The Marine Folk

In Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery, the author explores widespread testimony of ancient water beings that were usually part human or humanoid and part fish, serpent, dragon. Often the human part was replaced by a bull or horned goat.

These creatures were nearly invariably linked with the sea. While there are theories that these marine fish folk might even have come from other star systems, the most logical terrestrial explanation cannot avoid the Austronesian hypothesis.

The shell mound culture belonged to the marine people par excellence. At the end of the last Ice Age, the shell mound folk in Asia were mostly harvesting around shallow intertidal areas or in freshwater rivers and streams near the seacoast. With the coming of rising sea levels, the shellfishing gathering activities moved more into mangrove estuaries and the coral reefs.

The archaeological evidence suggests they became skilled at fishing and sea mammal hunting producing a wide range of gear -- net sinkers, spindle whorls, fish-hooks, harpoon heads, etc.

I mentioned previously that there is early Paleolithic evidence of beyond-the-horizon navigation. Toward the beginning of the Nusantao period, the evidence appears again in apparent voyages from mainland Southeast Asia to the Philippines and Taiwan. The latter was, at the time, a much smaller target than today as most of the island was still underwater.

Unfortunately it is difficult to reconstruct the earliest ships of the Austronesians, although some good basic clues exist. We do have fairly good knowledge of their vessels by about the 3rd century thanks to archaeological finds, Chinese texts and the famed Borobodur relief.

According to historian Pierre-Yves Manguin the largest ships could carry up to 1,000 people and 250-1,000 tons. The ancient Chinese writer Wan Chen wrote that the ships stood from 15 to 23 feet above the water and resembled 'flying galleries,' possibly a reference to the appearance of outriggers as "wings." The author describes ships with four obliquely set sails that allowed sailing in strong winds and high waves.

The boats used to this day by the Badjau, Samal and other "sea gypsies" of Southeast Asia are both lashed-lug and bifid. The lashed-lug construction gives tensile strength to boats as the frames are flexibly tied to cleats on the hull's planks. Instead of nails, wooden pegs or bindings are used again to decrease rigidity in the structure.

The bifid construction involves the use of a dugout as the base of the ship upon which the lashed-lug plank-built boat is added. This design results in "split" or bifid ends.


Lepa-lepa boat, Sabah, with bifid and lashed-lug construction

Many of the sea gypsies like the Badjau continue to live on their boats or on houses suspended over the water on stilts along the coast. They depend on fish and other marine life for sustenance moving from place to place according to tide and season.

Strongly linked with the tales of marine folk are the Fisher Kings. These watery monarchs figure largely in various Grail bloodline scenarios of the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" type.

What we clearly see though in the various cultures that possess this motif is that the Fisher Kings are ultimately traced to sea peoples. The kings themselves often arise out of the sea dressed in fish costumes or portrayed as part fish. And they tend to have a fish diet and/or to teach fishing.

What is indicated is the extreme maritime adaptation mentioned by Oppenheimer.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

The King of the East

The medieval descriptions of Shambhala, Prester John's kingdom, Sanfotsi and Zabag all allude to local volcano-like activity, and in the case of the first three to subterranean regions.

The two are of course linked as volcanoes produce vents and lava tubes which, when dormant, become extensive cave systems leading deep into the earth -- the Underworld. The idea of the "water of life" located in a netherworld lake or in a volcano occurs repeatedly in Southeast Asian and Pacific myth.

The water of life will be discussed more later in this blog. It served not only as a metaphor but as something real and valued among the Nusantao and others. The water of life stand for nothing more complicated than the quest for a long happy life on earth and, abstractly, immortality after death. The Egyptian phrase: "Ankh, udja, seneb!", or "Life, prosperity, health" sums up this idea quite well.

The quest for immortality is, on the earthly plane, a quest for health and long life, and few objects were more valued than the water of life in this quest.

The Juili confederacy of Chiyou, as mentioned earlier, was divided into nine tribes and 81 clans. A Hmong religious incantation Jiao E Ke You translates literally as "Nine Buffalo Chiyou" referring possibly to that leader's buffalo totem. The Hmong who claim to have come from Chiyou's united tribes adorn their shrines and central rooms with buffalo horns.

Interestingly, the angels of the Bible have also been classified into nine groups or "choirs."

In Ezekiel 28:12-19, the "covering cherub," usually identified with Satan, is adorned with nine gems thought to represent nine "tribes" of angels. In the same way, the High Priest of Israel wore a breastplate of 12 jewels representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

The idea of nine choirs first came into vogue among the early Church fathers Ambrose and Dionysius and became established in the time of St. Gregory. The choirs include the Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Archangels, and Angels mentioned in the New Testament.

From the Old Testament are added the Seraphim and the Cherubim.

The descriptions of Shambhala mention a kingdom shaped like a lotus with nine petal-shaped provinces extending from the central mountain. I believe this points to the holy volcano from which eight rivers descend dividing the land into eight parts. Thus, when the central region is included, there is a division of nine areas.

This original partition into nine geographic tribes later served as the basis for the non-geographic organization of the confederacy.

Chiyou was credited with founding the art of smelting and metal weapons in Chinese texts, and it was only the alliance of his enemies that allowed his defeat. He immediately became deified as a god of war.

In the same sense, the messenger sages in Sumer and Israel were also associated with arts, crafts and other valuable skills. The transfer of societal models and technology undoubtedly made an impact on the area as the texts make clear. The changes associated with the expulsion from the Garden were revolutionary.

Interestingly, the move toward "civilization" did not bode well for women. Although today we often associate liberated women with more urban enviroments, there is no indication of this in the reconstruction of our past.

As many thinkers of the Enlightenment recognized, the position of women among indigenous and so-called "primitive" peoples was often much better than that found in more "modern" societies. Women could inherent property instead of being viewed as property themselves.

They sat on councils of elders and not infrequently they stood on an equal level to men. In rarer cases, their position was superior to that of men.

From ancient archaeological sites we can say that this appears also to be the case in older pre-urban societies. The cult of the Mother Goddess ruled, at least iconographically, and women had burials equal in all respects to those of men.

In Dawenkou and Lungshanoid China we see an interesting divergence. With growing social stratification, we see in communities associated with Upper Yellow River the appearance of male-only elite burials, while those of the Lower Yellow River continue to accord elite burials to both men and women although the grave riches are much more modest.

The exclusion of women as property holders only meant more gravy for the in-group of men in the patriarchal society.

Although both clan conferacies were dominated by men in the military hierarchy, for the traditionalists the power of the union must always draw from both sides. The female component, of course, represented by the Dragon Clan.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento