Cultural Significance of Newts/Salamanders

J

jeff

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I have been recently told that newts are considered ancestors of dragons in Japan. Anyone care to clarify this?
Also what other cultures consider the newt to be spiritual in some way. I am about to write this paper and its really hard to find information. Plus I have dial up and every site I visit take ten minutes to load up. At least my internet service is free...

So who knows anything about this?? I would really like to hear anything anyone has to say.

Jeff
 
That sounds awesome, good luck! How is your internet free?!
 
In europe people used to believe salamanders were born out of fire. This was because when they burnt rotting logs the sals would come running out. Salamanders were believed to have magical powers and people who interacted with them were believed to be good with flames. Also back in the day before pollution, cars and when ponds played a major role in every day human life newts and sals were much more abundant. Even though they were more plentiful people didn't really notice that they were there, because of their habits, except when they ran out of flaming logs, or after a heavy rain when many animals would "suddenly" appear. I have a great book with a whole section on amphibians and culture called <u>Amphibians, the World of Frogs, Toads, Salamanders, and Newts</u> edited by Robert Hofrichter.
 
I'd reccomend looking into Aboriginal groups using tetradotoxin from newts to poison enemies, and axolotls in Aztec mythology.
 
Hi Jeff. I have a book by the late Masuo Usui that goes into pretty awesome detail about the cultural significance of newts and salamanders here in Japan, but sorry to say its's packed away at the bottom of a box somewhere and not immediately accessible
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Maybe somebody else could help you out. In its first chapter, it does mention about them being considered dragons, but I don't know if this was in Japan or elsewhere since the book also talks about the cultural significance of urodeles in China and Europe.

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ISBN4-87502-211-5

(Message edited by TJ on February 03, 2005)
 
Wasn't it the American Indians that used a brew made from Taricha in that manner?
 
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  • Katia Del Rio-Tsonis:
    Dear All, I would appreciate some help identifying P. waltl disease and treatment. We received newts from Europe early November and a few maybe 3/70 had what it looked like lesions under the legs- at that time we thought maybe it was the stress of travel- now we think they probably had "red leg syndrome" (see picture). However a few weeks later other newts started to develop skin lesions (picture enclosed). The sender recommended to use sulfamerazine and we have treated them 2x and we are not sure they are all recovering. Does anyone have any experience with P. waltl diseases and could give some input on this? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.
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    sorry I am having a hard time trying to upload the pictures- I have them saved on my hard drive... any suggestions-the prompts here are not allowing for downloads that way as far as I can tell. Thanks
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    Katia Del Rio-Tsonis: sorry I am having a hard time trying to upload the pictures- I have them saved on my hard... +1
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