Feathered Men

Of an even greater interest and relevance in our context are the southern traditions of the Chu region, which associate immortality with the sun and the light. In the Far-off Journey (Yuanyou) poem of the Elegies of Chu [Chuci) the poet-magician feeds on solar effluvia. .. he visits the Feathered Men (the immortals) on the Cinnabar Mound (Danqiu), the country of the people who do not die he washes his hair in the Tanggu, the valley where the sun rises at dawn at night he exposes his body to the brilliance of the... 

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