The story of Chinese Nian Beast

The Spring Festival is one of the oldest folk festivals in China, with a cultural history of more than 4,000 years. According to legend, in the era of Yao and Shun, the Spring Festival was called the wax Festival. At the end of the year, people offer sacrifices to the hundred gods during the twelfth lunar month, thanking them for their blessings and making the fields harvest.

Although the history of the Spring Festival is long, there is not much record in the ancient books about the Nian beast. Where did the legendary beast of the Year come from? What about looks?

evening

Nian beast is also known as “Xi”, according to legend, such as a lion, head long horns, is one of the evil beasts in ancient legends. At midnight at the end of every year, “Xi” will eat all the animals in the mountains, even tigers and leopards! When prey is scarce, they will also eat people from the mountain.

Because “Xi” appears on the last day of the year, people call it the Nian beast.

Over time, people gradually found that Nian beast is very afraid of three things – huge noise, red silk and fireworks, so every family will be decorated at the end of the year, the hot New Year, the purpose is to drive Nian beast. Although the official history did not write down the “Nian beast” alone, only the folklore stories that spread for thousands of years remain in the world. But what exactly is the appearance, in some ancient folk books, you can find some interesting speculation.

“Nian Beast” is a monkey?

Although there are few records of “Nian beast” in ancient literature, there are explanations about the fear of gunpowder among beasts. Among them, the book of Gods and Abnormities, as a collection of ancient mythological tales and strange stories, is a very precious mythological material. There is a mention of animals similar to the Nian beast – “There are Yan in the western mountains, more than a foot, a foot, sex is not afraid of people.” The crime made people feel cold and hot, and was called Nian Terrified, and later generations took the shape of it and used gunpowder to do it.” That last sentence is the earliest recorded reference to gunpowder. At the same time, it also revealed the method of driving the “beast” in the legend, and its story logic is basically consistent with the story of the “Nian beast” in the legend.

To the southern and northern Dynasties period, the famous scholar Liang Zonglin has written a book, called “Jingchu when the record”, which introduces the ancient Chinese Chu (Jianghan as the center of the area) New Year customs activities – “the crow, before the court firecrackers, to make mountains shy of evil ghosts.” The above mountain is shy of the mountain god, the face of the monkey body. One foot, can speak people, good change, like to eat shrimp and crabs. In modern scholar Zhang Binglin’s “Vulgar writing” also has an explanation – “do not be a mandrill, petty thief.”

According to the description, the “Shame of mountains” in “Annals of the Age of Jing Chu” and the wild beasts in “Shenyi Classic” and “Vulgar Man” are almost the same kind, so it is speculated that Nian beast may be an animal similar to a monkey.

“Heavenly Dog” Tibetan mastiff

There are few folk books about Nian beast, but the portraits of Nian beast are common. Nian beast image appears in the purple microstar painting, in the “purple micro Gao Zhao” picture, in addition to the purple Microstar Jun, there is a beast locked on the stone column, this beast is Nian beast. There is also a story about this painting, according to legend, many places know to use red to fight against Nian beast, but some places do not know, so at the end of each year, Nian beast will still come out to eat people. After this matter was known by purple microstar Jun, he came to the people and locked the beast on the stone pillar with an iron chain. Since then, “Nian” has been subdued and has become a useful beast for the safety of the town house.

The image of “year” in the portrait refers to the description in Du Fu’s “Heaven Dog Fu” – “The husband he Heaven dog is craggy, Qi alone Shenxiu.” It is as brown as a suanni and as small as an ape 狖. Suddenly not happy although Wan Fu dare not Xi, not Hu people can know its going. If an iron pillar 攲 and a golden lock is broken, nothing can be saved.” Among them, “the color looks like Suanni, iron pillar and golden lock” are consistent with the information in the painting “Ziwei Gaozhao”. According to this information, the Nian beast in the painting is very likely to be the Heavenly Dog, which is the prototype of the Northwest Tibetan mastiff.

Conclusion

As for the description of Nian beast, it is difficult to find an accurate prototype in the animal kingdom. Perhaps Nian beast is not a specific animal, but a high level of abstraction of people’s fear of natural disasters, but the “New Year” is not only our customs and culture, but also the inheritance of ancient civilization, driven by myth stories, passed down from generation to generation, to meet the next year’s harvest.