SQUARE BRICK OF THE HAN DYNASTY, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURES AND INSCRIPTIONS
The figures enclosed in the rectangular panel surrounded by a geometrical border represent the four quadrants of the Chinese uranoscope, being: 1. The Blue Dragon of the East. 2. The Black Warriors, Tortoise and Serpent of the North. 3. The Red Bird of the South. 4. The White Tiger of the West. The eight archaic characters filling in the intervals read: Chʼien chʼiu wan sui chʼang lo wei yang, “For a thousand autumns and a myriad years everlasting joy without end.”
The genesis of this idea can be traced at a very early period in the history of modern man (Homo sapiens). In Aurignacian times in western Europe (that is, from ten till twenty thousand years ago) blood was identified with life and consciousness. The red substance in “the blood which is life” was apparently regarded as the vitalizing agency, and was supposed to be the same as red earth (red ochre). It is found, from the evidence afforded by burial customs, that the Aurignacian race originated or perpetuated the habit of smearing the bodies of their dead with red ochre. After the flesh had decayed, the red ochre fell on and coloured the bones and the pebbles around the bones. Whether or not the red ochre was supposed to be impregnated with the essence of fire, [[161]]or of the sun, the source of fire, it is impossible to say. Behind the corpse-painting custom there was, no doubt, a body of definite beliefs. As much is suggested by the fact that shell-amulets and spine-amulets were laid on or about the dead. The belief that the first man had been formed of red clay mixed with water may well have been in existence in Aurignacian times. The amulets associated with Aurignacian ceremonial burials suggest, too, that ideas had been formulated regarding the after-life. Was it believed that the painted, and therefore reanimated, body would rise again, or that the soul could be assisted to travel to the Otherworld? These questions cannot yet be answered. We can do no more than note here that Colour Symbolism, and especially Red Symbolism and all it entails, had origin in remote antiquity.
In China red flowers and red berries were supposed, because of their colour, to be strongly impregnated with “soul substance” or “vital essence”, or, to use the Chinese term, with shen. These flowers and berries had curative qualities. In western Europe the red holly berry was in like manner regarded as an “All-heal”. The tree on which the red berry appears is so full of divine life that it is an evergreen. In Gaelic folk-lore holly is associated with the Mother Goddess and with the water-beast (dragon) and its “avatar”, the red-spotted salmon, which is supposed to swallow the holly berries that drop into its pool.
The red substance which is in the blood was not necessarily confined, however, to vegetation. As it was of the earth, earthy, or a product of some mysterious agency at work in the earth, it might be found in coagulated form as a ruby, or any other red stone, or as a stone streaked or spotted with red; it might be found in water [[162]]as a shell, wholly or partly red, or as a red or yellow pearl inside a shell. It might likewise be found concentrated in the red feathers of a bird. A bird with red feathers was usually recognized as a “thunder bird”—Robin Red-breast is a European “thunder bird”[1]—and the red berry as a “thunder berry”—a berry containing the “soul substance” of the god of lightning and fire. Fire was obtained by friction from trees associated with the divine Thunderer; his spirit dwelt in the tree. One of the “fire sticks” was invariably taken from a red-berried tree.
The red vital substance might likewise be displayed by a sacred fish—the “thunder fish”. In the Chinese “Boy Blue” story the thunder-dragon in human form rides on the back of a red carp.
Yellow is, like red, reputed to be a vital colour. Lightning is yellow; the flames of wood fires are yellow, while the embers are red. Early man appears to have recognized the close association of yellow and red in fire. Gold is yellow, and it was connected, as a substitute for red and yellow shells, with the sun, which at morning and evening sends forth red and yellow rays. The fire which is in the sun “warms the blood” and promotes the growth of plants, as does the moisture in the moon—the moon which controls the flow of sap and blood. The combination of sun-fire, lunar-fire, and moisture, or of fire-red earth and rain, constituted, according to early man’s way of thinking, the mystery called life. Yellow berries and yellow flowers were as sacred to him, and had as great life-prolonging and curative qualities, as red berries, red flowers, red feathers, and the skins and scales of red fish. Yellow gems and yellow metals were consequently valued as highly as were red gems [[163]]and red metals. In China yellow is the earth colour. 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. White was the colour of day, the stars, and the moon, and black the colour of night and of death, and therefore the colour of deities associated with darkness and the Otherworld. In China black is the colour of the north, of winter, and of drought. The combination of the five colours (black, white, red, yellow, and blue or green) was displayed by all deities. This conception is enshrined in the religious text which De Visser gives without comment:
“A dragon in the water covers himself with five colours;
Therefore he is a god.”[2]