Out of the corner of her eye, Cassie watched as Rou quietly unzipped the collar of her jacket to reveal a perfectly normal mouth and chin. Given all the camouflage, the Pythia had convinced herself that the girl might have some facial deformity she’d wanted to hide. However, Rou appeared to be suffering from nothing worse than a terminal case of shyness.
Taking no notice of his granddaughter’s unveiling, Jun had already moved on to the next display. “As you look at these jade carvings, bear in mind that the raw material wasn’t sourced locally. The jade itself came from mines far beyond China’s borders.”
The group made the rounds of the rest of the exhibit, pausing here and there to study items of interest.
“What are these?” Cassie pointed to a curious set of jade objects. Each one appeared to form a capital letter “C.” The front of the C was shaped into a dragon’s head but the snout was squared off. It didn’t look like any dragon the Pythia had ever seen before.
“Those are pig-dragons,” Jun explained. “You can tell why they’re called that from the blunt shape of the nose. It’s interesting when you think about the creatures the Hongshan chose to carve most often: turtles, birds, pig-dragons. All of them are symbolically associated with yin.”
“As in the female principle of yin and yang?” Griffin asked.
“Yes, exactly. It’s a further indication that we are dealing with a female-centric culture. Of course, we also know the Hongshan were matristic because they were a highly complex society with no evidence of warfare or oppression of any kind.”
Cassie shook her head in disbelief. “Given how male-dominated Chinese society is today, nobody seems to realize there was an earlier stage of development that was a far cry from overlord.”
“The truth has been buried for a very long time,” Jun remarked sadly.
“Burning of books...”
The other three turned to look at Rou in surprise. They’d all but forgotten her presence. Her accent was thicker than her grandfather’s though still understandable. Apparently realizing for the first time that she’d spoken out loud, Rou clapped both hands over her mouth in a frantic attempt to prevent any more words from escaping.
The Pythia peered at her. “The what now?”
Rather than answering the question, the girl shook her head in panicky denial.
Her grandfather intervened. “That’s a long story and it’s almost lunch time. I know a good noodle shop nearby. While we eat, Rou and I will tell you all about it.”
His granddaughter ducked her head and scurried toward the exit ahead of the rest.
“Is Rou... ahem... is she... quite alright?” Griffin’s tone was perplexed.
Jun sighed dolefully. “She’s going through what you Westerners might call ‘a phase’.”
Chapter 10—Incendiary Prose
Cassie and Griffin trailed behind the Zhangs as they scurried up one street and down another in search of Jun’s favorite noodle shop. After about ten minutes of walking, they arrived at a small restaurant with a red awning. There was a line out the door with ten people ahead of them.
Sensing Cassie’s dismay, the trove-keeper said, “Don’t worry. This will move quickly.”
The Pythia studied the plate glass window facing the street. It was covered with pictures of various dishes. Although there were no helpful English subtitles, she could identify most of the food by the images—marinated salads, noodles, meat and vegetables combinations, dumplings, and soups. Taken aback by the sheer number of choices, Cassie asked hesitantly, “Can you recommend something?”
Jun chuckled. “I’ll order four different items. That way we can share and you can try a little of everything. You’re sure to like the hand-pulled noodles.”
“Hand-pulled?” the Pythia asked suspiciously.
“You’ll see in a minute.” Jun gave a mysterious smile.
As the trove-keeper had promised, the line moved briskly. In only moments, they were at the front counter where the cashier took their order.
While Jun spoke for the group, Cassie scanned the dim interior of the restaurant. It was minimalist—bare floors, no cloths on the tables, hard wooden chairs. The lack of upholstery served to amplify the noise inside. It made her think of bistros back home where the collective din meant you had to yell to be heard by the person sitting across from you. Waiters, oblivious to the racket, darted between tables and dodged patrons as they carried steaming platters of food.
Griffin and Cassie followed Jun and his granddaughter past the cashier. Cassie happened to glance to her left and stopped dead in her tracks. A clear plastic partition separated the kitchen area from the patrons. The Pythia watched as one of the chefs lifted a ball of dough and began to pull it apart. He continued to stretch it, fold it and flip it around until the long strand of pasta resembled a lariat. Then he did something even more amazing. He stretched the rope of dough further and twirled it over his head and around his shoulders in ever-widening circles. Cassie hadn’t seen a display like that since she’d watched a cowboy demonstrating lasso tricks at a rodeo. After several more minutes of pulling and twirling, the ball of dough had transformed itself into strands of spaghetti which the chef broke into segments and placed in a pot of boiling water.
Both the Pythia and the Scrivener stared goggle-eyed at the performance until Jun interrupted their trance.
“Just like Las Vegas,” he quipped. “You get food and a floor show.”
Both of them burst out laughing, as much at their own stunned reaction as at his joke.
Rou tugged insistently at her grandfather’s sleeve to hurry him along. The girl motioned the trio to follow her through the narrow aisles of the restaurant toward an empty table for four. Rushing ahead, she commandeered the space just as a young couple was about to claim it. Shooing them off, she threw her jacket over one of the chairs and stood guard until Cassie, Griffin and Jun caught up with her.
The little party had no sooner sat down and gotten settled than a waiter bustled over with their order. He set down platters of cucumber salad, pan-fried noodles with vegetables, pork dumplings, and cashew chicken over rice. Then he distributed plates and chopsticks so they could all share the food.
“That was fast,” Cassie observed in surprise.
“I imagine they must run a brisk business,” Griffin said.
“Yes. Talk fast, eat faster, then leave,” Jun cautioned.
“So much for ambience.” The Scrivener shrugged.
“Who cares about ambience when the food is so good.” Cassie was already sampling the hand-pulled noodles. “This stuff is amazing. I’ve never tasted noodles like this before in the States.”
They took turns passing around the platters and, after everyone had filled their plates, Cassie returned to the topic they’d abandoned when they left the museum.
“You were going to tell us something about China’s buried past?” she suggested gently to Rou.
The girl slid her gaze toward the floor, refusing to make eye contact.
When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to speak, her grandfather took over. Jun paused to swallow a dumpling and then launched into the tale. “It happened a long time ago when rival provinces were fighting for control of the whole country. The Qin ended the Warring States Period by conquering the other states and establishing imperial rule over all of China although their dynasty only lasted from 221 to 206 BCE. They wanted to solidify control of the entire country and they did this by centralizing the government. Like many governments which followed, theirs was heavy-handed and bureaucratic. Not content to control the population through force of arms, the first Qin emperor wanted to control their thinking as well.”
“That’s rather a modern notion, isn’t it?” Griffin asked.
“Oh no, a very old one in China,” Jun countered. “Qin Shi Huang sought to purge ideas which ran contrary to his dynasty’s official ideology. The texts that were considered most subversive were poetry, history, and philosophy. The emperor reasoned that if people
read about better times in the past, they would become dissatisfied and wish to change the present state of affairs. Likewise, the philosophical treatises often expounded theories that contradicted the ideal totalitarian state the Qin wanted to maintain. All the books which contained subversive ideas were collected and burned. However, two copies of each were kept under lock and key by court scholars. The knowledge they contained became inaccessible to the public at large. Any citizen caught discussing these works risked execution.”
“How awful.” Cassie felt shocked.
Jun continued. “That era in Chinese history is commonly referred to as ‘the burning of books and the burying of scholars’.”
“One hesitates to inquire about that second phrase,” Griffin remarked dryly.
“Perhaps Rou should tell you what it means,” Jun hinted.
Rather than reply, the girl stuffed her mouth so full of noodles that no words could emerge. Chewing energetically, she shook her head.
Her grandfather sighed and resumed the story. “Many scholars criticized the burning of books and this provoked the emperor to take action against them. According to legend, 460 Confucian scholars were buried alive in Xianyang City. It is very possible that the number has been exaggerated.”
“Still,” Cassie objected. “That’s a pretty horrible way to go.”
“And that was precisely the point,” Jun said. “An unpleasant death was the perfect way to discourage intellectual dissent. If even one scholar was buried alive, the others would think twice before spreading ideas than ran contrary to the imperial ideology.”
“The concept of ‘thought police’ is much older than I estimated,” the Scrivener observed.
“I’m glad Rou brought up the subject,” Jun said. “It explains why we have lost so much of China’s matristic past. All the histories which documented the time of the Hongshan and other early cultures were destroyed during the Qin Dynasty purge. Even the two copies which would have been kept in the court library were lost to us in 206 BCE when the imperial palaces were burned by invading enemies. Now all that remains are the myths of Nu Kwa.”
Taking another helping of sweet and sour cucumber salad, Cassied asked, “What’s a ‘Nu Kwa’?”
Rou giggled softly but offered no comment.
“Did I say something wrong?” Cassie gave the girl a curious glance.
Jun elaborated. “Rou is laughing because Nu Kwa isn’t an ‘it’ but a ‘she’. There are many different pronunciations of her name. Nu Kwa. Nuwa. Nugua. But they all refer to the same being. A female divinity who created the cosmos. Later historians saddled her with a male consort—her brother Fuxi.”
Griffin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Whenever we hear of brother-sister marriages, we’re usually dealing with a transition from matrism to patriarchy, both in mythology and in actual social practice. Your fable of Nu Kwa hints at a time when China was matrilineal.”
“Chinese names confirm that theory,” Jun agreed. “The lettering of the most ancient surnames all contain a female root character. This would indicate a time in China’s prehistory when lineage was traced through the mother’s side of the family.”
The trove-keeper smiled self-consciously. “I seem to be straying from the topic. To return to the story of Nu Kwa. China’s mythical past begins millennia ago under the rulership of three successive sovereigns followed by five emperors. You must understand that the terms ‘sovereign’ and ‘emperor’ are honorary titles since imperial China didn’t exist until 221 BCE. The three sovereigns were: Nu Kwa—the Creator, Shen-Nung—the Divine Farmer, and Huang Di—the Yellow Emperor. Nu Kwa is the first, which makes her the primordial ancestress. As I said earlier, Chinese imperial historians married her to a brother-consort but in the original myths she reigned alone. Early records are vague on timing but some say that Nu Kwa lived around 2900 BCE. That would make her contemporary with the Hongshan culture. In myths, she is often called the ‘snake goddess’. The upper half of her body is human while the lower half is that of a snake.”
Griffin nodded sagely. “Women and snakes have been mythologically connected since the beginning of time. The python seer in Botswana, the West African goddess Mawu, the Egyptian cobra goddess Wadjet, the Pythia at Delphi, the Medusa, Minoan snake handlers, even Voodoo queen Marie Laveau and her python.”
“There’s a very simple explanation for that association,” Jun said. “And it’s not the silly phallic connection that overlord historians are so fond of making.”
Both Griffin and Cassie gave him puzzled looks.
The trove-keeper continued. “It all has to do with shamans—women who were the oldest spiritual guides of humankind. They existed in every culture around the world. In order to visit the phantom realms, they had to rely on substances to alter their states of consciousness. To this day in the Americas, shamans will ingest mushrooms or smoke peyote. Siberian shamans depend on repetitive drumming ceremonies to induce a hypnotic state. But the most ancient tactic used by shamans was snake venom.”
“I never thought of that,” the Scrivener murmured in surprise.
“But snake venom is so toxic it would kill the shaman who used it,” Cassie objected.
“That depends on the species of snake,” Jun countered with a smile. “Not all are lethal. In fact, most produce the kind of venom that is a powerful hallucinogen. Shamans knew which snakes to use for their rituals. Have you never wondered why so many folk religions revere the wisdom of the snake?”
“It always seemed odd to me,” the Pythia commented. “There’s nothing particularly brainy about reptiles.”
“Not as such,” Griffin said. “But the idea makes sense in light of Jun’s explanation that their venom can induce paranormal states which impart wisdom to the shaman.”
“Of course, shamans and their snakes were a threat to overlord religion and needed to be driven out,” Jun added.
“Just like Catholic St. Patrick drove the pagan snakes out of Ireland,” Cassie joked.
“Exactly so,” Jun concurred in all seriousness. “There are many examples of serpents being destroyed by one overlord hero or another. The snake who caused all the trouble in the Garden of Eden was crushed under the foot of the Christian Virgin Mary. The Python who protected Delphi was slain by the Greek god Apollo. Tiamat was destroyed by Marduk in Babylonian origin stories. These are all examples of shamanic religion being eradicated to make way for overlord ideology.”
“A bloodless form of religious genocide,” Griffin noted sardonically. “I’m sure those myths correlated closely with the actual extermination of shamans living in the newly-conquered overlord territories.”
“Speaking of which,” the Pythia said. “It’s obvious that your Nu Kwa was based on some kind of matristic shaman until the overlords got hold of her story. So where did the overlords come from? Those barbarians on horseback couldn’t have ridden all the way from the Caspian Sea to carve up China.”
“Ah, but that’s exactly what they did,” Jun countered knowingly.
“But when?” Cassie persisted. “How?”
Without answering at first, Jun glanced around the restaurant. His listeners followed his gaze. Cassie noticed a group of people standing near the entrance and eyeing their table. She glanced down guiltily at their now- empty plates and remembered Jun’s caution to talk fast, eat faster, then leave.
“Maybe we should continue this overlord discussion somewhere else,” she suggested sheepishly.
“A very good idea,” the trove-keeper agreed. “We should go to Lanzhou.”
“Lanzhou!” Griffin exclaimed. “Correct me if I’m wrong but that city is over a thousand miles away.”
“Yes, it is,” Jun agreed calmly. “But that is where your quest must begin. You wish to follow the Yellow River to pick up the trail of your Minoan relic, don’t you? What better place to start than where the river itself starts. Lanzhou is near the headwaters and it also happens to be the place where the overlords first entered China.”
Gri
ffin and Cassie exchanged dubious glances.
“Do you have a better idea of where we should start?” the Pythia asked.
“Not at the moment, no.” Turning to Jun, the Scrivener said, “Right then. Tomorrow we fly to Lanzhou.”
“Next time, remind me not to unpack my suitcase,” Cassie murmured to her colleague. “I have a feeling Lanzhou won’t be our final stop on this trip.”
Chapter 11—Informed Observer
Daniel’s mind wandered while the sound of his father’s voice droned on in the background. He was sitting in the Nephilim chapel enduring a memorial service for his departed wife Annabeth. There was no casket as would have been customary. His father’s explanation to the congregation was notably lacking in detail. According to the Diviner, Annabeth had passed away unexpectedly at the hospital where she was recovering from mental exhaustion. Circumstances prevented her body from being returned for burial. Daniel eyed the center aisle of the chapel where an open coffin should have been placed. He felt a transitory sense of regret that he would never get the chance to look at her one last time and bid her farewell. He laughed grimly to himself. The phrase almost sounded romantic—bidding farewell to a lost love. But he had loved her, he protested fiercely. An inner twinge of guilt told him otherwise. His conscience couldn’t be fooled. He relented. All right. Perhaps he hadn’t loved her but at the very least he never wished her any harm and certainly not a death as tragic as hers had been. Perhaps if he’d stayed behind. If he’d defied his father and refused to pursue the fourth relic he might have been able to prevent her collapse. Mere idle speculation, his conscience told him coldly.
He glanced surreptitiously around the chapel. The room could barely hold fifty people so the event had been limited to close family. Some of his brothers and their principal wives were in attendance. A few of his father’s own wives were there as well. Mother Rachel sat in the foremost pew, her eyes closed to prevent distraction as she drank in every word of the sermon.
Secrets Of The Serpent's Heart (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 6) Page 6