Why?

There are so many animals in the world. Why just choose that twelve animals? Not others?

According to the ananlysis of culture scientist. this is due to the primeval worship of animals. Ancestors found that some animals are stronger than human, thus came the scare towards those animals and then developed to worship. They wishes that they could be stronger like those anmimals. Some animals although are not so strong as humans, they have their special skills, such as the horse' running, the monkey's agility. People also hoped that they could have these kind of skills and thus could have a better life.

People chose those twelve animals from their most familiar ones. All these twelve animals are people's hunting targets or domesting fowl except the dragon. Dragon is a compound animal whose image is based on many other animals. It has the atlers of the deer, the mane of the horse, the claws of the eagle, the scales of the fish, and the body of the snake. There is no such peculiar animal in nature. It is the outcome of the worship of animals of primitive people.