Note 23 — Chapter XII · How Copper-culture reached China

When it is borne in mind that the chief incentive behind the search for precious metals and precious stones was a religious one, we should not express surprise to find that not only the products of centres of ancient civilization were carried across Asia to outlying parts, but also myths, legends, and religious beliefs of complex character. These were given a local colouring in different areas. In northern Siberia, for instance, the local fauna displaced the fauna of the southern religious cults, the reindeer or the goat taking the place of the gazelle or the antelope. Mythological monsters received new parts, just as the dolphin-god of Cretan and other seafaring peoples received an elephant’s head in northern India and became the makara; and the seafarers’ shark-god received in China the head of a lion, although the lion is not found in China. No doubt the lion was introduced into China as a religious art motif by some intruding cult. Touching on this phase of the problem of early cultural contact, Ellis H. Minns23 suggests a number of possibilities to account for the similarities between Siberian and Chinese art. One is that “the resemblance may be due to both (Siberians and Chinese) having borrowed from Iranian or some other Central Asian art.… In each case,” he adds, “we seem to have an intrusion of monsters ultimately derived from Mesopotamia, the great breeding-ground of monsters.” The data summarized in a previous chapter24 dealing with the Chinese dragon affords confirmation of this view.