Three Great "Dark Arts" of Xiangxi
Xiangxi has three great dark arts: first, "Xiangxi corpse driving"; second, "poison sorcery"; third, "flower cave maidens." Xiangxi is a very mysterious place, and no one has been able to explain the true nature of Xiangxi's "corpse driving" to this day. According to locals' consistent accounts: the corpse driver is a Taoist priest in robes, and regardless of how many corpses there are, he alone...
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
Xiangxi has three great evils: the first is "Xiangxi corpse driving," the second is "gu poisoning," and the third is "Luohua Dong girls." Xiangxi is a very mysterious place, and to this day no one can point out the true circumstances of Xiangxi's "corpse driving."
According to the unanimous account of the locals: the corpse driver is a Daoist priest in a Daoist robe, and no matter how many corpses there are, he drives them all by himself. This is the same as what Hong Kong movies portray. Rather than "driving" corpses, it's more like "leading" them, because the priest is not behind the corpses but in front, leading the way, striking a gong as he walks, so that nighttime travelers avoid them and households with dogs shut their dogs in. When there is more than one corpse, they are linked together with straw rope, one every six or seven chi.
The corpse-driving trade is very hard to carry out outside Xiangxi. First, lodging becomes a problem. Second, nighttime travelers don't know to avoid it upon hearing the gong, and instead come to watch the excitement—which would scare people to death. Third, in many villages there are no roads outside the village, so one must inevitably pass through the village, and most places do not allow corpses to enter the village—let alone hopping, bouncing living corpses.
Why does the "corpse driving" trade exist? Because the area along the upper reaches of the Yuan River in Xiangxi is poor and barren, and many poor people went to eastern Sichuan or eastern Guizhou to make a living as peddlers, herb gatherers, or hunters. Those places are full of towering mountains and ridges, with heavy miasma in the mountains and frequent outbreaks of malignant malaria. The living environment is extremely bad, and apart from the local Miao people, outsiders rarely went there. The Han Chinese who died in those places were none of them wealthy, and the Han traditionally held a deep belief in transporting corpses back to their hometowns for burial. But on those rugged mountain roads of hundreds or even a thousand li, even with money, it was difficult to carry them by vehicle or stretcher. So someone created this strange, economical method of transporting corpses back home.
This at least has some scientific basis. There is also a local saying that the corpse-driving sorcerer used a cat, and that a cat is to a corpse like a magnet, easily attracting it and making it hop and bounce. But this seems rather unbelievable—a corpse weighs at least ninety jin, and to cross mountains and ridges, how could a cat have that much energy? Even without friction loss, how much energy could a cat itself store?
Xiangxi's "gu sorcery" and Thailand's "Kuman Thong" are called the two great evil arts of Southeast Asia. Like Xiangxi's corpse driving, no one to this day can point out the true circumstances of Xiangxi's gu sorcery.
Unlike corpse driving, gu poisoning is said to be practiced almost throughout the Xiangxi region, while corpse driving is mainly spread in the four counties of Yuanling, Luxi, Chenxi, and Xupu in Xiangxi. In the Xiangxi region, gu is commonly called "grass ghost," and legend says it attaches only to women and harms others. Those women said to have gu are called "grass ghost women." As for what the so-called gu poisoning methods and gu actually look like, apart from accounts passed down from generation to generation, no one has ever seen them—yet they remain deeply rooted in people's hearts.
The Miao people almost universally believe in gu, though the degree varies from place to place. In the Miao conceptual world, there are snake gu, frog gu, ant gu, caterpillar gu, sparrow gu, turtle gu, and other types. When gu multiplies too much on a person who has gu and cannot find food, it attacks the gu owner himself, demanding food. The gu owner, suffering, releases the gu to harm others.
In fact, this fearsome gu is not the Miao people's exclusive patent. Gu sorcery was already widely spread in the Jiangnan region of ancient China. Originally, gu referred to insects born in vessels; later, moths born from spoiled grain and insects born from other decaying objects were also called gu. The ancients believed gu had mysterious, unfathomable properties and great toxicity, so it was also called poison gu, and could enter the human body through food and drink to cause illness. Patients seemed bewitched by ghosts, their minds confused. Most of the gu insects mentioned by pre-Qin people referred to naturally occurring mysterious poisonous insects. Long-term superstition about poison gu in turn developed the idea and practice of creating gu to harm people.
According to scholars' research, by the Warring States period people in the Central Plains were already using and teaching methods of creating gu to harm others. Many Miao areas were remote, and in the old days medicine was backward, so many diseases could not be effectively treated. Thus whenever treatment failed, people would readily blame gu. With the spread of scientific and cultural knowledge and the improvement of medical standards in Miao areas, the influence of gu sorcery superstition in Miao areas is now growing smaller and smaller.
Xiangxi's "Luohua Dong girls" refers to certain unmarried girls in the tribe who could cry leaves down from trees; they would go into caves without eating or drinking and not die for several days, and after returning they would neither drink nor eat, and would die a few days later. The tribe believed they had gone to marry the tree god or the well god. Thus although these girls never married in life, after death, when others would hold a funeral, the families of the Luohua Dong girls not only did not hold a funeral but held a wedding instead, to signify the joy of marriage.
Shen Congwen wrote in his book: Among Xiangxi women at three stages of age arise gu women, witches, and cave-falling girls—the poor and elderly easily become gu women, those around thirty easily become witches, and those from sixteen to twenty-two or twenty-three, beautiful, fond of love, introverted in temperament, and unsuccessful in marriage, easily fall into caves and die. The hysteria of these three kinds of women forms one part of Xiangxi's mystery. Behind this mystery hides a moving tragedy, and at the same time hides a moving poem.
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