Folklore & Legends / Customs and Games ’exported’ from China to the New World
CUSTOMS AND GAMES
To Guadeloupean islands
Reader worked on the Guadeloupean islands of Basse-Terre, Terre-de-Bas, and Terre-de-Haut (Les Saintes) from 1999-2004. He sent in the following observations: Although the evidence is anecdotal, there is a strong possibility of a Chinese cultural legacy on the Saintes. The traditional hats worn by Saintois, called Salako are definitely Asian in origin. Most historians trace them (although never with any evidence) to France’s history in “Indochina”–although that would mean that they weren’t introduced until the later colonial period. Why would these peculiar hats exist only on the Saintes? One would think that if they arrived from “Indochina,” with the French, that they would turn up elsewhere in the French colonies. They don’t even show up in greater Guadeloupe. A salako hat can be seen at this web address:
http://www.caribbean-direct.com/Les-Saintes-Direct/Local%20Culture/LSSlocalcultureM.html
• Datura is native to China where the combination of Datura seeds with wine was used. Mam t’o-lo is the Chinese name for Datura and a Taoist legend refers to the plant as the flower of one of the pole stars. In China it was customary to mix Datura with Cannabis and wine The Chinese valued Datura as an aphrodisiac. In the Andes, Datura is taken as tea or smoked to induce visions. Ancient Peruvian healers and shamans employed Datura’s narcotic and anesthetic properties when performing ritual or medical operations (e.g. skull trepanations). The Auruks of Chile to this day use Datura in the same way their ancestor’s did. The native people of the south-west regions of North America hold Datura sacred. In Zuni tradition it belongs to the rain -priests who use it to appeal to their ancestor-spirits for rain. (Will Aust)
To North America
• Lakota tribe – ‘swastika’ symbol/Tibetan peace and harmony (R Chauvet).
• It seems that the Indians adopted the compact, composite, double-recumbent bow that was popular among the Mongolian cavalry. It was made by binding together pieces of horn – thus enabling Indians to manufacture bows in regions where suitable wood was unavailable; “ISHI in Two Worlds,” “A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America” by Theodora Kroeber (University of California Press, 1961.) Page 197 Ishi’s hunting stance and bow release is described as the “classic Mongolian release.” She concludes that this is unique among native American hunters and supposes that they retained this behaviour “from their long forgotten migratory wanderings out of Asia” – Ms. Marlies Mitchell.
•The main religious colours associated with the Navajo and Zuni are Black, White, Red and Yellow. The same colours used by the Chinese. (Richard Douglas)
• Pacific Northwest Indian musical instruments i.e. the drum are exceptionally similar that of the Chinese & Japanese – Doug Hockley
• The Haida played a variation of the game “pick-up sticks”, which
is of Chinese origin. It’s commonly attributed to the ice-age land bridge
across Bering Strait, but I would personally think that the game would be
much more widespread amongst the aboriginal people of North America if this
were so. As it is, the game existed amongst the Haida, and amongst tribes
in California. (Michael Roellinghoff)
• Could there be a link between the Hakkas and the Native Americans? The Hakkas mass migrated to the south of present day China. This is commonly referred to as the 4th mass exodus of the Hakkas which occurred around AD1200. The description of the women on board Zheng He’s Chinese junks seems to be of the Hakka women because they have to have unbound feet to move freely on board the ships to conduct the duties described, be able to go onshore to gather food, etc. The dress of the Native Americans described in ‘1421’ is very similar to the traditional Hakka women’s dress, i.e. shirt and trouser suit. Also, Hakka girls traditionally had their hair plaited in two while older women had their hair tied into a bun behind their head. The links below gives an overview of the Hakka history: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Harbor/6896/
or
http://www.asiawind.com/pub/forum/fhakka/mhonarc/msg01494.html
You can find a lot of information about the Hakkas in the internet. One
good site is at: http://www.asiawind.com/hakka/
(Cindy Sia)
• The Canadian Plains Cree – a reader comments on how their sacred colours are also red, yellow, black, and white, as with Buddhism. In ancient times large stone wheels were laid out on the ground, the spokes of which pointed in four directions. Each direction is represented by one of the sacred colours: yellow is connected to south, black to west, white to north, and red to east – Judith Lishman
To California (between Russian and Sacramento Rivers) (Stephen Powers’ report)To California (between Russian and Sacramento Rivers) (Stephen Powers’ report)
• Language
• Gambling
• Theatrical performances
• Women’s dresses and hair styles
• Snaring wild fowl with decoys
• Burying in ancestral soil
• Men with beards
• Sophisticated pottery
• Elegant carved jasper knives
• Methods of irrigation
• Stone villages.
Concow peoples of Chico, California
(a) August festival of ‘shau-i”. Paper money and paper clothes are burned for the use of ghosts, as are paper houses with furniture and paper servants are similarly burned. A conveyance is drawn up, signed and witnessed that the burned property shall be conveyed to the person stipulated upon their arrival in Hades. The conveyance is then formally burned – an identical practice to that conducted in China.
(b) Burials. In south China and amongst Indian peoples living at south of Russian River, custom is to bury the dead sitting as in a chair. In both countries gold or silver coins are placed in the mouth of the dead.
(c) Iroquois. White dog sacrificed to heaven during New Year period, as it was in China.
Click here to read an article on the ancient origins of golf – China. ww.theherald.co.uk/news/54020.html
To Mexico and Central America
• Complicated rain making ceremonies, identical in minute detail.
• Jade with its complicated panoply of beliefs.
• Music – more than 50% of Central American music instruments occur in Burmese hinterland.
• Neck rest pillows and Chinese carrying poles.
• Identical children’s fairy stories – “Rabbit in the Moon”.
• Divination rituals using chickens
• Tao/tie in Mayan artwork (Karin)
• Funerary custom – jade placed in mouth of dead, as in China.
• Strong similarities between Chinese and Mayan medicinal practices. More information – Wind in the Blood – Mayan Healing and Chinese Medicine by Hernan Garcia, Sierra Antonio. (Evan Pham)
• Two Chinese porcelain lion figures that are used ceremonially at Zia Pueblo. In Leslie A. White’s publication, Zia –The Sun Symbol Pueblo (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 184, 1962, Plate 1) the author reported “…Incidentally, I made inquiry among Sia [Zia] informants about these little Chinese ‘lions’ and learned that they are still in use by the Shima society, which is intimately associated with the Flint (or Knife) society, and that they are highly regarded as supernatural beings…” (Dwight P Lanmon)
• The Piñata – An Ancient Tradition. A widespread opinion is that the Chinese may have been the first to use something like a piñata as part of their New Year’s celebration, which also marked the beginning of spring. They made figures of cows, oxen, and buffalo, covering them with coloured paper and filling them with five kinds of seeds. Coloured sticks were used to break the figures open. The decorative paper that covered the figures was burned and the ashes gathered and kept for good luck during the coming year. It is thought that in the 13th century, Venetian traveller Marco Polo took the “piñata” back with him from China to Italy. There, it acquired its present name from the Italian word pignatta, or fragile pot, and came to be filled with trinkets, jewellery, or candy instead of seeds. The tradition then spread to Spain. Breaking the piñata became a custom on the first Sunday of Lent. It seems that at the beginning of the 16th century, Spanish missionaries brought the piñata to Mexico. However, the missionaries may have been surprised to find that the native people of Mexico already had a similar tradition. The Aztecs celebrated the birthday of Huitzilopochtli, their god of the sun and war, by placing a clay pot on a pole in his temple at the end of the year. The pot was adorned with colourful feathers and filled with tiny treasures. It was then broken with a stick, and the treasures that spilled out became an offering to the god’s image. The Maya also played a game in which blindfolded participants hit a clay pot suspended by a string. As part of their strategy to evangelize the Indians, the Spanish missionaries ingeniously made use of the piñata to symbolize, among other things, the Christian’s struggle to conquer the Devil and sin. The traditional piñata was a clay pot covered with coloured paper and given a star shape with seven tasselled points. These points were said to represent the seven deadly sins. Striking the piñata while blindfolded represented blind faith and willpower overcoming temptation or evil. The treats inside the piñata were the reward. (Stephen Bacon)
“Datura metel”, more commonly known as “Devil’s trumpet” or “thorn apple” – an hallucinogenic plant, native to China – found to be used by Indians in Mexico on arrival of Europeans (Antonia Bowen-Jones)
• This webpage discusses the Chinese Nuo opera masks which resemble the mask sculptures in Mexico. The opera dancers wear these masks and brandish weapons, portraying scenes of chasing and seizing. Within the story of the opera, each household makes offerings in order to honor their ancestors and their gods. For example, an offering of chicken blood is made. This is said to be China’s oldest dramatic form. (Henry Quinn) http://www.china.org.cn/ChinaToday/Today/ChinaToday/ct2000e/06/ct2000-6e/ct2000-6e-14.htm
• A reader watched a patient being treated by a shaman in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. He was administering an acupuncture treatment to a man who had some problems with his knee. As soon as he finished the treatment, when asked where he had learned the acupuncture technique he said it had been handed down from his Aztec ancestors and they had known and used this technique for at least 5 centuries. Does anybody have further information on the spread of acupuncture from China to the Americas? – Alessandro
• Sverre Fjermestad comments on the possible cultural and linguistic link between the Mayan concept of C’hi, and the Chinese concept of Qi( Chi). It seems central in both cultures. Does anyone know of any studies carried out on this subject?
To British Columbia (N W Canada)
• Chinese secret societies
• Song similarities
• Similarities with potlatch ceremonies
• Wampum (compare with quipus in Peru and China) (Ranking).
To South America
Peru (name = “mist” in Chinese)
• Games (Patolli)
• Quipus – same system of knots and colouring
• Computing devices
• Tripod pottery
• Divination rituals using chickens
• Jade rituals
• Musical jade gongs
• Inheritance traditions
• Mortuary customs
• Sacrificial customs
• Observation and cataloguing of lunar cycles and equinoxes
• Castration of criminals
• Mongolian methods of herding game into pre-determined spot (Garcilaso de la Vega)
• Ancient Chinese shamanistic rituals and the shamanism practiced by the Andean peoples (including Aymara) today and during the reign of the Incas. – Cormac Ginty
• A reader comments on how a television documentary (German television channel RTL II, “Welt der Wunder“,Sunday, 16 January 2005) mentioned South American drawings showing Peruvian warriors using fighting techniques which look like Kung-Fu: A. Hedenetz
• German edition of National Geographic, 1st January 2005, publishes article about Peruvian Inca pottery showing some men doing kung fu. (Sergio)
• PBS documentary, “The Last Incas”, about a remote tribe in the cloud forests of Peru that shunned contact until now with other people. They wear long white cotton robes and have long hair. They discussed their old traditions. One tradition involved placing decorations shaped like butterflies on trees. Is there some Chinese parallel to this? (Robert Ammirati)
• An early name of Chinese dress was Qipao not much different than Quipu of Peru.. and the original dresses had a lot of fringes joints sleeves etc. much like our western Indian deerskin outfits. (Henry Quinn)
Brazil
• Divination rituals using chickens
• Jade with its complex panoply of beliefs
• Bearded men (karayaba)
• Similarities in medicinal practices – A British doctor who was researching traditional and ritual medicine in aboriginal tribes around the world researched the Chinese and Japanese acupuncture and Reiki healing practices. However, while he was in South America he was visiting a tribe, possibly the Yanamani, and while there the medicine man of the tribe treated a patient using exactly the same methods as those of China, manipulating lung, kidney and heart pressure points, thus causing a flow of energy that stimulated pain release. Furthermore the peoples of China and South America give the same names to many of these acupuncture pressure points (John Buckley)
• Professor Luiz Ernesto Wanke has found what he believes to be evidence from 1836 suggesting that some Brazilian indigenous groups were Taoist and, therefore, direct descendants of colonists brought in by Zheng He. He believes it is an indirect proof that the Chinese were the true discoverers of America. His paper will be published on our website in the “Independent research” section once it has been translated.
Chile – Chi-le
• The name (given before European arrival) is a province in North China! It means ‘direct dependency’
To Ecuador
Ancient Indian cure for illness in Cuenca, Ecuador during which they ‘massage’ the head, arms and chest and beat the head with herbs, extremely similar to what is taught in Tai Ji classes. The movement of the hands over the body, arms and head are parallel to standard Qijong treatments. Also, Chinese medicine also includes herbal treatments. Could this practice have been brought to Ecuador by the Chinese voyagers? (Keith Foster)
A reader and his wife visited Ecuador in March this year. The museum “Banco Central Del Ecuador Museo” in the coastal city of Manta has a display of native housing for the period between 350BC and 650AD. House styles seen there were apparently very similar to the Chinese architecture of the same period – Allen Lee
To Malaysia and India
Chinese martial arts and kung fu.
To South Africa
• Some of the traditional huts occupied by the Namaqua people or Hottentots of South Africa resemble the traditional yurt from China (Robbie Cameron)
To Australia?
• Could a vulgar limerick of unknown writers from older English be further evidence of the Chinese voyages?
“there was a young man of Australia,
tattooed on his bum was like an adelia”…. etc
The composer concludes that the man of Australia is an aboriginal. As the flower is described as being ‘like an adelia’ he concludes the tattoo must be of a local plant, which is similar to an adelia as adelia’s are native to Mexico and couldn’t possibly have existed in Australia in early English colonial times. This seems to further support the theory that the Chinese traveled to South America then onwards to Australia, bringing with them a large amount of indigenous plants and animals, and also possibly tattooing the aboriginals. (Simon Faneco) Does anyone have any further information about the origins of tattooing?
LEGENDS & FOLKLORE
Hawaii -When Captain Cook arrived in Hawaii, the reason he was greeted so well was because the Hawaiians had a legend that the Gods would return one day on a boat with square white sails. Hawaiian traveling canoes have triangular sails. Perhaps they were expecting the Chinese? (Samantha Smith)
New England – records show that local Indians spoke of a tall yellow Prince who taught them medicine and advanced building such as stone bridges and dams and this was in Waltham right next to and up the Charles from Watertown. (Anton)
Related galleries: Jade
