Naga : cultural origins in Siam and the West Pacific
Possibly no other region in the world possesses as many water symbols as East and South-East Asia. Particularly in Siam, whether it is in ritual, literature, dancing, folk art, painting, sculpture, architecture or town planning, a host of aquatic attributes underlies them all. The scope of this work is to attempt to explain these symbols while, at the same time, relating them to the origin of civilizations in the area. Loosely derived from Sumet Jumsai's book on Thai cultural origins (published in Thai in 1982), this work has been expanded in several parts to give more emphasis to the West Pacific region as a whole, although material on Siam inevitably remains predominant. Incorporated in the text are original ideas and important contributions from the late R.Buckminster Fuller on maritime history, the significance of world population density distribution, and the "nautical" architecture indigenous to the West Pacific region.