ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315828060/49546f0e-ce84-4e70-9b40-7107f16ee305/content/unfig_i_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>N China the White Cock is regarded as the “Bird of the Sun.,” and is peculiarly associated with the burial rites. Often the car which conveys offerings to the tomb has on its central shaft pole the carved head of a cock! If the corpse has been kept unburied for some time, a live white cock, with its feet tied together, is stood on the catafalque while the procession is passing through the streets, and de Groot considers its presence is intended to strengthen the soul, which has become enfeebled by having to wander about in misery while the burial have been delayed. In support of this view he points out that the cock is regarded as the emblem of the Sun, because each morning it announces his rising, and in the P’i ya, Chapter 6, an 11th century Chinese book, we find, “It is an old saying that in the Sun there is acock ….” (a) As, however, the Sun is the chief embodiment of the Yang principle in nature, and therefore of life and light, it naturally follows that his bird, the Cock, represents a very considerable quantity of the Yang principle. And this is explicitly stated in the Ch’un-ts’iu shwoh thi tsze, or “Disquisitions on passages occurring in the Ch’un-ts’iu,” (b) wherein we learn that “The Cock is the emblem of the accumulated Yang and of the South. Ethereal things which partake of the character of fire and of the Yang element have the property of flaming up, hence, when the Yang (Sun) rises above the horizon the cock crows, because things of the same nature influence each other.” As the vital principle in man consists of the Yang principle, it follows that the soul of the deceased will draw strength, or Yang influence, from the Cock.
