The explanation seems not far away. The territory that apparently always has been the home of the homogeneous “yellow” race is essentially a vast plain extending from the mountains of central Asia westward to the Pacific and meridianally from southern China to the border of Kamptchatka. It includes the spacious valleys of China, proper, the plains and deserts of Mongolia, and the broad prairies that stretch across Manchuria, making together the widest area of fairly level and tillable land on the globe. Much of it was never forested, and from a large part of the remainder the scanty growth of woods had been cleared before written history began. The climate as a whole is temperate and equable, and rarely disturbed by startling and destructive meteorological phenomena. Furthermore, except the tigers of the jungly southeastern border, no dangerous animals are to be feared or to be idealized into mythical things of terror. Two evils of nature remain to disturb the inhabitants of this favored region—annual spring-floods, often fatally widespread; and, second, frequent earthquakes. The floods are perfectly understood in their cause as well as in their effects, and afford little material for superstition. As for the earthquakes, the people long ago found a sufficient explanation in the invention of a burrowing beast of prodigious size and strength, which they called an “earth-dragon,” and whose movements as it stirs about heaves the ground beneath our feet. The wave-like character of the earth-shocks showed that the dragon must be elongated and reptile-like; and now and then a landslide or diggings disclosed long and massive bones that evidently were those of these subterranean monsters, although foreigners said they were fossil remains of Mesozoic reptiles or something else. The whole idea, in fact, is so plausible and logical, that it really belongs to scientific hypothesis rather than to mythology.
The reaction of this tranquil geographical situation and history has been to produce, or mould, a people gentle, self-contained and averse to strife. This is not particularly to their credit or their discredit. It is as natural for a race developed in the valley of the Hoang Ho to be peaceable as for one bred along the Danube or the St. Lawrence to be belligerent.
In such an unterrifying situation as his the Mongolian felt no impulse to coin the manifestations of nature, elemental or animated, into malignant demons, but rather impersonated them, if at all, as beings with kindly intentions and of beautiful form. That such impersonations are few, and that Chinese mythology furnishes a comparatively small contribution to the world’s store of specimens of that primitive stage in human mentality, is, I think, another evidence of the equable physical environment in which the people of the Flowery Kingdom have been nurtured, which, while it contributed to their sanity, did little to stimulate their imaginations.
On the other hand, men and women who endured, day by day, the blistering heat and drouth of the desert; or who knew the awe-inspiring mountains, where gloomy glens alternate with cloud-veiled heights, the thunders of unseen avalanches shock the ear, and appalling fires that no man kindles rage against the snows; or who night and day must guard his or her life in the jungle against lurking perils from tooth and claw and poison-fang—such persons were aroused to mental as well as physical alertness for safety’s sake, and saw in almost every circumstance of their lives visions of unearthly power. Unable in their narrow, slowly developing knowledge and meagre intellection, to comprehend much of what confronted them, yet understanding some small sources and agencies of power, what more natural than that they should picture the often tremendous exhibitions of nature’s force as the product of enormously greater powers. Hence not only the bigness attributed to the mythical birds we have sketched but their supernatural abilities, and also—in accordance with constant experience of the general antagonism between nature and human purposes—the malignancy characterizing most of them.
For, as has been said, Garuda, Simurgh, Phenix, Fung-Whang and all the others are only visions woven out of the sunshine, the clouds and the winds, in the loom of primitive imagination. It is quite a waste of time, therefore, to try as some have done (notably Professor Newton[[55]]) to connect any one of them with some living or extinct reality, as, for example, the Rukh with the epiornis or any other of the big extinct ratite birds of Madagascar. Eagles and vultures and peacocks have served as suggestions for fantastic creations of a vagrant fancy, and that is all the reality they ever had. We do not know, probably never can know, the ultimate source of these stories and images, so varied yet so alike; nor whether all have spread from one source, or have in some instances arisen independently, as would seem probable in the case of those told about American aboriginal campfires; but we may be sure that their conception was in the morning of civilization (more likely far back of that) as products of the uncultured, nature-fearing, marvel-loving fancy of prehistoric mankind.
CHAPTER XI
FROM ANCIENT AUGURIES TO MODERN RAINBIRDS
The pagans of primitive times along the shores of the Mediterranean believed in personal gods and their guidance in human affairs. With the approval of these gods, or of that departmental god or goddess having charge of the matter in mind, one’s project would prosper, whereas their disapproval meant failure and very likely some punishment under divine wrath. The human difficulty was to learn the will of said gods.
Equally well settled was the doctrine that birds—which seemed to belong to the celestial spaces overhead where the gods lived and manifested their variable moods, now in sunshine and zephyr, now by storm-clouds, and rainfall—were inspired messengers of the gods, and required reverent attention. This, however, did but throw the difficulty one step further back, for how could human intelligence comprehend the messages birds were constantly bringing?
At any rate the principal and most numerous omens in the pre-Christian centuries were drawn from birds; and this kind of divination gained so much credit that other kinds were little regarded. It was based, as has been indicated, on the theory that these creatures, by their actions, wittingly or unwittingly, conveyed the will of the gods. This super-avian attribute was by no means confined to the prominent raven and crow, whose prophetic qualities have been portrayed in another chapter, for various birds came to be considered “fortunate” or “unfortunate,” from the point of view of the seeker after supernal guidance, either on account of their own characteristics or according to the place and manner of their appearance; hence the same species might, at different times, foretell contrary events. Let me quote here a succinct statement from The Encyclopedia Londonensis, published in the early part of the 18th century:
If a flock of various birds came flying about any man it was an excellent omen. The eagle was particularly observed for drawing omens; when it was observed to be brisk and lively, and especially if, during its sportiveness, it flew from the right hand to the left, it was one of the best omens that the gods could give. Respecting vultures there are different opinions, both among the Greek and the Roman authors; by some they are represented as birds of lucky omen, while Aristotle and Pliny reckon them among the unlucky birds. If the hawk was seen seizing and devouring her prey, it portended death; but if the prey escaped deliverance from danger was portended. Swallows wherever and under whatever circumstances they were seen were unlucky birds; before the defeat of Pyrrhus and Antony they appeared on the tent of the former and the ship of the latter; and, by dispiriting their minds, probably prepared the way for their subsequent disasters. In every part of Greece except Athens, owls were regarded as unlucky birds; but at Athens, being sacred to Minerva, they were looked upon as omens of victory and success. The swan, being an omen of fair weather, was deemed a lucky bird by mariners.