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Ruataniwha and Long-Feng Iconography

Haikai Tane

Summary

In Mahunui-Aotearoa (the South Island of New Zealand) pictographs are recorded at cave sites used by early Asia-Pacific peoples. Notwithstanding repeated attempts to determine their origins and possible meanings, very little was known about these cultural icons in New Zealand among Maori or European peoples. They were classified by European archaeologists as cave art by unknown Maori people. There was little reason to doubt this assumption until the Hemudu culture was rediscovered in the Hangzhou Bay region south of Shanghai in the 1970s.

The Hemudu people are now known for artefacts ranging in age from 7000 to 4000 YBP. (Years Before Present). They were boat nomads and sea raft farmers occupying the east China Seas around 10,000 years ago. By 7000 years ago they were estuarine dwellers in Hangzhou Bay where they excelled in floodplain farming, and fibre, stone and wood crafts. They are renowned as the first jade carvers of China with a record of rice cultivation, elevated pole housing, suspended pottery stoves and wood lacquering.

At Hemudu sites and related cultures nearby are found some of the earliest representations of sunbird (phoenix) symbolism in China. Sunbird phoenix and water dragon symbolism are the key themes of long-feng iconography and central to Dao cultural intelligence. The living water systems of Dao cultures are represented graphically by cloud and river dragons interacting with the sunbird phoenix representing the sun and earth. These representations are the basis of symbolic mapping and modelling systems used by traditional Dao people to integrate dragon water cycles and phoenix solar energies for creating fertile, productive farming landscapes. Their farming system is quintessential terraquaculture.

This paper outlines the use of Dao symbols for mapping and modelling landscapes based on the water dragon and sunbird phoenix concepts and explains their meanings and connections with Dao pictographs found in caves in Mahunui-Aotearoa NZ, thereby revealing their origins.

The full paper will be posted here as a pdf file soon.

Mean time here is the word file

And here is a recent press article: