Symbolic significance of dogs

Symbolic Meaning of Dogs: The First Symbolic Meaning of Dogs: Loyalty

Dogs are human pets, not only because they are docile to their owners, but also because of their loyalty. People in China have a natural affection for dogs. What do they think? Dogs are loyal subjects? No matter how poor the master is or how poor the family is, the dog will never betray his master. So as the saying goes:? Children don't think their mothers are ugly, and dogs don't think their families are poor. ?

Dogs have certain principles, which are all for their owners. Home cooking is very authentic. As long as it meets strangers, even the emperor and Lao Tzu will not appreciate it. Is it genuine? Loyal minister? Never betray your master. Only recognize people, not talk about right and wrong. It doesn't know what resistance is to its master. It can kill at will or fight at will. I will spare no effort to serve my son, and I can even sacrifice myself.

There is a story in the signed book "Continuing the Search for the Gods": In the Jin Dynasty, a young man surnamed Yang kept a dog, and he was inseparable from the dog. Once, he was drunk, passed by a swamp and fell asleep on the grass. A mountain fire starts a prairie fire, and the wind is strong. The dog screamed in horror, but the young man couldn't sleep well. In desperation, the dog jumped into the water, took a suit of water and sprinkled it on the grass where the young man was lying. Over and over again, the surrounding grass became wet. The young man avoided a disaster, but the dog was exhausted.

The Tang Dynasty's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio also said: A court official named Liu Chao was banished to Jiang Shui because he violated the king's law, and only two slaves and a dog accompanied him. These two minions are up to no good, trying to murder their master and steal money to escape. When the dog learned the inside story, he killed two slaves and saved his master. In Manchu legend, the dog once saved the life of the teenager Nurhachi: the Ming army chased Nurhachi, who was hungry and thirsty and fainted in the grass. The Ming army set him on fire, and the dog dipped in water to put out the fire, saving Nurhachi.

There are too many touching stories like this. From the brushstrokes appreciated by these writers and legends, we can see people's praise for the dog's character. People in China like dogs. After all, they like their personality.

The second symbolic meaning of dogs: good omen and bad luck

People in China think dogs are auspicious animals. If a dog suddenly comes to someone's house, the owner will be happy to adopt it, because it indicates the arrival of wealth. Cats become poor and dogs become rich? . Dogs and their owners share joys and sorrows. If there is any disaster coming, it will also indicate a bad omen. For example, when a dog comes home, it means a thief is coming. Dogs like to bark, but there must be a reason for barking, so the ancients used the time when dogs barked as a sign of good or bad luck. If the dog barks at the right time, the housewife will make noise; Dogs bark when they are ugly, and they are upset and sleepless; As soon as you bark, the god of wealth will come to the door; When the dog barks, the future is bright; As soon as the dog barks, relatives come; Dogs bark at noon and someone treats them; The dog barks at the wrong time, and if the wife has ulterior motives, she will meet a villain; Woe to the child when the dog barks at the application; When the dog barks, it will increase the official Jin Lu; When the dog barks, watch out for trouble; Dogs bark at sea, be careful of being sued.

The third symbolic meaning of dogs: to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters.

The ancients in China believed that dogs not only had the symbolic function of omen and good or bad luck, but also had the function of eliminating disasters. Why? According to etiquette, dogs belong to:? Livestock of the sun? Cooking dogs in the east can make the yang erupt, thus raising everything. Ying Shao of the Eastern Han Dynasty has another explanation in Custom Yi Tong. He said: there are twelve gates in the city where the son of heaven lives, and the three gates in the east are angry gates. In order to prevent the dead from appearing at the door of birth, he killed the dog before another September 6. In the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, dogs cooperate with the gold in the five elements, which corresponds to the west in orientation and cooperates with the wood in the east. Killing dogs can stop the spring tide epidemic and revive everything. It is not a strange theory that dogs can ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters. Even Li Shizhen, a famous doctor in Ming Dynasty, realized this special function of dogs. He recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica that surgeons believe that dogs can eliminate all evil spirits and witchcraft. "Historical Records" said: Qin dismembered dogs in front of the east, south, west and north gates to resist disasters. At the same time, the door has been painted with the blood of white dogs since ancient times to drive away ominous customs. According to Hua Tuo's biography, a woman had a big sore on her ass, which was itchy but not painful. She has recurrent attacks and can't be cured. After the exam, Hua Tuo took a rice bran dog and tied it to the back of the horse. The horse walked fifty miles, and she twisted the dog's neck and buckled it on the woman's sore. After a while, she saw a bug. Li Shizhen thought this case was strange, but it was really the blood dog that led the worm out.

Dogs have such a close relationship with humans and have such magical functions. Therefore, dogs became one of the most commonly used livestock in ancient sacrifices. What did the Zhou Dynasty specially set up? Dog man? The post is responsible? Dogs and beasts? Yes The ancients studied and made grass into dogs. What is this called? A straw dogs? . The clothes are embroidered with words, and they are sacrificed when they are old. As soon as the sacrifice was over, they were left on the avenue and trampled by any horses and chariots. Lao Tzu said:? Heaven and earth are ruthless, and everything is a grass dog; Saints are ruthless and treat people like pigs. ? There have been many differences in understanding this sentence, but? A straw dogs? The meaning of this word is still certain.

Dogs are people's good companions. Tengu? But people are afraid of evil souls. Before the wedding, the fortune teller chooses an auspicious day. After choosing it, he must write down the wedding details and taboos on a piece of red paper. The most important thing is not to commit a crime? Tengu? . Did you commit a crime? Tengu? Some taboos at the wedding are related to? Tengu? Related.

Many infertile women used to worship it? Zhang Xian? Praying for your son is called. Send Zhang Xian? There are no statues. From the painting? Zhang Xian? , is a beautiful man wearing a horn scarf and a robe. He looked up at the sky with a slingshot in his hand. It is said that he shot with a slingshot? Tengu? . So, northern custom worship? Zhang Xian? In addition to fragrant flowers, wine and dishes, there is also a plate of five balls made of raw noodles for him to shoot. Tengu? Yes

? Tengu? Isn't this evil deed that only makes women infertile handed down from the people? Eclipse? Is it? Tengu? Swallow the moon. So during the eclipse, people should ring instruments to save the moon. It is said that the loud sound of musical instruments will scare them? Tengu? Spit out the moon. In ancient times, there were not a few bell ringers who saved the moon. Ignorant people? Only in this way, even the court officials in charge of heaven will beat bronze wares to save the moon until it heals.

Not only humans keep dogs, but also the gods in the sky keep dogs as pets. Legend has it that Yang Jian, the Erlang God, has one? Whistling dog? At any time, stay with Erlang God and accompany him to cast demons and catch monsters.

It is not advisable to completely deny or believe all kinds of symbolic meanings and legends about dogs, which are both natural factors and man-made mysterious factors. The correct attitude should be to grasp people's views and psychological tendencies towards dogs through mysterious appearances.

As the earliest domesticated livestock, the existence and evolution of dogs are inextricably linked with the development of human civilization. Westerners praise it with exquisite works of art and regard it as the most loyal guardian. However, the status of dogs in China has always been very low. This can be seen from the archaeological discoveries unearthed in China.

The most anticipated thing is that a large number of mammalian fossils have been found in Zhoujiayoufang, Yushu County, Jilin Province, China, that is, the Late Pleistocene of Paleolithic Age, about 26,000 BC to 1000 BC. Besides human fossils, the skulls of domestic dogs also appeared? Semi-fossil? . Although some people think it belongs to Pleistocene animal fossils, more experts think it is the remains of Holocene or modern animals. This remains of domestic dogs in the Paleolithic period can show that residents in Northeast China have begun to domesticate dogs. In other words, domestic dogs in Northeast China appeared in the late Paleolithic period, about 1 10,000 years ago. The primitive humans in Northeast China were Tunguska Mongols, so it is reasonable to think that the ancestors of Donghu, Rong, Di and Su Shen domesticated dogs, among which Rong was a famous dog-raising clan.

It can be seen that Northeast China and Mongolia are the domestication centers of domestic dogs in the late Paleolithic and early and middle Neolithic. In addition, in Anyang, Henan, Cishan, Hebei, Anbanpo, Xi 'an, Shaanxi, Dawenkou, Shandong, Changzhou, Jiangsu and other places, it can be affirmed that China is one of the centers of domestic dogs.

Among the ancestors of dogs, no one knows exactly when the first interaction between humans and wolves took place. Some scientists think it may be 50,000 years ago, because it took wild wolves at least so long to show today's genetic differences. At that time, humans and wolves were distributed in many places on the earth's surface, and the evolution process may have occurred in several different areas. Some scholars believe that wolves were domesticated from wild wolves to domestic animals for playing, hunting and housekeeping, that is, dogs, before 14000 years or even before 16000 years in Southeast Asia.

There is a consensus that dogs originated from wolves, but there are different opinions about the specific place of birth and time. The earliest evidence of dog fossils comes from a mandible fossil in Germany 14000 years ago. These archaeological evidences support that dogs originated in southwest Asia or Europe. On the other hand, the characteristics of dog skeleton identification suggest that dogs may have originated from wolves, thus putting forward the origin theory of East Asian dogs. In addition, different breeds of dogs are very diverse in morphology, which seems to be inclined to the hypothesis that dogs originated from wolves of different geographical groups. Archaeology alone can hardly provide reliable clues about the origin of dogs.

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