《山海经》中的蛇：中国古代文化之萨满溯源

Snake in Shanhaijing: The Shamanic Origin of Chinese Ancient Culture

摘要: 萨满文化和萨满精神在远古时代就已经遍布世界各地，中国也有大量的萨满文化素材，从萨满文化角度对古代文化进行解读，有助于认识中国古老传统文化之根。萨满文化与《山海经》的种种关联，以及萨满文化对《山海经》的解释有效性在学界已被多次肯定，但是多缺乏更深入的解读和更多例证。一直以来，对《山海经》中蛇的解读主要围绕着蛇在文本中的出现次数、蛇的分类及归纳、蛇与神灵形象的关系和蛇的图腾崇拜等角度，多停留在较浅层次，而从萨满文化角度，可以溯源蛇与神灵之关系和蛇成为图腾崇拜重要环节的缘由。蛇在《山海经》中主要作为萨满巫师的守护神或助手灵，或帮助巫医发挥医治功能；远古蛇图腾的形成机制也可以从萨满教由氏族原则认识动物来展开论证，由此蛇在《山海经》中作为兽主崇拜，在守护神信仰中的重要地位得以解释。

Abstract: Shamanic culture and shamanic spirit have been spread all over the world since ancient times, and there were also a large amount of shamanic cultural facts in China, so that it is effective to recognize the roots of China’s ancient traditional culture from the perspective of shamanic culture. The connection between shamanic culture and Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Rivers), as well as the validity of the interpretation of Shanhaijing from the perspective of shamanic culture, has been recognized many times by the academic, while there is a lack of in-depth demonstration and more examples. The focuses on snakes in Shanhaijing were mainly about the number of occurrences of snakes, the classification of snakes in the texts, the relationship between snakes and images of deities and the totem worship of snakes, etc., which are unsatisfactorily at a superficial level, while it is possible to trace back to the relationship between snakes and deities, and the reasons why snakes have become an important link in the totem worship from the perspective of the shamanic culture. Snake in Shanhaijing is mainly used as the guardian deity or animal-helpers of shamans, or to help witch doctors to heal, besides, the formation of ancient snake totem can also be argued from the shamanism by the principle of the clan to recognize the animal to develop, so that the snake in Shanhaijing as the worship of the animals and the significance in the belief of the guardian deity can be interpreted.