“A serpentine sky-dragon, lord of rain and rivers, coiling through the clouds as a sign of imperial power.”
The long, or Chinese dragon, may be the oldest creature humanity still celebrates. Jade dragons carved by the Hongshan culture date to roughly 4700-2900 BCE, millennia before any written record, and a dragon figured in clam shells was laid out beside the dead in a Neolithic burial at Xishuipo. Unlike the hoarding, fire-breathing dragons of the West, the long is a bringer of life: a wingless, serpentine lord of rain, rivers, and seas who climbs the sky without wings and carries the clouds on his back.
For more than two thousand years the dragon was also the state itself. Emperors sat on the Dragon Throne, wore dragon robes, and reserved the five-clawed long for their own use — under the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, wearing five claws you had no right to could be prosecuted as treason. Yet the creature never stopped belonging to farmers as well as kings: villages danced cloth dragons through the streets in times of drought, splashing water from willow branches and crying 'Here comes the rain!'
The Legend
Tradition assembles the dragon from the parts of nine animals. The Han dynasty scholar Wang Fu counted the resemblances: the antlers of a stag, the head of a camel, the eyes of a demon, the neck of a snake, the belly of a clam, the scales of a carp, the claws of an eagle, the soles of a tiger, the ears of a cow. Along its body run 117 scales — 81 charged with yang, the bright principle, and 36 with yin — and in its long coils moves the essence of water itself.
Ancient cosmology sorted the dragons into ranks. The Celestial Dragon guards the palaces of the gods; the Dragon of Hidden Treasure watches buried wealth; the Earth Dragon keeps the waterways; and the Spiritual Dragon herds the rain and winds. In popular religion the last two merged into the Dragon Kings, the longwang — scaled sovereigns who hold court beneath the four seas, deliver rain to the fields, and hear the prayers of sailors and drought-stricken villages alike.
The Record
The dragon's paper trail is the longest of any legendary beast. Dragon-like motifs appear at the Chahai site of the Xinglongwa culture (6200-5400 BCE), C-shaped jade dragon badges were carved by the Hongshan culture, and a Yangshao-era burial at Xishuipo held a large dragon mosaic worked in clam shells. By the Han dynasty, scholars such as Wang Fu were codifying its anatomy, and dynastic law was already learning to regulate its image.
Under the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties the five-clawed dragon belonged to the emperor alone; nobles made do with four claws, lesser ranks with three, and misuse of the imperial form was punishable as treason. Qing emperors wore robes emblazoned with nine five-clawed dragons swimming through clouds, rocks, and sea — a wardrobe that declared the wearer the Son of Heaven, keeper of the cosmic waters.
The Lore
The dragon is the yang principle made flesh: rain-giver, river-keeper, master of weather. During droughts, communities carried dragon effigies of cloth, paper, or pottery in procession while attendants flicked water over the onlookers with willow branches and shouted 'Here comes the rain!' The dragon boat races of the fifth lunar month, honoring the drowned poet Qu Yuan (c. 340-278 BCE), still send dragon-headed hulls surging across the rivers each summer.
The long remains everywhere in Chinese life. It is the only mythical beast in the twelve-sign zodiac, and children born in dragon years are held to be marked for fortune. Dragon dances open the Lunar New Year, dragon kings still receive petitions for rain at village temples, and though the emperors who monopolized its image are gone, the creature has outlived them all — the dragon shed the throne and kept the sky.
Field Notes
- ✦ Classic descriptions give it features of nine animals, from stag antlers to eagle claws, per the Han scholar Wang Fu.
- ✦ Dragon Kings of the four seas govern rainfall and bodies of water in folklore.
- ✦ Long associated with imperial authority, with five-clawed dragons reserved for the emperor.
- ✦ Jade dragons of the Hongshan culture, carved c. 4700-2900 BCE, predate Chinese writing by millennia.
- ✦ Tradition counts 117 scales along its body — 81 yang and 36 yin.
Case File
- Classification
- Divine dragon
- Category
- Reptilian/Dragon
- Territory
- Rivers, seas, and skies of China
- First Sighted
- Neolithic dragon motifs, c. 4700-2900 BCE
- Habitat
- Water, clouds, and the heavens
- Reported Size
- Vast, serpentine
- Also Known As
- Long · Lung