The Relationship Between Chinese Primitive Mythology and Chinese Primitive Religion

I've always been fascinated with the culture of Chinese myths. Since I was very young I've been attracted to its art, history, symbolism, food and culture. Chinese myths are a colorful part of Chinese culture, they are imaginative, often amusing and usually have a moral message attached to them.
"Myth" is a story from ancient times, especially one that was told to explain natural events or to describe the early history of a people. The protagonists of these stories are a variety of gods, and the stories often have surreal colors. Many people think that "myth" a factual recording of history.
Chinese mythology is as varied and multi-levelled as the country from which it springs. China contains many different cultural groupings, who speak a number of different languages. However, it has had a literate cultural élite for thousands of years, and myths which were primitively regional have spread by means of a pictographic script which transcended language barriers. Their evolution has not been entirely oral.
Much Chinese mythology is based on animism, which sees the land itself as alive. It contains many therianthropic creatures, which are both animal and human, and demonstrates the playfulness of the gods.
The primitive people created the bizarre primitive mythology basing on some factual basis. The common feature of Chinese primitive mythology is that the contents of them usually include the thought of labor and creation. They extol Nü Wa who melted rocks of five colors, Shen Nong who tasted hundreds of herbs, Hou Yi who shooted the suns and so on. The heros in those myths who conquered the nature and improved the people’s lives are worshiped by our human-beings. Myth is a part of art. But the primitive people thought that myth had close relationship with religion. How did myth form? It is because that the primitive people feared the natural and thought they didn’t have the forces against the natural. They formed a hazy notion about the religion which produced a number of gods who were anthropomorphic with the personality of human-beings and expressed the hope and the wish of human-beings. This is the emergence of the myth. Although myth consolidated and promoted the religion, it was different from religion when it formed. Religion is the belief in the existence of a god or gods and the activities that are connected with the worship of them. The emergence of the primitive religion is earlier than myth. There was a hazy religion concept emerged in Paleolithic Age. The primitive religion is a reflection of the lower level of power in primitive society. During the struggle with the nature, primitive people felt their powerlessness, so they became fearful of the nature. Because of it, the bud belief of the religion came out. They believed that everything in the natural had their own life like themselves, so primitive people often dressed up as various animals or plants. Totem is a typical example of nature worship and ancestor worship.
The primitive mythology is based on the primitive religion, so they have very close relation. They are all the product of fantasy in the minds of ancient people which reflect the object world distortedly. Chinese mythology has been influenced by a fear of outsiders. It has also been shaped, sometimes deliberately, by religious faiths and philosophies. Some myths even demonstrate the conflict between them, as in the story of the Monkey King, which reflects the conflict between Taoists and Buddhists. But the essence spirit of them is different. The differences between Chinese mythology and the primitive religion are mainly represented in the following parts.
First, the primitive religion preached that human-beings should respect and prostrated themselves before the gods and let the gods dominated our fates because it believed that man couldn’t conquer and control the nature. On the contrary, the primitive mythology expressed the ambition of human-beings to conquer the nature and the unyielding faith to the fate by describing the achievements of the gods.
Second, the gods in the primitive religion are remained in the stage of object. But in the primitive mythology, the gods are more anthropomorphic and have the same spirit and will as human-beings.
Because of primitive people’s ignorantness, fearfulness to the nature, religion emerged. But the origin of mythology showed the awakenment of people with the development of the society. At that time people began to realize the potential power of themselves and the willingness to conquer the nature and dominate the world came out. As a part of art, mythology has not only magnificent contents, but also the valuable spirit to change the world which isn’t appeared in other religions. This is the ultimate reason why the primitive mythology with the positive and romantic elements is different from the primitive religion.
With the developed of the primitive religion, it became to include more problems which are about the value of life and the moral development. It became the faith of some people. However, the imaginations in the mythology, such as flying to the moon and reclaiming the sea, now become possible with the development of the technology.
Chinese mythology is a splendid culture heritage of the Chinese nation. It is our responsibility and pride to inherit and develop our traditional culture.