Glossary: Motif -- Buffalo horns

Legendary Chinese history describes Chiyou one of the earliest "barbarian" kings opposed to the Xia peoples as having bull's horns. These can and have been interpreted as water buffalo horns. Shennong, an ally of Chiyou thought by some to be the same as the king known as Yandi, also is said to have had a bovine head. The Shennong statue at the Jiaxiang Temple in Shandong has buffalo horns.

These buffalo horns are changed to a crown in other depictions of Shennong.

There is physical evidence of domesticated water buffalo going back to the Middle and possibly Early Neolithic. Some experts have reconstructed a Proto-Austronesian word for domesticated water buffalo.

From the Chinese texts and iconography it may be surmised that water buffalo horns represented royal power to the barbarian coastal peoples of East and South China before the Xia Dynasty.

Buffalo skulls have been found in human settlements dating back to the Early Neolithic. The use of buffalo skulls as symbols of power, royalty and divinity is widespread throughout Southeast Asia.

The buffalo sacrifice is important in many Southeast Asian cultures in royal and chiefly ritual, and in funerary rites. The buffalo and horse are commonly viewed as animals that carry the dead to the afterlife.

Buffalo horns appear widely as motifs in many ancient cultures. At times, buffalo horns seem interchangeable with the inverted crescent Moon motif. In ancient Sumer, for example, the crescent Moon was associated with the god Nanna-Suen who is often described as a bull.



A symbol of the Sun, a star or rosette surrounded by buffalo horns or a crescent is a common variation of this motif. In Sumer, the eight-pointed star in the crescent could stand for Inanna-Ishtar, associated with the planet Venus, and also possibly at the same time her twin brother, Utu the Sun God. Both Inanna and Utu were children of Nanna-Suen, whose symbol again is the crescent Moon.

In the Bronze Age Aegean, the double axe appears between buffalo horns in images of the bee goddess. The double axe is often seen as a symbol of thunder and lightning, which in turn could symbolize the descent of deified planets/stars.



In the Harappan civilization of India, a buffalo-horned "Proto-Siva" image appears in an apparent "Lord of the Beasts" motif indicating both the divine and royal status of the god. Likewise, in Sumerian and Akkadian culture, gods are often shown with miniature crescentic bovine horns, in one or more pairs mounted on pointed caps. These horns could be meant to portray those of the buffalo, and are a special symbol of divinity.

"Lord of the Beasts" from Harappa

In Sumerian and Akkadian city-states where the king was granted divine status he also was portrayed with horned crowns. In some cases, temple prostitutes acted as manifestations of Inanna in the annual "divine marriage" with the king ritual.

Clay sealing from private collection with water buffalo, crescent-star, apparently Akkadian period

The crescent form of the horns appears to come directly from the swamp buffalo, which like the river buffalo was domesticated in tropical Asia. The swamp buffalo's range is more eastern than the river buffalo.

According to this work, buffalo horns could be originally a totemic ancestor symbol related to alliances between the Nusantao lineage of Tala (traditionalist) with non-Xia peoples of eastern and southern China around 3000 BCE.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Brighenti, Francesco. Buffalo Sacrifice and Tribal Mortuary Rituals, http://www.svabhinava.org/friends/FrancescoBrighenti/BuffaloSacrifice-frame.html

Maxwell, Gavin (with Bonnie Gustav). "Water Buffalo and Garbage Pits: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba." Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 8:1-9, 1995.

Ochsenschlager, Edward and Bonnie Gustav, Ethnographic evidence for Water buffalo and the disposal of animal bones in Southern Iraq: Ethnoarchaeology at Al-Hiba. Domestic Animals of Mesopotamia Part II. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture Vol. III. pages 1-9, 1995.

The Water Buffalo

The Chinese legendary histories tell of us warfare between totemic clans that preceded the formation of the dynastic Chinese state.

The information given on the Yi peoples is of primary importance to us particularly the history of the Dong-Yi who inhabited the coastal region between the mouths of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.

Here we hear of the king Chiyou mentioned as the overlord of the Dong-Yi peoples. It appears that Chiyou's Juili tribe is linked with another clan union, this time between the serpent/bird clan and a people who had a bull totem, either an ox or a buffalo.

Chiyou himself is often described as a man with a bull's head. This image is an important one since the union of these totemic clans becomes a driving force among the Nusantao. The bull totem clans seem linked with various peoples living along coastal Southeast Asia of the time. These peoples may have spoken Austro-Asiatic, Hmong-Mien and Daic languages.

The image of a water buffalo or a man with buffalo horns appears also in the iconography of the Sumerians. Indeed, we see that the water buffalo in Sumer is none other than the Southeast Asian swamp buffalo. Remains of this species have also been found at Sumerian archaeological sites.

The swamp buffalo is different than the river buffalo of India. It originates in Southeast Asia but is historically absent from India. It was however found in ancient Sri Lanka apparently brought by sea from Southeast Asia.


Swamp buffalo on the Seal of Sharkalisharri, 3rd millennium BC, Sumer


To see some Powerpoint slides from Stephen Oppenheimer's presentation of swamp buffalo in Sumer, click here (large file).

A Mesopotamian seal with swamp buffalo, humans with buffalo horns, peacock, rhinos, sea-goats and the "Master of the Animals" motif

The combined emblem for the new clan union involved three elements -- serpent/dragon, bird and ox/buffalo.

The serpent could be found as a common spiral or a coiled "embryo" design. The bird totem could be represented by feathers or a bird's head. Also, by a tau symbol representing the tree of life, which in local mythology has a bird resting in its branches. The buffalo motif comes in the form of the bull's head or horns.

These motifs can be seen in the bicephalous jade ornaments of the Sa-Huynh-Kalanay culture of the mid to late 3rd millennium BC in which the dual heads would represent both horns and a hybrid bird-serpent creature. These motifs also appear in that culture's lingling-o ornaments. The Sa-Huynh-Kalanay culture represents the Nusantao in Southeast Asia during this period.

We will discuss these symbols more as we go along.

The warring clan confederacies believe in their symbols. These were a very spiritual people. While some among them undoubtedly used religious elements only as a means to an end, the evidence points more toward people who believed in the supernatural. We only have to look at some of behaviour and actions of some of history's more recent kings, sultans and emperors from this region to know that magic played an important part in the people's beliefs.

Any clan competition going on in this world was only an extension of something greater happening in the spirit world. Magic plays a large part in their culture.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento