What we have experienced during archaeological expeditions is the wild life of living in the open air. Since entering the mountains, we have also lived in many caves and wooden houses left by hunters.
But this is the first time that everyone has seen such a pure Oroqen cave.
Several young people headed by Du Jun were very interested. They first climbed on the kang and tried the ethnic minority's hot kang head, and then played with the deer heads hanging on the wall.
As descendants of the Oroqen people, Liu Han and Hong Gang are naturally more familiar with these rules than we are.
Hong just got an opportunity to show off in front of Ellie, and he must not let it go.
This kid is becoming more and more glib now. If he were thinner, he would look like a pirated version of Du Ershen.
Instead of being a guest, he acted as a tour guide. He first took us around the cave and pointed out several places to store food.
We didn't have time to inspect the cave carefully last night, and now we discovered that there were still some barley noodles and corn flour in the place where there were special signs, but they were already rotten and turned into a pile of moldy and green dregs. .
If Hong Gang hadn't reminded him repeatedly, he wouldn't have been able to tell that it was food.
Then Hong Gang led us out, pointed to the pile of rotten wood next to him and said, "Did you see it? There is something like a small plastic pole on the wood. In fact, it is a pole left from a pheasant feather.
“The presence of such a mark proves that this is an Oroqen house.
"If other ethnic groups were here, they would not insert feathers, but cut the wood and add birch bark inside...
Hong Gang's explanation really aroused our interest, and then he told us several legends about the Oroqen people.
But this kid seemed to have fallen ill, and the topic unknowingly shifted to heaven, evil dragons, and guarding caves...
This ruins everyone's interest. No matter how nice the story is, it will get boring if you tell it over and over again every day.
"Okay, let's talk about this again, my ears are getting calloused.
"Come on, let's go back to the house and rest first. I'll have you fetch water later."
Ai Li interrupted him mercilessly and assigned Hong Gang a task as punishment.
Professor Lan suddenly walked out and said: "Hong Gang, come back quickly. Take a look at the mural inside. It seems to be the story you told?"
mural?
Yes, there are things carved on the walls of the cave. You are just listening to Hong Gang's vernacular here. Have you forgotten such an important thing?
As soon as Hong Gang heard that the mural on the wall was related to the story he told, he immediately became energetic and hurriedly took us back to the house.
At this time, Professor Xu was taking Qin Shi and Guan Xin to visit the surrounding walls. In order to see more clearly, Qin Shi was holding a torch.
"Look, there are all paintings on the wall. Why do I feel like what Hong Gang said?"
Professor Xu put on his myopia glasses and pointed to the first picture on the left: "And this..."
Following Professor Xu's instructions, we began to observe carefully.
The patterns on the wall are colorless and were carved with a knife. Some places have become blurred over time.
But the person who portrayed it was very skilled and the picture was very clear. I could still see clearly what was going on intermittently?
The first painting shows several people kneeling at the door of a cave, with some tributes placed on the ground.
In the second picture, these people have entered the cave, and the leader is pointing to a platform in front. There are many utensils piled around the platform.
The third painting shows a petite man kneeling on the platform, while other people are kneeling outside the platform, as if they are praying.
The fourth painting shows an animal that looks like a dragon or a snake appearing in the sky above the cave, with two big eyes staring at the people below...
"Yes, this is the legend passed down by our ancestors!"
Hong Gang became excited: "Did you see it? This is the process of everyone worshiping the dragon. Our ancestors arrived in the cave, and these vessels are the gold and silver jewelry in the cave.
“That platform is the passage leading to the Kingdom of Heaven, and everyone must kneel on it to accept the test of the dragon.
"Then in the fourth painting, the dragon appears. Look how lifelike the dragon's head is!"
Hong Gang was so excited that his fat face shone, and he pointed at the murals on the wall and talked.
Du Jun blinked his eyes carefully and said, "Here, is this dragon's head realistic? Why does it look like a long worm to me? It has two extra horns."
"Yes!" Ellie also said.
"Look, this head is like a tortoise, round and bulging, and don't all dragons have wings? It doesn't have any either!" Ellie thought of the dragon paintings in her hometown.
"What do you know? A dragon gives birth to nine sons, do you know? The appearance of a dragon is completely different from what you imagined..."
Hong Gang hesitated, trying hard to take out the nine sons of the legendary dragon and compare them with the guys on the screen.
But unfortunately, the dragon painting is indeed a bit weird, and it is completely different from Taotie, Yaizhen... these mythical beasts related to dragons.
Hong Gang blinked and simply fooled him, then said: "Anyway, it must be a dragon, so just ignore it for now and continue looking down!
"Look here, here comes the important point. Do you see? This person is flying."
In the fifth painting, the small kneeling figure has left the stone slab and its body is floating in the air.
The latter picture shows a large hall, filled with gold, silver and jewelry, and several angel statues enshrined in it.
These angels also look weird. Some are indeed people with wings, but most of them look like mythical beasts. Some look like foxes, some like tigers...
The last picture is heaven, with many people cheering.
"Do you believe me this time? Do you see? Not only me, our ancestors believe this is true!"
Hong Gang's tone returned to his previous piety.
Everyone else was unimpressed.
There are more than fifty ethnic groups in China. Which ethnic group does not have some ancient legends?
From the creation of Pangu to the immortality of Qin Shihuang, from Laozi leaving Dongguan to the establishment of Taoism in the Han Dynasty...
There are too many legends in China.
A few people started arguing. In the end, Du Jun and Ai Li started to act rude and severely criticized Hong Gang, saying that this guy talked about feudal superstition everywhere.
As a result, Hong Gang's bottom line was touched. At that time, he turned against his master and apprentice Du Ershen. He stared at his big eyes and shouted: "What kind of feudal superstition am I doing? This is passed down from our ancestors."
"You and Zhou Xiaodao are the remnants of feudal superstition, preaching about ghosts and monsters everywhere, and catching ghosts and eliminating demons?"
Hong Gang suddenly stirred up a hornet's nest. Can Du Ershen be soft on such a scum who betrayed his master?
At that time, they teamed up with the little witch Ellie to push Hong Gang onto the kang and pinch him.
It wasn't until Hong Gang bribed them with two bottles of Maotai and three boxes of chocolates that the two of them gave up.
Seeing Hong Gang being tortured by the two men, Professor Xu rarely supported Hong Gang out of sympathy for the weak.
He told us that most national legends are just stories, but since they have been passed down for so long and are engraved on stone walls, these legends must have some basis in fact.
This sentence caused us to think and discuss.
Everyone began to express their opinions.
Ellie's imagination is the richest, and she gave us a revelation based on the legend of the Western Dragon.
In the West, the dragon is an evil animal, and its biggest hobby is to collect all the shining gold and silver jewelry. There are many dragon-slaying warriors in the West who are chasing these wealth.
If that's the case, then the incident mentioned by Hong Gang's ancestor might mean that someone actually discovered a cave containing jewelry, which was guarded by a dragon-like creature.
Ellie also specifically emphasized that when she lived in the Northeast, she heard many old people talk about it.
There are many thousand-year-old and century-old ginseng and Ganoderma lucidum in the mountains in the Northeast...
There are also some mysterious treasures buried underground. It is said that as long as they are valuable treasures, they will be guarded by strange beasts.
The legends of the East and the West coincide on this point.
