Reflect on the character of "snake"

The Chinese character to represent to the snake has suffered throughout the centuries a curious evolution that, although I dress from the cultural perspective of the XXIst century, can turn out to be a stranger, it it will not be so much if we remember the simbología of the snake in the ancient culture of China.

The first representations of this character (two figures of above to the left) show us clearly the pictograph of a snake, in that the head stands out, and a long body with some sinuosity. Later there is emphasized his head (it arrives at the right and below at the left), it is possible that even with the language it was. The systematization of the characters presents us again (below in the center) to the original, even more outlined snake, but surprisingly we find it under a roof. Finally, when this character was used to represent the pronoun "it", the radical adds to himself of "bug or insect" to form the current character (below to the right).

Any person who tries to study the Chinese characters using the logic, as I propose in the Manual of Writing of the Chinese Characters (1), it runs there into a cultural barrier that makes difficult to him to remember this character, since hardly we can consider to be appropriate a definition that shows us to the snake like "snake under roof".

Both in China and in Occident, the snake is a dangerous and disgusting considered animal associated with the wild life, which hardly we can imagine under the roof of a house. But not always it has been like that.

Traditionally the snake has been considered to be a benign animal and auspicioso. From the ancient dynasty Shang (XVIIth to XIIth century a.n.e) sacrifices were yielding to a feminine snake. The most common representations of the big goddess Nuwa, creator of the humanity according to some Chinese mythologies, describe it with woman's body and tail of snake. Fuxi, other of the big gods of the Chinese mythology, is described also with snake tail. In the graves of the dynasty They Have (202 a.n.e to 209 n.e) it is frequent to find representations of these two deities with his interlaced tails.

The snake, with his aptitude to change skin, it is thought a symbol of a continuous cycle of renaissance and destruction, which could have served like mitigation before the existential anxiety of the first human populations. The snake is on the other hand, a topic appellant in the cognitive experiences chamánicas, in which on certain form there was based the spiritual life of the ancient China.

The snake is, also, a feminine symbol. Precisely this feminine quality is the one that, according to numerous authors, has provoked his symbolic transformation. That is to say when the woman was playing an important role in the society and was considered, at least, his extraordinary qualities to be equal to the man, the snake, given, it was thought a divine animal. According to the woman it is losing importance the snake does it, up to finishing degraded to one of five filthy bugs in the imperial iconography of China.

Fortunately, in these popular traditions generally little attended by a few students pathologically dependent on the written texts, the snake it has preserved part of his original character.

This way, when we know that in some rural areas of the north of the province of Jiangsu the snake is considered to be an animal auspicioso, there are called they "dragoncito". And if they find one inside house, only they extract it out, but they do not kill it, since they might attract the misfortune.

In Fujian there survives up to nowadays a Temple of the Snake constructed during the dynasty Ming. In his interior Snake venerates the God and to Buddha. According to the legends this snake was a boa that came to the outskirts. Soon there came untied an epidemic that killed many people. The people of the village sent a few emissaries to the mountain where he was living through the snake to ask for the magic fire, and soon a light beam with form of snake appeared and the epidemic stopped. By what in gratitude this temple was constructed. And every year on the seventh of the seventh lunar month activities celebrate in honor of the God Snake. (2)

We are not going to spread in the symbolism of the snake since I believe that with these examples they are enough to help us to understand that about remembering the snake character like "snake under roof" is simply to remember these not so distant times when the snake was considered an animal auspicioso.

Pedro Ceinos Arcones

(1) Ceinos, Pedro. - Manual of Writing of the Chinese Characters. Madrid, 1998-2007.

(2) Yi Enyu. - Xhongguo fuhao (Chinese Symbols). Nanjing, 2006

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