Jade is an animal similar to a monkey in ancient legends. It is said here that "looks like Yu", which shows that the author has carefully observed it. The author either saw the orangutan with his own eyes or saw the picture of the orangutan with his own eyes, which indirectly shows that there is indeed a matching mountain and sea map in Shan Hai Jing. The orangutans in Queshan have a special appearance, that is, their ears are white. When it walks, it walks on all fours, but when it runs, it runs like a human. If a person eats gorilla meat, he will become good at running. These are some characteristics of Queshan orangutans. There are also two references to orangutans in Shan Hai Jing. One is in "Nantong Road on the Sea" and the other is in "Nantong Road on the Sea".
It is recorded in the Hainan Classic: "The forest is 300 miles east of Gao Zhan. Knowing a person's name is an animal like a jackal. Buried in the west. " The orangutans here are different from those in Queshan. The orangutan here looks like a pig, but it has a human face, which is located in the west where Shun Di is buried. Compared with the orangutans in Nanshan, the orangutans here are completely different species, and they are born with the special ability to know their names. When introducing and letting go in Haineijing, he also mentioned orangutans: "There is a green beast with a human face, which is called an orangutan." The orangutans in Neijing are blue, similar to chimpanzees and gorillas in reality. So, does the orangutan recorded in Shan Hai Jing exist in the real world?
We know that orangutans in the real world are divided into three categories, namely orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. At present, orangutans are distributed in Southeast Asia, chimpanzees and gorillas are distributed in Africa, and there is no orangutan habitat in China. The coat color of orangutans is reddish brown, and the coat color of chimpanzees and gorillas is black, so it is a problem to mention the position of the building wood of blue orangutans in Shan Hai Jing Nei Jing. According to the current habitats of chimpanzees and gorillas, Jian Mu, who can communicate with heaven, will go to Africa. Of course, there may be chimpanzees or gorillas in ancient China, but they later became extinct. So were there orangutans in ancient China?
Of course, there were orangutans in ancient China, and there were many ancient books about orangutans. The Book of Rites says: "Parrots can talk, but they can't live without birds. Orangutans can talk and stay with animals. " The Book of Rites was written in the Han Dynasty, but many of its contents should come from the data of The Rites of Zhou compiled by Confucius, so it is not excluded that there were orangutans in the Spring and Autumn Period, which shows that there were orangutans in China at least in the Han Dynasty. Shu zhi said:
Fengxi County is located in present-day Vietnam. Orangutans can talk and know people's names. At that time, people used wine to trap orangutans. So what's the use of orangutans?
"Huayang National Records" records: "There are orangutans in Yongchang County, who can speak and their blood can dye Zhu." Thus, the blood of orangutans can be used as dyes to dye some textiles. The authenticity of this use remains to be verified, but many ancient works do record orangutans as dyes. In the Romance of the Gods, the son of the late Hu in northern Hou Bo said: "The dragon crown, the flying phoenix knot, the scarlet robe, the blood of the orangutan and the golden stirrup are connected together." Chong Yingbiao's Dahongpao is red with orangutan blood. There are a lot of descriptions about orangutan red in the book, and scarlet has become a color name.
Orangutans have another use, which was a rare delicacy in ancient China. Lu Chunqiu said, "The beauty of meat is the lips of an orangutan." We don't know what is delicious about gorilla's lips, but some people do believe that gorilla's lips are delicious. The Monkey King, The Journey to the West, made a scene in the Heavenly Palace and rushed to Yaochi, where delicious food included dragon liver and phoenix marrow, bear's paw and red lips. The scarlet lips here are as famous as bear's paw, dragon's liver and phoenix marrow, which shows their position in the hearts of the ancients. In the Romance of Gods, you can also see orangutans being brought to the table. When Zhou Wang invited Ji Chang to dinner, there were rabbit silk, bear's paw, scarlet lips, camel's hoof, chicken marrow, dragon liver, lion's eye and bacon on the table, which showed that the delicacy of scarlet lips had been deeply rooted in people's hearts in ancient times. If there were no orangutans in ancient China, there wouldn't be so many records about orangutans.
Since there were orangutans in ancient China, is the orangutan information recorded in ancient books accurate? Not necessarily. Many ancient books say that orangutans can talk, but in fact orangutans can't talk. "Huainan Wanbi Book" also said: After all, orangutans know the future. But we know that it is an imagination for orangutans to want to know what happened in the past, but it is actually impossible. Therefore, eating orangutans can make you good at running, and orangutans can know people's names and talk, which may not be true. So why did the ancients record orangutans like this? This may be related to the channels of obtaining information in ancient times.
There is a record about a lion in Liaozhai, saying that Siam paid a tribute to a lion, and everyone went to watch the fun. So what's so special about this lion? That's when lions eat. The article says:
This lion is very powerful. When eating chicken, you can pat it with your paws and blow it again, and the chicken feathers will fly! Can this be true? Obviously this is false, but Pu Songling believed it and wrote it in his book. So from a scientific point of view, these records should be inaccurate. But these records must not be groundless, and should be related to people's customs and habits at that time and the way of observing things.
The first animal recorded in Shan Hai Jing is a real orangutan, but there are some differences between the orangutans here and the actual orangutans. If the records in Shan Hai Jing are true, then the orangutans in Queshan can be of great use. Soldiers are good at running away after eating his meat, which will be of great help whether attacking or retreating. However, after such a long time, I'm afraid a lot of information is not so accurate. I'm afraid the orangutans in Queshan have long since disappeared in the long river of history.