How did the tortoise go from mystical totem to shameless bastard?

Mentioning the tortoise and the cuckold, modern people often associate them with bad adjectives, but in ancient times, the tortoise was regarded as a godly beast with good fortune and prophetic foresight. So how did the tortoise step by step be reduced to shameless, the spokesman of the goat? The following with interesting gentleman together to explore it ~

Mysterious totem

The story also from the Mesozoic Triassic began to tell, this is when it? To calculate in figures about 250 million to 200 million years B.C., this period, the climate is hot and dry, primitive mammals began to appear, the tortoise is born at this time, the tortoise on the earth to become an independent family, two hundred and twenty million years earlier than human beings.

For a long time, turtles and cranes have been regarded as symbols of longevity, Bai Juyi in the "Tao Qian body" said "pine and cypress and turtles and cranes, their lives are a thousand years", the turtle and crane Qi Ling pattern is also one of the popular ancient auspicious motifs.

The ancestors of the Chinese nation, the worship of the tortoise is the highest and deepest, which is out of the primitive nature worship of mankind. When the primitive early pioneers in the state of ignorance, experiencing the pain of summer and cold, the plague of disease, in front of the powerful natural forces at their wits' end, the tortoise is not afraid of the wind and rain, no disease, no disaster, and encountered a strong enemy can be armor to protect the body, so the primitive pioneers believe that the tortoise is an incredible natural gods.

The soft-shelled turtle (yuán) is one of the largest of the soft-shelled turtle family

The turtle became a totem worshipped by some clans. The Chinese believe that "the lineage of all the worlds comes from the Yellow Emperor," and the Yellow Emperor clan is the clan that worships the turtle as its totem.

Xi'an Qin Brick and Han Tile Museum of the Han Dynasty Xuanwu Tile, Xuanwu that is one of the four spirits of the tortoise and snake

China has four great beasts of prey, "Rites - Rites of Passage," said: "Lin Feng, tortoise and dragon, known as the four spirits." In the so-called "four spirits", Lin, Feng, Dragon are non-existent mythological animals, only the turtle is a real reptile, the turtle in the hearts of the ancients in the status of the heavy.

Turtle rule

Ancient people regarded the turtle as a symbol of nobility and good luck, the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Shang Dynasty used the turtle's divine power to govern the country, set up a turtle official in the palace, the official name of the "turtle people". The status of the "tortoise" was not only equal to that of the royal historian, but also could directly determine the behavior of the son of heaven and participate in the emperor's decision-making at any time.

Eastern Han Dynasty: Empress Dowager Seal of the King of Hunan

The golden seals used by the prime ministers, marquises and generals of the Han Dynasty were all in the shape of a tortoise. The Han Dynasty stipulated that the seals of "minor civil servants" at the grassroots level could not be made in the shape of a tortoise, as these people were not of sufficient rank.

The Tang dynasty's "Shisha Turtle Charms" found in the Tang Dynasty's Old City of Shattered Leaves in Kyrgyzstan

The Tang dynasty took the worship of the tortoise to the highest level, using its spiritual power for all aspects of imperial authority. The traditional tiger talisman for mobilizing troops was changed to a turtle talisman, and the capital of the northern frontier was renamed the Turtle Forest. Wu Zetian reign, more than five officials are wearing a tortoise-shaped pouch, called the tortoise bag, the tortoise bag were decorated with gold, silver, copper three kinds of metal, that is, gold tortoise bag, silver tortoise bag, copper tortoise bag, in order to distinguish between high and low grade officials, and after their death can be given to the tortoise monument and the fame of the ages. In the Tang Dynasty, turtle culture also spread to neighboring countries, especially Japan.

"Forget the eight" became "Wangba"

Confucianism developed into the Song and Ming dynasties, and developed the science of reasoning.

Reasoning advocates the ethics of the program is "loyalty, filial piety, fraternal duty, propriety, justice, honesty, and shame" these eight words.

To say that this bastard into a curse words, but also thanks to these "degrading" literati, scolding not directly scolding, have to pay attention to the implicit, if you want to say that this person "shameless", and not directly, and said This person "forgets eight", meaning that this person has forgotten the eighth word. The eighth word is the word "shame". So, "forgetting the eight" in the process of oral transmission of the blackmail, and gradually become "Wang Bashi".

Those who don't know the ins and outs of the story have linked this "wangpai" to the "wangpai" that carries the monument, and the "tortoise" to the "wangpai" that carries the monument, and the "tortoise" to the "wangpai" that carries the monument. The "turtle" and the "bastard" became the image spokesman of "shameless".

Turtle: derailment also blame me ~

To the Yuan Dynasty, the poet scolded the daughter-in-law in the theft of people are often called "shrinking turtle", after this, the image of the tortoise suffered a history of slippery iron household, this is how it is?

With the Yuan Dynasty promulgated a dress system: "All prostitutes are wearing purple soap shirt, wearing a corner of the child. Parents and relatives of men, wrapped in green turbans." In all houses of prostitution, the parents and relatives of the men were required to wear green turbans. Because of the green and green similarity, later there are "green scarf" instead of "green scarf", and the world called "green head scarf", which is now said " The green hat".

However, coincidentally, the tortoise, the cuckold's head is green, so the imaginative literati to wear green hats compared to the tortoise, Ming Tao Zongyi "Nanchun Dropout Records," wrote: "Households are all jaws of the rabbit, the Sheriff is always a shrinking tortoise." "Jaw-dropping rabbit" originated from a folk legend, the rabbit can look at the moon pregnancy, meaning that no husband and pregnancy, in fact, on the cursing of the affair, illegitimate meaning, and the husband can only tolerate to do the shrunken head turtle.