Chiang-Shih, The Hopping Corpse in Chinese mythology, known as Chinese Vampires in The Western World.

Chiang-Shih, The Hopping Corpse in Chinese mythology, 

known as Chinese Vampires in The Western World.

Today's submission is on the topic of Chinese Vampires, or Chiang-Shih as they are known as in China. We thank you Lewis for your contribution and hope our readers will enjoy. -Gary. Chiang-Shih By Lewis Donovan.
Today's vampires of the world and we are jet setting off to China. To look at one of the most fearful myths surrounding Chinese culture.The Chiang-Shih.In popular Chinese mythology, Chiang-shih (or kiang-shi, but also known as jiangshi), sometimes called hopping corpse or Chinese vampires by Westerners, are reanimated corpses that hop around, killing living creatures to absorb quintessence (life force energy) (qì) from their victims. Some would appear to look as a normal human being while others had a hideous green phosphorescent glow with serrated teeth and long talons. They have difficulty walking because of the pain and stiffness of being dead so they hop instead. 
They are far more pale and have very dark circles under their eyes. Generally in the movies the hopping corpses are dressed in imperial Qing Dynasty clothes, their arms permanently outstretched due to rigor mortis. Like those depicted in Western movies, they tend to appear with an outrageously long tongue and long fingernails. Their visual depiction as horrific Qing Dynasty officials reflects a common stereotype among the Han Chinese of the foreign Manchu people, who founded the much-despised dynasty, as bloodthirsty creatures with little regard for human. They are said to be created when a person's soul fails to leave the deceased's body. 
Usually chiang-shih were created after a particularly violent death, such as a suicide, hanging, drowning, or smothering. It could also be a result of an improper burial, as it was thought that the dead would become restless if their burial was postponed after their death. The chiang-shih were not known to rise from the grave, so their transformation had to take place prior to burial. Even the influence of Western vampire stories brought the blood-sucking aspect to the Chinese myth in modern times (the traditional Chiang-shih steal the breath of his victim). In fact, Dracula is translated to Chinese as "blood-sucking jiāngshī" where the thirst of blood is explicitly emphasised because it is not a traditional trait of a jiāngshī.
In Chinese belief, each person has two souls, a superior or rational soul and an inferior irrational soul. The superior soul could leave a sleeping body and appear as the body's double as it roamed about. It could also possess and speak through the body of another. However, if something would happen to the disembodied soul during its journey, its body would suffer. The inferior soul, on the other hand, was called p'ai or p'o and was that which inhabited the body of a fetus during pregnancy and often lingered in the bodies of the dead.
It was thought to preserve the corpse. If the p'ai was strong enough, it could preserve and inhabit a corpse for a length of time, using the body to serve its needs. The chiang-shih would arise from people who died a violent death, including suicide. Improper burial procedures such as a long postponement of burial which angered the dead. Animals, particularly cats, were kept away from the unburied corpse for fear that the might jump over it and thus the deceased would come back as a chiang-shih.
Because they had no powers to dematerialise, transformation had to occur before burial, an added incentive for prompt burial. It came from the mythical folklore practice of "Travelling a Corpse over a Thousand Li", where travelling companion or family members who could not afford wagons or have very little money would hire Tao priests to transport corpses of their friends/family members who died far away from home over long distances by teaching them to hop on their own feet back to their home town for proper burial. Some people speculate that hopping corpses were originally smugglers in disguise who wanted to scare off law enforcement officers. I will let you all decide. -Lewis Donovan.

Why do people feel so confused over whether to have a Christmas tree or not?

Our Christmas tree at night by Dean Beeler 18 December 2004

Courtesy of wikimedia commons

For those who do not know me, I am Reverend Alaina Damewood, and I have been studying religions for more than eighteen years. One of my favorite areas of study is the myths around the holiday traditions.

For all who have a Christmas tree up in your house at this time of the year and have wondered how it fits into the holiday or why we use the tree to represent the birth of Christ, we must go back and look at the history and the heritage behind how our calendar was created.

The calendar we use in today’s time is based off the one created by the Catholic Church of Rome in a time period where the church was dealing with issues related to the pagans in their lifetime.
But how is that relate to our holidays? During the time period in question, the pagan traditions of the early Roman Empire had four major and four minor holidays.

The minor holidays marked the solstices for the seasonal year in celebration for being one step closer to the end of the year. The spring solstice celebrated the growth of the harvest. The summer solstice celebrated the beginning of the summer season. The fall solstice celebrated the change of summer to fall and the time of saving food for the coming winter. The winter solstice celebrated the coming of the new season. We recognize those on the calendar as the days which mark the beginning of spring, summer, fall and winter.

The major holidays were Beltine, which was celebrated for the warm weather that came from the change of spring to summer, Östra, the goddess of fertility, the time mother earth creates life from animals to people, samhine, the day of the dead or what we know as Halloween, and Yule, the end of the calendar year, also the birth and death of the oak king in winter to be reborn in the spring.

The Catholic Church of early Rome recognized the traditions of the pagans practiced in their time, and to get them to convert over to the religion of the Catholic Church, they decided to design their calendar to have the same celebrations.

The most famous example of this is Christmas, the day of Christ’s birth when Mary found out she was pregnant at the feast from the immaculate conception on December 8th. Because the Catholic church could not determine Christ’s actual birthday, they made it the same as the pagans Yule celebration and then adapt the celebration of the death and birth of the oak king for a Christian purpose. Since the burning of the log would not work for celebrating the birthday of Christ, the church stole a portion of a ceremony from the pagan faith again to represent the Norish day of the dead. 

In the same way family members would decorate their tree with ornaments to represent memories of their dead loved ones, Christmas is done the same way, except hanging the ornaments and giving presents to each other is to represent Christ’s birthday.
 
And since then, this has been the on-going tradition for the season to show respect to God’s birth and death no matter which religion you view it from. Whether you decide to put up a tree though, that is up to you. 

                                

Moonlight and Mirrors in The Night

The Moon-mirror By PJ 2011

According to ancient western superstitions during the full moon It was thought that to sleep in direct moonlight caused madness or blindness. In time, the word, lunatic, from "luna", meaning Moon, and "tic", meaning struck, evolved from this belief. 

A well popularized Moon mythology of Europe is of the werewolf the shape-shifts into a wolf, at the appearance of the full Moon. Lesser known variant of the same mythology is that in the light of the full Moon it was said that a woman that lay in moonlight or who stare as the full Moon would become pregnant and give birth to a monster, possible even a werewolf that shape-shifts at the night of the full Moon.

The Moon was thought to be important to bring potency to the healing and magic powers of herbs were said to be at the peak during the night of the full Moon, this one probably has more credence than one would think, knowing that the night cycle of plants cause them to change how they flow water and nutrition's from the roots, and also cause the osmotic pressure that gives the plant fresh morning-dew when observed in the morning. Though they would do this at any night the extra pull of the full Moon should make them more potent, and also for practical reasons it is a lot easier to collect herbs during the light of a full moon than on a night of only starlight. This is also probably part of the stories of how the witches were traveling using their broomsticks during the night of the full Moon, out to collect all the magical and medicinal herbs.

One other interesting legend I came over is a twist on the bad luck caused by the breaking of a mirror which, we commonly know is supposed to mean 7 years of bad luck, but what I had not heard about before was you could break this curse if you take the mirror pieces outside and bury them in moonlight.

The Moonlight and Mirrors in Samoan Folklore

I found out that is a widespread practice among Samoans to cover the mirrors at night, and if one does not do so, they think there might be someone else other then yourself starring back at you. 

To put it in the words of Loa from Samoa. 

-"cover the mirrors at night as Nek Minnit Miku is said to be staring at you"- 

When it comes to the Moon, and moonlight, The Samoan mythology is deeply connected to The Moon, and I heard multiple accounts how one is not supposed to sleep with moonlight falling on ones face. Also how those that would let that happen would find themselves paralyzed unable to move or let anyone know as they can't speak, yell or force themselves to wake up. Which is why it is very important to not only cover your mirrors but also cover up the windows so the moonlight cannot cause you to become frozen in the night. 

In the words of Loa from Samoa about the topic of moonlight

-Yea that moonlight one is scary. Happened to my mum and sisters. And in New Zealand too.. Its called '' malu 'ia '' they said they couldn't move and like they were screaming but they couldn't hear themselves.. So ever since that i made sure my curtain is always closed!-

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Ultraterrestrials! Visitors From Other Dimensions

Photo in courtesy of wikimedia commons, 

K. Franklins, Hat Creek Radio Observatory

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kathycsus_-_Hat_Creek_Radio_Observatory_(by).jpg 

SETI Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, perhaps SETI should be supplemented with SUTI, a program searching for Ultraterrestrials?

The term ultraterrestrial covers creatures, beings and entities that are not of this dimension, examples that by some considered as ultraterrestrials are angels, demons, orbs, rods, ghosts and even some mythological plants and beasts like unicorns, fay, centaurs and leprechauns that may at some point have been able to cross into our dimension, or been seen by some from our realm as they blended through parallel dimensional dreams. Some even think that alien UFO visitors might be of a ultraterrestrial origin rather than extraterrestrials.

Angels and Demons as Ultraterrestrials
These opposite forces of good and evil seem to have several traits that could be explained as visitations of a multi-dimensional type. Both seem to be able to enter our realm in more of a metaphysical state as they seem to be beings of force and energy.

Mythological Beasts and Beings
In this category you have all the large beings mentioned within different cultures mythology (unicorns, dragons, mermaids, cyclops, minotaurs, pegasus, leprechauns, e'epa, menehune, leviathan, satyrs, and some semi-inteligent animals, like the cat like Ullgolthr and Rallurgh.) These are according to some, beings that actually used to co-existed in our reality but was later prevented from freely crossing the dimensional veil. (For other explanations of Mythological beasts read the entry Unicorns, Camelopardalis and other Cryptids.)

Plants, Vermin and Other Lesser Creatures
Much like in the category above these co-exist in the borderland of the dimensions and sometimes or used to be present in our realm before the veil was closed. Examples of dimensional beings of this order are the elusive rods and orbs, invisible to the human eye but sometimes captured on film. Most of these are easily debunked as bugs or specs of dust, though some might be dimensional visitors.

Ghosts and Hauntings
Ghosts are similar to angels and demons, all of them being incorporeal, though ghosts do not possess the power of higher beings, they do have the ability to seemingly exist in our realm, at least partially. This would also explain why ghosts are so hard to capture since they are not fully part of our world anymore, and many of them have not crossed over the veil.

Dreams and Astral projections
In some cultures dreams are thought to literally be traveling into a separate world, another dimension made out of pure thoughts, this would make the dreamer an ultraterrestrial traveler. Astral projections are by definition ultraterrestial travel as ones soul enters into the Astral dimensional plane that are theorized to blend in with our own reality, making the astral traveler present in our world but still unattached in spirit.

The Veil
The Veil is the very fabric of time, energy and space thought to separate our realm from parallel multidimensional realms that intersects our own reality, psychics are thought to be sensitive to the weaknesses within The Veil and thus able to sense and see things that are close to the other side of Veil or even partially intersected into our material universe.

UFO's as Visitors From Other Dimensions
This is referred to by some ufologists like Jacques Vallée and Dr. Josef Allen Hynek as the inter-dimensional hypothesis which instead of having UFO's as extraterrestrial visitors consider aliens to be from a different reality or dimension that coexist alongside our own reality. Dr. Hynek was one of the key researchers for the US government into the UFO phenomena under project Sign (1947-1949), project Grudge (1949-1952) and Project Blue book (1952-1969).

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Theobroma cacao - Cocoa - The Food of the Gods

Theobroma cacao - The Cocoa Tree, 
Here showing the Cacao pods, 
each pod contain between 20 and 40 cocoa beans 

photo by PJ 2011

I am going to describe cacao, also known as cocoa, from an aspect as a food of deep cultural, religious and medicinal origin in Mesoamerican culture. Cacao has been cultivated in Mesoamerica for almost 4000 years or perhaps even longer, though its origin is more likely to be from the Amazons. Some would even say the gods themselves were advanced aliens, extraterrestrials or ultra-terrestrial visitors.

The Mayans and the Olmec before them referred to cacao as kakaw, and their stories tell how it among other foods were brought from a mountain by the gods. It was believed in their mythology that the tree itself was thought to be first grown in the Garden of life, and its name literally means “Tree of the Gods”. The Aztecs had one ceremonial drink made of cacao called cacahuatl, meaning bitter water in nahuatl. This drink was only consumed by men as they thought it to be dangerous to women and children.

Cultivated Theobroma cacao The Cacao Tree Photo by PJ 2011

There was another drink made of cacao used by the Aztecs, which was spiced with vanilla, chili and honey. This drink was described to be used in curing black blood, something European scholars thought to mean depression, though I believe the Aztecs meant this more literally. The Aztecs had significant medical knowledge and herbal lore compared to the conquistadors and others in 16th century Europe. And with an extensive practice of blood sacrifice of theirs and other people’s blood, they knew how cacao could cure black blood, and I actually know one case where this was used in curing black blood caused by metabolic lactic acidosis.  (When My Life Flashed Before My Eyes)

Theobroma cacao - Close up of cocoa beans, Dry cacao beans was even used as currency by the Aztec.

The pulp of the Cacao pods is edible and one can make a sweet juice from it. On the other hand, how the cocoa bean was discovered to be a tasty and palatable food if fermented and processed in a complex chain is a mystery, unless one accepts the explanation that the Mesoamerican gods came down from the mountain and showed them how to make it into a food, which I have myself tasted the pulp and the raw beans and found the bean to taste horrible while the cacao pod pulp tasted good with fruity sweet taste.

Dark Hawaiian macadamia nut chocolates Photo by PJ 2011.

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Unicorns, Camelopardalis and other Cryptids

Photo of Rhinoceros by PJ at Honolulu Zoo 2009

Unicorns (meaning one horned) or as they are described horses with one horn in their forehead might all be rooted in a real animal that back thousands of years ago was considered a myth in Europe because of it being so hard to come by and the only source of information was from travelers and ancient scrolls that described them to be white and black one horned horses, but in the translation it was lost that what they were referring to as the rhinoceros and the other horse was the hippopotamus or river horse which is what it is called in most languages including English which uses the ancient greek work for river horse (ἱπποπόταμος). The Unicorn is also mentioned in the bible among them in Job 39:9-12 (King James Version) 

 "⁹Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?

 ¹⁰Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

 ¹¹Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?

 ¹²Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"

Compared to the river horse or hippopotamus the one horned horse makes sense as the rhinoceros and hippos have similar build and there indeed are two main types of rhinos the white rhino and the black rhino. Also when one compared the stories of the healing and magical powers of the unicorns horn, again one find striking similarities, as powdered rhino horns are supposed to be able to cure or improve health just like the unicorns horn was thought to do. One reason why unicorns were thought to be as depicted with a long spiral horn was because of the animal thought to be the oceanic equivalent the narwhal with the males having a long ivory spiral tooth often sold as unicorn horns to gullible and willing buyers of mythical rare goods like the horns of unicorns.

Male Narwhals Battling by Paul Nicklen/Getty Images

Camelopardalis AKA Camelopard

Photo of Giraffes Giraffa camelopardalis, Honolulu Zoo PJ 2009

This would not be the first time early explorers described animals only to have them enter our world as mythological beasts since their description seemed so fantastical and unrealistic that one thought them to be fairy tales, one example of this is the camelopard (camel-leopard) which first was described around 14th century as an African animal like a camel in shape but with the horns of an antelope, tail of a lion, coloring and spots like a leopard. much later it was proven to be real as traders managed to transport live giraffes which was the animal earlier referred to as the mythological beast camelopardis.

Especially strange animals like the Australian platypus were long assumed to be a fake animal put together by the taxidermists and brought back to England, or when the western civilization realized that there actually exists black swans in Australia, which until then had been considered to be creatures of myths. Other beasts that fairly recently became acknowledged as real was the gorilla which until explorers actually captured one and brought it with them had been considered African superstitious stories about large dark haired apes living high up in the Deep unaccessible African mountain jungles.

Other mythological beasts might have similar history being now branded as cryptids, and described in a side note in anecdotal paper on cryptozoology. If you liked this entry you would probably also like The Mermaid of Finnmark.

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Mythological Beasts: Nøkken

 

Asian White Water Lily (White Lotus) 

by PJ 2011 Honolulu, Hawaii

Nøkken was in norse mythology a creature of the inland waters much like Huldra was a creature of the deep forest. And like the female Huldra, that lures people into the forest and never let them go, the male Nøkken would try to lure people to the waters and drown them.

The Norse Nøkk seem to be similar to stories of water elves, also known as nymphs in other european cultures, and also carry similarities to the mermen of the seas and oceans.

The most common described way for Nøkken to lure gullible people to its watery depths is in the form of a stunningly beautiful white horse, which willingly would let especially young children climb up on its back, and then leap with them into the water.

In other legends Nøkken seeks out one person a year to drown in his fresh water ponds, where he lures using his power of invisibility, or the ability to shape-change into something unsuspecting like a floating log, a beautiful water lily or even other plant life that is making it look like the edge of the pond is farther in, so when you move over to the water to pick flowers you would fall into the deep cold, treacherous waters.

In other occasions Nøkken was said to appear as a handsome young man, playing music in the calm tranquil forest, luring young fair maidens into his watery embrace and their doom, playing the harp or fiddle he would spellbind them with his magical charm.

In order to protect yourself legends say, is by spitting and then tossing a steel needle or a steel cross into the water. Another way was to bind Nøkken to a Nøkkstein (Nøkken rock) and then let it drop into the water directly vertically from as high up as you could get it, if you have already been grabbed by Nøkken and is about to be pulled into the waters you can break free by saying his name, as in this norwegian phrase "Nøkken! Nøkken nål i vann. Jomfru Maria kastet stål i vann! Du synker, jeg flyter!" translated this becomes "Nøkken! Nøkken! needle in water. Virgin Mary tossed steel into the water! You are sinking I am floating!"

So the next time you see a floating tree stub or water lily, a beautiful white horse wandering by the outskirts of a small lake or pond or even a handsome young man fair-skinned and with blond long hair playing the harp or the fiddle next to a river or pond it just might be Nøkken himself trying to trap you as his once a year victim... beware.

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Water lilies are called Nøkkerose in Norwegian, PJ 2005 Honolulu, Hawaii

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