Research The Culuture Of Snake In The Tales Of Mystery And The Supernaturalduring The Period Of Wei, Jin, Northern And Southern Dynasties

Snake, the rare object having close relationship with human being, was much recorded in Chinese ancient novels, especially in the tales of mystery and the Supernatural of Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, why were there so many novels about snake? The former scholars mostly took it up from the angle of the history of literature development, seldom discussed a simple image, and ignored it, as part of early culture hiding the track of the development of human society. This essay intends to raise it to the height of cultural anthropology to discuss its value of existence from the visual angle of the development of human society. Classifying the novels of snake in the tales of mystery and the supernatural of Wei, Jin, and connecting with certain aspects of religion , folk custom and totem, the author sorts them out and discusses them one by one. During the process of classification and rearrangement, the author noticed that several sorts of novels just accord with the three phases of WenYiduo's research on the development of totem — the beastification of human, the personification of beast and the whole human shape, according to which the author sets off a discussion and reveals the theme, that the spread and development of these novels are also the witness of the evolution of human society history. While in Chinese traditional culture, dragon and snake often exist side by side, the author believes that dragon, the image, developed from the basis of snake as the subject, synthesizing many other living beings. Therefore, the essay makes a demonstration in the end to make up the inadequacy of only having snake as a demonstration object.