The fabulous bird Gamayun, or Simurg (in the East, it is also called the Humo bird), has been known for a long time. The earliest mention of her is found in the "Avesta", ie, in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. e. The sacred book of the Zoroastrians of the Near and Middle East tells about the miracle bird, which on its wings carries away noble and worthy people from trouble, saves them from cruel persecutors. Thus, in Ferdowsi's poem "Shahnameh" the bird Simurg saves the hero Rustam. Ancient Turkic sources also mention “crush kushi” and “kuntubulgan”, which means “bird of the state” and “sun bird”. It is believed that the glow of the feathers of all birds in the world comes from the glow of the feathers of the first bird.
The bird Humo was known in Russia as Gamayun. It can be seen on the coat of arms of Smolensk and the cities of the Smolensk region. It is also on the coats of arms of those surnames that originate from the Smolensk prince Rostislav Mstislavovich. Among them are the princes Vyazemsky, Kropotkin, Tatishchev and many other no less famous names.
At present, most experts believe, however, that the Gamayun bird cannot be identified with the symbols of other birds of paradise - Sirin, Alkonost and Phoenix. The fact is that a derivative of the word "Humo" - the adjective "humayun" is translated into Russian as "kind, good", but also as "noble, blessed, highest, shah, imperial". This is the quality that distinguishes her from other birds - as the most regal.
Humayun is also a proper male name. That was the name of the son of the Indian emperor, commander and poet Babur. Delhi has preserved a majestic monument of architecture - the mausoleum of Hu-Mayun, built in the 16th century. His daughter wrote a book about him "Huma-yun-name"
In Russia, the term "gamayun" was widely used to express superlatives in addresses to a high-ranking official in diplomatic letters and reports of ambassadors. For example, in the tsar's charter to the Sultan in 1667 it is said: "Gamayuna imitator … and our good friend …"
That is why the image of the bird Gamayun adorned the caftans of the royal falconers and the banner of a hundred falconers.
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In addition, Gamayun was present in personal signs, coats of arms and in place names. An example of this is the personal sign of Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky. Places, which belonged to Prince Romodanovsky, people called "Gamayunshchina". Moreover, in folk art, the Gamayun bird was often depicted with the head and chest of a woman.
A strange mystery is connected with the symbolism of the bird Gamayun: it was sometimes depicted as legless and wingless, resembling a fluffy porcupine. This was how it was represented in the 17th and 18th centuries; in many books of that time it was stated that Gamayun had no legs.
It is known that during the voyage of Magellan, one of the Moluccan sultans in 1521 handed over to the navigator the skins of unseen birds of paradise. Elcano, who replaced the deceased Magellan, brought to Europe along with skins and fantastic stories about the amazing features of these wondrously beautiful birds. But all the skins delivered, to the surprise of the Spaniards, were without legs. The fabulously delicate and bright color of the bird's lush tail ended with two long lyre-like feathers. Dexterous merchants in subsequent years brought stuffed legless birds to Europe, further inflating incredible fictions about "God's" birds. Their feathers were credited with magical healing power, and they themselves - a special way of life in which legs are simply not needed, for their life and even hatching of offspring pass in flight.
Expedition member Antonio Pythaghetta came out with a refutation of the absurdities about birds, but he was simply considered a liar. Even the physician and mathematician, Gerolamo Cardano, passionately and convincingly repeated fantastic stories about exotic birds, putting the narrative in a scientific form.
But the time came when bird watchers proved that the fabulous myth of the birds of paradise is the fruit of a sophisticated fantasy, fueled by greedy traders. However, this did not help: the enchanting legend of the legless bird remained immortalized. The great naturalist Carl Linnaeus, in the bird classification system, specifically named the largest species of the Paradisaeidae family - “the legless bird of paradise”.
In Western European art, the Gamayun bird became the Blue Bird. She became widely known in 1908, when Maurice Maeterlinck created a poetic play-fairy tale, where the Blue Bird is a symbol of selflessness, generosity and dissatisfaction with what has been achieved.
But attempts to penetrate to the more ancient origins of the origin of the legend of the bird Gamayun yielded very interesting results associated with new secrets and riddles. The fact is that in mythology and in the art of Ancient China, plots with birds of paradise were very common. One of them is the Fenghuang bird. The word itself is made up of two parts: "feng" - a wonderful bird, the heavenly sovereign, the highest divine power, a symbol of heaven, and "huan" - a wonderful bird, but already of the female gender. It is believed that "huan" is a bird symbolizing peace and prosperity, and the main meaning of the word "huan" - the august, supreme - is identical to the meaning of the Iranian word "humayun" (huma). But if we consider that the Chinese bird Huang is much older than the Iranian Huma and that Huma was depicted in Iranian art in almost the same way as in China, then we can assumethat the Iranian bird Huma comes from the ancient Chinese bird Huang.
But that's not all. In even more ancient Chinese written sources, the "cosmic" hypothesis of the appearance of the image of a bird is seen. The main pioneer - from the "sons of Heaven" - was named Huangdi (the most august emperor). Feng Tzu was his companion. During his ascension to heaven, Feng "burnt himself in flames and ascended." After that Feng
"Temporarily died and was reborn after 200 years." (Is this where the myth of the Phoenix bird rising from the ashes originates?) Sinologists have long been expressing a version of the transformation of the Chinese word “huan” into the Iranian word “huma” and, ultimately, into the word “gamayun”.