prince could ride horse

This was actually just a ritual of sacrificing the old king to heaven, letting the new king succeed. Chinese tribes had the same practice, though historical records were obscure:

Heaven sent a yellow dragon to take Yellow Emperor up; the people wereunwilling to let him go and held onto his clothes, boots and sword, butthe will of heaven was hard to oppose, and eventually Yellow Emperor rode the dragon and ascended

Stories of Yu s father being cut with knife, upon which he either turned into a dragon, or Yu emerged from his body, Yu himself disintegrated to cure the flood, and others, all hinted at the same practice. A similar story existed in Korea and in various European versions detailed in Fraser s Golden Bough.

Another frequently mentioned story is a ruler falling asleep for several days and dreaming of going to heaven, where he heard wonderful music. This appears to be derived from the above discussed practice of regicide: instead of dying to let his successor take over, the old king prefers to revive and succeed himself after going to heaven and hearing divine music. Yet another derivation is the story of stealing fire from heaven. Even in Han times, there was still an annual Cold Food Day on which households went without fire, till the evening when heavenly flame was sent out from the palace to relight everyone s stoves.

The practice was probably related to Zhuanxu s separation of heaven and earth , with his heaven tribe maintaining the only sacred fire to worship heaven, while other tribes were to obtain their heavenly flames from his tribe as a sign of subordination. The ancient agriculturalpractice of burning away vegetation in spring to clear the land for crops, with ashes providing fertilization, meant that the provision of fire was done according to a calendar maintained by the heaven tribe, and the person(s) in charge of the fire also had the responsibility of making astronomical observations to know the annual cycle of seasons.

9. Joining heave and earth

The grey disc to honour heaven; the yellow block to honour earth - from the text Zhou Rituals

Around the same time the Hongshan tombs were being discovered in the 80s, archaeologists found large numbers of even grander Neolithic tombsaround Lake Tai in the Yangzi delta, giving them the general name of Liangzhu Culture. Shown below is an excavated cong or holed jade block , large enough to be called the cong monarch, and having Liangzhu s characteristic demon face and bird reliefs.

Around 4000 years ago all traces of the culture disappeared, probably due to westward migration caused by floods, and the Shun tribe, which moved from coast regions and sought refuge with the Yao tribe in central china, could be part of this. The feather crown worn by the Liangzhu demon fitted the descent of phoenix ceremony of the Shun tribe, but is also related to the legend of Xingtian, the fighter who continue battling Yellow Emperor even after his head was chopped off, using his breasts as eyes and navel as mouth. (The rather prominent breasts hint that the original deity was female).

The importance of the feather crown was indicated by the fact that the ideogram for sovereign huang was originally feather above king , and Zuozhuan has a story of the Duke of Zheng having a exiled son killed because of his collection of feather crowns, which hinted at excessive ambition.

A mention of the origin of the word emperor di is also in order: it was from the bundled reed figure used as the idol for worship, a harvest practice still seen in Europe today, with the last bundle of wheat being tied together for worship during harvest festivities (the thinking being that the corn spirit would move away from the sickle during harvesting, ending up in the last bundle). During Zhou Dynasty it was part of Chu state s feudal duty to provide reeds used in ceremonies: wine was poured onto the bundled reed figure, symbolizing the god drinking wine. It could be seen that while huang came from hunting bird tribes, di came from agricultural tribes.

The structure of the cong has a square cross section with round portions at upper and lower ends, for round heaven and square earth, and a hole in the middle denoting the linking up between the two. The demon face appears to be related to the taotie monster face that is characteristic of Shang bronze utensils, while the two pairs of eyes might be related to the ghost-expelling, four-eyed fang-xiang mentioned in texts of Zhou ceremonies. However, for the most part, by Zhou times the shamanistic significances of the jade objects had been forgotten, while jade, oftenin somewhat different shapes and more decorative forms, continue to be used for ritualistic purposes with everyone vaguely acknowledging their importance without really understanding it. Confucius was quoted to attribute to jade various fine properties analogous to desirable characteristics of the noble person, which only serves to show that he too did not know the real reasons for the importance of jade.

10. Out of Africa

Every road leads to Rome European saying

DNA tests have shown that all of the world s population originated in Africa, leaving the continent probably 60,000 years ago and reaching Australia 50,000 years ago already; by the time they reached China it was quite late.

Three routes led from Africa to China: the fishing tribes came along the coast via India and Southeast Asia; the hunting tribes went north from West Asia to the great plains of East Europe and Kazakstan, followed the mammoth and elk herds to Siberia and reached Manchuriathereafter, with some going on to North America. The nomadic tribes drove their herds from valley to valley, oasis to oasis, and reached northwestern China along a route that later was to become the silk road; this is however a more difficult process that occurred later.
There are various archaeological sites dating from 7-8000 years ago in northwestern, northeastern and coastal China, but where are the older sites? Most probably under the sea, submerged when the glaciers started melting more than 10,000 years ago. Therefore, the earliest people probably came by sea, expanding inland along the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers, and northward along the coast; those going north would have met the hunting tribes, and going west would meet the nomads, with merging producing new versions of culture. .The eight tribes of Zhurong, from which the southern state of Chu and the minority Miao people claimed descent, probably escaped floods and other disasters migrating southwards. The vacuum north of the Yellow River was later filled by the Yao tribe, whose origins were obscure, with the Shun tribe joining in from the east and Yu tribe coming from the west, so that a tribal alliance re-emerged after the chaos. This, unfortunately, is about all that could be deduced about the origins of the early Chinese state that has some sort of official chronicle.