Fusang (Glossary)

In the earliest Chinese literature, "Fu Sang" describes a legendary solar tree on which Xihe hangs the Ten Suns to dry after their diurnal journeys. In latter literatures, it is a place where Buddhism is brought in the fifth century.

This latter location has been variously identified by different researchers as North America, Mexico, Peru, Hokkaido, Siberia, southeastern Japan and Taiwan to name a few suggestions. It may be that this place is related to the solar Fusang Tree of earlier legendary history.

"Sang" 桑 refers to the mulberry tree, and "fu" 扶 means "supporting," referring apparently to the large size and interwining and thus self-supporting branches of the Fusang Tree.

Located in the "Southeastern Sea" at the top of a mountain, I believe it should be placed either in Taiwan or Luzon, probably the latter as it appears to be associated with the cosmic mountain where the Suns are born (in other mythologies).

The reference to the mulberry tree has generally been taken as meaning that the Fusang resembled the mulberry or was related to that tree. The word "sang" though may simply refer to any tree that provided fiber used in making cloth or paper, the manufacture of which is mentioned in latter descriptions of the place called Fusang.

The Paper Mulberry appears indigenous to Taiwan and this species was carried out into the Pacific where it was extensively used to make tapa or bark cloth.

However, the descriptions of the Fusang indicate a huge tree, and in the latter works it is described as having purplish-red fruits and oval leaves. In the Philippines, the Balete Tree, a name for various types of Ficus, was most commonly used to make bark cloth.

The Balete is a massive tree with intertwining roots, branches and trunks, which may related to the "supporting" and "hanging" descriptions of the Fusang. Balete species tend to have ovate leaves and some like the Ficus benjamina have purple fruits when ripe.





Balete trees


The Balete was considered sacred in the Philippines when the Spanish came, a dwelling of spirits and anitos (ancestors), indicating it was associated with the Cosmic Tree. The crow and raven were also considered sacred and were called Meilupa, a title indicating "Lord of the Earth (Soil)".

Of course, giant figs like the Balete and the Banyan are famed as bases for crows and ravens, appearing as such repeatedly in folklore throughout South and Southeast Asia. The Fusang Tree, again, was the place where the Ten Suns, in the form of ravens, rested after their journeys.

Some explicit myths of human descent from birds also survive in the region. The Mandaya believe the first man and woman came from two eggs of the Limokon or dove. Among the Paiwan, there is a myth of the first couple coming from two eggs of the Sun hatched by a serpent. There are also legends in the Philippines of the first couple found in one or two bamboos rather than eggs, pecked open by a bird, usually a hawk or kite.

Myths of two birds created by a Supreme Deity and then going on to create the world are also found among many peoples in Insular Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, for example, we find such beliefs connected with the gods Lumawig and Batala. These two birds may represent the dual creative forces of the Sun and Moon.

The Sun is linked with the raven and crow also in Philippines folktales that explain the darkness of the raven/crow as occuring after the latter raced another bird, usually a kite, and flew too close to the Sun, scorching its wings. In ancient Chinese legends, sunspots were viewed as created by a three-legged sun crow.

Worth mentioning with reference to bird descent also is the widespread Insular Southeast Asian concept of the bird-soul, or more importantly the bird-double. The latter is the person's second self that escapes from the body usually at night when sleeping. The bird double flies about on its own adventures returning before the person awakes. In some cases, spiritual adepts claim to be able to send their bird doubles on journeys while awake and active. A giant crow or raven called Wak-wak appears in folktales of the Bisayas and is especially said to be a form taken by witches when they fly around at night. The bird cries "wak-wak" as it nears human habitations.




Ficus trees with intertwining trunks/branches clearly visible


Image of Fusang Tree with intertwining trunk and branches from Wu Liang Shrine, Shangdong, 2nd century CE. The archer Yi can be seen shooting the Sun-Crows.

The shooting of the Suns theme is very diverse among the indigenous peoples in Taiwan. In Borneo, a blowpipe takes the place of the archer's bow. These myths refer more to the diurnal movement of the Sun during daylight rather than to the tropical year. Themes of the snaring of the Sun, of the descent of the Sun down toward the horizon on a ladder, and of the Sun moving into different tiers of a multi-tiered house or building are clearly related and involve the cooling of the day as the Sun moves to lower positions in the sky.

The idea of the Sun rising from the Fusang Tree would logically imply its location in the tropical latitudes.

As the Sun is said to rise from the Fusang Tree specifically at the beginning of the year, this latitude could be that of the equator or also possibly that latitude marked by the star Spica. Spica represented the horn of the "Dragon of Spring" in Chinese astronomy, and was seen as marking the beginning of spring and the seasons.

The emperor Yu was said to have used the Fusang Tree to mark off the beginning of the solar year.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Sea Gods/Messengers (Glossary)

Stephen Oppenheimer has suggested that the "amphibious" nature of certain ancient mythical sea gods and sages might be linked to the extreme maritime adaptation of migrating Nusantao.

The Nusantao themselves could certainly have envisioned themselves as fish-like in nature, which when combined with totemic beliefs may have given rise to the composite theo-zoomorphic (god-animal) and anthropo-zoomorphic (man-animal) imagery found in the related myths.

In China, the pantheistic and totemic Pangu takes the form of a dog in many myths associated especially with the South. "Earlier than nearly all of these traditions are Chinese accounts of eastern seas, or more properly speaking, southeastern seas," says David Gordon White referring to Central Asian and Siberian myths of a land of dog-men, Amazons and the "Kingdom of Women."

"This third center for Chinese Dog-Man/Amazon traditions points to China's southern barbarians, as well as to related peoples from Indochina."

(White, p. 138)

...the location of this land off a southeastern coastline corresponds to that of a certain Dog Fief Country to which P'an Hu, the canine ancestor of the southern Man Barbarians, was sent together with his wife."

White notes that across the seas from southern China one also finds myths of dog ancestry.

Fishy sages

Fu Hsi and his consort Nu Gua are commonly represented with fish/serpent lower bodies and human upper bodies. A similar representation is found far away in India, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean.

The ancient Mulberry Tree Tradition of the Zhou period tells of Xihe of the "Southeastern Sea" who bears the Ten Suns through the god Jun Di the "East Wind. The Ten Suns, portrayed also as ravens, are born at the location of the Fu-sang or Mulberry Tree (from which bark cloth is made) and the Boiling Water Valley.

Jun Di is probably the same as the "Black Bird" of the Shang Origin Myth who gives rise to the Shang clan through Jian Di. According to Sarah Allan, the name "Jun" may be related to the Phoenix bird.

In the Oracle Bone Inscriptions, it is Wang Hai who is the ancestor of the Shang, and the name is written in the inscriptions accompanied by the pictograph of a bird. In the historical tradition Jun equates with Emperor Shun and the Ten Suns with the Dan Zhu (Ten Sons).

Boiling Water Valley or Tang-gu, is related by the Zhou with Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty whose name is written with the same water radical as "Tang-gu."

Sang-lin, the "Country of Mulberry Trees" appears at times, as in the myths of Emperor Yu, to speak of the same place where Xihe gives birth to the Ten Suns. It is at Sang-lin, that suns are born and rise at morning. Yu's unnamed mother and his wife Tu-shan ("Earth Mountain") come from Sang-lin and a state called Sung.

Sang-lin is also located in the South. The southern love songs were composed in Sang-lin and Sung, considered excessively bold by the Confucians.

Southern influence

That the Shang should claim southern ties is not surprising in light of the archaeological record. Many southern items start turning up at northern sites in the Dawenkou and Lungshan periods that were ancestral to the Shang dynasty.

Some have attempted to explain the presence of elephant, rhinoceros, sea turtle, Indo-Pacific shells, whale bones and other similar items as evidence of warmer climates in northern China during early times. However, research suggests that the region was only slighter warmer in the Neolithic, not nearly enough to support these tropical species.

Also the spotty record before the Shang suggests the tropical items were imported. For example, there is some evidence of elephant remains in Dawenkou sites, but these disappear from the same region during the Lungshanoid period.

The Shang, carrying on from the previous Lungshan culture, established the dominance of rice agriculture in northern China.

Dawenkou and Lungshan culture are linked archaeologically at least to some extent by Solheim's theory to Nusantao presence in coastal and riverine Shandong during the Neolithic. The trading contacts seemed to have intensified during the Shang dynasty with large hoards of southern trade artifacts found in Shang burials.

Sea Dragons

The sea dragon/serpent theme also has negative aspects opposite those of the beneficient deity/sage.

In the Avesta, Atar, the god of fire, banishes Ahi Dahaka, the three-headed serpent to the bottom of the Vourukasha Sea where it remains until the final cosmic battle when it will return to fight the forces of light.

In latter Persian literature, it is Thraetaona who battles the three-headed serpent. In Vedic lore, including the Rgveda, Trita slays the three-headed dragon Visvarupa. Trita and Thraetaona have some common motifs in their myths:

* In their names is the root for the number three
* Each is the third of three brothers
* The brothers undertake a quest to a far-off land apparently in search of elixir
* Both Trita and Thraetaona are betrayed by the other two brothers
* Both become trapped in a well or pit
* Both slay a three-headed serpent/dragon in the subterranean location

Trita has been analyzed by some as a god of the sea, and the entire theme is similar in some respects to the Mesopotamian myths of Tiamat.

In the Mahabharata, the Rgvedic tale of Trita and his brothers journey to a far-off land becomes specifically a voyage to Svetadvipa and the Milky Ocean. These lands as noted earlier in this blog were envisioned as located in the East and in the tropical clime.

Such geography is reinforced by the Shahnameh where Trita/Thraetaona become known as Feridun and the serpent Azhi Dahaka is named Zohak. The Vourukasha Sea in this work is equated with the "Sea of Chin" i.e., the seas off the coast of South China, or the present-day northeastern Sea of China.

This is not surprising as we have already seen that the medieval Persians and Muslim Indians had located the mythical messianic fortress of Kangdez in the same general area of the far East Indies.

The quest of Trita and his brothers to Svetadvipa and the Milky Ocean should be seen in the light of the pilgrimage journeys of the rsis (rishis) and also the epic heroes to the same region to visit Narayana, the quintessential sea deity who spends much of his time floating on a bed of snakes in the Milky Ocean, according to classical tradition. This Narayana is directly related to the Rgvedic Purusa, the pantheistic being from which the world is created.

Sea Bull

The sea bull theme also appears widely in ancient times from East Asia to Sumer to the Mediterranean and beyond. It seems that the sea bull mutates also into the sea goat from which we obtain the modern image in Western astrology of Capricorn.

In the Classic of the Mountains and Seas, traditionally credited to the legendary emperor Yu, a buffalo or ox name Kui is described that lives in the Eastern Ocean. Kui appears related to a mountain spirit known as Hui, that is shaped like a drum. Kui is sometimes said to have a belly shaped like a drum which he beats to make thunder-like sound. The Yellow Thearch slays Kui and uses his hide to make a drum:

In the East Sea is the Flowing Wave Mountain. It is submerged in the sea to a depth of 7,000 leagues. At its summit is a bovine animal with a bright blue body, but no horns and only one foot. When it comes in and out of the water there is always wind and rain, and its glare is like that of the Sun and Moon. This animal makes thunder sounds and its name is Awestruck (Kui). The Yellow Thearch captured Kui and made a drum from its hide. For a drumstick the great god used a bone from the Thunder Beast. The sound of the god's drumming could be heard for 500 leagues and so it frightened all beneath the sky.

Although the setting is different, the story of Kui reminds us also of the Indian legend of great buffalo demon Dundubhi ("Kettledrum") slain by Valin. Dundubhi was said to resemble Mount Kailasa and his bones were also said to have formed a mountain. Also, like Kui, Dundubhi makes drumming sounds, but in his case a drum-like roar.

In the buffalo sacrifices of South India, drumming and dancing to drums plays an important role. The buffalo sacrifice has much in common with the Rgvedic horse sacrifice, which may itself have originated from an earlier ritual involving water buffaloes.

After the South Indian sacrifices, the goddess analogous to Kali, is said to be widowed. The allusion here is that the buffalo represents a form of Siva, the husband of the goddess. In Indian myth, Kali kills the buffalo demon Mahishasura, which may be seen as a form of the common Indian theme of the "murderous bride."

In the Rgvedic horse sacrifice, the chief queen is known as Mahisi "Water Buffalo Cow" and takes part in a ritual with the sacrificed horse, the latter playing the part of her consort.

Both the buffalo and horse sacrifices had royal connections even when the former were conducted by lower castes or tribes. In both cases, a goat or sheep was also sacrificed, usually before the main sacrifice. The goat was identified as the "younger (royal) brother" of the buffalo (king).

Trita in the Rgveda is involved in the first horse sacrifice, which involves the horse of Yama, said to come from the sea. This horse with 17 rib-pairs, a tropical breed, was first harnessed by Trita and first mounted by Indra according to the Rgveda. Interestingly, in Greece, Poseidon, the sea god, is credited with first taming horses. These connections of the horse sacrifice with the sea may also extend to the buffalo sacrifice.

In ancient Sumer and Akkad, Alf Hiltebeitel has linked the sacrifice of the Bull of Heaven with the loss of the sacred mikku and pukku (drumstick and drum), both of which, in different traditions, precede the death of the hero Enkidu.

According to Akkadian texts, in a rite similar to that of the Indian buffalo/horse sacrifice, temple drums were made from the hide of a black bull that was sacrificed in conjunction with a sheep!

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Hiltebeitel, Alf. "Rama and Gilgamesh: The Sacrifices of the Water Buffalo and the Bull of Heaven," History of Religions, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Feb., 1980), pp. 187-223.

Von Glahn, Richard. The Sinister Way: the divine and the demonic in Chinese religious culture, University of California Press, 2004, p. 90.

White, David Gordon. Myths of the Dog-Man, University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Alim, Rimu, Reem (Glossary)

The Sumerian word alim appears to describe the water buffalo depicted in various seals, although the word is often translated also as "bison."

Akkadian rimu may be directly derived from alim "powerful," although the former is also thought to have Semitic roots from a word meaning "to be high" and thought to refer to the animals sweeping horns. Rimu is often used to translate Sumerian am "bull, wild bull."

Sumerian apzaza (Akkadian apsasu) is also thought to refer to the water buffalo.

From rimu in Akkadian, we also derive the Assyrian remu, Ugaritic r'm and Hebrew reem.

In Canaanite myth, the son and daughter of the sea god Dagon (El) give birth to the buffalo named Math. El himself is known as the "Bull God" and is depicted with horns.

Asherah "the Lady of the Sea" has handmaidens who give birth to the buffalo of the forest that distract Baal.

Swamp buffalo

The Sumerian alim is shown with massive notched horns curved widely, wrinkled hide and distinctive body/head shape clearly identifying it as the water buffalo and specifically as the swamp buffalo (Bubalis bubalis).

An, the patriarch of the gods, is called a wild bull (gud-dama) and his animal is the Bull of Heaven (gud-anna).

The buffalo head is the standard of Utu, the Sun God. Utu or one of his servants is often depicted as a buffalo with a human head.

The buffalo-man is known as Gud-alim, Gud-dumu-Utu or sometimes Gud-dumu-anna "Buffalo-Man of Heaven," the latter name perhaps related to the Gud-anna "Bull of Heaven."


Akkadian seal dating to 2200 BCE possibly showing Enki fighting the Bull of Heaven depicted as a gud-alim "buffalo." The horned bull-man may be Enkidu fighting a lion/dog.

The name Marduk or AMAR-UTUK means "young bull of the Sun Utu."

Among the Canaanites, the god El is known as the "Bull God" and we find here an association with buffaloes who descend from his wife's handmaidens, and also from the union of Baal and Anath, his children.

These buffaloes known as r'm figure also in Hebrew myth.

When El brings the tribes of Israel out of Egypt, the image is of a strong buffalo carrying the people on his back.

"God brought him out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of a buffalo."

-- Numbers 23

This is similar to the Iranian myth of the bull Sarsaok bringing nine races on his back across the Vourukasha Sea.

Sarsaok is also said to have a flaming back from which come the three sacred fires to the mountains of Persia.

In Exodus, Yahweh is seen as a deity who inhabits flaming mountain tops. The name El Shaddai may mean "El (God) of the Mountains." Enlil as the supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon was known as Rimu "Bull" and also as Kur-Gal "Great Mountain."

The crescentic horns of the buffalo also resemble the 'ship of the Sun' and agrees with the symbolism of transporting people.

The two tribes of Joseph are compared to the horns of a reem that 'pushes people to the ends of the earth.'

His majesty is as the firstling of his ox; And his horns are as the horns of a buffalo. With them shall he push the peoples Together to the ends of the earth. These are the myriads of Ephraim, And these are the thousands of Manasseh.

-- Deuteronomy 33

Archaeological evidence

Although some suggest that the swamp buffalo appears only during the Akkadian period, other evidence suggests an earlier presence.

From the archaeological standpoint, water buffalo remains are recorded
from a home in Layer III (Grai Resh) of the Uruk culture.

The horn core, first phalanx and rib of a water buffalo has been found at Halaf (5500-5000 BCE) in northern Syria.

These are surely domesticated water buffalo, as the wild water buffalo
survives only deep in the rain forest.

Rock drawings of water buffalo occur in Ubaid period megalithic sites in the Persian Gulf, including those associated with the shell mound culture.

Water buffalo are rare in the aceramic and early ceramic periods of Mehrgarh, and appear to be of the swamp type with long sweeping horns. The same swamp buffalo appears at Harappan sites, now much more common. However, these locations in northwest South Asia would not have hosted the wild water buffalo, which lived only further East. The river buffalo seems to have come to prominence at a latter time, and now represents the overwhelming majority of water buffaloes in India, especially in northern India.

A number of Early Dynastic portrayals of Utu as a bull with a human face appear to portray a buffalo body with a human head with large splay hooves and shorter more robust body and legs with bushy tip of tail.

According to Ebeling and Meissner, writing on the human-headed buffalo
(alim, Sumerian, alimbu, Akkadian):

"From the Ur III period onwards it wears the horns of divinity. Associated with Utu (2.2), represents mountains through with Utu rises (2.4) [i.e., Mt. Mashu]"

_Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archaologie: Meek-Mythologie_, by Erich Ebeling, Bruno Meissner, 1999.

Swamp buffalo depicted on the seal of Ishar-beli from Urkesh, notice the muscular humped shoulders. In Ugaritic texts, the r'm is described as humped (also known as ibr). Source: Bucellati, Giorgio and Marilyn Kelly-Buccelati. Tar'am-Agade, Daughter of Naram-Sin, at Urkesh.


Horned caps displaying the "horns of divinity" mostly resembling buffalo or bison horns. The Assyrian caps near the bottom display symmetrical buffalo or bison horns in profile that may be related to the "unicorn" images found Proto-Elamite and Sumerian art. The three horned cap was used to represent Enlil, An and Assur with each horn representing one of the gods, and at times all three caps were shown together.


A "unicorn" calf under the foot of Enki, with possibly one of the buffalo/bison horns hidden symmetrically behind the other.


Some kings like Naram-Sin shown above donned the "horns of divinity."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Edwards, I. E. S. , C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond (editors). The Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp. 64, 42, 405, 690.

Johannes, G., Botterweck, Helmer, Ringgren, Heinz-Josef, Fabry (editors). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004, pp. 243-4.

Potts, Daniel T. Mesopotamian Civilization: The Material Foundations, Cornell University Press, 1996, pp. 258-9.

New book: Les Messagers Divins

An interesting new book has been released edited by Pierre le Roux and Bernard Sellato. The articles are both in French and English.

Although the snake here is regarded as masculine and the bird as feminine, I believe that orignally this was not the case despite the apparent visual symbolism inherent in the species i.e. snake as male organ, and bird as female organ.

As outlined in this blog, the legendary histories suggest the real existence of bird and snake clans that at one point united and in the bilaterial kinship system the bird clan represented the male line, and the serpent clan, the female line.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---

Connaissances & Savoirs Publ. (Paris, www.connaissances-savoirs.com), SevenOrients Publ. (Paris, www.7orients.com), and the Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia (Paris and Bangkok, www.irasec.com) are pleased to inform you of the release of the book:

LES MESSAGERS DIVINS
Aspects esthétiques et symboliques des oiseaux en Asie du Sud-Est


DIVINE MESSENGERS
Bird Symbolism and Aesthetics in Southeast Asia
edited by Pierre LE ROUX and Bernard SELLATO

Preface by Jean LARIVIERE (Scientific Adviser of the Foundation Ushuaia-Nicolas Hulot pour la Nature et l'Homme, Vice-President of the French Section of the International Union for Nature Conservation).



Published with assistance from the Maison Asie-Pacifique (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université de Provence), in partnership with IRASEC (Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia).

Format / Size : 145 x 210 mm; 866 pages noir et blanc / B&W, 36 planches quadri./36 colour plates.

Prix de vente / Selling price : 35 euros - ISBN : 2-7539-0059-0

Available for sale from 29 September 2006

Further information can be obtained from the Sales Department of Editions Connaissances & Savoirs:

Abstract: Is there a special relationship in Southeast Asia between humans and birds? Indeed, birds play here an important role in cosmology, beliefs, social structure, funerals, and ritual technology, which cannot be dissociated from economic productions: agriculture, fishing, harvesting, hunting, handicraft and trade. The bird in Southeast Asia is to be understood first as part of an essential symbolic couple: the snake and the bird, which represent, respectively, masculinity, seniority, the underground and aquatic worlds, rainy seasons; and femininity, the sky, the dry season, and juniority, i.e., dependent people. In a region characterized by alternating monsoons and, often, by a cultural bi-polarity, most societies have elaborated a dualistic conception of the universe, and sometimes a ternary conception: two expressions of a same original godhead. A trinity made of two main elements (the elder and younger brothers) and a third one (the wife) dominates throughout almost all of Southeast Asia, where the opposition between elder and younger is general and relevant in most kinship and marriage systems. Here, perhaps more than elsewhere in the world, the social position of women is privileged, if not primordial. While the bird, very often, is a metaphor for a maiden, its taking flight is always assimilated to that of the soul of the dead, the beginning of a new life, and so, always, a symbol of hope.


Contributeurs / Contributors:

Contributions, en français ou en anglais de / A collection of contributions in French or in English by:

Lorraine V. Aragon (University of North Carolina, USA), Helga Blazy (Universität zu Köln, Germany/Allemagne), Pascale Bonnemère (CNRS, France), Peter Boomgaard (KITLV, The Netherlands/Pays-Bas), Jean Boulbet (EFEO, France), Josiane Cauquelin (LASEMA, France), Anne-May Chew (Université de La Sorbonne, France), Robert K. Dentan (State University of New York at Buffalo, USA), Gregory Forth (University of Alberta, Canada), Donald & Joan Gear (South Africa/Afrique du Sud), Itie van Hout (KIT Tropenmuseum, The Netherlands/Pays-Bas), Bernard Koechlin (CNRS, France), Corneille Jest (CNRS, France), Pierre Le Roux (IRSEA, France), Ghislaine Loyré de Hauteclocque (IRSEA, France), Guy Lubeigt (CNRS, France), Albert Marie Maurice (France), Nguyen Tung (CNRS, France), Bernard Pot (IRSEA, France), Oliver Raendchen (Humboldt Universität, Germany/Allemagne), Clifford Sather (Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia), Jean-Christophe Simon (IRD, France), Vishvajit Pandya (Institute of Information and Communication Technology, India/Inde).


Southeast Asia is here understood as stretching from India to China, and south towards the Pacific. It thus includes not only Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, but also the Andaman Islands (India), Madagascar, Papua-New Guinea, Taiwan, and Nepal.

mtDNA of Aboriginal Southeast Asians

A new study co-written by "Eden in the East" author Stephen Oppenheimer showed that about half the mtDNA of the Senoi population of Malaya, and a significant population of "Aboriginal Malays" originates in Indochina. The Semang group has mostly deep-rooted mtDNA from the Malay Peninsula.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento
---

Mol Biol Evol. 2006 Sep 18;

Phylogeography and Ethnogenesis of Aboriginal Southeast Asians.

Hill C, Soares P, Mormina M, Macaulay V, Meehan W, Blackburn J,
Clarke D, Raja JM, Ismail P, Bulbeck D, Oppenheimer S, Richards M.

Studying the genetic history of the Orang Asli of Peninsular
Malaysia can provide crucial clues to the peopling of Southeast Asia
as a whole. We have analyzed mitochondrial DNA control-region and
coding-region markers in 447 mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) from the
region, including 260 Orang Asli, representative of each of the
traditional groupings, the Semang, the Senoi and the Aboriginal
Malays, allowing us to test hypotheses about their origins. All of the
Orang Asli groups have undergone high levels of genetic drift, but
phylogeographic traces nevertheless remain of the ancestry of their
maternal lineages. The Semang have a deep ancestry within the Malay
Peninsula, dating to the initial settlement from Africa >50,000 years
ago. The Senoi appear to be a composite group, with approximately half
of the maternal lineages tracing back to the ancestors of the Semang,
and about half to Indochina. This is in agreement with the suggestion
that they represent the descendants of early Austroasiatic speaking
agriculturalists, who brought both their language and their technology
to the southern part of the peninsula approximately 4000 years ago,
and coalesced with the indigenous population. The Aboriginal Malays
are more diverse, and although they show some connections with island
Southeast Asia, as expected, they also harbor haplogroups that are
either novel or rare elsewhere. Contrary to expectations, complete
mtDNA genome sequences from one of these, R9b, suggest an ancestry in
Indochina around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, followed by an
early-Holocene dispersal through the Malay Peninsula into island
Southeast Asia.

2,500 year-old Sa-Huynh jars unearthed in Hue, Vietnam

Some jars and other artifacts from a Sa-Huynh site have been found in Vietnam.

The lingling-o pendants discussed in this blog are associated particularly with Sa-Huynh culture of Vietnam and the Kalanay culture of the Philippines.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

---
2,500 year-old jars unearthed

(30-09-2006)

HUE CITY — Archaeologists have just finished their three-week excavation to unearth 30 jar tombs from a resident’s garden in Hue City.

The ground is owned by Nguyen Cong Man, who discovered the objects while digging up dirt to plant trees one month ago. He informed city authorities who permitted the excavation project in Phu O Village, Huong Chu Commune of the city’s Huong Tra District.

According to initial estimations from archaeologists of Hue City’s Revolution and History Museum and the Viet Nam History Museum, the discoveries belonged to the Sa Huynh inhabitants 2,500 years ago. Twenty-five tombs remain intact.

Other artefacts have been found at the site, including bones, trays, agate beads, earrings, pottery and Sa Huynh lamps.

In 2002, archaeologists unearthed nearly 100 jar tombs in Hai Dang Islet off the coast of Con Dao Island in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau. Experts dated the clay tombs, whose round form is thick in the middle and narrows at the neck, back between 2,000 and 2,500 years. — VNS

New book: Quest of the Dragon and Bird Clan

Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan is now available in book form from lulu.com!


http://www.lulu.com/content/445143



Description:

"Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan" examines how the seafaring trading people known as the "Nusantao" from Insular Southeast Asia influenced world history. This is a "blook," a book based on a weblog (blog). The decision to publish the book came after requests to make the information in the blog available in an easier-to-read and more portable format. The advantage of the printed work is that the blog entries are arranged in easy-to-manage chronological order with out the need for the clicking through the blog archives. The glossary entries are also in alphabetical order for easy look-up, and a word index and table of contents further increase the readiblity of the blog/book. Important supplementary articles have also been included in the appendices. A must-read for those who think there is more to history than what we find in "mainstream" publications.
Product Details:

PDF (7107 kb)
Download: 1 documents (PDF), 7107 KB
Printed: 520 pages, 6.00" x 9.00", perfect binding, black and white interior ink
ISBN: 978-1-4303-0899-7
Publisher: Paul Manansala
Copyright: © 2006 Standard Copyright License
Language: English
Country: United States
Edition: First Edition
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Banana phytoliths dating to the fourth millennium BCE in Munsa, Uganda.

Interesting article about the discovery of banana phytoliths dating to
the fourth millennium BCE in Munsa, Uganda.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
http://sambali.blogspot.com/

---
Abstract

The recent discovery of banana phytoliths dating to the first
millennium BC in Cameroon has ignited debate about the timing of the
introduction of this important food crop to Africa. This paper
presents new phytolith evidence obtained from one of three sediment
cores from a swamp at Munsa, Uganda, that appears to indicate the
presence of bananas (Musa) at this site during the fourth millennium
BC. This discovery is evaluated in the light of existing knowledge of
phytolith taphonomy, the history of Musa, ancient Indian Ocean trade
and African prehistory.


http://www.naturalscience.tcd.ie/Interactions_papers/Africas%20earliest%20bananas_pub_ver.pdf

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Phoenix or Feng (Glossary)

The Phoenix of China is known as Feng 鳳, or, starting in Zhou times, Feng-huang 鳳凰. It is also known as the August Rooster 鶤雞 and Daoist texts describe the legendary bird as resembling a cock, especially one of cinnabar-red color.

Bird totems are found in Neolithic China although they don't necessarily resemble latter depictions of the Phoenix. Around the middle of the first millennium BCE, the bird is shown together with the taotie symbol in Chinese artwork.

The Phoenix was said to live somewhere in the South, and starting in Han dynasty times the Feng-huang became a symbol for the southern direction.

Fu Hsi's surname was Feng, possibly representing his totemic clan, and he faced his throne toward the South, a tradition that persisted throughout Chinese history. Feng-shui masters also claim that the orientation of the emperor's throne and palace was toward the Phoenix of the South.

The Feng-huang was said to live in the mountain of Cinnabar Caves (Tan-hsüeh shan) which Chuang Tzu located somewhere south of the Yueh kingdom (modern Zhejiang and Fujian).

The Phoenix was said also to reside in the "South Sea" and to fly at times to the "North Sea."

The Cinnabar Caves may be related to the Cinnabar Field far beneath Penglai's central mountain. When Xu Fu was sent by the Qin Emperor to find Penglai, he claimed to have met a "great spirit" in the ocean who led him toward the southeast to the legendary island.

Some of the Boshanlu censers, which when in use relay an image of a smoking mountain, display Penglai island supported on the beak of a Phoenix standing on a turtle, the latter possibly representing the center of the earth.

The oracle bone character for feng "wind" is a bird pictograph that has been identified with the Phoenix (feng 鳳).

Sarah Allan has suggested that the bird-wind-Phoenix link may connect with Jun "East Wind" mentioned in the Shang texts as one of the great ancestors of the Shang dynasty so closely associated with bird totems.

According to the Shanhaijing, Jun (Di Jun) married Xihe in the "Southeastern-Sea amidst the Sweet Waters, and Xihe gives birth to the "Ten Suns" which bathe in the boiling water pools near Fu-Sang, the mulberry tree under which rises the Underground World River.

Thus, this Di Jun may also have some Feng clan associations that locate geographically in the "Southeastern-Sea" where the Fu-Sang tree is located.

Fu-Sang is central to the myth of the multiple suns that are said to rest in its branches. It is associated with the East and apparently with the equatorial regions where the Sun rises above the horizon between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Xihe, Jun's wife, is said to rinse and purify each Sun after its journey and place it back on the branches of the Fu-Sang tree.


Variations of Shang dynasty origin myths from Allan, he Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, p. 35.

If the huang in the name "Feng-huang" is an epithet, as claimed by some, then it might indicate the movement of the Phoenix myth from the South towards the North, as languages in the southern region commonly placed epithets after substantives.

By Han times, the Feng-huang became two birds, one male and the other female, and later five different phoenixes arose. The modern Phoenix, like the Dragon, is a composite creation.

Feng-huang is portrayed often either cinnabar-red, or with five colors representing the five cardinal virtues. The Phoenix stands for, among other things, the Empress, conjugal union and the Yin principle.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Allan, Sarah. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, SUNY Press, 1991.

Alchemy (Glossary)

The alchemy referred to here is that centered around the use of sulfur and mercury, and their compound, cinnabar, or mercury sulfide, to transmute base metals into gold, and to extend human life.

Many believe this form of alchemy has its basis in earlier spiritual alchemy and cosmology. Some suggest that the concept of "signatures" and cinnabar's similarity in color to human blood, the fluid of life, drives the philosophy of alchemy.

Humans have used red colored materials like red ochre since prehistoric times. The presence of ochre in burials may have had some link with concepts of immortality. In ancient Egypt, the practice of painting men in red color, and women in yellow color, when in the presence of deities, may have some ancient relationship to the contrasts of red and yellow ochre.

In ancient China, cinnabar appears as a burial item at least by the late Neolithic and possibly as early as the Yangshao period. In latter times, cinnabar was used to preserve the body of the dead. In Southeast Asia, the use of red ochre to cover bodies during burial dates back to the Mesolithic Hoabinhian culture. Oppenheimer states:

The main areas with the story of man made from red earth are Southeast Asia, Oceania and some Mundaic tribes in India. All these areas, except eastern Polyneisa, have abundant red and laterite soils.

Oppenheimer also notes the distribution of myths attributing the redness of the clay to tempering with divine blood and its close approximation with red clay-first man myths, and suggests that the red clays here were used as a surrogate for blood. In China, both red ochre and cinnabar could be used as substitutes for blood in rituals.

Also, in Southeast Asia, red clay was eaten during pregnancy and for health purposes. This may relate to the practice that arose in China of consuming collodial cinnabar.

The Elixir

Needham has accumulated evidence suggesting that by the Zhou (Chou) dynasty, the concept of cinnabar and mercury as contributing to immortality had become established. Also it was in this period that mercury was distilled from cinnabar, a process releasing the sulfur as gaseous sulfur dioxide (SO2).

In the Shiji, the Qin Emperor is advised to make gold from cinnabar which can be used in turn to make drinking and eating vessels to prolong life:

Li Shaojun then advised the emperor, "If you sacrifice to the fireplace you can call the spirits to you, and if the spirits come you can transform cinnabar into gold. Using this gold, you may make driking and eating vessels, which will prolong the years of your life. With prolonged life you may visit the immortals who live on the island of Penglai in the middle of the sea. If you visit them and perform the Feng and Shan sacrifices, you will never die."

The "gold" here was interpreted by later alchemists as an amalgam of gold with cinnabar. However, "gold" in this instance might also be a metaphor for something like the Philosopher's Stone in European alchemy. It was used to create vessels that prolonged life.

The mention of Penglai is also important. In the older Daoist cosmologies, the central mountain of Penglai was viewed as rising out of the sea. The summit, or "navel," of this mountain is hollow, and extends to the deepest parts of the ocean, where lies the "Cinnabar Field," the source of all living beings. This scene is depicted on the famed Boshanlu censers.

On Penglai, also are the mushrooms of immortality, that grow over deposits of cinnabar and gold. The Chinese recognized that gold often lies above cinnabar deposits in mountains, and believed that gold was naturally transmuted from cinnabar.


Tang dynasty bonshanlu depicting Penglai. The mushroom at the top represented the mushroom of immortality, or the central mountain. Quite easily it might also stand for the "tree of life," the mushroom cloud of an erupting volcano. Source: http://www.21ceramics.com/taoci%20history/baiciimage.htm


Undated bronze boshanlu. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13


Boshanlu from Western Han dynasty. Notice depiction of waves lapping on shores of Penglai. Source: http://www.weisbrodltd.com/createpg.cgi?ctlgcode=14&pagenum=13

The divine mushroom was seen as a product of the sublimation of gold and cinnabar that grew over these mineral deposits. The mushroom even glowed in the dark allowing the immortals to find the sought-after lodes of minerals in addition to the fungi. Here also in Penglai were cinnabar caves inhabited by the Phoenix of the South, which the Shanhaijing describes as looking like a cinnabar-red rooster, and probably where would one would also find the auspicious giant bats of Penglai.

Later, possibly under Buddhist influence, these aspects were partly transferred to, or mirrored in, Mount Kun-lun to the west of China.

Volcanic images

Chinese texts describe the hollow summit of Mount Penglai as reaching down into the subterranean or submarine depths matching common imagery of the volcano in many cultures.

Sources of cinnabar, and its separate elements, sulfur and mercury, are nearly always located near volcanoes, hot springs or fumaroles.

Mention of the Cinnabar Field under the hollow mountain of Penglai appears to express this reality. In latter European alchemy, volcanoes were seen as natural laboratories that produced all the base metals from differing combinations of sulfur and mercury, to which they added from Arabian alchemical influence, the neutralizing element of salt.

The "Philosopher's Stone" was described as a red, glassy powder that could transmute base metals to gold, improve health and extend the life of the aged. In the sense that it could convert other metals it stood as a synthetic agent by which the natural processes of the volcano could be reproduced.

Li Shaojun's statement above indicates that in the time of the Qin Emperor certain food and drink vessels existed that were thought capable of extending life.

These vessels may have had some component of cinnabar and/or gold, or possibly the term "gold" here was a symbolic one as often used in the art of alchemy.

If such vessels were made of clay with some degree of cinnabar, it would have impressed the Chinese for at least a few reasons. Firstly, cinnabar as mentioned above, appears to have mostly taken the place of red ochre as a substitute for life-giving blood. They used it in burials, rituals and as a pigment in divination and other sacred writing.

Secondly, cinnabar contains mercury and is considered by many to be toxic, although others feel that it is not so harmful when bound in a stable fashion with other metals. Vessels containing cinnabar which did not have the normal toxic properties but instead had tonic and therapeutic qualities would have deeply impressed the Chinese who had high cultural regard for cinnabar. Also, as cinnabar contained the two base ingredients believed mutable into any other base metal, a vessel containing cinnabar without the normal harmful effects would appear as quite a coup.

Thus, alchemy may have started as an attempt to synthetically produce the material of the life-extending food and drink vessels using cinnabar as a key ingredient.

In Southeast Asia, cinnabar, mercury and sulfur only appear to became important in most areas at a late period. The Dian kingdom of Yunnan probably used an amalgam of gold and mercury in gilding burial good objects dated from 600 BCE to 300 BCE. However, generally Southeast Asians used red clay as a substitute and significator of blood.

Some of the red clays though did contain natural cinnabar. For example, red clay tested at a cave near the Tubuoy River in Pangasinan, Philippines during 1913 contained 1 percent mercury that was believed to be present in cinnabar native to the clay. The cinnabar may contribute to the red color along with iron, and this clay tends to darken with exposure to the Sun and through oxidation.

Theorectically, cinnabar present in vessels made at least partly of volcanic clay would leak little if any mercury present in the sulfide because of the strong binding properties of montmorillonite and similar minerals.

Yin and Yang, Sulfur and Mercury

The Daoists and Tantrics classified sulfur as female and mercury as male. The Arabs and Europeans reversed this classification. Paracelsus and others used the "sulfurous" and "mercurial" categories to classify all things in nature.

A key Tantric text of the Western Transmission likens the Muladhara Cakra, representing the earth and the acting as the seat of the Kundalini as the body's equivalent of the Vadavanala, the latter's description matching that of a submarine volcano.

The uterine blood of the Goddess in Tantric practice is equated to sulfur which resides in the lower parts of the body dominated by that element.

Around the middle of the 7th century CE, Chinese alchemists began moving more toward the idea of liquid elixir rather than the elixir-based vessels mentioned in the Shiji. Using the principle of "like produces like," the alchemists believed that consuming minerals like gold and cinnabar would create in the body properties similar to those in the metals.

Some of these "elixirs" proved deadly as they contained pure mercury, and other toxic minerals like lead and arsenic.

Even centuries later though, an enlightened alchemist like Isaac Newton, would still write of how he regularly consumed such potions that appear to have adversely effected his health, and traces of which have been revealed through modern testing.

In Southeast Asia, the practice of drinking toxic tonics also caught on eventually. Pigafetta states upon encountering the Prince of Luzon in Brunei: "Those Moros go naked as do the other peoples. They drink quick-silver -- the sick man drinks it to cleanse himself, and the well man to preserve his health."

While the use of toxic metals eventually fell out of fashion in most places, spiritual alchemy, which evolved in parallel with the chemical variety, continues in many forms strongly to the present with practices like Kundalini Yoga and Daoist meditation.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Mahdihassan, S. "History of Cinnabar as Drug, the Natural Substance and the Synthetic Product," Indian Journal of History of Sciences 22(1): 63-70. 1987.

Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body, University of California Press, 1994.

Luzon Jars (Glossary)

The Luzon pottery or Rusun-yaki, was renowned for its value in Japan, during the 16th century.

Jars have a long history of sacred and medicinal use in the region of the Philippines and Borneo.

Since Late Neolithic times at least, huge jars or urns were used in this region for primary or secondary burial. The presence of ceramic sherds at many of these burials, apparently from pots smashed during funerary rites, further highlights the spiritual importance of pottery.

Starting in the early to middle medieval period, imported Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese porcelain, sometimes of very high quality, are found along with native earthernwares in excavated burials.

To the present-day, heirloom jars, some massive in size, continue to have spiritual and prestige value among indigenous peoples in the region.

High-priced pots

Just how much they valued the sacred jars can be seen in the amount they were willing to spend on these items, or by their refusal to part with them at any price.

The sacred jar owned by the Datu of Tamparuli in Borneo, was originally sold to a merchant by a Malau chief for two tons of brass cannons, the equivalent in the mid-1800s to 230 pounds sterling. The merchant sold it to the datu for the equivalent in rice of 700 pounds sterling.

When the Sultan of Brunei was offered the equivalent of $100,000 to part with his sacred jar, he said that no offer would be sufficient. Water from the jar was believed to have special magical properties and visiting farmers from as far as the Bisayas in the Philippines were said to have come to obtain a little magic water for their fields.

For the Japanese, the Luzon jar was important because it was the only vessel capable of storing high-quality tea to their liking. From various reports, the jars also appeared to have been viewed as having medicinal and spiritual properties.

The most sensational report of one of these containers comes from Carletti, who reported that the best of the tea-canisters were valued at up to 30,000 pounds sterling, or about US $4 million in 2006 dollars. And these jars were actually used to store tea or tea leaf!

Europeans were astonished at the high amounts paid for these jars, all of which were old, the older the better, and of uncomely appearance. A similar situation was found in Borneo.

Rusun ("Luzon") Sukezaemon's story is well-known in Japan. The Sakai merchant brought back 50 Luzon jars and sold them to agents of the Shogun. He became fabulously rich and built a mansion that put the local castles to shame.

Types of jars

That the Luzon jars were made in Luzon is quite clear from the Tokiko, a work on the Namban, or Southern, ceramics trade.

The Luzon jars are marked as Rusun-tsukuru "made in Luzon" and all the jars from the south are manufactured with "Namban clay." Shogun Hideyoshi had a tsubo or pot purposely manufactured in Luzon during his reign.

Luzon pots, according to the Tokiko, were marked with symbols that relate to the native scripts of the Philippines, and jars with these markings have been found in archaeological works.

Pots (tsubo) were differentiated from the more-valued tea-canisters (cha-ire).

The Japanese were exceptional at distinguishing these pots for quality and in weeding out fakes. A similar situation was noted in Borneo where attempts in China were made, without success, to imitate the ancient wares and sell them on the local market.

The Luzon tea-canisters were of the best quality. However, European witnesses unanimously described the most valued of these vessels as earthenware. The Tokiko says of the Rusun-koroku, or Luzon ware, that it "is soft because it is not thoroughly baked."

Three types of clay were used for glazed wares: white clay which was of the best quality, yellow clay mixed with white clay and sand in the middle, and purplish-black clay was of lowest quality. All Luzon wares were marked with the wheel-mark or rokoru, a clockwise spiral.

The different types of Luzon tea-canisters described in the Tokiko are:

* Stamped with plum-blossoms with thin yellow-green glaze.
* Black-gold glaze.
* Gold glaze.
* Black glaze.
* "Tea-colored glaze and "ears."
* Green-yellow glaze.
* Yellow glaze.
* Rice kettle shape.
* Four knobs.
* Projecting bottom.
* Cleaned of extra clay with a thread (Usu-ito-giri).
* Cord marks? (Hi-tasuki)
* Candy-brown glaze.
* Monrin type.
* With ears.
* Utsumi type.
* "Eggplant" type.
* Divided lids.
* Bizen-shaped.
* Iga-shaped.
* Other types.

According to Antonio de Morga, the most valued jars sought by the Japanese were dark brown in color. Baron Alexander von Siebold confirms this and gives a more detailed description:

The best of them which I have seen were far from beautiful, simply being old, weather -worn, black or dark-brown jars, with pretty broad necks, for storing the tea in...Similar old vessels are preserved amongst the treasures of the Mikado, and the Tycoon, as well as in some of the temples, with all the care due to the most costly jewels, together with documents relating to their history.

Frank Brinkley, in the early 20th century, describes the tea ritual performed by the On-mono-chashi, the Shoguns' tea deputies who wore samurai uniforms, and fetched the "exceedingly homely jars of Luzon pottery to which the Japanese tea-clubs attached extraordinary value."

Every year the Shogun's tea-jars were carried to Uji to be filled. This proceeding was attended with extraordinary ceremonial [sic]. There were nine choice jars in the Shogun's palace, all genuine specimens of Luzon pottery, and three of these were sent each year in turn, two to be filled by the two "deputy families;" the third by the remaining nine families of On-mono-chashi. The jars were carried in solemn procession headed by a master of the tea-cult (cha-no-yu) and a "priest of tea," and accompanied by a large party of guards and attendants. In each fief through which the procession passed it received an ostentatious welcome and was sumptuously feasted. On arrival at Uji the jar, which always left Yedo fifty days before midsummer, stood for a week in a specially prepared store until every vestige of moisture had been expelled, and then, having been filled, were carried to Kyoto and there deposited for a space of one hundred days.

It's quite apparent that these are not celadons as postulated by some. The Japanese were aware of the celadons in Luzon (Rusun no seiji) which they described as shuko seiji "pearl-gray celadon," but these were different than the most valued dark-colored tea-canisters.

Europeans of the 16th century praised and imported both porcelain and celadon from the East. The communion cup of Archbiship Warham, the Lord Chancellor of England from 1504 to 1532, for example, was an imported celadon.

However, European observers of that time and afterward universally disparaged the Luzon tea-canisters. They also refer to these vessels repeatedly as earthenware.

According to the Tokiko, tea leaf kept its quality in these canisters if it touched the bottom or sides of the jar. Thus, it appears that contact with the clay was required to preserve the tea.

In Borneo and the Philippines, the sacred jars are often dated back to the first creation, and the clay is said to come from the gods.

The common division of sacred jars in Borneo mentioned by observers rates the Gusi type, a medium-sized, olive-green-colored jar with "medicinal properties" as having the highest value, followed by the Naga or "dragon jar." The latter is larger than the Gusi and is decorated with Chinese dragon figures. Last comes the Russa jar which is decorated with a representation of a type of deer.

Jars called "Gusi" also appear in the Philippines and Malaysia. They are mostly small to medium-sized but can be of many different colors. Some are stoneware, but most appear as glazed earthenware containers. A type of dark-brown Gusi known as Bergiau was found among the Sea Dayaks and was of higher value than the greenish Gusi.

Although of obvious Chinese influence, geochemical testing and other evidence suggests that dragon jars or Naga were made throughout the Southeast Asian region.

The dragon jars in the Philippines have a unique geochemical signature, but evidence shows that they also imported many dragon jars from elsewhere including the Martabans of Myanmar (Burma).

The sacred origin of the jars is a widespread motif in the region. In Ceram, pottery is one of the divine excretions of the earth goddess Hainuwele.

In Borneo, the sacred jars are made from the clay left over from the creation of the Sun and Moon by Mahatala, or his subject spirits. The Ngaju considered the vessels gifts of the gods, the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Among the Tinguian of the Philippines, the jars are also gifts, from the Sun or Sky-god Kabunian.

Jars similiar to those found in Solheim's "Bau-Malay" culture and to the Geometric Pottery of South China are still manufactured by the Kalinga of northern Luzon, to store water and wine, for fermentation, cooking and other purposes.

Possible explanations

The most prized of the Luzon wares were the locally-made tea canisters made of earthenware and dark brown or black in color marked with a spiral and native script symbols. Contact with the clay from the inside of the jar helped preserve tea. In the Philippines and Borneo, the jars had medicinal and magical properties, and could even speak to the owners and predict the future according to legend.

If we were to speculate on scientific explanations for the medicinal and preservative properties attributed to the Luzon jars, we would first suggest that the finest tea-canisters were unglazed. They belonged to the Rusun-koroku that was "not thoroughly baked" and/or to the Suyakimono or "unglazed wares," both mentioned in the Tokiko.

One of the types of Suyakimono was the Hi-tasuki, possibly marked with a cord or with a corded pattern brought out in relief, that is mentioned above as one of the Luzon tea-canister types.

Fedor Jagor tells of an artifact that he believed matched the descriptions of Luzon tea-canisters given by Antonio de Morga, the governor of the Philippines:

Morga's description suits neither the vessel of Libmanan nor the jar of the British Museum, but rather a vessel brought from Japan a short time ago to our Ethnographical Museum. This is of brown clay, small but of graceful shape, and composed of many pieces cemented together; the joints being gilt and forming a kind of network on the dark ground.

Like most other descriptions of the jars, no mention of any glaze is offered. The earthenware jars were gilded and decorated with brocade making up somewhat for their unsightly appearance.

However, the lack of glaze would explain why contact with the interior of the jar was important in preserving tea leaves. A volcanic clay with minerals like montmorillonite could have possessed the required properties, but the Rusun clay was even more unique than ordinary volcanic types.

Pinatubo volcanic deposits are very high in sulfur, an element with strong preservative properties. Sulfur is also one of the two base elements used by both Eastern and Western alchemists to divide all things into categories similar to Yin and Yang of Chinese cosmology.

Indian alchemy described the kundalini, the volcanic snake-like energy residing near the base of the spine as surrounded by a mass of sulfur.

The other element in this categorization is mercury. Sulfur and mercury are closely associated with volcanoes, fumaroles and hot springs.

Mercury mixed with other metals and then treated with sulfur produces the sulfides, among the most common types of preservatives used today. In ancient times, these sulfides were created by alchemists seeking to reproduce the Philosopher's Stone and similar products.

The Pinatubo eruptive materials are known to be particularly sulfide-rich.

Lastly, we should note that concerning the Suyakimono canisters possibly having "vermillion" cord-like relief or other types of decorations, that the Kalinga potters used carved paddles to create low relief decorations on their local manufacture jars.

Relief decoration on Kalinga pots
Source: Kalinga Ceramics


Bau-Malay-like low relief patterns.








Bau-Malay-like globular shape.


Kalinga storage jar wrapped in twisted rattan. Source: http://curieuxunivers.umontreal.ca/php/fiche.php?No=45MOA&langue=en

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Brinkley, Frank. Japan: Its History, Arts, and Literature, J.B. Millet Company, 1910.

Descantes, Christophe. Hector Neff, and Michael D. Glascock, "Yapese prestige goods: The INAA evidence for an Asian Dragon Jar," pp. 229-256, IN: Geochemical evidence for long-distance exchange, edited by Michael D. Glascock, Westport, Conn. : Bergin and Garvey, 2002.

Jagor, Fedor and William Gifford Palgrave> The Philippines and the Filipinos of Yesterday ..., Oriental commercial company, 1934.

McKibben, Michael A., C. Stewart Eldridge, and Agnes G. Reyes. Sulfur Isotopic Systematics of the June 1991 Mount Pinatubo Eruptions: A SHRIMP Ion Microprobe Study, http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/mckibben/index.html, 1999.

St. John, Spenser Buckingham. Life in the forests of the Far East, 1862, pp. 27-28, 300-302.

White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, University of Chicago Press, 1998, pp. 234-235.

Clay, Myths and uses of (Glossary)

Clay -- composed of fine, hydrated minerals that are cohesive in nature -- plays an important role in myths and traditional healing systems around the world.

Often the first humans are said to have been formed with clay. The Sumerians had such myths, as did the Aztecs, the Dyaks of Borneo and many other peoples. The clay most often used is red or reddish-brown, the color of which in many myths is attributed to tempering with divine blood (see Oppenheimer, 366-7).

Interestingly, modern science suggests that life, not just humans, may have formed in early volcanic clay. Researchers found that methanol — naturally produced when volcanic carbon dioxide combines with volcanic hydrogen gas — is protected from volcanic heat between layers of certain common clays.

Shielded by the clay, methanol reacts with a clay mineral called montmorillonite to create far more complex organic molecules with up to 20 carbons. For more info, see:

Secrets of Life Found in Volcanic Clay?
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20051031/clay_geo.html

The living powers of clay may link also with its use in traditional forms of medicine.

Geophagy

Geophagy refers to the consumption of clay or soil for healing purposes, which was very widespread, and in some cases to the use of clay as a condiment or emergency food as in the Philippines, New Guinea, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America.

An amazingly widespread practice was for pregnant women to consume clay during various terms or through the entire pregnancy. Clays like kaolin and montmorillonite have properties that can help with morning sickness. Kaolin, for example, is used in the popular preparation Kaopectate.

It may also be that there is some ancient link between the myths of creation of humans from clay and the use of the substance during pregnancy, the formation of humans in the womb. In an old Bisayan myth, Saman and a daughter of Sicalac were forced to eat yellow clay after traveling to the East, which results in their descendents having a yellow color.

The perceived healing powers of clay found in many cultures is not without scientific merit.

Clay is used today widely as an alternative medicine, and also by orthodox medicine in some cases. Clays like montmorillonite (bentonite) and hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate (smectite) are utilized, for example, to detoxify mycotoxins from animal feed.

Naturopathic practictioners also use clay in humans to protect against mycotoxins, heavy metal poisoning and to generally cleanse the body through their absorbent properties. Volcanic clays are particurlarly important because of their wide spectrum of mineral content.

Volcanic clay has a residual negative charge that binds to positive ions, which are toxic to humans.

Mycotoxins are produced by fungi and are heat-stable, thus resistant to practices like cooking. These toxins generally build up in grains and grain-based animal feeds. Mycotoxins from feed will pass into the meat, milk, eggs, etc. of animals that consume the contaminated foodstuffs.

As mycotoxins are very potent carcinogens have have toxic effect particularly on the liver, kidneys and immume system, many researchers now believe they are one of the most important health risks found in the present-day food system.

The European Union has approved clays like Clinoptilolite as binding agents for animal feeds. Although such use of clay binders is not approved by the U.S. FDA, the practice is still becoming increasingly popular in the United States.

Clay jars and the "water of life"

We have explored in this blog, the use of simple, earthenware jars as water, tea or wine pots. In some cases, these rather uncomely jars became exceptionally valuable, sought after by kings and merchants.

The porous earthenware jar allows water to evaporate on its surface. If water is left in such jars for some time container will eventually empty -- the source of "drinking jar" tales.

Evaporation allows the jar to dissipate heat, and thus these vessels are widely known for their "breathing" qualities and their ability to cool drinking water.

Many clays used for such pots contain organic matter and microrganisms, and eventually these water pots become infested with lichens and microrganism colonies, which generally are non-pathogenic, and even beneficial to humans. The jar becomes a living entity to the ancient mind.

If made with certain quantities of volcanic clays (other than kaolinite), the jar becomes badly deformed over time because these clays expand as they absorb moisture.

Such volcanic clays would help purify the water of toxins, and might also mineralize the water through dissolution.

Through these various processes, the water kept in these pots could be easily be recognized as having superior qualities, and indeed that is the case in many cultures.

Living clay from the Magnetic Mountains

Volcanoes tend to abound in natural magnets generated and scattered by an eruption. People living near the mountains could recognize this link and the concept of the magnetic mountain is born.

The magnetic force can be seen as a form of animistic life energy by the pre-modern mind, and thus also anything associated with the volcano including the native clays.

In Borneo, the clays of the Sun and Moon were used to create some of the local sacred jars. The reference here is, I believe, to the original ancient mountains of the Sun and Moon, respectively Arayat and Pinatubo.



Water jar monument from Calamba, Philippines

In legend, these two mountains battle with each other hurling stones through the sky. Science shows that there may be something to these myths. The great Holocene eruptions of Pinatubo show signs of a "mixing" of basaltic stones from the Arayat formation and dacites from Pinatubo. This mixing actually takes place in underground chambers between the two mountains and results in a hybrid ash and pumice. Thus, the eruption of Pinatubo also involves, in a way, Arayat.

This hybrid ash eventually weathers into the volcanic clays around the mountain, a mixture of the elements from the solar and lunar mountains.

Water kept in jars made with this clay, which can be seen as related to the clay used to form the first humans according to mythology, is infused with the same essence as the primordial clay becoming the "water of life."

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Callahan GN. Eating dirt. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 2003 Aug [date cited]. Available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol9no8/03-0033.htm


Galvano F, Piva A, Ritieni A and Galvano G. "Dietary strategies to counteract the effects of mycotoxins: a review," Food Prot. 2001 Jan;64(1):120-31.

Phillips TD. "Dietary clay in the chemoprevention of aflatoxin-induced disease," Toxicol Sci. 1999 Dec;52(2 Suppl):118-26.

Phillips TD, Sarr AB and Grant PG. "Selective chemisorption and detoxification of aflatoxins by phyllosilicate clay," Nat Toxins. 1995;3(4):204-13.

Entheogen (Glossary)

An entheogen generally refers to a mind or mood-altering substance, often hallucinogenic, that supposedly generates profound spiritual experience.

Common entheogens include "psychedelic" mushrooms, cannabis, peyote, morning glory seeds, and other natural drugs that are often illegal today.

Many researchers believe that elixir substances like Amrita, Soma, the Apples of Eden and the like were entheogenic in nature. An opposing view is that the elixir primarily promoted good health and longevity.

In this blog, we have suggested that the elixir, which indeed was linked throughout many cultures, is strongly connected with a specific sacred location -- the cosmic mountain.

In this location, all consumables -- entheogens, herbs, fruits, water, etc. -- were considered sacred and as possessing magical properties or "mana."

Soma/Haoma of the Sea

The tradition of Soma or Haoma coming from the sea is an interesting and puzzling one. Most entheogens involve land-based plants.

According to the Mahabharata, after the ash and debris from the flaming Mount Mandara poured down the rivers into the sea turning the waters white, the Amrita or Soma arose like butter from the churned ocean.

In the Indo-Pacific region, there are numerous seaweeds that contain indole alkaloids similar to those found in other entheogens.

It's difficult to say when seaweed consumption began in this region although it appears very old. Seaweeds were widely consumed in the Pacific when the Europeans arrived. There is even some archaeological evidence of its consumption despite the fragility of the algae from the Latte Period in Guam, which started in the 9th century CE.

The Hawaiians favored seaweed when eating poi, and in the Philippines traditional fresh salads were made with gelatinous seaweeds, while terrestrial vegetables were usually cooked.

Pigafetta found "the sea to be full of grass although the depth of the sea was very great" as he approached the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines.

P. Blanco in his late 1700s book on Philippine flora mentions gulaman a general term for seaweeds used especially to make the gelatinous substance known as agar-agar (Malay jelly). Bergano, from around the same period, mentions cancung as the name of "grass" grown in the water without specifying sea grasses. However he also says that some types of cancung were collected for use in salads ("ensalada"), which suggests that cancung included seaweed, which has been eaten raw in salads for centuries at least.

The Philippines is currently a major producer and cultivator of seaweed including the peculiar Caulerpa species known generally as lato.

"Peppery" seaweed

Caulerpa species are known to contain psychoactive substances such as caulerpin, caulerpicin and caulerpenyne.

Some of these are mild and caulerpin even has root growth stimulant properties.


Sea grapes, Caulerpa racemosa, Hawai`i, source:
hbs.bishopmuseum.org/good-bad/list.html


Lukay-lukay, Caulerpa taxifola, an hallucinogenic algae, source: http://www-csgc.ucsd.edu/STORIES/Caulerpa.html

In the local tradition, food with these substances are said to have a "peppery" taste. Mild seaweeds of this type cause a slight numbness to the tongue and mouth.

Strong peppery seaweeds sting the mouth and are avoided by most people. However, some are predisposed to the stronger seaweeds including the Caulerpa taxifolia species, which can be strongly hallucinogenic in nature.

Psychoactive fish

Certain herbivorous fish consume Caulerpa and similar hallucinogenic algae and concentrate the active substances in their flesh or other body parts.

For example, the blue seachub (Khyphosus cinerascens) is known worldwide as one of the most frequently implicated species in hallucinogenic fish poisoning.

In the Philippines one of the names for the blue seachub is dapog "open fire," which probably suggests the strong "peppery" qualities of this fish when eaten.

Recently, Caulerpa taxifolia invaded the Mediterranean, where it is not native, and was apparently was consumed by a local herbivorous fish known as the Sarpa salpa. Two people reported having hallucinations and nightmares after consuming the fish.

In the Pacific, such hallucinogenic fish species are called "dream fish."

Algae blooms can also cause many common edible species to become toxic and sometimes hallucinogenic.


Blue seachub, Khyphosus cinerascens, known in some parts of the Philippines as dapog is a powerfully-hallucinogenic fish well-known for cases of fish poisoning, source: Robert A. Patzner.

The "red tide" bloom effects shellfish and among some people a substance known as domoic acid found in cases of Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) causes hallucinations. A similar effect occurs with edible fish species during ciguatera blooms.

Indeed even spoiled shellfish can contain the neurotoxin tetrodotoxin, which is believed to be the active substance in the famous Haitian zombie powder used by voodoo practitioners.

It's interesting that many species classifed as hallucinogenic and poisonous elsewhwere are easily available in Philippine markets including Caulerpa taxifolia, Blue seachub, damselfish (ulan-ulan) and goatfishes (saramollete).

While a fresh seaweed salad is considered today a healthy and delicious addition to a meal through much of the Nusantao and Austronesian region, I know of no indication that psychoactive seaweeds, fish or shellfish were used in ritual fashion of any kind.

Betel nut and kava were more commonly used as mild intoxicants with some link to spiritual rituals.

However, the general effect of these "peppery" seafoods is certainly known, and no doubt some people consume them for this specific reason.

In this regard, the tale of bird's nest soup is of interest.

Made from the nests of certain species of Southeast Asian swifts, the bird's nests are considered an elixir of youth in Chinese and Vietnamese traditional medicine. Even today bird's nests are still sold as an expensive health tonic.

The swift birds in the Philippines and the bird's nest itself are known as salangana.

The nest is constructed mostly of regurgitated seaweed eaten by the swift. In ancient tradition, the bird digested the sea foam itself infusing the sea's nutrients into the nest. Most commonly it was the local Ngoso type of seaweed that was involved, but also not rarely the Lato or Caulerpa seaweeds and even the powerfully psychoactive Caulerpa taxifolia was used by the little swift!


Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

California Sea Grant, Caulerpa Weed Story, http://www-csgc.ucsd.edu/STORIES/Caulerpa.html.

Capuli, Estelita Emily and Kathleen Kesner-Reyes. "Khyphosus cinerascens in Philippines," Country Species Summary, Link.

Meinesz, Alexandre. Killer Algae, University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Simoons, Frederick J. Food in China, CRC Press, 1990, pgs. 428-9.

Velasquez, Gregorio. "History on the Local Uses of Seaweed," Science Review Vol. 8, no. 3 (March 1967), Philippines: National Science and Development Board.

Record-keeping and Mnemonics, Early (Glossary)

In the traditional society of Easter Island, string figures or kaikai and string games known as pata'uta'u were used to memorize esoteric formula/spells, chants, histories and stories.

R. Campbell found that some kaikai chants were in fact identical to songs written in the native script known as rongorongo. Experts believe it may be possible to also match up the texts of pata'uta'u string games with the rongorongo of the Easter Island tablets.

Indeed, a number of rongorongo signs closely resemble Easter Island string figures, and bird symbolism was important in both practices.


Rongorongo inscription, Small Santiago Tablet, source: http://www.rongorongo.org

In a similar manner, Chinese tradition tells us that Fu Hsi used knot records that became one of the prototypes for the future Chinese script.

Some extant texts exist showing the depiction of numbers using black and white knots. The black knots represent even numbers, night, cold, water and Earth. The white knows stand for odd numbers, day, warmth and Sun. These knots represented also the principles of yin and yang, and served as models for the trigrams, which were likewise credited to Fu Hsi.

The Hetu or "River Map" of Fu Hsi, and the Luoshu or "Luo River Writing" of Yu the Great, are portrayed as cosmic maps that depict the universe with sets of connected black and white dots representing respectively even and odd numbers.


The top row shows two extant Chinese tablets with even numbers represented by strings of black dots, and odd numbers by strings of white dots. On the second row, the Luo River Writing (L), which Yu the Great found on the back of a turtle emerging from the Luo Shui River. The Hetu, or River Map (R), found by Fu Hsi written on a "dragon-horse" that arose from the Yellow River. In both cases, the black dots stand for yin and even numbers, and the white dots represent yang and odd numbers.


Possible evolution of trigrams from binary knot system using counting stick images. On the top row is a cord of strings with dark knots representing even numbers and yin characteristics, and white knots: odd numbers and yang characteristics. The center row shows the numbers 1-8 using Chinese counting sticks. The image of the counting sticks is used to form the trigrams with the solid lines standing for the white knots and the broken lines for the yin knots.

Interestingly, the numerals used for the numbers 1 to 3 in many ancient scripts appear related to tally sticks or pebbles, shells, beads, etc. used for counting.

The similarity to tally sticks breaks off with the number four in half the scripts involved suggesting that maybe, if there is some relationship between these symbols, that it involves a base-four counting system.


Numerals from 1 to 3 in various ancient scripts

Base-four numeration is scattered here and there all over the world.

The practice of counting items like yams, coconuts, bananas, taro, fish, etc. by fours is rather commonly found in the Pacific both among Papuan and Austronesian peoples.

In Hawai`i, counting by fours is known as kauna and is still used in some fish markets especially for counting the opelu fish. According to tradition, a fisherman could hold four fish by there tails, two in each hand, or four taros in the same way. The kauna method supplements the ancient Proto-Austronesian decimal system.

kauna -- 4
ka'au -- 40
lau -- 400
mano -- 4,000
kini -- 40,000
lehu -- 400,000

J. Przyluski in studying the ganda guti system of numeration among the Mundas believed the origin to stem back to Austro-Asiatic and even to Proto-Austric.

The gandaka system of counting by fours in other Indian languages is thought by many to have been modeled after the ganda guti numeration.

Ganda monetary system

4 kauri (cowries) = 1 ganda
20 ganda = 1 pan (80 kauri)
4 pan = 1 ana
4 ana = 1 kahan
4 kahan = 1 rupee

That the above system used cowries as a form of currency is seen as evidence of its origin among a maritime people.

In the Philippines, counting by fours is found in systems like the measure based on the ganta still used mainly for measuring rice.

Apatan (divided by four)

4 apatan = 1 gahinan (chupa)
4 gahinan = 1 cagitnaan
4 gatang = 1 ganta (8 gahinan/chupas)

There are other four-based systems like that used in Pampanga for measuring spun cotton: 4 cauing = 1 cabid; 10 cabid = 1 tul (40 cauing).

Counting by fours probably originally involved using the four fingers with the thumb used only as a placeholder. Eventually, this involved into a base eight numeration by using both hands.

The Bagua or octogonal arrangement of the trigrams, instituted by Fu Hsi, can indicate the use of base four systems, one with each hand to form a base eight numeration. Thus, the first trigram in this arrangement (seen above) is the polar opposite of the eighth trigram. The second trigram is the opposite of the seventh trigram, and so on.

Knot records

In the 1700s, George Keate wrote of the encounter of Captain Wilson and the king of Palau, Abba Thulle and his son Lee Boo. The king gave Captain Wilson permission to take Lee Boo with him to England and promptly constructed a knot calendar by which he would track the voyage of his son.

Lee Boo also used a series of string records to memorize the name of every ship and country they encountered along the way to England.

Unfortunately as with most early notices of knot records, little information is given on to the precise methods used. However, little bits of information are available here and there from the many cultures that used this type of record-keeping.

In the Ryukyus, a string of knots sent to woodcutters indicated the type of trees to be cut by a leaf inserted in the knot. Knots at certain locations on the string indicated the quantity and dimensions of the timber required. Pawnbrokers on the Ryukyus used knots to record the amount of debts with fractions indicated on subsidiary strings. Different types of knots represented the various months in the payment schedule.

The Santals of India used different colored knots in their census to record the population -- black for adult men, red for adult women, white for boys and yellow for girls.

One of the most detailed accounts was that of a massive tax-recorders cord, nearly a half-mile in length, found by Tyerman and Bennet in Hawai`i in 1822:

The tax-gatherers, though they can neither read nor write, keep very exact accounts of all the articles, of all kinds, collected from the inhabitants throughout the island. This is done principally by one man, and the register is nothing more than a line of cordage from four to five hundred fathoms in length. Distinct portions of this are allotted to the various districts, which are known one from another by knots, loops, and tufts, of different shapes, sizes and colors. Each taxpayer in the district has his part in this string, and the number of dollars, hogs, dogs, pieces of sandal-wood, quantity of taro &c, at which he is rated, is well defined by means of marks, of the above kinds, most ingeniously diversified. It is probable that the famous quippos, or system of knots, whereby the records of the ancient Peruvian empire are said to have been kept, were a similar, and perhaps not much more comprehensive, mode of reckoning dates and associating names with historical events.

On the Marquesas islands in French Polynesia, priests were able to read off their ancestors that were indicated by knots on a string going back to the first man and woman. Referring to a specific knot genealogy discovered by von den Steinen, Cyrus L. Day says:

"...Karl von den Steinen saw a Marquesan knot-genealogy that went back 159 generations or (counting thirty years to a generation) to about 2870 B.C. The Mikado of Japan, he remarks, is a mere parvenu compared with some of the unlettered princelings of the Pacific islands; for the family trees of the Marquesans go back to the earliest colonization of the archipelago, to the gods of Hawaiki (the legendary homeland of the race), and even to the myths of the creation of the universe."

The Marquesan to'o knot records were multi-purpose with one cord pontentially containing genealogies, religious chants, songs and other information.

Symbolic records on totem poles/menhirs, textiles, rafters, tattoos, etc.

The use of symbols to indicate genealogy, heroic accomplishments and the like on ancestral objects like totem poles or the rafters of ancestral houses is found repeatedly throughout the Austronesian and Nusantao region.

As with knot records, interpretation of such symbols was largely a private matter of the recorder or artist and those who were instructed as to their meaning. However, there are also cases of more or less "standardized" symbols that were used for public communication.

The location of the symbols as, for example, the position of tattoo marks on the face of a Maori warrior, often was essential for correct interpretation. In the same sense, the position of drawings on the ridgepole and rafters of the Maori meeting-house, and the position of carved images on the veranda, walls and on support posts, are integral to their meaning. The same symbol in different locations could have different meanings. In this sense, the system was graphic in nature similar to a genealogical tree or a geographical map.

Certainly there could be a relationship between these symbolic systems and the mapping techiques found in the wave piloting stick charts of the Marshall Islands, and the star chart rafters of the Kiribati maneaba.



Symbols and divination

The oracle bone and tortoise shell inscriptions of the Neolithic period to Shang dynasty Dongyi people of Shandong and neighboring provinces used symbols that had no obvious graphic realism.

Some of the glyphs could plausibly relate to figures made of string, stick, rings, etc. hanging from cords as mnemonic devices used in early record and story-keeping.


Oracle bone and tortoise shell glyphs from http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Culture/language-oracle-bone.html with the top row showing simple glyphs, the middle row more advanced composite glyphs, and the bottom, complex composite glyphs. The top row glyphs have some resemblance to present-day Chinese knot wall hangings, and may have represented string figures hanging from larger recording cords.

Knots, symbols and similar devices served the same purposes as scripts later on, to include record-keeping, story-telling, aiding instruction and even use for personal communication.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Cajori, Florian. A History of Mathematical Notations/Two Volumes Bound As One/Notations in Elementary Mathematics,..., Courier Dover Publications, 1993.

Day, Cyrus L. The Role of the Knot in Primitive Ancient Cultures, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1967.

Kanahele, George Hu'eu. Ku Kanaka Stand Tall: A Search for Hawaiian Values University of Hawaii Press, 1993, p. 285.

Manansala, Paul. "Sungka Mathematics of the Philippines," Indian Journal of History of Science 30(1), New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1995.

Przyluski, Jean. Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1929.