Tujia Folk Beliefs and Culture — Worship of the Xiangwang Tianzi (Part 1)
Chapter 5: Worship of the Xiangwang Tianzi. The Xiangwang Tianzi, also known as Lin Jun, is the legendary ancient ancestor of the Tujia and an ethnic deity umbilically linked to the ancient white tiger totem of the Tujia. Among the Tujia, not only the Xiang clan but all other surnames worship the Xiangwang Tianzi. Temples to the Xiangwang Tianzi once existed throughout Tujia areas, enshrining him and his consort, though along the Qingjiang River...
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Chapter Five: The Worship of Xiang Wang Tianzi
Xiang Wang Tianzi, namely Lin Jun, is the ancient ancestor in Tujia legend and also the ethnic deity connected by an umbilical cord to the ancient Tujia white tiger totem. Among the Tujia, not only the Xiang clan but all other surnames worshipped Xiang Wang Tianzi.
In the Tujia region there were once temples to Xiang Wang Tianzi, enshrining Xiang Wang Tianzi and his wife, but the temples to Xiang Wang Tianzi in the Qingjiang River basin were especially dense. Throughout the Qingjiang River basin there were once temples to Xiang Wang Tianzi or their remnants, showing that the worship of Xiang Wang Tianzi was mainly prevalent in the Qingjiang River basin. This is related to the migration course of the Tujia ancestors, the Ba people. The migration course of the Ba people can be divided into three stages. The first stage: the Qingjiang River basin stage, which produced the white tiger totem and the Lin Jun faith, that is, the Xiang Wang Tianzi faith; the second stage: the stage of entering the Shu region and establishing the Ba state, in which they accepted the worship of the Bamboo King and White Emperor Heaven of the Shu region (discussed in a separate section); the third stage: the stage of spreading to western Hunan and southeastern Guizhou, in which they believed in the White Emperor Heaven King and the native kings (native-official kings). In the three stages of Ba migration, Xiang Wang Tianzi, like the white tiger, was always an object of worship consistently upheld by the Ba people. However, with the succession of different regional cultures and changes in social life, the Ba people inevitably accepted or created new objects of worship, and the appearance of these new objects of worship inevitably diluted the old ones. Therefore, the worship of Xiang Wang Tianzi gradually showed a trend of dilution across the regions of the three stages of Ba migration. This is why today we see more temples and surviving customs of Xiang Wang Tianzi in the Qingjiang River basin than in other regions.
I. Xiang Wang Tianzi Is Lin Jun
The Tujia ancestors, the Ba people, originated in Changyang, and the worship of Xiang Wang Tianzi, as the ancient ancestral worship of the Tujia, also arose in Changyang.
On the summit of Songshan in Changyang County, the ruins of the Xiangwang Temple still exist today. Xiangwang is Lin Jun, and the statue enshrined in the Xiangwang Temple is that of Lin Jun. The Qing Dynasty Xianfeng edition of the Changyang County Gazetteer says: 'The Xiangwang Temple is at the foot of Gaojianzi Mountain, and the temple enshrines the statue of Lin Jun. According to tradition, Lin Jun was the leader of the Ba people and had merit toward the people, so today in places such as Shinan, Gui, Ba, and Changyang, people make offerings to him.' The Qing Dynasty Daoguang edition of the Changyang County Gazetteer also holds the same view: 'The Xiangwang Temple established by the ancestors: Xiangwang was the ancient Lin Jun Wuxiangshi, who had merit in the Yi River, so the local people sacrificed to him and built a temple on the stone mound, hence it was called Miaotai.' The reason Lin Jun is called Xiangwang is that his original name was Wuxiang, and in the local dialect xiang was a corruption of xiang, so from generation to generation Lin Jun has been called Xiangwang. To this day, some elderly people surnamed Xiang in Badong still say: 'Our surname was originally not the present character xiang, but the xiang composed of mu and mu.' The Qing Dynasty Tujia poet Peng Qiutan's Zhuzhici also directly treats Xiangwang as Lin Jun Wuxiang:
The clay boat on Yishui shot the Salt Goddess,
The Ba-surnamed king has long been heard of.
Who was Xiang Wang that he should be called a Son of Heaven?
Wuxiang in those years was titled Lin Jun.
The stone inscription at the Liu Clan Ancestral Hall in Ziqiu says: "Xiang Wang is the ancient Lin Jun." The stone inscription at the Xiang Wang Temple in Duiwu Stream also says: "Xiang Wang was a hero in life and a god in death... in opening up the Qingjiang he had the virtue of Great Yu."
Throughout the Qingjiang River basin there are temples to Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven. The Temple of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven chiefly enshrines Lin Jun and his consort, Empress Deji, also known as the Salt Water Goddess. The Qing Xianfeng edition of the Changyang County Gazetteer says: "It enshrines the statue of Lin Jun... popular custom has passed down the practice of calling him Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven." Lin Jun holds an ox horn in his right hand, holding it to his mouth as if blowing it. As the saying goes: "Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven blew his ox horn and blew out a Qingjiang River." This may perhaps be seen as a summary or symbol of the life achievements of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven: he led his tribe and devoted his entire life to developing the vast region of the Qingjiang River basin and creating Qingjiang civilization. Beside the statue of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven is also enshrined the Salt Water Goddess, commonly known as Empress Deji. Changyang is the birthplace of the Ba people, and this arrangement of enshrining both Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven and his consort should be a distinctive feature of the Temple of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven, an important marker distinguishing it from the Temple of the White Emperor Heavenly King and the Temple of the Xiang Wang Tusi.
II. The Historical Background of the Emergence of the Worship of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven
The worship of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven emerged on the basis of the historical facts concerning Lin Jun, ancestor of the Ba people, and contains traces of the origins of the Ba people.
According to the "Biographies of the Southern Man and Southwestern Yi" in the Book of the Later Han: the Ba people originated from the red and black caves of Wuluo Zhongli Mountain in Changyang. The red cave was of the Ba surname; the black cave was of the Fan, Shen, Xiang, and Zheng surnames. After a contest of skills, Ba Wuxiang emerged victorious and was acclaimed as lord, with the other four surnames as his ministers. Wuluo Zhongli Mountain is present-day Henshan in Changyang. The red and black caves of Henshan are regarded by the local people as sacred caves, and on the summit the ruins of the Temple of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven still survive. At the highest point of the peak, river cobblestones are also placed, called the "sacred stones."
According to historical records, after Ba Wuxiang became lord, he led the people of the four surnames westward from Changyang and arrived at Yanyang. This was a place rich in fish and salt, what the histories call "where fish and salt are produced." The Salt Water Goddess kept Lin Jun to live with her; later Lin Jun shot and killed the goddess and established a state at Yicheng. After Lin Jun died, his soul transformed into a white tiger, becoming an object of worship like a white tiger totem. His subjects sacrificed to him by killing people.
As to where Yanyang was, there are two theories. One says it was the area of the salt-pool hot springs on the north bank of the Qingjiang, about eighty kilometers west of Wuluo Zhongli Mountain within Changyang County. This theory treats Yanyang and Yicheng as two separate places rather than one, that is to say, after Lin Jun and his tribe reached Yanyang and killed the Salt Water Goddess, they returned to Yicheng, present-day Yuxiakou and Baihulong area, and established their state. This theory is not sound, because early human migrations always kept moving forward and rarely retraced their steps.
The other theory holds that Yanyang was near present-day Enshi. Li Xian and others of the Tang dynasty, in their commentary on the Book of the Later Han, said: "The water of Qingjiang County in Shizhou is also called salt water." This means that the stretch of the Qingjiang in present-day Enshi was called salt water in ancient times. According to this theory, Yanyang is the Enshi area of today, which since ancient times has been a salt-producing region; from the Han dynasty onward, salt fields and salt officials were established here. Down to the Qing dynasty, the salt used in western Hubei and nearby areas still came from this place. This fits very well with the situation of Yanyang, where Lin Jun lived, as a place "where fish and salt are found." Yanyang was also Yicheng, named after Yishui, and is present-day Enshi. Lin Jun established his state at Enshi, and his tribal people spread throughout the entire Qingjiang River basin. The "Shidao Zhi" says: "Qingjiang Commandery of Shizhou was the state of Ba in the Spring and Autumn period." Volume 37 of the Commentary on the Water Classic: "He floated a clay boat on Yishui and dwelt at Han Pass and ruled Ba." This shows that Lin Jun indeed established the state of Ba at Enshi at that time.
Since Enshi was the place where the Ba people first established their state, traces should remain. A few li from Enshi, on the upper reaches of the Qingjiang, there is a stream called Yanshui Stream, beside which are ancient salt wells, though it is unknown when they were sealed. As the saying goes: "Open the eight wells of Enshi, and a whole county of Yunyang will starve to death." This means that once the salt wells of Enshi were opened, Yunyang's salt would lose market share, showing that Enshi was indeed the ancient Yanyang "where fish and salt are produced." Legend also says that Enshi has a Ba Gong Tomb and a Ba Man Tomb; the Ba Gong Tomb should be Lin Jun's tomb, and Lin Jun probably died at Enshi. The "Shinan Prefecture Gazetteer" says: "The Ba Man Tomb is at Duting Mountain north of the city, one hundred seventy li east of Tingzhou city." "The Ba Gong Tomb is two li south of the city. In former times there was a great Ba stockade, and the kings were buried here generation after generation. Though many years have passed, the mounds can still be made out." "The Ba King Tomb is one hundred seventy zhang south of the city." "The cliffs of Duting Mountain are over a hundred zhang high; in the belly of the mountain are twelve caves, all places where coffins were stored, said by tradition to be the tombs of the Man kings." These remains and legends show that after Lin Jun established his state at Enshi, he died in that place and did not advance further west. Later, the descendants of Lin Jun contended with Chu; owing to the expansion of Chu's power, the Ba people had no choice but to migrate further west and established their state in the area of Fengjie in Sichuan, with Han Pass as the boundary. Ba's power gradually declined. In 316 BCE, Ba was destroyed by Qin. After the fall of their state the Ba people scattered, but the greater part mainly migrated westward into western Hunan and other places. Lin Jun played a decisive role in the formation and consolidation of the Ba tribal alliance and in the development of the Qingjiang River basin, and so was deeply loved and worshipped by the Ba people. The Ba people and their descendants for generations honored Lin Jun as the divine spirit Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven and offered him blood sacrifices, not only to pray for his protection, but also to use the ethnic god as a symbol to secure the existence and continuation of the descendants of the Ba as a community, so that it would not vanish without a sound.
III. The Legends of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven
On the basis of the historical traces of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven, legends about him arose. The legends of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven both reflect historical truth and are artistic creations, full of wondrous color and romantic sentiment, expressing the heartfelt worship of the Ba people and the Tujia for Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven.
The legends about the various surnames of the red cave and black cave acclaiming Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven are largely the same as what the classics record, but because they are stories alive on people's lips, they are all the more vivid. "Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven" says: On the bank of the Qingjiang in Changyang, Hubei, there is a small mountain with two caves on it. The rock in one cave is red, called the Red Cave; the rock in the other is black, called the Black Cave. In the Red Cave there is a stone that is dripping wet whenever it rains and dries when the sky clears; people call it the Yin-Yang Stone and say it was left by the ancestor Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven. It is said that in very ancient times the Red Cave was inhabited by the Ba surname, whose leader was called Ba Wuxiang, and the Black Cave was inhabited by the four surnames Fan, Hui, Xiang, and Zheng. The five surnames often hunted and fished together and frequently fought among themselves. The elders felt this would not do and that a common leader should be chosen, so they agreed: whoever could throw his sword into the cave in the opposite cliff would be king.
The leaders of the five surnames all threw their swords at the cave in the opposite cliff. In the end none of the leaders of the four surnames hit the mark; only Ba Wuxiang hit it. The four surnames were still not convinced, and proposed again: whoever built a clay boat that would not sink in the river would be king. The boats of the five surnames were put into the Qingjiang; those of the four surnames all sank, and only the Ba surname's did not sink. So Ba Wuxiang became the leader, and people called him Xiang Wang, which gradually changed to Xiang Wang. Xiang Wang not only led everyone in hunting but also led them in planting crops, so people called him Lin Jun; lin means granary.
Later, the Ba tribe grew larger and larger; there was no longer enough game to hunt in the old place and not enough land to farm, so Xiang Wang led everyone westward along the Yishui. Xiang Wang walked in front holding an ox horn, blowing it without pause all the way, and the great mountains parted to either side, the river widened, and the clay boats could pass through. Of course, this is the mythical way the common people tell it. The actual situation may have been that in the course of migrating westward along the Qingjiang, the Ba tribe did some work dredging the river channel and clearing the forests on both banks so that the clay boats and the people hauling them from the shore could travel, which was in fact a most primitive form of development. Two lines of praise still circulate locally to this day: "Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven blew his ox horn and blew out a Qingjiang River." The descendants of the Tujia remember the merits of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven from generation to generation!
Xiang Wang led everyone westward until they came to a place where a stream of gleaming white water flowed out from the great mountains, and on the water floated a maiden. She had Xiang Wang taste the white water, and for the first time in his life Xiang Wang tasted saltiness and found it very good. It turned out that this maiden was the Salt Water Goddess, and she and Xiang Wang were married. Later, Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven led his people further upstream, and the Salt Water Goddess followed by boat, calling as she came: "My brother, come! My brother, come!" So afterward those who piloted boats on the Qingjiang also called out as they rowed: "My brother, come! My brother, come!" which gradually changed into "A-ho-hai, a-ho-hai."
In the Enshi area there also circulates a variant of this legend, "Old Wang's Boat," which likewise begins with the five surnames of the red and black caves of Wuluo Zhongli Mountain choosing a leader; its distinctive part lies in the episode of the five surnames' leaders competing in boat-building. The five surnames are very different from those in the legend described above: they are Qin, Tian, Tan, Zheng, and Ba. After Xiang Wang won the sword-throwing contest, the Tian surname was still unconvinced, and finally everyone agreed to compete by building clay boats that would not sink. Ba Wuxiang stood by the river pondering: a clay boat made of wood bound with kudzu vine would hardly cross the rushing rapids. Suddenly he saw a black-striped snake as thick as a grinding mortar coiled on the ground. He kicked it flying into the river. Unexpectedly, the black-striped snake turned into a hollow log drifting in the river, floating lightly on the surface. Ba Wuxiang was at once inspired; he found several logs as thick as a man's embrace, hollowed out the middle, and made dugout canoes.
On the day of the contest, the clay boats of the four surnames Tian, Qin, Tan, and Zheng all sank as soon as they met the rushing rapids and dangerous shoals; only the dugout canoe that Ba Wuxiang had made by hollowing out a log did not sink, and so Ba Wuxiang became the leader. The kind of dugout boat he built was later called Old Wang's Boat.
In the legends about Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven becoming a white tiger as lord, the basic plot is always unchanged, but the specific details are freely added and adapted by anyone, forming a rich variety of variants. For example, "Lin Jun and the Salt Goddess" is devoted to the story of Lin Jun leading his people in migration to the salt pool and meeting the Salt Water Goddess. Lin Jun traveled by clay boat from the Qingjiang to the salt pool; suddenly a crack opened in the mountain and a stream of water gushed out, and from the water walked a goddess, who kept Lin Jun to live with her. Lin Jun thought every day of leaving, but by day the goddess turned into flying insects that blotted out the sky and sun, so that Lin Jun could not find his direction. Later Lin Jun used a stratagem to shoot the goddess dead, and only then did he establish a city and found a state, and was called the Son of Heaven, later known as Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven. To commemorate Lin Jun, people built the Xiang Wang Temple and made a statue of him. Thinking that the goddess had once been his companion, they also placed a female statue beside him, called Lady Deji.
"Lin Jun Turns into a White Tiger" is devoted to the story of Lin Jun's transformation into a white tiger. It tells that in very ancient times an old man with white beard and white hair came to East Village (present-day Yuxiakou). People all said he was the White Tiger Star, and that in his youth he had been brave and skilled in battle. The old man died not long after arriving at Yuxiakou. People buried him at Dengxin Ridge, and at the time of burial the old man turned into a white tiger and ascended to heaven; from then on people called this place White Tiger Ridge. Because it was people of the Qin surname who buried the old man, the Qin clan ancestral hall was changed to the "White Tiger Ridge Hall" and moved from Manjiawan to White Tiger Ridge in East Village.
The legends about the deeds of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven in life contain both shadows of history and creations of later people. These legends express the longing and worship of the descendants of the Tujia for their ancestors. But when people sacrificed to Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven, besides remembering their ancestor, more importantly they did so to pray for the protection of the ancestral god; thus there arose legends about Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven becoming a god after death and manifesting his power. These legends display the many divine attributes of Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven in people's minds.
First, Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven could ward off evil and avert disaster, turning danger into safety. "Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven Manifests His Holiness" tells that long ago, when war broke out, people all hid in the Xiang Wang Temple on the mountain. The enemy soldiers pursued them to the mountain opposite and fired three cannon shots at the temple, when suddenly they saw a man sitting on the summit of the high cliff, stretching his feet down into the river below the cliff to wash them. When the enemy soldiers saw such a huge man, they no longer dared to fire, and the refugees were saved. That night, an old man with a white beard appeared in a dream to an old woman and said: "I am Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven." So the giant sitting on the mountaintop by day was Xiang Wang the Son of Heaven.