'The connection between the dragon and this festival has been a matter Of considerable speculation amongst Western savants and investigators 'The Chinese themselves do not appear' fo be able to offer a satisfactory explanation of the origin of the dragon boat races, which seems to be lost dri antiquity as far og any actual records go. 'Bredon and Mitrophanow their' book. "The Moon Year." following De Groot, suggest that a Unio with the dragon might be found in an attempt at a very early period to propitiate the restless spirits of people who had fallen into rivers or Takes and had been devoured alligators, from which animal. they suggest that the Chinese lung or. Dragon, was derived. This rite taking place at the time of the Summer Solstice. which was probably the forerunner of the Fifth Moon Festival. became the custom to propitiate the dragon, the Lord and Controller of the Waters, with offerings of food.
This theory, however, will not hear the test of investigation. Tu the first place the Chinese dragon was not derived from the alligator. but from the snake. as is proved by Shang Dynasty bone carvings, dating back fifteen oF so centuries before the Christian era. which show a creature with a serpent's body. no. lens wings, but with the head of a tiger. To this motif, which can be traced down through the ages in the art-forms of China, were later added legs and other physical attributes taken from other animals.
In the second place the Chinese alligator, now confined to certain shallow Takes in the lower valley of the Yangtze River, could never have Doon a man-eater. Tt is too small, its maximum length being between six "and seven feet, while th is extremely "docile, ts food consists mainly of malluses, frogs and other aquatic animals as weill as of grase~ hoppers which. swarm in the reed beds of its marshy home. 'The man-cating estuarine crocodile' (Crocoditus porous Schn.) could hardly have been known" to the very" early Chinese, since it occurs in this country only along the coasts of the extreme' southwest and. even $0. but! rarely. Tu the third place the Chinese consider' the dragon a benevolent creature, the friend and protector of man, not one that devours people.
'The third clement in the Fifth 'Moon Festival is found in the explanation, given' by the Chinese, hamely, that it commemorates. the death of the upright minister' Chu Yuan of the State of Chu late in the Chou Dynasty some 600 years before the Christian era, who. committed sulelde-by drowning in despair over the official corruption of "his day. This he explained in his famous poem entitled Li Sao which he penned before drowning himself. The people were so perturbed by his tragic demise that they offered sacrifices to his homeless spirit in the way of food thrown into the water.
One day the legend runs. his spirit appeared to some devotees and informed them that, as their sacrifices reptile in the water. they ware no use to him. He told them to wrap the rice they offered in silk and bind the packets with five threads each of different colour. Such packets, he said. the reptile would not dare to touch. This is the origin of the three-cornered packets of glutinous ice, which are eaten by the Chinese of this time as well os being thrown. Into creeks and rivers to appease the spirits of Chu Yuan and all other people who have been drowned and '$0 have not been properly buried in their ancestral graveyards. Only today the broad leaves of reeds and the stalks of sedge take the place respectively. of the silk wrappings and coloured threads ordered by Chu Yuan. The lanterns floated upon the waters at night during this festival are to light the way of these wander-{ng homeless spirits.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.