Comment on chinese sacred animal box by hibbary

I think the root of the unicorn we know and love today in the west, the equine like unicorn, depends entirely on the source, and whether the book was written by a member of the Asian or Western culture. Authors from both cultures tend to have egocentric, geocentric, and biased views on the matter, and will claim the source that most praises their own culture, as befits basic human nature, really.

I have seen books that say the modern unicorn has its root in the Persian Karkadann, which is also a unicorn and vastly different from the gentle and benevolent ki'lin. The Karkadann was said to have been one of the most ferocious and most bloodthirsty beasts of all time despite the fact that it was a vegetarian in many stories, and that even bull elephants feared it, for it was large enough to gore a bull elephant and toss it over its head like a rag doll. It was very territorial and hot tempered, and charged with little provocation. It could only be tamed by the song of a bird, and the species of this bird, Nightengale or Ring Dove or something else, changes according to era, subculture, and author. The only thing the Karkadann feared was the Roc, or giant eagle. The Karkadann actually most closely resembled the animal we know of as the rhinoceros in both appearance and attitude. Another myth that used to be very popular claims that Bucephalus, the feirce black stallion of Alexander the Great, was a Karkadann that was gentle and loyal toward its master, but gored enemy soldiers in battle.

Of course, still other sources claim the plausible explanation that the western unicorn evolved from stories told by travellers who had seen the rhinoceros, ibex, and other exotic horned creatures in profile from a distance, and that artistic renditions of these travellers tales were drawn by people who had never seen them at all, but believed the stories, and based their looks entirely on those oral stories with natural physiological references to creatures that they were more familiar with. Thus a rhino might become a heavy draft horse with a curved horn on its snout and a lion tail, and a gazelle or other such creature might become a deer or goatlike creature with a single spiraling horn, and over time these two types might have been consolidated into a horselike creature with a long spiraling horn and unicorn tail, etc. Narwhal tusks clearly provided the basis for the unicorn horn in popular belief at some point, as is seen in a vast variety of sculptures of unicorns with the narwhal tusk for its horn, the "unicorn horn" throne made from narwhal tusks, and the fact that narwhal tusks were traded directly in the apothecary markets under the pretentious title "unicorn horns" or "alicorns". This also seems to support the view that the unicorn is a misinterpretation and/or misrespresentation of existent exotic animals. Surely, the people who collected the narwhal tusks for this trade knew the truth, but capitalized on popular misinformation, and perhaps even promoted this misinformation for the sake of profit.

Actually, the most intriguing tale of unicorn sightings that I have ever heard comes from the American west. It has been claimed that Lewis and Clark witnessed unicorns near the Snake River in Oregon Territory (modern day Idaho) and recorded their sightings in the origianl manuscripts of thier famous journal. I find this interesting, because if it is so, then it is the most recent original description of unicorns independent of any other mythology. Of course, this may also just be yet another tall tale of the American Wild West. What have you heard on this?