Overview

"""An impressive and important cross-cultural study that has vast implications for history, religion, anthropology, folklore, and other fields. . . . Remarkably wide-ranging and extremely well-documented, it covers (among much else) the following: medieval Christian legends such as the 14th-century Ethiopian Gadla Hawaryat (Contendings of the Apostles) that had their roots in Parthian Gnosticism and Manichaeism; dog-stars (especially Sirius), dog-days, and canine psychopomps in the ancient and Hellenistic world; the cynocephalic hordes of the ancient geographers; the legend of Prester John; Visvamitra and the Svapacas (""Dog-Cookers""); the Dog Rong (""warlike barbarians"") during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou periods; the nochoy ghajar (Mongolian for ""Dog Country"") of the Khitans; the Panju myth of the Southern Man and Yao ""barbarians"" from chapter 116 of the History of the Latter Han and variants in a series of later texts; and the importance of dogs in ancient Chinese burial rites. . . . Extremely well-researched and highly significant.""--Victor H. Mair, Asian Folklore Studies"

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9780226895086

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David Gordon White is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He divides his time among the United States, Europe, and India.

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