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2.2.1 The Chinese Mythology
Millidge state that the Chinese people have never demanded a clear separation of the worlds of myth and reality. Indeed, they are so closely bound up that it is hard
to say where one begins and the other ends. Historical figures are made into gods and myths are recounted as history 7.
The myths have intertwined itself in the Chinese culture that the tendency of linking the fact and fantasy is big. It also indicates the power and importance of
‘mythology’ in the Chinese tradition. There is a good example of fact which happened on the days of China revolutionary:
Chairman Mao, in the heyday of the Cultural Revolution 1968-1978, was often seen as the all-powerful god responsible for all good things that
happened. When an airline hostess could offer the explanation that ‘there is no need to wear safety belt, because Mao, the Great Helmsman is in charge’,
the feeling is conveyed the superhuman characters with fantastic powers, like those that inhabited the ancient texts 7.
In addition, the Chinese views dragon as a special creature. In Chinese folklore, dragon is totally unlike the evil fire-breathing creations of European myth.
The Chinese dragon, or lung, is a charismatic creature, the rain bringer, the lord of all the waters, and is now regarded as a symbol of good fortune. Dragon is also regarded
as wise creature, and it was popularly supposed that each one had a ‘pearl of wisdom’ in his mouth. Scholars and sages were known as ‘dragon men’ 29-30. Dragons
represent the male yang element 60. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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2.2.2 The Symbol of Bone Chevalier, Alain, John Buchanan-Brown state that the symbolism of bones
follows two main lines of development. In the first place the bones are the framework of the body and its essential and relatively permanent element. Second, bones contain
marrow, as the shell contains the almond. In the first instance, bones are the symbol of resoluteness, strength and virtue St. Martin. In this context it is worth quoting the
‘bone of my bones’ of Genesis 2:23. Bones are essential and somehow primordial
element of the being 109.
It is also explained that some people believe that the most important ‘soul’ is contain within the bones. The Mongolo-Turkic people of the Ahtai, and similarly the
Finno-Ugrians, always honor the bones of game, particularly of big game animals, by putting their skeletons together again after eating their flesh and being scrupulously
careful not to break a bone. The Bambara see the bones, comprising ‘the most durable, not to say imperishable part of the human body, the inner frame of the visible
exterior, as symbolizing the essential element, the essence of creation”. Yo, the First Spirit, who had existed before the creation of the world, is ‘the great creator of
marrow in the bones’. The hub of the four points of the compass, from which the word of creation Faro spiraled out, is called ‘the bone in the middle of the world’.
The use in India and Tibet of human bones for making sacred weapons and musical instruments is no sense alien to ideas of asceticism, of surmounting the notions of life
and death and of access to immortality 109. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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In The Bonesetter’s Daughter, there is a term called ‘dragon bones’ and ‘oracle bone’. Hu explain that the discovery of thousands of inscribed bones and
tortoise shells, used for divination, has enabled historians to be on fairly firm ground with regard to the Shang dynasty, which lasted from about the sixteenth to the
eleventh century B.C 12.
2.2.3 Peking Man
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