What does it mean to put a snake statue on the turtle's back?

Xuanwu is a spirit composed of turtles and snakes. One of the four celestial spirits in ancient China mythology, also known as tortoise and snake, originated from the worship of stars in ancient times, which refers to the four elephants in the southeast and northwest, and the 28 nights in Xuanwu in the north are divided into seven nights. In the traditional culture of China, the four elephants refer to Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu, representing the east, west, north and south directions respectively. The northern Xuanwu is dominated by gossip, and the five elements dominate the water, symbolizing the old yin in the four elephants and the winter in the four seasons.

In ancient times, people thought snakes were witty, clever and good at collecting money, and popular belief believed that dreaming snakes predicted money; However, the turtle has hard armor on its abdomen and back, and its head, tail and limbs can be retracted into the armor, so it is hungry and thirsty, and its life span is very long. People use turtles for divination and scorpions for divination, which are collectively called tortoise divination. The texture on the turtle's back is called tortoise inscription. When divining, the tortoise shell is burnt and cracked lines are seen, indicating good or bad luck.

The ancients divided twenty-eight lodgings into four groups, namely, seven lodgings in East Black Dragon, seven lodgings in North Xuanwu, seven lodgings in West White Tiger and seven lodgings in South Suzaku. This is a reflection of the totem worship of our ancestors in ancient astronomy. The ancestors regarded the dragon as the length of the scale worm, the phoenix as the king of all birds, the tiger as the length of all beasts, and the turtle as the king of worms, which were collectively called the four spirits. As early as the primitive society, the four spirits have appeared in different tribes as a form of totem worship. On the bronzes of Shang Dynasty, there are often family emblems with these animals as clan names, which is a reflection of totem worship.

From the end of the Spring and Autumn Period to the beginning of the Warring States Period, dragons, phoenixes, tigers and turtles were regarded as beasts of the Quartet, and they became gods who were in charge of and blessed the Quartet. The four spirits are the whole worship representing four directions, and the product of the combination of totem worship, auspicious worship and spiritual worship of ancestors.

What needs to be added is that before the Han Dynasty, Xuanwu was just an image of a turtle. After the Han dynasty, Xuanwu's bricks, murals, brick carvings and tomb stone carvings also added the image of snakes on the basis of turtles. This is because people find that turtles among turtles (also known as spirit turtles and snake turtles) like to eat snakes by nature and are often enemies of snakes. Therefore, the simple tortoise was changed to the image of tortoise and snake entangled and fighting at both ends, in order to highlight Xuanwu's brave spirit of eating snakes and eliminating evil. At the same time, the entanglement of turtles and snakes shows a mysterious cultural world of China. The ancestor of Xuanwu, Tui Huangdi, Fuxi or Jiang Ziya, is another totem.