mitsu-tomoe_, the
ancient spiral, represents thunder also.[168] Before discussing this
question, which involves the consideration of the almost world-wide
belief in a thunder-weapon and its relationship to the spiral ornament,
the octopus, the pearl, the swastika and triskele, let us examine
further the problem of the dragon's ball (see Fig. 15).

[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese Embroidery in the
Manchester School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon
Symbol.]

De Groot regards the dragon as a thunder-god and therefore, like Hirth,
assumes that the supposed thunder-ball is being _belched forth_ and not
being _swallowed_ by the dragon. But de Visser, as the result of a
conversation with Mr. Kramp and the study of a Chinese picture in
Blacker's "Chats on Oriental China" (1908, p. 54), puts forward the
suggestion that the ball is the moon or the pearl-moon which the dragon
is swallowing, thereby causing the fertilizing rain. The Chinese
themselves refer to the ball as the "precious pearl," which, under the
influence of Buddhism in China, was identified with "the pearl that
grants all desires" and is under the special protection of the Naga,
i.e., the dragon. Arising out of this de Visser puts the conundrum: "Was
the ball originally also a pearl, not of Buddhism but of Taoism?"

In reply to this question I may call attention to the fact that the
germs of civilization were first planted in China by people strongly
imbued with the belief that the pearl was the quintessence of
life-giving and prosperity-conferring powers:[169] it was not only
identified with the moon, but also was itself a particle of
moon-substance which fell as dew into the gaping oyster. It was the very
people who held such views about pearls and gold who, when searching for
alluvial gold and fresh-water pearls in Turkestan, were responsible for
transferring these same life-giving properties to jade; and the magical
value thus attached to jade was the nucleus, so to speak, around which
the earliest civilization of China was crystallized.

As we shall see, in the discussion of the thunder-weapon (p. 121), the
luminous pearl, which was believed to have fallen from the sky, was
homologized with the thunderbolt, with the functions of which its own
magical properties were assimilated.

Kramp called de Visser's attention to the fact that the Chinese
hieroglyphic character for the dragon's ball is compounded of the signs
for _jew