3.2.1. Human cultures facing floods

Dragons and floods have an attraction for large rivers. When there is dense forest cover, the possible circulation is done in a privileged way by following rivers and lakes. Let us recall that we use Witzel 1 or W1 to refer to the culture of anatomically modern humans prior to 100 ka before leaving Africa and the Middle East; W2 for the culture exiting Africa which follows the path along the Indian Ocean and stretches to present-day Australia; and W3 for the circumpolar period, anatomically modern humans following the large ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere, and developing a more specialized culture around cold peaks. W1 and W2 cultures spread through circulation in open spaces, along coasts or along large rivers through dense forests. The circulation of W3 cultured humans occurred according to the same modes, but in colder environments, particularly on steppes with low snow cover where herds of large herbivores moved. In these cold environments, most of the species of megafauna animals that supported dragon representations did not exist, such as large snakes or crocodiles. The large snakes that sometimes regurgitate large prey that they cannot digest are endemic to tropical areas such as parts of Africa, Amazonia, and jungles of South Asia and Australia. The W3 culture, as well as many other cultures that did not have an endemic snake species at their disposal, borrowed dragon elements from small animals, such as the giant snail of the Shipibos of Upper Amazonia, or the Ubi beaver of the Hurons, or even from microfauna: butterfly, mane worms and other insects. It is difficult to share between W1 and W2 cultures, while the separation between W3 and W1 + W2 is easier, if only because of these simple differences between the different animal kingdoms. In addition, archaeological sites with figurative representations are exceptional for the W1 and W2 cultures (Blombos and the Diepkoof shelter in present-day South Africa); they become abundant, moreover with a very rich iconography, for the W3 culture.

Diluvian myths are less scattered throughout the world: 2/3 in a paving of the world in 50 cultural zones, against 3/4 for a single version of the myth of the dragon skinned by a hunter, the dragon slayer. In a simplified paving in six parts based on the distributions in Figures 2.2–2.4, the area with the highest density of myths of the “old” dragons (the water skin and the swallower) is Africa, that of the high density of the dragon slayer is Central Europe. Two areas with large regular monsoons coincided with the high densities of a myth of the end of the world flood, Southeast Asia and the forest areas of Central America and the Amazon. The floodwaters of creation were in the north as well as throughout Asia, as indicated by the Maros site [AUB 14].

The presence of a collective eschatology, that of a universal flood, i.e. that the waters cover the whole Earth, is suspected as early as W2. The main argument is only indirect. The absence of collective eschatology in African myths makes it very unlikely that there was a myth of a universal flood in W1. This collective eschatology was the result of the meeting of anatomically modern humans with regular and abundant monsoons on the journey of the W2 culture from Africa to Oceania, via India. The volatility of monsoon intensities is higher in Africa, and this more irregular rainfall pattern would have thwarted the formation of a culture that included an end of the world in a massive flood.

The comparison between the two therimeteors of the Chauvet Pont d'Arc and Maros caves can be part of the broad lines of the relative distributions of dragons and floods. A line of force in the spatial distribution of floods follows the periphery of the Pacific Ocean, while dragons have flourished in an area associating Africa and Europe. The two therimeteors, deer and volcano for the Chauvet Pont d'Arc cave, suidae and a large volume of water for the Maros cave, are based on the same mythological structure: they are animals linked to the water by their swampy and muddy biotope, which played a creative role in bringing the Earth into being. Art becomes part of the environment through the representation associating an element of the megafauna and a natural phenomenon. The Irish elk, also known as the great bog deer, fed on aquatic plants, exploiting the same ecological niche as the elk of the contemporary Far North. Its deciduous branch was three times wider, about 3.5 meters, than that of the red deer, those of today’s temperate forests. Among the suidae, the babirusa from Sulawesi is the one with the most spectacular defenses. Males have two pairs of tusks, the largest of which is curved backward, about 0.30 m in length. The babirusa is a good swimmer and frequents humid places. In both cases, the animal indulging in the mud caused the Earth to emerge.

The Sanskrivist Winternitz introduced a series of 10 criteria (existence of an ark, embarking on the seed of life, scouting birds, sacrificial thanks, new covenant, ethical motive, rescue of a hero, announcement of a cataclysm, the hero the father of three sons) to note the distance between a flood myth and the biblical text ([LEQ 17], p. 277). According to these criteria, the representation of the Maros cave, which does not fill any of them, is at the same time at the maximum distance from a biblical flood, while being very close to that of the representation of Vishnu who saves the Earth by diving in the form of a boar. From wild boar to babirusa, the distance is minimal: they are suidae with prominent defenses, the babirusa is an endemic and rare species. The babirusa diver is a cosmogonic myth that is nevertheless part of the genealogy of flood myths. The boar that rises to the surface from Vishnu’s Earth-wife who fell into the water directly preserves this myth, while the replacement of an element of the megafauna by more common animals is the intermediary that brings this version of the cosmogonic dive closer to an episode of the biblical flood, that of the exploration of the water surface by scouting birds. Contrary to the structuralist hypothesis of an evolution of figurines from symbolism to naturalism, the babirusa is precisely described in representations dating back 39,900 years. The symbolism is late.

The Maros cave reinforces a hypothesis formulated by Alan Dundes of flood myths developing from the myth of the cosmogonic diver ([LEQ 17], p.278). It indicates a common root between flood and dragon myths, that of a mythological narrative around a horned animal of the wetlands acting from below to bring about the Earth. Compared to Witzel’s proposals, this may support the idea of a genealogy from a common root, but does not confirm the one that has been envisaged, namely that of a “flood of retribution” [WIT 12].

3.2.2. “Dragon” myths

The genealogical thread can be traced backwards to the archaeological sites of South Africa, first the culture of Howiensons Poort (about 66–59 ka), then Stillbay (about 108–72 ka). Among the very first artistic performances, the Diepkloof site (now South Africa, Atlantic coast) gathers fragments of ostrich eggs decorated by an engraving process. These eggs were used as gourds, consistent with a small heatwave in the climate around 60 ka. Most of the fragments have a “railway track” figure with two lines orthogonally superimposed on each other with similar regular lines.

A study by Anderson [AND 12] concludes, for the first known drawings, that an element of the environment is represented. What might be appropriate for these incized eggs, because of the presence of shells, which presupposes that these anatomically modern humans frequented the foreshore, were polychaetes (maneled worms), and among them mud worms that can be associated with the disappearance and return of water due to the tide. The diversity of the figures corresponds to characteristics of this part of the intertidal microfauna. These worms may appear very long, or on the contrary coiled. The bristles can be very long or quite short. Bristle worms have the property of autotomy, i.e. they can survive after a loss of part of their rings. Representations of microfauna exist in cave art. Microfauna is common, presenting many species all over the world, which is not the case for ophidians, and more particularly large constrictor snakes, requiring sufficient external heat, therefore absent from most areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

The plans of living organisms were fixed during the Cambrian explosion, the appearance in the visible domain of fauna. The artist of 60,000 years ago took care to make small pieces that extend beyond the two parallel lines. Engraving an egg with a stone tool was not an easy task: the artist needed to be very concentrated to make such a precise drawing, respecting regular intervals on an ovoid surface. Marine bristle worms (polychaetes annelids) were present following the Cambrian explosion, and there were 13,000 species recorded, in two aspects: either tubular, for example spirographs, or errant, for example nereids. The “railway track” organization of their structure is well observed, as is the precision with which the bear and cave lion are depicted in their Aurignacian representations. Sometimes the silks of the sea worm are not very visible, sometimes they are very visible, and this nuance exists in the incisions of the eggs.

These associations of intermittent phenomena (such as the tide, or the aurora borealis) and animals (the polychaete or the snake) seemed to persist for a long time. Near Lake Baikal, there is a plaque engraved with three “snakes”, dating from a period of extreme cold. The only possible explanation is that it was actually the aurora borealis, which was represented as a snake. We could therefore speak of the therimeteor for a first period when the relationship to the extreme was that of ecstasy, of wonder at a curious phenomenon. In the Chauvet Pont d’Arc cave, the large mega deer is associated with a lava fountain. The association between the dragon and the temporary storage of water has survived even in folklore: the Tarasque must first be swollen with water, then deflated.

The period of the birth of dragons was the period when climatic instability was considered major in the long term. The general orientation of the belief system was that of a natural balance guaranteed by water or energy stocks of which dragons were the guardians. Great powers were considered to reside in nature, their appearance in conformity with what was seen, and the detail was very precise in the description of these animals whose appearance was common, but whose powers and soul were those of dragons. Powers were only thought of as creators and thus there could be extreme events represented as a red phase of volcanic eruption, spectacular and relatively safe. The practices consisted of capturing energy from a vital flow. A conception of a specialized destructive power did not seem to exist, even though most human species disappeared as a large part of the megafauna and the population of anatomically modern humans reached a minimum. This does not make it possible to decide between two genealogical schemes, that of Dundes or that which suggests the appearance of a collective eschatology during the first exit from Africa. In the first scheme, the myth of creation is the oldest, and the myth of destruction comes next, the alternative being the opposite: destruction, then creation. A myth of universal destruction seemed only to spread regionally, while a myth of a dragon or ogre swallower-regurgitator is impossible to precisely date with regard to its emergence.

The oldest archaeological sites have simple lattice work. They are therefore different from the “railway sleepers” of subsequent cultivation. These figurative elements were associated with body painting practices. In ethnographic censuses of body painting drawings, the theme of lattice work was that of a sought-after protection against harmful influence and participation in a totemic group [GRO 97]. The indications obtained therefore provide the following sequence: “lattice work” that provides strength and protection (W1), an animal that explains a fluctuation of the world around an equilibrium (W2) and a creative animal (W3).

Paleolithic cultures remained, it seems, in a system of the flood of the dragon: the swallowing dragon binged, or the dragon suddenly emptied itself, and this introduced a destructive dimension. The two types of dragons, the water-skin and the swallower, are probably the oldest. The Upper Paleolithic introduced a creative animal. The myth of the dragon slayer type respected the uniqueness of the dragon, but added a hero, which made the paleolithics emerge from culture to a single diluvian dragon. The great later flood myths were two or more dragon families that interacted with each other and, generally, a hero. For example, a primordial pair of dragons regulated alliances in the myths of Neolithic China. More rarely, a heroless fight between two dragons contributed to the formation of a flood, for example in Polynesian myths.

3.3.1. Contemporary shamanism, a look at Eros and Askêsis

Foucault indicated that spirituality is a form of learning that can take two different forms: Eros or Askêsis. The respective “quantities” of Eros and Askêsis give a sort of first coordinate of Paleolithic cultures. Ascetic exploits are well known in the shamanism of the Native American plains, or through the different forms of fakirism, and probably also in the court shamanism of the first Chinese kingdoms. A second interpretation axis, the vertical, is that of objectifications and verticalizations as evidenced by the different manifestations of Paleolithic art. The horizontal axis is that of the modalities of knowledge production, and the vertical axis is that of the powers and objectification that can be associated with this knowledge.

Contemporary global warming makes archaeological sites accessible that correspond to the first visits to Arctic areas by anatomically modern humans. For example, for a paleo-Yukaghir site, only the representation of a sun marks the difference between the decorative themes of the artifacts of the archaeological site and those collected at the beginning of the 20th Century. However, the Ghiliaks of Sakhalin Island still have a tale of competition between shamans, where the tale of the animal below, a great black-spotted seal, triumphs over the man from Heaven, the solar shaman ([BOY 74], p.728). The former Chukchi were seal hunters who distinguished themselves by their particularly complex ontology and a choral mode for their ceremonies, where everyone could assert themselves if “the spirits answered the call, inspired and won” ([BOY 74], p.732). Paleolithic societies decentralized operations, with a strongly horizontal and underground imagination. Because of this very undeveloped vertical dimension, the map of Paleolithic cultures associated with high climate volatility is mainly summarized in the axis of spiritualities, in the various combinations of Eros and Askêsis.

Shamanism studies are based on the participation and observation of shamans in the contemporary world. The internal diversity of shamanism is based on the various combinations of erotic and spiritual asceticism. An additional difficulty results from the fact that the same asceticism exercise can take place in an exploitative asceticism or in an engagement asceticism. For example, the Ojibwa distinguish three types of shamans: the most considered is the one who interprets dreams, then comes the healer and finally the one who has visions and foretells the future. The same asceticism exercise will indicate to the dream interpreter that his power is not altered by these circumstances, while to the healer it simply means that he is engaged in a caring procedure for a suffering person.

Shamanic religiosity is “paschalizing” according to the criteria of religious sociology, i.e. the year includes a large event with dances and ceremonies over several days at the time of vegetation renewal. This is also the time when the different parts of the tribe, for example those of the coast and those of the forest, are brought together to form exogamic alliances. The spring gathering celebrates the renewal of the present life or not, of the ascetic elements, but remains under the sign of Eros, modifying the status of the subject by matrimonial alliances. Even in versions of the spring festival with very spectacular ascetic exercises, such as the O-kee-pa of the Mandan tribe on the Missouri shore, the master of ceremonies (on the side of ascetic exercises) is supported by a Mother of the Animals (on the side of Eros), the one who overcame a menacing voracious Spirit in a previous phase of the ceremonies.

This same ambiguity is found in the shamanic vocation, with an opposition between a process of active searching and the passive expectation of a sign of election. The quest includes various ascetic exercises, fasting, self-sacrifice and challenges with harsh climates: staying under the icy water of a mountain stream for a long time, climbing a high mountain, living isolated in a cave. The ascetic exercises of contemporary shamanisms can be related to hot or cold, but those related to the rigors of cold seem to come from older times. “Spontaneous election is frequent in societies where shamanism is not linked to power, where it is not a strong social issue”, a situation of contemporary shamanism that corresponds well to the times before the development of a court shamanism ([PER 17], p. 26-27). In the election, the role of the seducer belongs to the other worlds, often embodied in an animal (see Table 3.2).

In contemporary shamanism, what are the characteristics associated with significant creative artisanal production? An asceticism of achievement translates into logos and signs that correspond to a social code, so its contribution in relation to creative artistic work does not seem to be major. The transition from a choral situation to a situation where there is an effective role for a recognized shaman is one where social recognition is given to a creative activity, with shamanism including an element of improvization. An average situation, between simple choral arts, music and dance, and ascetic feats, which anticipate the development of the performing arts, seems the most favorable to the development of creative and decorative arts on movable and immovable objects.

For example, the shipibos (in present-day Peru) reside in the upper valley of the Amazon River, a gutter below the Andes, fed by tributaries loaded with silt, snow and ice from the Andes, and tropical rains. The flood season can last 10 months of the year. The economy is based on fishing. Their artisanal production is very famous. They have a Ronin dragon, the great anaconda, that traces the winding course of the river. They have a diluvian swallower monster, Moçon Tita (Mother-Snail) who makes a characteristic cry during super-flooding of the river. The shaman is “the one who knows” in the local language, he differs from the ordinary wizard by a practice of asceticism limited to a few regimes. It is a dream shamanism that makes use of hallucinogenic psychotropic drugs. “Shamanism incorporates difference and is constituted through otherness”, in general, and these large producers of creative craftsmanship have very common characteristics both in their mythology and in their shamanic practices with the use of hallucinogenic psychotropic drugs [COL 09]. The contemporary shipibo shaman speaks of the myth of the giant snail as a deluge. Here, there are two types of dragons: the diluvian swallower and the guardian (Ronin). These two types are probably very old, and there is a creative animal (the great anaconda), which is a contribution to the W3 culture. The mythology of these craftsmen still includes features that date back to the first cultures of anatomically modern humans. Shamanic knowledge responds to Foucault’s proposal based on the provocative ways of life of cynical philosophers: “There can be no establishment of truth without an essential position of otherness. The truth is never the same. There can only be truth in the form of the other world and the other life” [FOU 09].

3.3.2. Paleolithic cultures according to climate change

The Gravettian European culture was that of a period of increased cold before the last glacial maximum. A regional culture was valued, and probably practiced: the self-mutilation of the phalanxes. This indicates that ascetic practices existed in the Upper Paleolithic period and that the consideration of a combination between mysticism and asceticism, in line with Foucault’s proposal on the definition of spirituality, was particularly relevant in relation to a succession of forms of climate change, as well as the attendance of the different levels of high mountain regions. Ascetic shamans would come from the peregrination in the mountains, with ascetic practices directly related to the confrontation with the cold, concluded Blacker for Japan [BLA 99].

The oldest cultures, those of the Upper and Middle Paleolithic, including the first two cultures of anatomically modern humans (W1 and W2), were dry weathering cultures. Probably, a simple swallower ogre would be the oldest. W3 brought the myths of creation: it was a reason for the possible complexity of flood dramas, which became destruction creations, rebirths. The context testified to the progress of ascetic practices, clearly associated with cold weathering.

Paleoanthropologists highlight dry weathering in the process of hominization, carried by open environments such as savannahs. The discussion on cold weathering concerns more particularly the third of the great cultural groups of the first anatomically modern humans envisaged by Witzel, as well as the specific culture of the last glacial maximum, the Solutrean.

A reductive reading of Table 3.3 consists of seeing only one original culture, that of the Eros/Askêsis combination noted “0”, as being the one that brings art, seeing in shamanism only a regional culture firmly attached to a biome, the taiga. This approach, defended by Alain Testart [TES 16], is in line with that of Durkheim. The processes at work would be entirely social, unrelated to the environment. The religion is said to have originated from an initial frenzy exported during the first trip out of Africa and which resulted in bureaucracy [DUR 12]. The dichotomy between an art with universal diffusion and a taiga shamanism is then explained in a simple way. Confronted with recent data, such as those from the culture of Howiesons Poort (66–59 ka, W2), the Durkheimian approach, which describes the beginnings of religion through an emergence ritual based on a vital spirit animating the various elements of the world, and on the social aggregation of small human groups, remains relevant. The interpretation of the data of isotopic stages 3 and 2 has often led to a devaluation of the human cultures of the previous isotopic stages, for example, through a caricatured image of Neanderthals. The beginnings of the arts and spirituality took place over a long period of time, including at least the Middle Paleolithic. A research program on these elementary forms, as conceived by Durkheim, remains very relevant. However, the durations of thought structures in early human cultures are probably very long, and it may not be methodologically appropriate to completely dissociate elementary forms from later forms. For example, in the Bruniquel cave (176 ka, isotopic stage 6), there is an arrangement that raises the question of the age of humanity’s link with the underground world. The strategies of Middle Paleolithic humans against cold weathering were generally those of a retreat, a migration towards the south, as evidenced by the locations of archaeological sites. But perhaps other strategies were used in the face of a sudden cooling. This type of questioning goes beyond the Durkheimian framework, based solely on social interactions and not taking into account relationships with the environment.

During the last glacial maximum, enigmatic representations of bird people were made, which led, as early as the 1960s, to discussions on the role of shamans, known to be used as mediums with another world using celestial flight (see Figure 3.4).

The first human cultures were confirmed and developed in periods of high climatic instability. For example, the representation of a reindeer in the Chauvet Pont d’Arc cave, hammered into the wall, which dates back about 36,000 years, bears witness to this. The underlying climatic sequence is that of a very severe cooling (Heinrich’s event number 4) coupled with a volcanic winter resulting from the explosion of the super volcano of the Phlegrean Fields (about –39,000 years) followed by a return of hot weather when the Chauvet Pont d’Arc cave paintings were made. Paleolithic art remains figurative and indicates the recognition of natural powers embodied in animals. The climate is changing here in the sense of warming; reindeer, which are the only herbivores to adapt to long snow cover, are sometimes deprived of this status of great natural power.

In climate change, a distinction can be made between dry and cold weather conditions. In both cases, there is a loss of diversity of human cultures through the emergence of a single culture adapted to severe climatic constraints, bringing together a large arid or very cold region. The map of Australian language families shows this phenomenon of linguistic unification for a very large part of this continent, except for the northern territories, which are in a humid and hot climate and have 47 distinct language families. Climate constraints play a major role in reducing cultural diversity, yet it began to increase as early as the Upper Paleolithic.

Religious phenomenology has exclusively favored the Eros approach, retaining shamanism, the shamanism of mediation with the powers of the environment. The diversity of practices is declined by isolating an ideal type, most often taiga shamanism, and “innumerable borderline cases of shamanism” ([PER 17], p.21). This ideal type is unique, corresponding to the situation where there is only one type of shaman in society, while the archaeologist and anthropologist are confronted with the existence of several shamans. For example, for the Native Americans of the great lakes of North America, the difference is made between a superchampion who interprets dreams and whose powers are confirmed by an asceticism of achievement, a healer whose effectiveness depends on an asceticism of commitment, the middle diviner and the spell caster. In a Paleolithic context, the same exit from Africa, which is recognizable by a sophisticated technique of flint work, saw a change in its spiritual practices, for example between European Solutreans and the American Clovis culture. Differences existed in the spiritualities between the great exits of Africa, until the last one (23 ka–16 ka) starting with a yellow Sahara, a dry weathering, which led to the development of a culture on the crossing axis that is the Nile (23 ka–20 ka), radiating in the Mediterranean space, then in Eurasia and the Americas. Large sites, such as Chauvet Pont d'Arc (in the flow of the W3 exit from Africa) or Lascaux (in the following one), are sufficiently explicit about the spiritual practices of which there are still archaeological elements.

The genealogy of taiga shamanism is accessible due to contemporary climate change through the archaeological sites of paleo-Arctic populations. The sites have been kept in the frozen ground for a period corresponding to the European Aurignacian. Measurable cultural drift, such as the gap between Paleo-Yukhaghir artifacts and contemporary Yukhaghirs, is small. The Paleo-Yukhaghirs hunted mammoths and wore headbands bearing the effigy of the bowhead whale. Contemporary Yukhaghirs chase the moose, which has replaced the large mega deer in its biotope. Although they have added a sun to the list of the great environmental power, the dragon of their dragon slayer myth remains the bowhead whale [PIT 12].

The European Aurignacian sites of the Swabian Jura and the Ardèche Valley probably pre-date the arrival of anatomically modern humans in the biome of the boreal forest. Population densities were very low at the time, and the boreal forest was unattractive, undisturbed by game and imposing survival rules. The vastness of the taiga and the weakness of its sparse human population may have made it a cultural trap for first arrivals. If new people entered this space, they did so slowly, which led to an acculturation favorable to the uses of the first arrivals.

The genealogy of a shamanism of mediation with another world stems from the W3 exit wave from Africa and the Middle East. This culture overcame the most extreme climatic conditions, which presupposed self-control and an increase in resilience; as Claude Lévi-Strauss pointed out, in situations of distress “the frequency of psychoses and neuroses tended to rise in groups without shamanism, while in others it is shamanism itself that developed, but without an increase in mental disorders” (quoted by [PER 17], p.59). However, the Eros component was the most developed in this first version of Paleolithic shamanism, as shown, for example, by worship, indicating an attachment to the bear, as well as the mating scene between a buffalo man and the Chauvet Venus in the Chauvet Pont d'Arc cave. The site of this part of the Ardèche valley is ideal for a large festival centered on the pursuit of a deer, with a nearby cave containing a pile of deer bones. The culture of the Paleo-Arctic is that of an ontology that distinguishes animals and double shamans, souls under the appearance of beings. Culture declined seduction, between hunter and prey, between the double animal and the shaman. The Yukhaghirs use a system of signs that indicate the state of romantic alliances within clans. Few direct elements refer to ascetic exercises, except that the state of a shaman results from a transformation of the self.

The cultures of the last glacial maximum probably included a more extensive assessment of the use of ascetic exercises. From the time of Gravettian culture, which corresponded to the establishment of a very cold climate, local mutilation of the phalanxes was attested to. For example, in the Cosquer cave, there are first representations of armless people, then trapezoidal signs specific to the Solutrean. Representations of birdmen held by ties or pierced by projectiles, either at a trapezoidal structure known as the sign of the Placard cave, or between mammoths, dating from Solutrean culture, raise suspicions of ascetic exercises. In the mutilation of the phalanxes practiced by the inhabitants of the North American plains, prior torture using an easel led to loss of consciousness and less bleeding during amputation, as the painter Georges Catlin [CAT 14] [CAT 89] indicates. The analysis of folded phalanxes in representations in the decorated Quercy caves concludes either a system of ligatures on a finger or a simulation of this finger in a forced position. It was a matter of signifying a commitment ([LOR 18], pp. 412-421). A cave decorated with a long period of occupation, such as Cougnac, has different rituals per period, with a period when there were many signs of the type of Placard cave, which is represented in Lascaux. There was therefore a beginning of cultural diversity, and these indications of different ascetic practices testify to this.

The numbering of the Eros and Askêsis combinations introduced in Table 3.3 is justified on a theoretical basis that economists refer to as the theory of justice. The founding result, thanks to Kenneth Arrow, is the impossibility of the existence of a universal criterion of justice that meets simple conditions: not to be dictatorial, not to depend on context and not to degrade the condition of people. Hence, ersatz systems in this area must violate at least one of these constraints, i.e. either introduce a monopoly of decision, depend on a context or degrade the condition of at least one person. For example, based on ethnographic data, that the same ascetic exercise can be part of two different justice systems, as is the case, for example, for Native Americans in the Great Lakes, indicates that the number of these “partial” justice systems is at least two. An ascetic of commitment introduces a coding 0 or 1 of personal situations: this healer who fasting differs from the common spell thrower, this couple is committed to one another, this young man is now an adult. An asceticism of achievement introduces a meaning and a numerical evaluation in terms of size for the person: this person wears scars or an adornment that indicate that he has performed a rewarding ascetic exercise four times. When there are both commitment and use ascetics, the number of “partial” justice systems is two: the analysis of the panel of the two horses in the decorated Pech-Merle cave indicates that the phalanxes of broken appearance are female and participated in a commitment asceticism [LOR 18]. We are at level 1, the one that seems to be associated with the great development of artistic practices. The representation of a suspended bird-man is not necessarily a leap towards a more complex justice system. It can be a particular transcription of commitment, without falling into a scale of magnitude based on an asceticism of achievement. The “old dragons” provide a zero level without the required ascetic exercise, where there is another world that participates in the animation of the living (the dragon besides which capitalizes a vital spirit) and a transaction in predation (the environment takes humans, humans take game from the environment: there is a dragon swallower, which sometimes exaggerates and which can regurgitate its catch).

3.5.1. The Superwise

The two animal series of the diluvian myths, that of the representatives of the entire megafauna and that of the auxiliary animals that allow us to find the mainland, form stable myths in mythologies. What corresponds to the Biblical Noah, i.e. a single human character central to the narrative process, only appears to have stabilized late in the first scriptures and empires. For example, in the Mandan flood, no less than four characters compose the functions devolved to a single Superwise character, such as the Mesopotamian Atrahasis, the Biblical Noah or Yu the Great: two mythical brothers, the disruptive Owl and the First Man, collect tools for a collective offering to the river; and two masters of ceremony, the Buffalo Mother becoming the Owl master, and the great shaman who performs the ritual of succession of small animals thrown into the river. The Superwise character takes over all these functions: they are a disruptor, since they contravene a supernatural planned action; they are a survivor; and they take over the two figures associated with the two animal series, the role of Mother of Animals ensuring the multiplication in diversity and quantity of the megafauna and the role of officiant shaman with their real and imaginary animal auxiliaries.

The Superwise character is incorporated both into a time of myth and into a historical time. It therefore takes on a heroic dimension. He forms the link between religious mythology and the political affairs of the time. He was a hero of effective work, both in Mesopotamia and in China. The Mesopotamian Superwise had a thorough knowledge of local shipbuilding technical processes, but they were applied with a superhuman dimension. The Chinese Superwise followed earlier shamans who failed to control the river, and had been tireless and hardworking for decades, neglecting his own family.

These deluges with a Superwise character feature a male hero, the female characters being negatively connoted. They can be opposed with the diluvian myths constructed on a Philemon and Baucis-type scheme, where eternal remuneration forever unites the couple who provided hospitality to the travelers. Moreover, in the Mandan flood, the Bison Mother is the one who received the most beautiful remuneration and also the one who chose and distributed material pleasures among the group of those who completed ordinary work, to the exclusion of those who performed uses. The young Mandan men followed the First Man, and with any luck, they survived the hardships they suffered. In the exploitation asceticism, there was only for them the possible negative remuneration of the loss of life. The Superwise not only survived but also obtained either the title of emperor (Yu the Great), an eternal life in a domain for heroes apart from men (in some versions of the Mesopotamian flood) or a very long life (in other versions of the Mesopotamian flood and in the biblical flood) [GLA 15] [MAT 92].

A figure prior to the Mesopotamian Superwise was the goddess Inanna, who selectively destroyed cities [GLA 15]. The biblical exegesis of the diluvian myth explained a composition of the text based on two superposed narrative frame works, one associated with great supernatural power, the other with a hero who is the patron saint of a city. In the first frameworks, the earth is corrupted, the animal series of the ark consists of seven pairs of impure animals and one impure couple and the reconciliation with the supernatural power is based on a sacrificial offering of a pure animal. In the later frameworks, the animal series includes the entire megafauna and the flood ends with a contractual alliance with the city’s patron hero. For Mesopotamia, the initial framework, even before the introduction of Superwise, was that of a great goddess who brought only negative remuneration, namely the destruction of a few cities. In Chinese myths, several variants exist about the wife of Yu the Great, testifying to a misunderstanding of the husband’s work. She did not recognize him as he had taken the appearance of a bear; in other variants, she becomes petrified. The lack of good understanding and communication between the husband and wife is the reason for these variants, in contrast to the diluvian narrative schemes of the Philemon and Baucis type, based on a timeless and cloud-free understanding among the couple.

The Superwise tells truths to several entrants such as the diplomat or the diviner. What he says is true, but this truth is only revealed later. It is a transmitter of supernatural powers and deploys a capacity for social mediation. His ethics, valuing qualified work as a marine carpenter or hydraulician, is also a political art. The Mesopotamian Superwise adapts its discourse to its interlocutors while pursuing its objective of conserving the human species. Yu the Great denudes himself when he negotiates with ethnic groups that live naked. The Superwise embodies good advice and efficiency in public action.

3.5.2. Court shamanism

In China, regulatory measures were taken in the Hans period to outlaw imperial court shamanism. The expression “court shamanism” may therefore seem a little paradoxical, since the label of the Chinese court followed the presence of shamanism in the emperor’s direct entourage. China, and the imperial courts in Korea and Japan, which took their model from the Chinese court, presented an axis of transformation of shamanism that is political, a shamanism that irrigated and perpetuated itself through political art and philosophical currents, Confucianism in opposition to shamanism, Taoism in an heirloom version. While the end of court shamanism has an official date, that of its prohibition in 32 BCE, it was part of a formative historical sequence for China involving a federation of kingdoms. Broadly speaking, the historical sequence begun with the first Qin dynasty, a small kingdom that imposed itself through military hegemony and introduced standards common to all of China. The aristocratic courts of the various previous kingdoms welcomed scholars who were the victims of this unification. The period of the Western Han was that of an aspiration for a renewal of ancient religions, the Huang-Lao religious current, in which Laozi played a central role: “Great importance was attached to Taoist methods of prolonging life. The masters of Tao, shamans and sorcerers held the upper hand” [BAT 19]. Confucianism and its compassionate ethic was in competition with these shamanically inspired currents, its minimum corresponding to the unification of China. The disappearance of court shamanism at the end of the Western Han dynasty was interpreted through the rise of the eunuchs who formed a parallel aristocracy within the imperial court, while the large families positioned themselves “Chinese style” in the complex scheme of the court’s functioning by monopolizing key positions [BAT 19].

Chinese shamanisms are presented as different from the culture of ecstasy specific to taiga shamanism. Yet the Tungus Siberian populations, which serve as a reference for taiga shamanism, have always had a significant presence in China.

These populations of Siberian origin have survived, retreating in the face of the advance of the Neolithics, and have formed ethnic groups that have been preserved in the Chinese world.

A rise of the taiga towards the North opens up ways of penetrating the Chinese space, characterized by the absence of a Chalcolithic period, the one in which hierarchical societies emerged. This principle of social organization of a feudal type arrived suddenly and opened the period of the Shang. The opening of a Siberian road brought people with a hierarchical society who had mastered bronze metallurgy. The shamanism of the royal entourage under the Shang (from 1766 to 1111 BCE) was composed mainly of sacrificial practices and oniromancy; thus, a shamanism is totally different from that of the taiga. There was no known use of psychotropic drugs, but there were artistic practices, particularly dances and shamanic melodies. King Tang of the Shang offered himself as a victim during a drought by cutting his nails and hair. Chinese folklore has preserved the ritual of a burnt dragon king in effigy in case of drought [MAT 87]. The king’s body combined spirituality and politics simultaneously. The Shang period seemed to develop a system close to that of the sacred king, where the king’s body carried its own power. When this power was deemed to have disappeared due to poor harvest, a priestly college replaced the king. Here, King Shang took charge, voluntarily compelling himself to a pious demonstration.

The title “Son of Heaven” appeared under the Zhou (from 1045 BC). The shaman climbed the ladder to reach the sky, while the sovereign descended the ladder. “King Zhou, Son of Heaven, reigned only by virtue of the Heavenly Mandate granted, provided that his public and private conduct was consistent with the sanctity of the office. The empire was conceived as an interlocking of squares in which the virtue of the king spread, gradually losing its effectiveness as one moved further away from the center” ([BAT 19], p. 41). This first Chinese curial culture had been summarized by Henri Maspero as “an external pump and a barbaric luxury”. “Meetings and ceremonies included banquets with music and dance, which ended with drinking sessions. Shamanic dances ended in orgies, while sorcerers and shamans made and broke the fortunes of courtiers” ([BAT 19], p.40–41).

The period of the Warring Kingdoms was the end of the Zhou period (481–221 BCE): rival and powerful kingdoms developed aristocratic courts, with intellectual personnel going from court to court, which was already the case for Confucius. The myth of the Mesopotamian flood is also based on the enhancement of a character skilled in diplomacy. Confucianism viewed shamans and their excesses in a negative light, highlighting the ethics and political art of diplomats who circulated between the different courts in an attempt to consolidate alliances.

The first Qin Empire (221–206 BCE) was intended to break with Confucianism and the previous Zhou period. The first emperor burned all the books and buried alive the Confucians, those representatives of the curial and diplomatic activity of the Zhou period. This was a temporary halt to the development of courts, which resumed their development under the Hans, based on the organizational principles already in force in the Zhou period.

3.5.3. Rome and China

Two centuries later, two accessions to the Empire, the king of Qin who gave his name to China and Augustus in Rome, can be compared. The similarity of the imperial stelae that limited the two empires has been noted, with the same fundamental contradiction: there was only one emperor who reigned over the whole earth giving official propaganda, but in practice, this limited the emperor’s domain, building a gigantic defensive wall, the great wall or Roman limes.

The imperial doctrine of the Qin period, that of the unification of China, presented a kind of anomaly, the only time when the Empire did not rely on a heavenly Mandate. The emperor’s domain was that of all lands, while supernatural powers resided in the sky. The idea of a land mandate was also put forward by the first Roman emperor, who, in the stelae marking the extension of his empire, presented himself as an effective manager, reporting his facts to the Roman Senate. For major natural disasters, there was an alternative between cynical denial and the mandate from heaven. In the two historical sequences of Rome and China, an episode of cynical denial was well associated with the very formation of these empires. Cynical rhetoric was indeed mobilized by the very first Roman emperors. The doctrine of the gap between Heaven and Earth was expressed in the ethics of impassibility advanced by the Stoics.

It is possible to understand the formation of the Roman Empire as including a program to restore an idealized and recreated early Roman religion. “Jupiter is the master of the high dwellings of heaven and the kingdoms of a world with three aspects. The earth is under Augustus’ control. Both are fathers and heads of their empire” ([OVI 66], p. 394). The claim of a gap between the divine powers and an imperial political power was already present in China’s first imperial unification. This time, the episode had been revolutionary, in the sense of demanding a change in a general principle of political practice. The first emperor of China claimed to pass from the dynamics of fire, which he associated with that of the Warring Kingdoms, to that of water. The Chinese system of large courts with political specialists was being replaced in a revolutionary way by a unified federal norm, supported by the hegemony of the armies of the Qin kingdom.

In the overall history of the royal and imperial courts, these first two empires differ. The militarization carried out by the first Chinese emperor put forward a large administration, but voluntarily reduced the curial dimension, even though the aristocratic and royal courts had already established labels and modes of organization. The court of the High Roman Empire was a discreet innovation that was built from the Domus Augusta, with its servants, to whom Augustus added a council and a small bureaucracy. Curial sociability was that of many religious festivals held in Augustus’ house. The court was formed by a phenomenon of attraction, without any real status, Augustus’ Rome being officially neither a kingdom nor an empire [BAT 19]. While Tiberius chose to move between his residences under cover, Nero deployed the palatial complex of Domus aurea in full view after the fire in Rome. This curial pomp was not well accepted, but it testified to the process of establishing an imperial court as early as the High Empire.

Banishment of the literate took place during the concentration of powers leading to the first very great empires in China and Rome. The establishment of the Empire in China was done in a representation of time that succeeded the wuxing of fire and water. The purging of feudal lords in China also reached any form of recourse to history in the affairs of the time. The relationship with time during the formation of China was revolutionary in nature: the first Empire developed around a new political ideology, breaking with, for example, the tradition of the priest king receiving a mandate from heaven developed since the first Chinese kingdoms, and taken over by the emperors in the following dynasty, the Hans. In the early days of imperial Rome, Ovid’s banishment was justified by only one of these works, the Ars amatoria, the Art of Love, and the practice of private divination about the affairs of the time. The intersection of these sentences indicates that the dangerous conjugation for the literate was that of a Knowledge in the Present, appropriate to the contingency of human relations.

The exile from Ovid to Constanza or Constanța, in the Danube Delta, is a direct testimony to the early formation of the Roman court of the High Empire. Ovid, who had begun a political career, became a poet and courtier. His disgrace was a risk resulting from a codification of matrimonial relations, an imperial enterprise before which he expressed his disagreement. The Roman imperial religion remained Apollonian until 312, which valued a figure of the clumsy lover, not the skillful lover of the Art of Love, the only text that appears explicitly in Ovid’s act of relegation. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written shortly before his condemnation in 8 AD, highlighted a universal (all lands were submerged) and moralist (Philemon and Baucis, model and hospitable couple) flood, egalitarian for both spouses, in a courtly work towards Augustus, but was not entirely successful. The local populations of the Danube Delta where Ovid resided had popular dragon religions. The Roman armies adopted the badge of the troops of this part of Europe, the dragon as a complement to the imperial eagle. Between the dragon slayer of the official religion and the drakones of the local religions, the mythological dictionary of Metamorphosis did not found its place. The first imperial houses of the Upper Roman Empire were to deploy the empire’s affairs at home. The Roman court model was closer to that of the first Chinese courts before the empire, with the banquet as a center of sociability. The emperor was a father of a family who received people around his table. Women played a subordinate role. The Chinese model of the imperial court was that of the different boxes included one inside the other, which constituted a gradual series between the public and private spaces. The beginnings of the Roman Empire, through different choices of organization of spaces inside the palaces, were those where no clear plan was really imposed for a private life that is in public representation. The court etiquette of the High Roman Empire was affirmed by opposing the objectifying approach of the love relationships of Ovid’s Art of Love.

Art from the first Chinese dynasty gives a realistic representation of the entire army. The art was “hyper-realistic”: with, for example, a double bronze dragon very close to large snakes. The Chinese flood (myth of Yu the Great) was a reference that remains, even under the Qin. The variants were very small compared to a mythological framework very widely shared; however, Emperor Qin decided to burn all books and to have all those who have the memory of the books buried alive. The first Chinese emperor restored oral language, while on the Roman side, Ovid’s condemnation was part of a series of measures aimed at prohibiting private divination, thus silencing the immense babble that surrounded current events.

The will of eternity of the first emperor of China paradoxically founded historical science with Sima Qian, at the time of the next dynasty, that of the Hans, starting from a critical evaluation of the Qin period.