Red Bird of the South

#redbirdofthesouth #asianculture #symbols #dongson #vietnam

Tradtional Chiense culture and other neary cultures influenced by China allot the four directions the following as symbols:

White Tiger of the West. Black Warrior/ Turtle of the North, Dragon of the Eastern Sea. Imperial Dragon of the Centre and Red bird of the South.

Now we know White Tigers exist in the wild but are currently rare and endangered but in the past were more common and I'm not going to discuss what the basis of dragons and the other symbols in this post but this year since its the Year of the Rooster I have been running avian theme post series.

I explored the Red Bird and I thought if the White Tiger may be inspired by tigers with (partial) albinism what about the Red Bird?

Now the ancient Dong Son culture of SE Asia used bird symbols and depicted birds.

Images included hornbills and other birds that may be storks cranes or egrets or even peacocks.

Chinese culture has the Red Bird of the south.

Could there be a link?

 We know there was cultural interchange between Southern China, the CHU state, the Yue realms and further south.

Here's a couple of images.

Here's a closeup of a Dongson artifact which I edited to emphasize the bird pattern.

Other Dongson culture bird images.

I think a clue here is not the long bird but the pattern of bars and speckles.

Now take a look at this.

This is Elliotts Pheasant a species who's current habitat is the far south of China and which could have had a far wider habitat area in the past. Its a warm red color has a long barred pattern tail and a crest and jungle fowl peacock and storks are not red.

Could the Red bird of the South been a folk memory of this or some other pheasant species that had a far wider range up toward Central China and down to Vietnam.

Finally consider this: the Vietnamese origin myth of a bird immortal/ goddess Au Lac from the mountains who mated with a (chinese) dragon prince from the sea founding a realm in the river valleys of the north of what is now Vietnam.

Red Bird of the South? Bird Goddess of the past? Folk symbol now.