Tujia Folk Beliefs and Culture — Totem Worship (Part 3)
III. Reasons for the Ba People's Totem Change: Why did the Ba people abandon their ancestral snake totem for the white tiger during the Lin Jun era? There were multiple reasons. First, it was an inevitable product of the patriarchal system replacing the matriarchal system. The Lin Jun Man era was precisely when this tribe transitioned from matriarchy to patriarchy. The Book of Later Han states: the Lin Jun Man 'then rode earthen boats, from the Yi River to the Salt...'
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III. Reasons for the Transformation of the Ba People's Totem
Why did the Ba people, in the time of Lin Jun, abandon the snake totem of their distant ancestors and instead worship the white tiger? There are reasons in many aspects.
First, it was an inevitable product of the patriarchal system replacing the matriarchal system. The era of the Lin Jun barbarians was precisely the era when this tribe transitioned from the matriarchal system to the patriarchal system. The Book of the Later Han says: The Lin Jun barbarians "then rode a clay boat, going from the Yi River to Yanyang. There was a goddess of the salt water who said to Lin Jun, 'This land is vast, and it produces fish and salt. I wish you would stay and live together with me.' Lin Jun did not consent. The salt goddess would come every evening to share his bed, and at dawn she would transform into a insect and fly in swarms with other insects, blotting out the sunlight so that heaven and earth were dark. After more than ten days, Lin Jun thought of a plan, and thereupon shot and killed her, and only then did the sky clear." Lin Jun's rejection of the salt goddess's demand, and the salt goddess's coercion by her wanton power, precisely reflect the struggle between patriarchal and matriarchal systems on the stage of history. Lin Jun's final shooting of the salt maiden demonstrates the victory of the patriarchal system over the matriarchal system. The replacement of the matriarchal system by the patriarchal system inevitably brought about a change in totem worship, namely, a change from the original matriarchal totem to a patriarchal totem. When studying the transition of Indian tribes from the matriarchal to the patriarchal system, Engels said: Among the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware tribes, a custom had already formed of giving children names from one of the clan names of the paternal gens, thereby enrolling them in the father's gens so that they could inherit from their father. Marx also said: To change things by changing names is the innate sophistry of mankind! When direct interests are strongly impelling, people seek a gap through which to break tradition within the bounds of tradition! The replacement of the matriarchal totem by the patriarchal totem is likewise a method of changing the clan system by changing names. This reasoning applies precisely to explaining why the Lin Jun barbarians replaced the Ba snake totem with the white tiger totem. Here, it is necessary for us to examine the clan systems to which the two totems respectively belonged.
The snake totem of the early Ba people, originating from the Fuxi tribe, was originally a matriarchal totem. First, the time of Fuxi was still a matriarchal clan society, as can be seen from the legends and sacrificial rites concerning Fuxi and Nüwa. According to the flood myths of the ethnic minorities in southwestern China: Fuxi and Nüwa were originally brother and sister. At that time, a great flood struck the human world, and only the two siblings survived. To propagate humankind, under the instruction of the heavenly deity, Fuxi and Nüwa married and recreated humanity. It is noteworthy that in the flood myths of almost all ethnic groups in the southwest, the twists and difficulties of the process by which the brother and sister concluded their marriage are very prominently depicted. When Fuxi proposed to Nüwa, Nüwa was deeply ashamed and angry, repeatedly refused him sternly, and deliberately set difficult tests; her final consent was given only out of consideration for recreating humanity. This shows that at the time of Fuxi, the prohibition against marriage between brother and sister had already begun to take shape as a taboo custom. And this taboo custom was precisely one of the hallmarks of matriarchal clan society. Engels said: Since they were descended from the same female ancestor, all the women of each generation were sisters. But the husbands of these sisters could no longer be their brothers. The marriage taboo reflected in the flood myths indicates that the Fuxi tribe was still in the period of matriarchal clan society. In the early Qing dynasty, Lu Ciyun's Xianzhi of Dongxi says: "The Miao people hold the year-end sacrifice and report to the grass. In the sacrifice they use a shaman and set up the places of Nüwa and Fuxi." In Miao sacrifices, Nüwa is placed before Fuxi; Nüwa's status is clearly higher than Fuxi's, and the historical shadow of matriarchal society can also be faintly discerned. Since Fuxi lived in the matriarchal period, his snake totem should also belong to the matriarchal system. Second, in the cultural semantics of ancient Chinese, the snake had the imagery of symbolizing women and reproducing life, and so it should originally belong to the matriarchal totem. The Book of Songs, Minor Odes, Si Gan says: "The viper and the snake are auspicious for women." Some have pointed out that among ancient and primitive peoples, it was common to use the snake to symbolize "earth," "fertility," "woman," or "the underworld," and so on. In myths and legends, the snake and women often have an inseparable relationship; for example, White Maiden in The Legend of the White Snake was transformed from a white snake that had cultivated itself into a spirit. To this day, we still compare beautiful but sinister women to venomous beauties. The thousand-year bond between the snake and women is determined by the matriarchal attribute of the snake totem.
Let us further analyze the lineage of the tiger totem. The tiger totem originated from the Tiger Clan. The Tiger Clan, belonging to the Yellow Emperor system, should be later than Taihao Fuxi and had already entered the patrilineal period. There are many legends about the Yellow Emperor in ancient books, which shows that his era is relatively close to the present, and his deeds are still largely remembered by later generations. The main legends about the Yellow Emperor include: using jade to make weapons, building boats, carts, bows and arrows, dyeing clothes in five colors, Leizu (the Yellow Emperor's principal wife) raising silkworms, Cangjie creating writing, Danao making the heavenly stems and earthly branches, Linglun making musical instruments, and so on. Judging from the level of productive forces reflected in these legends, they roughly correspond to the age of barbarism described by Engels. Engels said: pairing marriage is adapted to the age of barbarism. From this we can know that by the time of the Yellow Emperor, pairing marriage was already practiced, and pairing marriage is a form of patrilineal marriage, which shows that the Yellow Emperor's tribe had already implemented the patrilineal system. The tiger totem, as the totem of the Tiger Clan, a phratry of the patrilineal Yellow Emperor system, undoubtedly belongs to the patrilineal line. In the "Huainanzi · Tianwenxun," Zhuang Kuiji's commentary says: "The tiger is a creature of earth." The "Taiping Yulan" calls it "a yang beast." The "Tianwenxun" also contrasts the tiger and the dragon (actually the snake) as yang and yin: "The white tiger is at you, the azure dragon is at chen." In ancient times the tiger was regarded as a yang beast, which also shows that as a totem it must be patrilineal. Since the tiger totem belongs to the patrilineal line and the snake totem belongs to the matrilineal line, it was inevitable that the Linjun Man, in order to establish and consolidate patriarchal rule, abandoned the snake and adopted the tiger.
Second, the powerful influence of the Tiger Clan's totemic culture. In the alternating changes between the patrilineal and matrilineal systems, why did the Linjun Man specifically choose the tiger totem to replace the matrilineal snake totem? This was inseparable from the strong impact of the tiger totem at that time. Originally, before Linjun, the custom of tiger worship had already spread and flourished. The tiger totem originated from the Tiger Fang Clan of the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan clan group. According to the "Liezi · Huangdi": "The Yellow Emperor fought with the Yan Emperor in the wilderness of Banquan, leading bears, brown bears, wolves, leopards, chu, and tigers as the vanguard; and using mei, he, eagles, and kites as banners." The "Records of the Grand Historian · Annals of the Five Emperors" also says: The Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan "taught bears, brown bears, pixiu, chu, and tigers, and fought with the Yan Emperor in the wilderness of Banquan; only after three battles did he achieve his aim." Bears, brown bears, pixiu, chu, and tigers were the totemic emblems of various clans, and the tiger was the totemic emblem of the Tiger Clan. The Tiger Clan was one of the vanguards in the great victory at Banquan, which shows that its strength was already quite formidable at that time. In the legends about Gaoxin, the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor, the Tiger Clan is also mentioned. According to the "Zuo Zhuan · Eighteenth Year of Duke Wen": "Gaoxin had eight talented sons: Bofen, Zhongkan, Shuxian, Jizhong, Bohu, Zhongxiong, Shubao, and Jili." Among them, Bohu was the tribal chief of the Tiger Clan. Yang Kuan's "Preface to the Self-Examination of Ancient History" says: "Bohu, Zhongxiong, Shubao, and Jili or Jipi were the first to create songs and dances, which are what the "Canon of Yao" calls 'the hundred beasts dancing in unison' and what the "Lüshi Chunqiu · Ancient Music" says 'thus causing the hundred beasts to dance.'" "The hundred beasts dancing in unison" refers to various clans with beasts as totems performing dances together. These dances presumably imitated the beast totems of each clan as dance postures and belonged to religious dances. Among them was also the tiger dance of the Tiger Clan. The tiger dance was the primitive form of the later Ba dance and even the Hand-waving Dance. In both the Bayu Dance and the Hand-waving Dance, remnants of tiger movements survive. The Tiger Clan, after long wars and migrations, left footprints throughout the central, southeastern, and southwestern regions of our country, leaving behind many place names named after the tiger across the land and widely spreading tiger totem culture. Even in modern times, among the Yi, Tujia, Naxi, Lisu, and other ethnic groups, the custom of tiger worship still commonly exists. From this we can infer that by the time of Linjun, tiger totem culture was already famous and widely influential. This inevitably had an effect on Linjun's tribe, inducing or forcing them to choose the tiger as the totem of their new tribal group.
Third, it was related to the special geographical environment. The relationship between humans and the natural environment is one of the important factors determining totemic species. A certain natural environment often leads primitive clans or tribes to produce totemic beliefs suited to it. For example, the Shui and Jing peoples near rivers, lakes, and seas worship dragons; the Ewenki people living in bear-rich areas worship bears; and the Bai people living in rocky mountainous areas worship giant rocks, and so on. The various clans of the Linjun Man at that time lived in a tiger-rich environment and had many opportunities to deal with tigers. Facing the mighty, majestic, leaping, and roaring fierce tiger, it was easy to feel awe and worship.
The transformation of the totem of the Ba people's Linjun Man had many causes and was the result of the interaction of various factors. Among them, the dominant factor should be the change between the matrilineal and patrilineal systems, which was the fundamental reason for the transformation of the snake totem. The influence of the Tiger Clan's totemic culture was the external condition of the transformation, while the tiger-rich environment was the internal condition of the transformation. The combined force and interaction of various factors brought about the transformation of the Ba people's totem from snake to tiger. In a sense, this transformation was nothing less than a phoenix-like rebirth for the Ba people. From then on, the history and culture of the Ba people gradually took on the magical color of the white tiger totem!
IV. The Influence of the White Tiger Totem on Tujia Traditional Culture
White tiger worship belongs to primitive totemic culture. With the development of the Tujia people's civilizing process, although this primitive totemic culture has already declined, its influence on Tujia traditional culture has still continued from generation to generation.
First, white tiger totemic culture created the material culture with distinctive ethnic characteristics of the Ba people and the Tujia people. From the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Qin and Han dynasties, in the Bronze Age, under the influence of Central Plains culture, the Ba people also produced their own bronzes. These bronzes were decorated with tigers, embodying the special style of a tiger-worshipping people. In western Hunan, where the Tujia people live in concentrated communities, a number of bronzes have been unearthed successively, including swords, ge, axes, chunyu, bells, duo, xian, and hu, belonging respectively to weapons, musical instruments, and daily utensils. Among them, the unearthed chunyu are the most eye-catching. According to preliminary statistics, nearly 50 chunyu have been unearthed in western Hunan. Most of them are tiger-knobbed chunyu, with a small number of horse-knobbed chunyu. The chunyu is a bronze musical instrument played together with drums. The "Rites of Zhou · Offices of Earth" says, "With the metal chunyu harmonize the drum," and Zheng Xuan's commentary says: "Chunyu is the chunyu. It is round like the head of a pestle, large above and small below; when music is performed it is sounded, harmonizing with the drum." The chunyu originated in the Central Plains. After spreading to the Ba people's region, the Ba people, according to their own ethnic beliefs, added tiger-shaped knobs to the chunyu. This tiger-shaped-knob chunyu was a musical instrument used by the Ba people when sacrificing to ancestors and to the white tiger, so the totemic ancestor white tiger was cast on it. When the Ba people used tiger-knobbed chunyu to sacrifice to ancestors, they also paired it with drums. The "Manshu" says: "When the Ba people sacrifice to their ancestors, they strike drums and sacrifice; they are the descendants of the white tiger." Tiger-knobbed chunyu have also been found in many places in western Hubei, southeastern Sichuan, and nearby areas. These places were all areas where ancient Ba people moved about, and the tiger-knobbed chunyu should be relics of the Ba people. Apart from tiger knobs, a very small number of chunyu have snake knobs, showing that the snake totem worship of the Ba people's early ancestors still survived in limited scope. Among the Ba people's weapons unearthed in western Hunan, many are decorated with tigers. One type is the tiger-striped spotted sword, whose blade is relatively long, with tiger-stripe patterns all over the blade, and a tiger pattern cast at the stem of the blade. The bronze ge is a weapon that can both hook and peck, and its rear part has a relief-style tiger pattern, with the tiger head glaring angrily, ferocious and terrifying, extraordinarily brave. With their varied and colorful tiger carvings and tiger patterns, Ba people's bronzes added a brilliant stroke to the bronze history of the Chinese nation.
The white tiger totem also left traces on Tujia clothing. For example, Tujia children like to wear embroidered tiger-head hats and tiger-head shoes embroidered with tiger heads. The tiger-head hat has a pair of ears on the left and right, standing erect and facing forward, and the character "wang" is embroidered in the center of the hat. The tiger-head hat carries the meaning of protecting children's healthy growth, and children may stop wearing it only after reaching the age of 12. This custom essentially contains worship of the tiger totem ancestor.
When building a house, one must carve a "tunkou" on the doorpost—a kind of tiger-head carving—to ward off evil and suppress demons. Particularly worth mentioning is the Tujia dietary custom of eating blood tofu. Among the Tujia people in western Hunan, during festivals or when honored guests arrive, they all eat a traditional dish—blood tofu. Blood tofu is made from fresh tofu with a certain proportion of pig blood added. In Tujia history, human blood was once used to sacrifice to the white tiger, and their ancestors the Ba people also once offered human sacrifices to tigers, all because tigers drink human blood. The Tujia people consider themselves descendants of the tiger, so they eat blood tofu; this is meant to preserve the tiger lineage or soul. Of course, if one sets aside the superstitious color of blood tofu and tastes this dish again, one will find that it is complete in color, aroma, and taste, and is a delicious delicacy.
Second, white tiger totemic culture produced the Tujia people's unique dance art. The Hand-waving Dance, still popular in Tujia areas today, evolved through several stages from the tiger dance of white tiger sacrifice. From the white tiger dance to the Hand-waving Dance, it roughly went through the process of white tiger dance, then Bayu Dance, then Hand-waving Dance. When primitive ancestors sacrificed to totems, they mostly danced by imitating totem movements. The ancestors of the Tujia people, the Ba people, should have had a similar totemic dance, whose dance movements mainly imitated the movements of the white tiger. What the ancients called "the hundred beasts dancing in unison" refers to clans and tribes of different totems imitating the movements of their own animal totems in dance. Among these various totemic dances, the white tiger dance of the Ba people's ancestors must certainly have been included. The white tiger dance later developed into the Bayu Dance—a kind of war dance—whose vigorous and brave postures became a weapon to overawe enemy troops. According to the "Huayang Guozhi · Ba Zhi": "In Langzhong there is the Yu River; the Cong people mostly lived on both sides of the water. By nature vigorous and brave, they first served as the Han vanguard and charged into battle formations. Their sharp spirit delighted in dancing, and the emperor approved of it, saying: 'This is the song of King Wu's campaign against Zhou.' He then ordered musicians to learn it; it is what is now called the Bayu Dance." The "Book of Han · Records of Ritual and Music" also says: "There were thirty-six drummers of Bayu." Yan Shigu's commentary says: "Ba means the Ba people. Yu means the Yu people. When Gaozu first became King of Han, he obtained Ba and Yu people, who were nimble and good at fighting, and with them settled the Three Qin and destroyed Chu, and therefore preserved their martial music. The music of Ba and Yu began because of this..." As a war dance, the Bayu Dance should have been spiritually connected with the white tiger dance. The Bayu Dance also retained and inherited many tiger-imitating movements, and tiger movements are suitable for war dances. From the Han dynasty onward, records about the Bayu Dance appeared repeatedly in books. By the Tang and Song periods, the Bayu Dance evolved among the people into the Hand-waving Dance. The Hand-waving Dance also retained part of the war-dance characteristics of the Bayu Dance: dancers carried dragon banners and held native guns, performing a series of military movements. The Hand-waving Dance also retained and transmitted some dance movements of the primitive white tiger dance, such as single swing, double swing, and whirling movements. The Hand-waving Dance fully expresses a people's vigorous and martial spirit, and the form of this dance is closely related to the inheritance of ancient white tiger totem worship. The Tujia funeral dance "Tiaosang Erhuo" is also related to white tiger worship. This dance is used to sacrifice to the spirits of the dead. In Tujia areas, when an elderly person dies, neighbors all perform Tiaosang Erhuo for them. In the main room, the coffin containing the deceased is placed; before the coffin are offerings of the five grains, inserted with evergreen branches, and a ever-burning lamp is lit; to the left of the coffin there is also a large cowhide drum. The signal for the funeral dance to begin is several "tong, tong, tong" shots from a three-eyed gun. Afterwards, group after group of people enter the main room and begin to dance the funeral dance. Tiaosang is very popular in some areas; it can be said that "when the funeral drum sounds, the soles of the feet itch." Each round of the funeral dance has only two or three participants. One person stands at the front left of the coffin beating the drum and leading the singing, while two people in front of the coffin keep time with the drum, singing and dancing. The dance movements mainly include: winding arms and moving through, clapping palms facing each other, twisting shoulders and rubbing backs, touching the ground with the mouth to pick up objects, squatting and rising on tiptoe while spinning, and playing with one another. These movements are called: phoenix spreading its wings, rhinoceros gazing at the moon, ox rubbing its itch, dog eating excrement, swallow carrying mud, youngest sister sifting with a basket, fierce tiger descending the mountain, and so on. The main content of the lyrics includes: praising the ancestors for clearing grass and establishing territory; singing of farming, mulberry, fishing, and hunting production labor and daily trifles; praising the totemic ancestor white tiger; singing love stories; singing riddles and guessing riddles, and so on. There are both traditional lyrics and improvised pieces. From the above basic situation, Tiaosang Erhuo is not a mournful dance but a joyful dance. Obviously, it is an inheritance of ancient songs and dances for entertaining spirits, and its primitive form should be the white tiger dance sacrificing to the white tiger totem. It was this dance that later developed into the Bayu Dance. The Bayu Dance could be used both in battle and in sacrificial rites. The martial spirit of the Ba people made funerals and warfare alike full of an uplifting and vigorous mood. The "Kuifu Tujing" says: "The Ba people are martial; they beat drums and sing while treading to express grief." "When parents first die, they use drums to lead the mourning; their songs must be wild, and their crowds must dance. This is the bravery of Panhu and the white tiger." Ancient texts clearly point out the martial spirit of the funeral dance. It can be seen that, owing to the influence of ancient white tiger totemic culture, Tujia funeral sacrificial dance formed its own unique style and mood.
Third, white tiger totemic culture also directly formed a series of Tujia sacrificial customs. In Tujia areas, many temples are dedicated to Xiangwang Tianzi (that is, Linjun). Xiangwang Tianzi is the person described earlier who transformed into a tiger and departed. According to the "Changyang County Gazetteer": Xiangwang is Linjun. "Linjun rendered meritorious service to the people; today in Shinan, Badong, Changyang, and other places, temples are established and sacrifices offered. In the local dialect, Xiang (Ba Wuxiang) was corrupted into Xiang." Sacrificing to Linjun is in fact an evolved form of sacrificing to the white tiger. As a lingering wave of ancient totem worship, Tujia people also directly sacrifice to the white tiger. In some places, on the shrine in the main room are enshrined wooden carvings of the white tiger or white tiger tablets, as in the saying "The white tiger sits in the hall; the white tiger is the family god." People call the white tiger enshrined at home the "sitting-hall white tiger." In fact, this is only the white tiger in people's imagination, a deified white tiger, far beyond comparison with the white tiger in nature. Therefore, when the real white tiger in nature arrives, people cannot help showing the attitude of Lord Ye who loved dragons, and are suddenly seized with fear. There is a song that goes: "If the white tiger passes through the hall, there will surely be disaster if not misfortune." The difference between the sitting-hall white tiger and the through-the-hall white tiger lies in this: one is an idol worshipped by people, a product of highly fanciful or artistic imagination, or simply the materialization of a martial spirit; the other is the real, objectively existing fierce tiger of the natural world with a white forehead or white spots and stripes. The former kind of "tiger" is worshipped because it is a symbol of ancestral heroic spirit; the latter white tiger is feared because it directly endangers human life and safety, so the Tujia people have a sorcery ritual to drive away the white tiger. The clan ancestor gods sacrificed to by the Tujia people are also all related to the tiger totem. For example, the Eight Tribes Great Gods are said in myth to have grown up on milk. The old ancestors sacrificed to in Yongshun are two full brothers, one called "Bronze Tiger" and the other "Iron Tiger." It can be seen that no matter how many clan gods there are among the Tujia, none can surpass the white tiger god. The white tiger god is the supreme heavenly god of the Tujia, and all clan gods are its descendants. In a sense, the white tiger god has the function of uniting Tujia people of various clans. The image and spirit of the tiger permeate many folk customs of the Tujia people. For example, at marriage, a tiger blanket must be spread on the large square table to pray for the white tiger ancestor's protection of continuous offspring. When performing rituals, dancing the Hand-waving Dance, and during festivals, people all wear or spread cloth with tiger patterns and use implements bearing the image of the tiger.
From the custom of tiger worship there also derived the custom of worshipping and respecting cats, because cats and tigers originally belong to the same family. The Tujia people call the tiger "big cat," and on walls they paste both pictures of tigers and pictures of cats. A Tujia legend says: long ago the cat was the tiger's teacher. The cat saw that the tiger was violent by nature and often harmed people and livestock, so it kept the skill of climbing trees and did not teach it to the tiger. After the tiger learned all kinds of skills from the cat, it wanted to harm the cat. As soon as the cat climbed a tree, the tiger had no way to deal with it. This legend shows that the Tujia people regard cats and tigers as the same kind, so while worshipping tigers they also worship and respect cats. After a cat dies, it cannot be casually buried in the earth, nor discarded in the wild; instead it must be wrapped in cloth or palm bark, then bound with straw, and placed high in a tree. The custom of cat worship can be seen as a variant form of tiger totem worship.
V. White Tiger Totem Legends Passed Down from Generation to Generation
With the long and widespread spread of white tiger totem worship and customs in Tujia areas, various legends about the white tiger were also continuously produced and transmitted. These legends contain certain ideas of the white tiger totem:
1. The white tiger is the guardian deity of the Tujia people. The legend of the "Tiger Matchmaker Temple" says that a young man and woman were married. On the night of their wedding, the local official came to exercise the "right of first night." The girl slipped out on a pretext and was carried off in the mouth of an old bazi (the Tujia people call the tiger laobazi) to the mountains, avoiding insult by the local official. When this couple reached middle age, they came specially to the mountain where they had escaped disaster and built a temple for the tiger to thank it for saving them. That temple was called the "Tiger Matchmaker Temple," and in the temple was enshrined a stone-carved tiger receiving incense and offerings from the human world. From this it can be seen that the guardian function of the white tiger has already incorporated the element of protecting the weak.
As the white tiger totem gradually merged with secular ethical concepts, the function of protecting the deity evolved to include rewarding good and punishing evil. The legend "Retribution" illustrates this function. It is said that long ago there was a Squire Liu who first married a woman of the Yang family and had a son named Liu Jun. After the Yang woman died of illness, Squire Liu married a woman of the Wang family, who bore a son named Liu Heng. Unfortunately, Squire Liu died in his middle years. To let her own son Liu Heng monopolize the family property, the Wang woman conspired with Liu Heng to murder Liu Jun, pushing him into a tiankeng (heavenly pit). As it turned out, Liu Jun was saved by a tiger. The Wang woman then incited Liu Heng to kill three tiger cubs to vent her hatred. When the tiger saw its three cubs had been killed and knew it was the doing of the Wang woman and Liu Heng, it came to their home for revenge, ultimately causing the deaths of the Wang woman and Liu Heng, while Liu Jun was able to inherit the family property. In the legend, the tiger is clearly the arbiter of reward and retribution for good and evil.
2. Mutual transformation between humans and tigers. This was originally the most primitive meaning of the white tiger totem, and traces of it can still be seen in Tujia legends. Among them, the plot of a human becoming pregnant and giving birth to a tiger cub is clearly a variant form of human-tiger transformation; there is also the plot of a tiger eating a person and then transforming into a human, which is a relatively primitive form. The former is exemplified by "Pregnant with a Tiger," which tells of a couple over fifty years old who had no children and performed many good deeds in hopes of having a child. Later the old woman did become pregnant, but unexpectedly after ten months of pregnancy she gave birth to a tiger cub. The old couple were deeply grieved, and the tiger cub left. The old man soon died. Later the tiger cub was captured by hunters and imprisoned in a cage. The old woman knew it was the tiger cub she had given birth to, so she bought it back and set it free. From then on, prey was often placed at the old woman's door. The old woman's life grew increasingly prosperous. After the old woman died of old age, the tiger cub buried her and guarded the grave for several days before leaving. The latter is exemplified by "The Tiger Son," which tells of an old woman and her only son who depended on each other and lived together. One day, the son was eaten by a tiger. The old woman wept bitterly in front of her house, lamenting that she had lost her support and had no means to live, and she thought of ending her life. Just as she was about to hang herself, the tiger came to rescue her, carried her home on its back, and told her that in a former life it had been a human who, while gathering firewood in the mountain forest, was eaten by a tiger, so in this life it had become a tiger, while that tiger had been reborn as a human. Now it had found that person and eaten him. The tiger also begged the old woman's forgiveness and asked her permission to be her son. From then on, until the old woman's death, she lived under the tiger's care with no worries about food or clothing. Legends of mutual transformation between humans and tigers reflect the ancient belief contained in totem worship that humans and totem animals share a blood relationship.
In addition, in Tujia areas there also circulate legends of tigers and humans living together and helping each other, which likewise contain cultural remnants of ancient white tiger totem worship.