From the earliest oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions to later Small Seal Script, and even the clerical script and regular script of today, the history of Chinese characters has never been interrupted. As a medium carrying historical information, writing holds significant importance for exploring cultural origins, and among them, there are many aspects related to the zodiac culture of the Snake.
Chinese characters are mostly pictographic, largely created by ancient people based on the shapes of objects, and many of them contain implicit information related to the Snake zodiac.
"它", "虫", "巳" form "蛇"
The character "蛇" (snake) originally was written as "它" (tā), with the "虫" (insect) radical added later, which was once a colloquial form. In Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, Explaining Graphs and AnalyzinShuowen Jiezierpreted as a pictograph, "resembling a curved and drooping tail shape." It was also said, "In ancient times, people lived among grass and feared it (snakes), so they would ask each other: 'No snake, right?'" During the primitive era, living in caves and the wild, avoiding snake bites was a major concern in daily life. When people met, they would greet each other by asking "No snake, right?" (equivalent to "No snakes around?").
In folk culture, the snake is also called "long worm" (changchong), and the ancient meaning of the character "worm" (chong) precisely refers to the snake. The oracle bone script character for "worm" is inscribed as a venomous snake with a triangular-shaped head. The character "worm" recorded in Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters) also depicts the posture of a pit viper lying prone.
In Shuowen (Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters), there are also explanations for the twelve characters of the Earthly Branches. However, when it comes to the zodiac animals, the character "Si" is the most typical example: "In the fourth month, the yang energy has emerged, the yin energy has been hidden, all things appear, forming clear patterns, so Si is a pictograph of it." This means that "Si" is the pictographic character for snake. Wang Yinglin of the Song Dynasty, in his Kunxue Jiwen (Records of Knowledge Gained from Hard Study), also mentioned the origin of the twelve zodiac animals: "Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters) also states that Si is the snake, a pictograph."
"Ba" and "Shu" Represent the Snake
The character "Ba" (巴) is the character "Si" (巳, Earthly Branch for Snake, archaic name of snake) with an extra stroke. However, what is this stroke? Experts believe it is an elephant. As the saying goes, "A man's heart is never satisfied, like a snake trying to swallow an elephant," yet there truly exists a "snake that swallows elephants." The Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters) explains: "It is a reptile, also callShuowen Jiezien" (天问, Questions to Heaven), there is a question: "A snake swallows an elephant, how great is its size?" Successive annotators all cite the Shanhaijing (山海经, Classic of Mountains and Seas), Chapter Hainei Nan Jing (海内南经) as the answer: "The Ba snake eats elephants, and after three years, it expels their bones." Legend also says that Houyi, the archer who shot down the suns, killed the Ba snake on the shores of Dongting Lake. The Ba snake's bones were piled up like hills, giving rise to the place name: Baling (巴陵, Mound of Ba). There is also Elephant Bone Mountain, where it is said that the Ba snake swallowed an elephant, and the elephant's bones formed a great mountain.
During the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1661), the woodblock-printed edition of "Lisu Tu" (Illustrations of the Lisao) depicted the specific scene of a giant snake swallowing an elephant, and further explained: "In the south, there is a spiritual snake that swallows an elephant, and after three years, it expels its bones. The snake corresponds to the Earthly Branch Si. The character 'Ba' is formed by adding a tongue-like stroke to the pictograph for snake, representing its sinuous shape." The Song Dynasty work "Erya Yi" (Wings to the Erya) also states: "Ba refers to the snake that devours elephants, and its character resembles the winding form of a snake."
According to the "Huayang Guozhi: Shu Zhi" (Chronicles of Huayang: Records of Shu), it is recorded: "There were five strong men in Shu who could move mountains and lift enormous weights... King Hui of Qin knew that the King of Shu was fond of beautiful women, so he promised to marry five women to the King of Shu. The King of Shu sent the five strong men to escort them. When they arrived at Zitong, they saw a large snake entering a cave. One man grabbed its tail and pulled, but could not hold on. Then all five men helped, shouting as they pulled the snake. The mountain collapsed, crushing the five men, the five Qin women, and their attendants, splitting the mountain into five ridges." The "snake" within "Shu" possessed such divine power — how extraordinary. The "insect" component inside the character "Shu" might actually refer to the "long insect" (snake).
"Min" (the abbreviation for Fujian Province) contains the character for "snake" within it.
The abbreviation for Fujian Province is "Min", and the character "Min" contains the radical for "insect" which represents the snake, so "Min" means the old den of snakes. In Shuowen Jiezi (Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters), Xu Shen explains "Min" as "the Yue people of the southeast, descendants of the snake", and "descendants of the snake" is a term reflecting totem worship. As early as the Shang and Zhou dynasties (c. 1600-256 BCE), the ancestors of the Min region had a custom of snake totem worship, a practice that can be traced back to the ancient Minyue culture. At that time, the forebears of the Minyue lived in dense forests and rugged mountains crisscrossed by streams, forming an inseparable bond with snakes. The ancient Minyue people had a strong tradition of revering snakes, worshipping them as deities and "establishing temples to offer sacrifices to them".
During the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Xie Su, a former Fujian official, recorded the local people's worship of snakes in the preface to his documentary poem "Visiting the Temple of the Prince Who Pacified Fujian": "The prince had two generals who served at his left and right sides. They once transformed into a green snake and a red snake, appearing on the incense table to manifest their divine power. Whenever the people of Fujian prayed to them, their requests were answered." Due to the warm and humid climate in the southern Fujian region, which is suitable for the reproduction and survival of various snake species, this provided a realistic foundation for the snake worship in the area.
Zhanghu Town in Nanping, Fujian holds the Snake King Festival around the seventh day of the seventh lunar month each year. The Snake King Temple in the town serves as the activity center, housing three statues of snake deities — the three Snake King brothers, whom locals call Lord Lian. The three brothers wear red robes and step on strange beasts with their feet. Their eyes are positioned differently: one looks upward, one looks downward, and one looks straight ahead, symbolizing their ability to observe the human world and drive away evil to bring blessings.
Further Reading
The snake swallowing an egg.
Almost no one has actually witnessed a snake swallowing an elephant, but one can occasionally encounter a snake swallowing an egg in daily life. In his "Chuci Jizhu" (Collected Annotations on the Songs of Chu), Zhu Xi annotated the Ba Snake and recorded a folktale circulating among mountain villagers: a snake would swallow eggs from a chicken coop, then coil around a tree, twisting and squeezing with all its might to crush the eggshell, after which it would spit out the shell fragments. Troubled by this nuisance, the clever villagers devised a countermeasure: they carved wooden eggs to trick the snake. Having grown accustomed to the sweet reward of swallowing real eggs, the snake swallowed the wooden egg and, as usual, coiled around a tree to exert force — only to twist its own body to the point of rupture.