TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE AND SYMBOL: THE EAST. 3 JAPAN

De: JOHN NOONE

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE & SYMBOL is published here in two volumes Volume One: THE WEST and Volume Two: THE EAST, and each volume is divided into four books. The WEST series is presented as a chronological sequence and the EAST series as individual studies of specific cultures. Together they constitute an in-depth coverage of the image and symbol of the turtle/tortoise throughout the world from the earliest times. Reference is made to specific artifacts, documents and monuments, works of science, literature and art, which may be viewed or consulted today in museums and public places, libraries and private collections, and the writing is intended for all readers with an interest in turtles, scientific or sentimental, for collectors of antiques, curios and objets d'art, and for everyone with an interest in the diversity of cultural history, in myth and religion, custom and art. JAPAN is the third of four books in the series TURTLE TORTOISE, IMAGE & SYMBOL: THE EAST. The subject extends from the first representations on dotaku to modern display-objects, showing how turtle-shaped stones and sea-turtles were associated with sea-deities from the earliest times, how sea-turtles feature as vehicles in early accounts as in the story of Urashima Taro and of Myoken, how the kami-turtle with deer-horns and the minogame with hair-tail, the ugly edible suppon and the man-eating monster kappa are distinctively Japanese, and how with the crane as longevity symbol the minogame appears on mirror-backs and in altar candlesticks, at marriage and New Year celebrations, with the Seven Lucky Gods and with immortals, in the symbolism of gardens and in the ornamentation of personal objects like netsuke, tsuba and uchiwa. The exposition is followed by a bibliography