The Origin of Dragons (Blust, 2020)

abstract

This paper addresses a question that has puzzled scholars for more than a century: "Why is a belief in dragons found over much of the earth?" It argues that dragons evolved from rainbows through the concept of the rainbow serpent, a concept that itself extends far back into the Pleistocene. In this perspective many seemingly arbitrary traits which are widely associated with dragons are seen to have a physical explanation.

Notes

belief in dragons is part of many cultural traditions

It is a striking fact that a belief in dragons is part of many cultural traditions. At least since the publication of Charles Gould’s "Mythical Monsters" in 1886,and Grafton Elliott Smith’s "The Evolution of the Dragon" in 1919, there has been a general recognition that the idea of the dragon is a worldwide phenomenon (Blust, 2020, p. 519.)

Smith was so impressed with the similarities in the form of dragon beliefs that he concluded they must have a common origin (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Others, following the psychologist C. G. Jung, have suggested that dragons are “archetypes” — symbols acquired in the remote past and genetically transmitted for millennia as an innate property of the human mind (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Still others have proposed that dragons were inspired by the fossilized bones or eggs of Archosauria, or by sightings of living organisms unknown to scienc,e or that they may be symbols of clouds, mist, rain, or thunder (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Why are dragons so often associated with waterfalls, pools, and caves? Why are they widely regarded as controllers of rain? Why are they typically portrayed as chimerical serpents, sporting horns, hair, feathers, or other bodily attributes characteristic of warm-blooded animals in conjunction with the body of a snake? (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Why are they sexed at all, but more particularly why, in widely separated parts of the world, are they regarded as androgynous? (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Put somewhat simplistically, the thesis of this paper is that dragons are the end point of a conceptual development which began with rainbows (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

Most sources that discuss the dragon as a universal cultural phenomenon report it in six relatively discrete geographical regions:

(1) Euope
(2) the Near East (including Egypt)
(3) India
(4) the Far East
(5) Mesoamerica
(6) North America

In areas (1) – (5) the dragon is a fully developed, highly elborated motif in folklore, mythology and, in some cases, ritual; in area (6) it is generally described as an inchoate or vestigial phenomenon, the “horned serpent”, a dangerous guardian of springs and other watery realms (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

The preferred explanation for a globally distributed cultural trait is convergence. Since limited possibilities play no role here, we are forced to conclude that universal psychological factors have conspired repeatedly in the history of our species to create the idea of a dragon (Blust, 2020, p. 519).

!Blust (2000), The Origin of Dragons, p. 520.png

But surely an idea as elaborate as that of the dragon could not arise repeatedly out of pure imagination (Blust, 2020, pp. 519-520).

The key to progress in solving this problem is close attention to the physical and behavioral traits attributed to dragons. Since these vary somewhat from place to place (not unsurprisingly, given the likelihood that they are products of independent invention), an exhaustive inventory will not be attempted here. Table 1 provides a somewhat eclectic list of traits attributed to dragons in one or more of the geographical regions (1) - (6), enabling the reader to see at a glance which traits are widely distributed, and which are characteristic of a particular region (Blust, 2020, p. 520).