Crouching tiger

The other day Gavin Lee posted this in a tweet: "...bronze figurine of wild water buffalo...Hunan, middle reaches of Yangtze River...According to the description, the piece is dated to the late Shang dynasty, 13-11 Cent. BC...

I only today saw what's on buffalo's back: a tiger!

This is very important...Here is why:

Both wild and domesticated water buffalos are seasonal breeders in most of their range, with the mating typically peaking in Oct/Nov...

This means that they are a very good animal calendar markers for Oct/Nov...

In Mesopotamia, the climatic year is divided into hot/dry summer and cool/wet winter. Oct/Nov is when the winter starts...

So buffalos were used on Mesopotamian seals as positive symbols for winter (cool/wet season) linked with water (all the precipitation that feeds the water tables falls during winter season):

I talked about this in my post "Lions vs buffalos" in which I analysed this seal from Akkadian period

Buffalo was used as an animal calendar marker for winter in India too. In India the year is also divided into two seasons, wet and dry...But in India, Oct/Nov is the beginning of the dry season...

So buffalo symbol in India acquired a negative meaning and became a "buffalo demon" Mahishasura...The enemy of Devas (Gods, good guys). I talked about this buffalo demon in my post "Mahishasuramardini"...

This opposite climates resulted in Devas being gods in India and demons in Mesopotamia/Persia...

Compare these two articles "Kharif and rabi season" and "Rain and flood"...

Anyway, what about China?

This is the climate in Hunan, China. You can see that the year is divided into hot and wet summer and cool and dry winter. 

And the mating season of the buffalos marks the beginning of winter again...So a buffalo could be used as an animal calendar marker for winter in China too...

That this buffalo is indeed an animal calendar marker for winter, can be seen from the fact that it has a tiger on it's back...

Cause guess who mates right after buffalos, during mid winter, Dec/Jan? Continental Eurasian tigers. Of the kind that also once lived in China...

Which is why they are used as a symbol for winter...I already talked about tiger symbol in China in my post "Tiger and dragon" about the Neolithic origin of the tiger (Yin) - dragon (Yang) symbol...

In China, tiger is opposed to the dragon. Remember that dragon is a pretty universal symbol of summer sun's heat...And summer in the area where Chinese culture originated is also the wettest part of the year...Which is why Chinese dragon brings water, not drought...I talked about this in my post "Chinese dragon"...

So....Crouching tiger on a buffalo's back...Both animals mating in winter, both used as animal calendar markers for winter...Hmmm...

What do you think? Do we here have an example of a Bronze Age Chinese animal calendar marker? I think so...

That is if the animal on the buffalo's back is indeed a tiger. 🙂 I know that the Chinese sources say it's a tiger. But it looks very spotty to me...Just like a leopard...

But this changes nothing...Continental Eurasian leopards also mate during the winter, a bit later, at the end of winter, beginning of spring, Jan/Feb...

Which is why they were used as a symbol for winter (and spring)

I talked about mating habits of Eurasian tigers and leopards in my post "Leopard and tiger" in which I tried to answer the question: why were these cats associated with Dionysus...

So, I think that now we have another, proof that the early Chinese didn't live and develop their culture in limbo. They also used animal calendar markers, just like all the other Eurasian and North African cultures from Neolithic onwards...

PS: Today I came across another Zhou bronze depicting a buffalo with, according to the description, a tiger on its back... 

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...