Tujia Folk Beliefs and Culture: Totem Worship (Part 2)
II. The White Tiger Totem. Beginning with Lin Jun, the Ba people changed from a snake totem to a white tiger totem. This shift is marked in two ways: first, after the Ba people's Lin Jun clan-tribe formed, their leader Ba Wuxiang called himself a tiger, effectively raising the banner of the tiger totem. Fan Ye's 'Book of the Later Han: Biographies of the Southern Man and Southwestern Yi' states: 'The Man of Ba and Nan Commanderies originally had five clans: the Ba, Fan, Shen...'
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II. The White Tiger Totem
From Lin Jun onward, the Ba people changed the snake totem into the white tiger totem. The signs of this transformation are shown in two aspects: First, after the formation of the Ba people's Lin Jun clan tribe, the leader Ba Wuxiang called himself a tiger, which in fact raised high the banner of the tiger totem. Fan Ye's "History of the Later Han: Biographies of the Southern Man, Southwestern Yi" says: "The Man of Ba Commandery and Nan Commandery originally had five surnames: Ba, Fan, Shen, Xiang, and Zheng. They all came from Wuluo Zhongli Mountain. On that mountain there were red and black caves. The son of the Ba clan was born in the red cave, and the sons of the four other surnames were all born in the black cave. There was no ruler or chief, and they all served ghosts and spirits. They then together threw swords at a stone cave, agreeing that the one who could hit it would be honored as ruler. The Ba son Wuxiang alone hit it. ... They also ordered each to ride an earthen boat, agreeing that the one whose boat could float would be made ruler. The boats of the other surnames all sank, and only Wuxiang's floated. Therefore they jointly established him, and he was Lin Jun." The legend narrates the process by which the Lin Jun Man took shape, and from it one can also vaguely see traces of the white tiger becoming the common totem of the five surnames. Initially, the five surnames lived together on Zhongli Mountain, and "there was no ruler or chief, and they all served ghosts and spirits," which shows that a unified clan tribe had not yet formed and that each surname believed in a different totem. After the five-surname clan tribe headed by Ba Wuxiang was initially formed, the most important task was none other than to establish a common totem. Because primitive humans could often unite into a clan or tribal organization only on the premise of the same blood kinship, and "the totem concept was originally an illusory reflection of the blood-relationship concept in the transition of blood-marriage groups toward clan organization," a unified totem had the function of maintaining and consolidating the clan tribe. Ba Wuxiang was called Lin Jun, and thus established the tiger as the common totem of the five surnames. In the literature there are records of calling the "tiger" "Li Fu" and "Li Er." Today's Tujia also call the "tiger" "Li," and "Li" is close in pronunciation to "Lin." "Lin" is "tiger," and "Lin Jun" is "Tiger Jun." This view has been repeatedly explained by some experts and scholars. Second, among the Lin Jun Man, the concept of the white tiger totem and corresponding totemic rituals had already formed. "History of the Later Han: Biographies of the Southern Man, Southwestern Yi" records: "When Lin Jun died, his soul and spirit became a white tiger." That a person after death becomes a white tiger may seem absurd, but in fact it reflects the very solemn and sacred totemic concept of the primitive Ba people. In the eyes of primitive people, humans and totems were an integral whole and could transform into each other; every person was the incarnation of the same totemic ancestor of his clan, and the death of a clan member was a return to the totem. In his "The Golden Bough," Frazer, when discussing this concept of humans and totems exchanging life, once gave an example saying that the primitive belief in such exchange of souls evidently came from the story of a Basque hunter. The story says that a Basque hunter claimed to have been killed by a bear; the bear's soul entered the hunter's body, the bear's body died, and the hunter became that bear. It was precisely on the basis of the same totemic concept that the Lin Jun Man regarded Lin Jun's death as his soul and spirit becoming a white tiger, and viewed the white tiger as the incarnation of Lin Jun. Of course, the legend of Lin Jun transforming into a tiger was not merely a product of ideology; it must also have been closely related to some totemic ritual. The author believes that the concrete practice of this ritual was to let Lin Jun's body enter the tiger's body, possibly by letting him be eaten by a tiger when his life was in critical danger, or possibly by feeding his corpse to a tiger after death. We may as well call this ritual the ritual of feeding humans to tigers. Lin Jun was the initiator of the Ba people's ritual of feeding humans to tigers. The existence of this Ba people's tiger-feeding ritual can be confirmed from many aspects. First, reflections in ancient artifacts. Among the Shang dynasty bronzes unearthed in Hunan there is a kind of tiger-eating-human you vessel. Li Xueqin described it saying: "The whole you is made in the shape of a tiger, squatting and supported by its hind feet and tail, with its front paws holding a person, opening its mouth to devour the person's head. The human body faces the tiger, with hands on the tiger's shoulders, feet on the tiger's hind paws, and the face turned to look toward the left." "The expression on the face (referring to the person) is solemn throughout, without any appearance of fear or joy." The tiger-eating-human you is naturally a visualized reproduction of a primitive religious ritual, and what it displays is precisely the scene of exchanging souls by feeding humans to tigers. No one says the tiger-eating-human you is a relic of the Ba people, but it certainly came from a tiger-worshipping ethnic group, and the totemic custom it reflects should also have existed among the similarly tiger-worshipping Ba people. Second, records and reports concerning tiger feeding. The above-quoted biography of Lin Jun, immediately after saying that Lin Jun became a white tiger, also says: "Because the tiger drinks human blood, the Ba clan therefore sacrificed humans to it." This shows that the ritual of sacrificing humans to tigers was passed down after Lin Jun. Regarding this, documents after the "History of the Later Han" also repeatedly record it. Looking at these documents comprehensively, tiger feeding can again be divided into two types. One type is voluntary tiger feeding. Those who voluntarily fed themselves to tigers regarded tiger feeding as transforming into a tiger. Therefore, in the legends there appeared a type of people who could transform into tigers and matters of transforming into tigers. Ying Shao's "Comprehensive Meaning of Customs" (lost text), volume one
says: "The tiger is called Li Er—common saying: the tiger was originally transformed from Lord Li of Zhonglu in Nan Commandery..." Gan Bao's "Records of Searching for Spirits," volume twelve, says: "Between the Yangtze and Han rivers there are Chu people, descendants of Lin Jun, who can transform into tigers." Zhang Hua's "Records of Broad Knowledge," volume two, says: "In Jiangling there are fierce people who can transform into tigers. Commonly they are also called Chu." This type of tiger-transforming people probably came from imitating their ancestor Lin Jun. The other type is killing people to feed tigers. A person entering a tiger's mouth would die on the spot; this is a fact everyone can see clearly. No matter how fervently people worshipped the white tiger and how devoutly they believed in the concept of souls returning to the totem, they could not avoid the fear of actual death. Therefore, there would after all not be many "heroes" able to voluntarily feed themselves to tigers. Thus tribal leaders or rulers had no choice but to kill people to feed tigers. At first they should have killed people of their own ethnic group to feed tigers, in order to show the connection and communication between their own group and its totemic ancestor's soul. Later it gradually developed into killing outsiders (mainly prisoners of war) to feed tigers, and the purpose of souls returning to the totem evolved into sacrifice and pleasing the totem. Chen Jiru's "Collected Matters on Tigers," volume five, says: "In Fangling there are white tigers that like to drink human blood, and every year the people there kill people as sacrifices." The custom of killing people to feed tigers was still reported even in recent times. It is said that among the Tian surname, one of the major Tujia surnames, a white tiger spirit altar was set up in the main hall. At first it was human sacrifice, that is, beforehand a little beggar was bought and killed at the time of fulfilling a vow to sacrifice to the white tiger. Killing people to feed tigers had to a great extent already contradicted the original meaning of tiger feeding, but as a distorted form, its deep roots can still be traced back to the legend of Lin Jun transforming into a tiger. Third, corroboration from symbolic tiger-feeding rituals. The Ba people's ritual of feeding humans to tigers was long ago abolished with the development of social history, but its lingering influence has been passed down continuously and formed some symbolic tiger-feeding rituals among the Tujia. The most notable example is the head-cutting ritual when the Tujia fulfill the Xianggong vow, in which the altar master uses a pig-killing knife to cut his own head until blood comes out, drips it on a long string of paper money, hangs it publicly, and then burns it. To fulfill this vow, one must "see red" before the vow can be "concluded." "Seeing red" is precisely a symbol of killing a person, and the blood on the altar master's head replaces the person to be killed. Clearly, "head-cutting" is an evolved form of killing people to feed tigers. Symbolic tiger-feeding sacrificial rites are also manifested in the cremation custom once practiced by the Tujia. In 1973, the archaeology team of the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture excavated an ancient tomb at Sifang City in Baojing. The tomb was round, an earthen pit, and in the tomb was placed a bowl. The bowl held ashes, covered by another bowl. According to expert appraisal, it was a Yuan dynasty cremation tomb. Sifang City was a Tujia settlement area in the Yuan dynasty, which shows that the Tujia once had the custom of cremation. Cremation disappeared relatively early in Tujia history, and the details cannot be examined for the time being, but we can investigate it with the help of the cremation custom of the Yi people, who likewise worship tigers and have a common-origin relationship with the Tujia. Yi cremation is in fact a ritual of tiger totem worship. The Yi people of Ailao Mountain in Yunnan who call themselves "Luoluo" still practiced cremation as recently as five or six generations ago. "Collected Matters on Tigers," volume three, says: "Luoluo—the Man people of Yunnan call the tiger Luoluo, and when old they transform into tigers." Yi sorcerers of Ailao Mountain believe: "The Yi are transformed from tigers; if there is no cremation, the soul cannot return to being a tiger." This shows that the significance of Yi cremation lies in letting the souls of the ethnic group's dead return to the tiger totem. From this it can be seen that Tujia cremation should also be a ritual symbolically feeding people to tigers so that the dead may return their souls to the tiger. The symbolic tiger-feeding ritual also preserves the memory of the ancient Lin Jun transforming into a tiger.