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Hong (rainbow-dragon)
Encyclopedia
Chinese dragon
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...
in Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written tradition. These include creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state...
, comparable with rainbow serpent
Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent is a common motif in the art and mythology of Aboriginal Australia. It is named for the snake-like meandering of water across a landscape and the colour spectrum caused when sunlight strikes water at an appropriate angle relative to the observer.The Rainbow Serpent is seen as...
legends in diverse cultures and mythologies.
Chinese "rainbow" names
ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
has three "rainbow
Rainbow
A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc...
" words, regular hong 虹, literary didong 蝃蝀, and ni 蜺 "secondary rainbow".
Note that all these Chinese characters share a graphic element of hui 虫 "insect; worm; reptile; etc." (cf. tripled chong 蟲), known in Chinese as Kangxi radical number 142 and loosely translated in English as the "insect radical". In traditional Chinese character classification
Chinese character classification
All Chinese characters are logograms, but there are several derivative types. These include a handful which derive from pictograms and a number which are ideographic in origin, but the vast majority originated as phono-semantic compounds . In older literature, Chinese characters in general may be...
, "radical-phonetic" or "phono-semantic" characters are statistically the most common category, and they combine a "radical
Radical (Chinese character)
A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
" or determinative
Determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...
that suggests semantic field
Semantic field
A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped by meaning in a certain way. The term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology and computational semiotics.-Definition and usage:...
with a "phonetic" element that roughly indicates pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
. Words written with this 虫 radical typically name not only insects, but also reptiles, and other miscellaneous creatures, including some dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s such as shen
Shen (clam-monster)
In Chinese mythology, the shen or chen is a shapeshifting dragon or sea monster believed to create mirages.-Meanings:Chinese classic texts use the word shen to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later...
蜃 "aquatic dragon" and jiao
Jiaolong
Jiaolong or jiao is a polysemous aquatic dragon in Chinese mythology. Edward H. Schafer describes the jiao.Spiritually akin to the crocodile, and perhaps originally the same reptile, was a mysterious creature capable of many forms called the chiao . Most often it was regarded as a kind of lung – a...
蛟 "flood dragon". Linguistic anthropologists
Linguistic anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages, and has grown over the past 100 years to encompass almost any aspect of language structure and...
studying folk taxonomy
Folk taxonomy
A folk taxonomy is a vernacular naming system, and can be contrasted with scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way peoples describe and organize their natural surroundings/the world around them, typically making generous use of form taxa like "shrubs", "bugs", "ducks",...
discovered many languages have zoological categories similar to hui 虫, and Brown (1979) coined the portmanteau word
Portmanteau word
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
wug (from worm + bug) meaning the class of "insects, worms, spiders, and smaller reptiles". Following Carr (1990:87), "wug" is used as the English translation of the Chinese logographic radical 虫.
Hong
Regular script
Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 , 楷体 and 正書 , is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is...
Chinese character 虹 for hong or jiang "rainbow" combines the "wug radical" with a gong 工 "work" phonetic. Both Qin dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
and Zhou dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
bronze script elaborated this same radical-phonetic combination. However, the oldest characters for "rainbow" in Shang dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
oracle bone script
Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...
were pictographs of an arched dragon or serpent with open-mouthed heads at both ends. Wolfram Eberhard
Wolfram Eberhard
Wolfram Eberhard was a professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies.-Biography:...
(1968:246) notes, "In early reliefs, the rainbow is shown as a snake or a dragon with two heads. In West China they give it the head of a donkey, and it rates as a lucky symbol."
The (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...
dictionary, the first Chinese character dictionary, described the seal character for hong 虹 "rainbow" as 狀似蟲 "shaped like a wug". Over 18 centuries later, Hopkins described the recently-discovered oracle character for 虹.
What should we see in this simple but striking image? We should, I now feel sure, discern a Rainbow terminating in two animal heads. But of what animal? Certainly of the Dragon, must be the answer. For the design of the character is, in the main, naturalistic, in so far as it is clearly modeled on the semi-circular Bow in the sky, but symbolistic through the addition of two heads, for where the Rainbow ends, there the Dragon begins! (1931:604-5)
Hopkins elucidated.
It is the belief of the Chinese that the appearance of the Rainbow is at once the herald and the cause of the cessation of rain and the return of clear skies. … Now, if by his own volition, when mounting to the upper air, the Dragon could beget the rolling thunder and the drenching rain-storm, how should he not be able also, in descending, the cause the rain to cease, and the face of the blue sky to clear? And that is why I conjecture and suggest that the early Chinese must have seen in the Rainbow one avatar of the wonder-working Dragon as conceived by their animistic mentality. That would likewise explain why to the arching bow seen with their bodily eyes they added the Dragon heads beheld only by the eye of faith. (1931:606)
Jiang is an uncommon pronunciation of 虹, limited to colloquial or dialectal usage, and unlike hong not normally found in compounds
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
. For instance, caihong 彩虹 (with "color") "rainbow", hongcai 虹彩 "rainbow colors; iridescence; the iris; banners", hongqiao 虹橋 (with "bridge") "arch bridge", and hongxi 虹吸 (with "absorb; suck up") "siphon".
Didong
Didong 蝃蝀 or 螮蝀 is a Classical ChineseClassical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
word for "rainbow", now usually restricted to literary or historical usage. These three characters combine the "wug radical" with phonetics of zhuo 叕 "connect" or dai 帶 "girdle; sash" in di 蝃 or 螮 and dong 東 "east" in dong 蝀.
Ni
Ni 蜺 or 霓 means "secondary rainbow" or "supernumerary rainbow", which results from double reflection of sunlight, with colors inverted from a primary rainbow (see Alexander's bandAlexander's band
thumb|200px|Ray paths of the primary rainbowthumb|200px|Ray paths of the secondary rainbowthumb|400px|Alexander's BandAlexander's band or Alexander's dark band is an optical phenomenon associated with rainbows which was named after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it. It occurs due to...
). These characters combine a phonetic of er 兒 "child" with either the "wug radical" 虫 or the "rain radical" 雨. Ni 蜺 can also mean hanchan 寒蟬 "winter cicada", which is a "silent, mute" metaphor.
While hongni 虹霓 means "primary and secondary rainbows; rainbows", nihong 霓虹 is a loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
from English neon
Neon
Neon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
in expressions like nihongdeng 霓虹燈 "neon light", compare the chemical loanword nai 氖 "neon; Ne". Fuhong 副虹 (with "second; subsidiary") means "secondary rainbow" in Chinese meteorological
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
terminology.
Early textual references
Chinese classic textsChinese classic texts
Chinese classic texts, or Chinese canonical texts, today often refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Neo-Confucian titles of Four Books and Five Classics , a selection of short books and chapters from the voluminous collection called the Thirteen Classics. All of these pre-Qin texts...
dating from the Spring and Autumn Period (8th-5th centuries BCE) and Warring States Period
Warring States Period
The Warring States Period , also known as the Era of Warring States, or the Warring Kingdoms period, covers the Iron Age period from about 475 BC to the reunification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC...
(5th-3rd centuries BCE) referred to hong, didong, and ni rainbows.
The Shijing has the oldest known textual usages of hong and didong, and both are bad omen
Omen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
s. One poem (256, tr. Waley 1937:302) uses 虹, which is interpreted as a loan character for hong 訌 (with the "speech radical" 言) "disorder; conflict; quarrel": "That kid with horns was truly a portent of disaster, my son!" Another poem (51, tr. Waley 1937:42) begins with didong 蝃蝀: "There is a girdle in the east; No one dares point at it. A girl has run away, Far from father and mother, far from brothers young and old." Arthur Waley
Arthur Waley
Arthur David Waley CH, CBE was an English orientalist and sinologist.-Life:Waley was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, as Arthur David Schloss, son of the economist David Frederick Schloss...
explains translating zhuo 蝃 "spider" as a loan for di 螮 "girdle".
The girdle is the rainbow. Its appearance announces that someone who ought not to is about to have a baby; for the arc of the rainbow typifies the swelling girdle of a pregnant woman. No one dares point at it, because pointing is disrespectful, and one must respect a warning send by Heaven." (1937:43)
"Although many ancient cultures believed rainbows were good omens," Carr (1990:101) explains, "the Chinese saw them as meteorological disasters. Unlike the auspicious [long] 龍 dragon symbolizing forthcoming rain, the two-headed [hong] 虹 was inauspicious because it appeared after a rain shower." The Huainanzi
Huainanzi
The Huáinánzǐ is a 2nd century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from the Han dynasty that blends Daoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases. It was written under the patronage of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, a legendarily prodigious author...
(3, Schindler 1923:322) says both rainbows and comets were warnings from tian
Tian
Tian is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the cosmos and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang Dynasty the Chinese called god Shangdi or Di , and during the Zhou Dynasty Tian "heaven; god" became synonymous with Shangdi...
"heaven; god". Several classic texts (e.g., Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan and Xinxu) use the phrase baihong guan ri 白虹貫日 "bright rainbow threads the sun". For example, it is a portent of assassination in the Zhanguoce (297, tr. Crump 1979:454) "a white halo pierced the sun." One notable exception is the Mengzi
Mengzi
Mengzi may refer to:*Mencius , 372 – 289 BCE, Chinese philosopher*Mengzi City , in Yunnan, China...
(tr. Legge 1895:171) using yunni 雲霓 "cloud and rainbow" to describe the legendary Tang of Shang
Tang of Shang
King Cheng Tang of Shang was the first ruling king of the Shang dynasty in Chinese history. He overthrew Jie, the last ruler of the Xia dynasty.-Early life:...
: "the people looked to him, as we look in a time of great drought to the clouds and rainbows."
The oldest Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...
, the ca. 3rd century BCE Erya
Erya
The Erya is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary or Chinese encyclopedia. Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from" the 3rd century BC....
says didong 螮蝀 was called yu 雩 "rain sacrifice", defines it as hong 虹 "rainbow", and says ni 蜺 "secondary rainbow" was called qie'er 挈貳 "lift/carry two." The commentary of Guo Pu
Guo Pu
Guo Pu , courtesy name Jingchun , born in Yuncheng, Shanxi, was a Chinese writer.-Biography:Guo Pu was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector of strange tales, editor of old texts, and erudite commentator...
notes rainbows were called yu in Jiangdong (present day Jiangsu
Jiangsu
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
and Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
), and gives additional names of meiren 美人 "beautiful woman" and xiyi 析翳 "split cover/screen".
The Chuci has more rainbow occurrences (8 虹,10 霓, and 5 蜺) than any other early text. It graphically interchanges ni 蜺 and ni 霓 except the latter is exclusively used in yunni 雲霓 "clouds and rainbows" (both with the "cloud radical"). Many rainbows occur in Chuci descriptions of shamanic
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
"flights" through the skies, frequently in contexts with other dragons, for instance (Hawkes 1985:290): "To hang at my girdle the coiling Green Dragon, To wear at my belt the sinuous [虹] rainbow serpent ... A great [霓] rainbow flag Iike an awning above me, And pennants dyed in the hues of the sunset." This mythical Green or Azure Dragon ruling the eastern sky and the Vermilion Bird ruling the southern sky reoccur (8, tr. Hawkes 1985:217) with baini 白霓 "Bright rainbows darting swiftly in the traces".
The Yueling 月令 "Monthly Ordinances" section of the Liji (tr. Legge 1885:1:263, 297) claims hong 虹 rainbows only appear during half the year. In the last month of spring, "Moles are transformed into quails. Rainbows begin to appear." In the first month of winter, "Pheasants enter the great water and become [shen
Shen (clam-monster)
In Chinese mythology, the shen or chen is a shapeshifting dragon or sea monster believed to create mirages.-Meanings:Chinese classic texts use the word shen to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later...
] large mollusks. Rainbows are hidden and do not appear." Along with the rainbow, the shen 蜃 is considered to be a dragon.
Yin and Yang
Yin and yang
In Asian philosophy, the concept of yin yang , which is often referred to in the West as "yin and yang", is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only...
cosmology dichotomized between primary hong 虹 "Yang/male rainbow" and secondary ni 霓 "Yin/female rainbow". Marcel Granet
Marcel Granet
Marcel Granet was a French sociologist, ethnologist and sinologist. As a follower of Émile Durkheim and Édouard Chavannes, Granet was one of the first to bring sociological methods to the study of China...
(1919:272-7) analyzed ancient Chinese beliefs about rainbows, which were believed to emanate from interchanges between earthly Yin qi and heavenly Yang qi (see Shiming below). Rainbows thus symbolized a sexual union of Yin-Yang (Shijing 51 above) and a competition between male and female river gods or dragons. Eberhard explains the Chinese symbolism.
The rainbow is seen as a resplendent symbol of the union of yang and yin; it serves therefore as an emblem of a marriage. You should never point your finger at a rainbow. But the rainbow can have another meaning, in that it may appear when either husband or wife is more handsome and attractive than the other, and therefore enters upon an adulterous relationship. The rainbow is then an emblem of fornication or sexual abuse, and forebodes ill. (1968:245-6)
Like rainbows, dragons were explained in Yin-Yang theory. Rain-dragons supposedly had Yin powers since they controlled water. Edward H. Schafer
Edward H. Schafer
Edward Hetzel Schafer, was a leading historian of Tang Dynasty China. He wrote ground-breaking works such as The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics and The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South. Schafer wrote his Ph.D...
says.
In China, dragon essence is woman essence. The connection is through the mysterious powers of fertilizing rain, and its extensions in running streams, lakes, and marshes. In common belief as in literature, the dark, wet side of nature showed itself alternately in women and in dragons. The great water deities of Chinese antiquity were therefore snake queens and dragon ladies: they were avatars of dragons precisely because they were equally spirits of the meres and mists and nimbus clouds. (1973:36)
Etymologies
The ca. 200 CE ShimingShiming
The Shìmíng is a Chinese dictionary that employed phonological glosses, and "is believed to date from c. 200 [CE]" . Its 1502 definitions attempt to establish semantic connections based upon puns between the word being defined and the word defining it, which is often followed with an explanation...
dictionary (1, Shitian 釋天 "Explaining Heaven"), which defines words through phono-semantic glosses, gave the oldest Chinese "etymologies" for rainbows.
- Hong 虹 "rainbow" is gong 攻 [same phonetic with the "beat radical" 攴] "attack; assault", [rainbows result from] pure Yang qiQiIn traditional Chinese culture, qì is an active principle forming part of any living thing. Qi is frequently translated as life energy, lifeforce, or energy flow. Qi is the central underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts...
attacking Yin qi. 虹攻也,純陽攻陰氣也。 - Also called didong 蝃蝀, which always appears in the east when the sun is in the west, [a rainbow] chuoyin 啜飲 [same phonetic with the "mouth radical" 口] "sucks" the qi from easterly water. It is called sheng 升 "rise; ascend" when seen in the west, [rainbows] appear when the morning sun begins to "rise". 又曰蝃蝀,其見每於日在西而見於東,啜飲東方之水氣也。見於西方曰升,朝日始升而出見也。
- Also called meiren 美人 "beautiful person", named after times when disharmony between Yin and Yang, marital disorder, rampant immorality, men and women considering one another "beautiful", constantly chasing after each other, and such overbearing behaviors are flourishing. 又曰美人，陰陽不和，婚姻錯亂，淫風流行，男美於女，女美於男，恒相奔隨之時，則此氣盛，故以其盛時名之也。
Using "etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
" in the usual Western sense of historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
, Joseph Edkins
Joseph Edkins
Joseph Edkins was a British Protestant missionary who spent 57 years in China, 30 of them in Beijing. As a Sinologue, he specialized in Chinese religions. He was also a linguist, a translator, and a philologist. Writing prolifically, he penned many books about the Chinese language and the Chinese...
(1871:117-8) first proposed Chinese hong 虹 "rainbow" was "doubtless a variant" of gung 弓 "bow" and compared it with "Siamese"
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
lung "rainbow".
Carr (1990:105) compares Proto-Sino-Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
and Proto-Austro-Tai etymological proposals for hong and didong. Peter A. Boodberg
Peter A. Boodberg
Peter Alexis Boodberg in American spelling, was an American sinologist of Russian origin....
(1935, 1979:167) thought *g'ung < *glung 虹 "rainbow (dragon)" and *lyung-t'lia 龍魑 "dragon" descended from a Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-brong "wug" root. Paul K. Benedict first (1967:291) thought *lyung 龍 and *g'ung 虹 were early Chinese borrowings from Proto-Austro-Tai *ruŋ "dragon; rainbow"; but later (1986:58) saw *g'ung < *g'[l]uŋ or *k[l]ung 虹 "rainbow" and *tiadtung < *tiad-[skl]ung 蝃蝀 "rainbow" (with a *tung 東 "east" phonetic signifying "red part of the sky") as semantically related with *g'ung < *g[l]ung 紅 "red".
For hong 虹 "rainbow", Schuessler (2007:278) reconstructs Old Chinese *gôŋ < *gloŋ and compares "very irregular" dialect forms such as Proto-Min ghioŋB and Gan Shanggao dialect lɑnB-luŋH. He lists etymological proposals of hong 虹 from Proto-Miao–Yao *kluŋA (Haudricourt 1950:559) or Chinese long 龍 "dragon" and hong 紅 "red" (Benedict, Carr). For jiang 虹 "rainbow", Schuessler reconstructs *krôŋh and notes the survival in Gan Wuning dialect kɔŋC1. He concludes the "wide range of forms" including didong 蝃蝀 < *tê(t)s-tôŋ < *tê(t)s-tlôŋ suggests a non-Sino-Tibetan "source for this etymon", possibly include Kam–Tai and Zhuang
Standard Zhuang
The standard Zhuang language is the variety of Zhuang spoken in Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, where it is an official language.-Classification:...
words like tu2-tuŋ2 or Proto-Tai
Tai languages
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages are a branch of the Tai–Kadai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including standard Thai or Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Burma's Shan language;...
*Druŋ (cf. Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
ruŋC2 "rainbow".
Mythological parallels
"Hong < *g'ung 虹 'rainbow' has always represented a dragon to the Chinese," says Carr (1990:103), "from Shang oracle pictographs of dicephalous sky-serpents to the modern 虹 graph with the 'wug' radical." The mythic Chinese hong "rainbow" dragon has a few parallels in the natural world (two-headed snake, Rainbow Snake Farancia erytrogrammaFarancia erytrogramma
Farancia erytrogramma is a large, nonvenomous, highly aquatic, colubrid snake found in coastal plains of the southeastern United States...
, and Rainbow Boa Epicrates cenchria) and many in comparative mythology
Comparative mythology
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes...
(see rainbows in mythology
Rainbows in mythology
The rainbow, a natural phenomenon noted for its beauty and inexplicability, has been a favorite component of mythology throughout history. The Norse saw it as Bifrost; Judeo-Christian traditions signs it as a covenant with God not to destroy the world by means of floodwater. Finding a mythology...
and snakes in mythology
Snakes in mythology
Snakes were central to many mythologies because of their perceived quality of being both familiar and exotic. The behaviour of snakes and their facial features Snakes were central to many mythologies because of their perceived quality of being both familiar and exotic. The behaviour of snakes and...
).
Loewenstein (1961) compares rainbow-serpent legends throughout Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Australia, Africa, and South America; and concludes:
Myths of a giant rainbow-serpent are common among primitive tribes inhabiting the tropics. Outside the tropical belt the rainbow-serpent concept is hardly to be found. This points to the fact that the myth must be intimately connected with the occurrence and geographic distribution of a particular family of snakes, the Boidae, which includes the largest specimens in existence, namely the Pythons and the Boas. (1961:37)
The well-known Rainbow Serpent
Rainbow Serpent
The Rainbow Serpent is a common motif in the art and mythology of Aboriginal Australia. It is named for the snake-like meandering of water across a landscape and the colour spectrum caused when sunlight strikes water at an appropriate angle relative to the observer.The Rainbow Serpent is seen as...
is central to creation myths of the Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
(translated as Chinese hongshe and Japanese nijihebi 虹蛇 "rainbow snake"). Some other examples include:
- Ayida-WeddoAyida-WeddoIn Vodou, especially in Benin and Haiti, Aida-Weddo is a loa of fertility, rainbows and snakes, and a companion or wife to Damballah-Wedo. Ayida-Weddo is known as the Rainbow Serpent.- External links :*...
is a rainbow serpent loaLoaThe Loa are the spirits of the voodoo religion practiced in Louisiana, Haiti, Benin, and other parts of the world. They are also referred to as Mystères and the Invisibles, in which are intermediaries between Bondye —the Creator, who is distant from the world—and humanity...
of rainbows and fertility in Haitian Vodou - NehebkauNehebkauIn Egyptian mythology, Nehebkau was originally the explanation of the cause of binding of Ka and Ba after death. Thus his name, which means brings together Ka...
is a two-headed snake in Egyptian mythologyEgyptian mythologyAncient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature... - SisiutlSisiutlThe Sisiutl is one of the most powerful crests, and mythological creatures in the mythology of the Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Skwxwu7mesh and various other Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and figures prominently in their art, dances and songs...
is a three-headed sea serpent, with one anthropomorphic and two reptilian heads, in Kwakwaka'wakw mythologyKwakwaka'wakw mythologyThis article is about the spiritual beliefs, histories and practices in Kwakwaka'wakw mythology. The Kwakwaka'wakw are a group of Indigenous nations, numbering about 5,500, who live in the central coast of British Columbia on northern Vancouver Island and the mainland... - OshunmareOshunmareIn Yoruba mythology, Oshunmare is a divine serpent which is believed to create the rainbow, both male and female, and is a symbol of creation, human procreation and the link between the world of the mundane and that of the ancestors. This idea is more a part of worship in the Americas than it is...
is a male and female rainbow serpent in Yoruba mythologyYoruba mythologyThe Yorùbá religion comprises the original religious beliefs and practices of the Yoruba people. Its homeland is in Southwestern Nigeria and the adjoining parts of Benin and Togo, a region that has come to be known as Yorubaland...
Lastly, another Chinese rainbow myth involves the creator Nüwa
Nüwa
Nüwa is a goddess in ancient Chinese mythology best known for creating mankind and repairing the wall of heaven.-Primary sources:...
女媧 repairing a crack in the sky caused by the water deity Gong Gong
Gong Gong
Gong Gong is a Chinese water god or sea monster, said to resemble a serpent or dragon. He is responsible for the great floods together with his associate, Xiang Yao , who had nine heads and the body of a snake....
共工 (cf. 虹). She supposedly created the first rainbow by melting stones of 5 or 7 different colors to patch the sky. Nüwa and her brother-consort Fuxi are represented as having the upper body of a human and the tail of a dragon or serpent. They are associated with yin and yang, like secondary and primary rainbows.
External links
- Etymology, ancient characters for 虹
- 虹 entry page, 1716 CE Kangxi DictionaryKangxi dictionaryThe Kangxi Dictionary was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710. The creator innovated greatly by reusing and confirming the new Zihui system of 596 radicals, since then known as 596 Kangxi...
- Cai Guo-Qiang, Dragon or Rainbow Serpent Project, Queensland Art GalleryQueensland Art GalleryThe Queensland Art Gallery is part of the Queensland Cultural Centre, and is located nearest to Brisbane River at South Bank...
- Rainbow Serpent, Circle of the Dragon
