Tujia Folk Beliefs and Culture — Cave Worship (Part 1)
Chapter 2: Cave Worship. Caves were dwellings of early humans and bear a certain resemblance to the mother's womb, so primitive people regarded them as the birthplace of humanity. Early people believed the earliest ancestors were born in caves, and caves thus became objects of worship. Cave worship actually belongs to mother's-womb fertility worship. The Tujia, who live in the mountainous region of many streams and caves, also have a long history of...
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Chapter Two: Cave Worship
Caves were the dwellings of early humans and bear a certain similarity to the mother's womb, so they were regarded by primitive peoples as the birthplace of humankind. Early peoples believed that the earliest ancestors were born in caves, and thus caves became objects of worship. Cave worship actually belongs to the worship of the reproductive power of the mother's womb. The Tujia people, who live in the mountainous region of Duoxi Cave, also have a long history of cave-womb reproductive worship; they believe that their ancient ancestors were born in the red cave and the black cave of Wuluo Zhongli Mountain.
I. The Emergence of the Concept of Humans Born from Caves
Many mountain-dwelling ethnic groups in our country have had cave worship, and these peoples have regarded certain magical caves as the birthplaces of their ethnic ancestors. The emergence of the concept of humans born from caves is closely related to the cave-dwelling life of early humans and womb worship. It can be said that the concept of humans born from caves is the product of the combination of early humans' memory of cave-dwelling life and womb reproductive worship.
That caves were the dwellings of early humans has been proven by a large amount of archaeological data. Cave sites inhabited by Stone Age peoples in our country are found throughout the nation. For example, in the Longgu Mountain cave at Zhoukoudian, Beijing, fossils of more than forty "Peking Man" individuals of different ages and sexes were discovered; in the Shizi Mountain cave of Makan Township, Qujiang County, Guangdong, a human skullcap was excavated that, though broken, could be restored; in the cave of Dazhongjia Village southwest of Changyang County town, Hubei, a human left upper jawbone with two teeth and one premolar was excavated; in the Tongtian Rock cave of Liujiang, Guangxi, a complete skull and thoracic vertebrae, hip, femur, and other bones were unearthed, belonging to a middle-aged male; in the Upper Cave at the top of Longgu Mountain at Zhoukoudian, Beijing, three complete skulls as well as mandibles, vertebrae, shoulder blades, kneecaps, limb bones, teeth, and other fossil materials were excavated, belonging respectively to 8 to 10 different individuals, and so on. These materials all indicate that early humans indeed used caves as dwellings. Until recent times, there were still individual families in remote areas of our country who used caves as dwellings. With the development of human civilization, humans gradually left the caves, but cave life was passed down as a memory. The epics, ancient songs, root ancient songs, and ancient documents of many ethnic groups all recount scenes of their ancient ancestors' cave life. For example, the Yi document "Southwest Yi Records" says: "Famous mountain ranges, nine thousand seven hundred and two; famous caves, four hundred and sixty-seven; famous rivers and lakes, three thousand six hundred and nine." The Yi ancient song "Lizhi and Suobu" says: "I am the son of the forest, I am the master of the rock cave."
Of course, the memory of cave life alone could not form the concept of humans born from caves. Only when this memory of cave life was linked with womb worship could the concept of humans born from caves possibly emerge.
The mother's womb is the place where infants are born, and therefore became an object of worship for primitive peoples praying for continuous offspring. Womb worship probably emerged during the matrilineal clan society period. Both China and foreign countries have had womb worship, and its powerful evidence is the excavated statues of women from primitive society that prominently feature the womb. These female statues often have round bellies, high breasts, and full hips, highlighting the female features related to reproduction. These female statues are often called mother goddesses. Here are a few examples:
The Venus of Willendorf, Austria, discovered near Krems, is a statue from the Paleolithic period. The material of the statue is limestone.
The Venus of Menton, France, is a Paleolithic statue made of soapstone.
The Venus of Lespugue, France, is a Paleolithic statue made of ivory.
The Venus of Laussel, France, is a Paleolithic relief made of limestone.
Erich Neumann of Germany, in "The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype," evaluated the above goddess figurines, saying:
"These several great mother goddess figurines are all typical of the basic female characteristics. ... In these figurines, one can already see the pre-human and super-human manifestation of female fertility. The head has no sight and leans forward toward the middle of the body; the arms are merely suggested, with excessive emphasis on the middle of the body. The abnormally large thighs and waist gradually contract and become thin lower legs; the feet have already been broken off, but they were undoubtedly not sturdy. It is absolutely impossible to conceive of them as supports for this huge body—the vessel."
"These formless great mother goddess figurines are the shape of the nurturing goddess. Throughout the world, she is regarded as the goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, and as an object of worship not only for women but also for men. She is also seen as the archetypal symbol of fertility and the archetypal symbol of the basic characteristics of sheltering, protecting, and nourishing."
Womb worship, in addition to being expressed through statues that highlight the female belly, hips, and breasts, is also expressed through other things that have some connection and similarity to the womb, and caves are one of them. The memory of early humans living and reproducing in caves led early peoples to mention caves and wombs in the same breath, believing that caves, like wombs, were the source of life's birth. Thus, the concept of humans born from caves emerged. It can be seen from this that the concept of humans born from caves is actually a variation of the concept of humans born from the womb, and cave worship is a transformed form of womb worship.
The concept of humans born from caves is manifested both in origin myths related to caves and in child-begging customs related to caves.
The Wa people of Ximeng, Yunnan, have a stone cave called "Sigangli," which the Wa regard as the birthplace of their ancestors, and people hold sacrifices here every year. "Sigangli" is in the Wa language, and one of its meanings is that humans came out of the stone cave. The Wa creation myth says that the god Liji and the god Lu'an created heaven, earth, sun, moon, animals, plants, and humans, and placed humans in a stone cave. Later, the god Muyiji ordered the small rice bird to peck open the stone cave, and humans walked out from the stone cave, and thus there were human beings in the world. The Mongolian, Kazakh, Zhuang, Bai, and other ethnic groups all have this kind of myth and legend of humans born from caves.
Based on the concept of humans born from caves, the custom of begging for children from caves emerged, and such customs were still inherited and developed until recent times.
In Baila Huaruo Township, Dafang County, Guizhou, there is a mountain with a cave on it, about 30 centimeters in diameter, which the local Yi people call "Aruomi," meaning "child-hitting cave." There is also a similar cave in Huangni Village, Bijie Farm, which is also regarded as an object for begging for children.
The Maonan ethnic group in Huanjiang, Guangxi, has the custom of worshipping the Holy Mother Stone to pray for children. The Holy Mother Stone lies among the Ma Mountain peaks at Xianan Xu. It is over a zhang tall and looks like a woman carrying a child on her back, and is regarded by the Maonan people as the incarnation of the Holy Mother. In the middle of the Holy Mother Stone there is a cave, and inside the cave grows a peach tree, called the Immortal Peach Tree. In summer, when the peaches ripen, Maonan women seeking children bring red eggs, zongzi, and other offerings to worship at the foot of the Holy Mother Stone, and pick immortal peaches to eat, believing in the custom that this can make them conceive and bear children. Clearly, this treats the stone cave as the mother's womb for conception and childbirth.
In Yanyuan County, Sichuan, there is a cliff with a cave on it. The local Naxi people regard it as the abdominal cavity or uterus of the goddess Balalamu. Those seeking children throw stones into the cave; if the stone goes in, it means they will get a child. The cave is called "Da'er Wo" (Strike-a-Child Hollow).
On Guanyin Rock in Xide County, Liangshan, Sichuan, there is a "Mo'er Dong" (Touch-a-Child Cave). Those seeking children enter the cave and touch stones to pray for a child. According to custom, if one touches a stone, one will surely get a boy; if one touches sand, one will surely get a girl.
In Inner Mongolia, there is a custom of women passing through a cave to pray for children.
At the northeast corner of the platform foundation stone of the Xianren Hall at the Renzu Mausoleum in Huaiyang, Henan, there is a round hole known as "Zisun Yao" (Descendants Kiln). When infertile women worship at the Renzu Temple, they must reach their hand into the "Zisun Yao," believing in the custom that this can make them conceive and bear children.
From the above facts, it can be seen that linking caves—the dwellings of early humans—with the mother's womb gave rise to the concept of caves giving birth to people. The various customs of praying to caves for children described above all indicate that in people's minds, caves are symbols of the mother's womb and possess reproductive power. This cave worship characterized by the symbolism of the mother's womb has a prominent expression in the culture of the Tujia people and their ancestors, the Ba people.
II. Unraveling the Myth of the Ba People Born from the Red Cave and Black Cave
The account that the Ba people, ancestors of the Tujia, were born from the Red Cave and Black Cave first appears in the Shiben, and is widely recorded in many texts after the Shiben. Here we quote the record from Fan Ye's History of the Later Han Dynasty: Biographies of the Southern Man and Southwestern Yi of the Liu Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties: "The Man of Ba Commandery and Nan Commandery originally had five clans: the Ba, Fan, Shen, Xiang, and Zheng, all of whom came from Wuluo Zhongli Mountain. On the mountain there are two caves, red and black. The son of the Ba clan was born
in the Red Cave, and the sons of the other four clans were all born in the Black Cave. They had no ruler or chief, and all served the spirits and gods. So they together threw swords into a stone cave, agreeing that the one who could hit it would be honored as their ruler. The Ba clansman Wuxiang alone hit it, and everyone marveled. They also ordered each to ride a clay boat, agreeing that the one whose boat could float would be made ruler. The other clansmen all sank, and only Wuxiang floated. Therefore they jointly established him, and he was Lin Jun."
Scholars who study the history and culture of the Tujia often take such records as reliable history, believing that the Ba clan and the other four clans respectively lived in the Red Cave and the Black Cave. They do not realize that these records are not reliable history but actually myths, and the mythological character of the narrated events is obvious. For example, that the one who threw a sword and hit the stone cave became leader, and that the one whose clay boat could float became ruler, belongs to the mythological pattern of contests to decide superiority, and is far removed from the historical facts of bloody annexation among ancient clans. Here, the statement that the Ba clan was born in the Red Cave and the four clans were born in the Black Cave should be understood as a mythological expression, and cannot simply be interpreted as the Ba clan living in the Red Cave and the four clans living in the Black Cave. The so-called "birth" unquestionably should be understood as "being born" or "coming into being." Taken together with the whole sentence, it should mean: the Ba clan was born from the Red Cave, and the four clans were all born from the Black Cave. The Red Cave and Black Cave are of the same nature as the Wa people's "Sigangli" (Cave of Emerging People), and are deeply stamped with the mark of mother's-womb reproductive worship. From this it can be seen that the theory of the Red Cave and Black Cave is in fact a clan-origin myth permeated with the Ba people's cave reproductive worldview. Precisely because it is myth, it spread with variations as the Ba people migrated. The Tongzhi edition of the Shinan Prefecture Gazetteer says that Lin Jun's Red Cave is eighty li east of Enshi city, and the Black Cave is two hundred li south of Enshi city. Volume 5 of the Tongzhi edition of the Laifeng County Gazetteer says that southwest of Laifeng city there is a place called "Heidong," and Heidong should be the Black Cave. Xianfeng also has a place called Heidong. According to records in the History of the Later Han Dynasty and other historical texts, the Red Cave and Black Cave should originally have been at Wuluo Zhongli Mountain in Changyang. How could they also appear in Enshi, Laifeng, Xianfeng, and other places? This shows that wherever the Ba people migrated, they would name new Red Caves and Black Caves on the spot. The Red Cave and Black Cave no longer referred to a specific place name or cave, but were merely synonyms for the Ba people's reproductive worship.
Other records concerning the Red Cave and Black Cave also indirectly reflect the reproductive worship concept contained in the theory of the two caves, red and black. Several materials are recorded below:
The Jingzhou Tu [Fu] says: "In Yidu (Commandery) there is a cave. In the cave are two large stones, one zhang apart. Custom says one is the Yang Stone and one is the Yin Stone. When there is disaster from flood or drought, whipping the Yang Stone brings rain, and whipping the Yin Stone brings clear weather. They are Lin Jun's stones."
The same book also records that in Fuyi County (the Yulan has Yiling County), "west of the county there is a lone mountain. There is a stone cave, and in the cave stand two large stones side by side, about one zhang apart. Custom names them the Yin and Yang Stones. The Yin Stone is always wet, and the Yang Stone is always dry."
The Commentary on the Water Classic: Commentary on the Yi River says: The Yi River "flows east past Nanliu City. The city is the mountain itself, standing alone and precipitously steep. On the west face, more than a li up, one finds a stone cave. Walking by torchlight about a hundred paces, one finds two large stone masses standing side by side in the cave, one zhang apart. Custom names them the Yin and Yang Stones. The Yin Stone is always wet, and the Yang Stone is always dry."
The stone caves recorded in the materials quoted above are all the Red Cave where Lin Jun was born. The two stones in the cave are respectively called the Yin Stone and Yang Stone, which should be related to reproductive worship. We know that worshipping the female genitalia and male phallus to pray for reproductive power was once a primitive cultural phenomenon spread throughout the world. Hegel once pointed out: "Views on the universal reproductive power of nature are expressed and worshipped through the shapes of male and female genitalia." Using stones shaped like female genitalia and male phalluses to symbolize the female genitalia or male phallus and to worship them is commonplace in Chinese folk culture. Therefore, the Yin Stone in Lin Jun's cave should be a symbol of the female genitalia, and the Yang Stone a symbol of the male phallus. The characteristics and functions of the two stones recorded in the materials can also prove this. The characteristics of the two stones are respectively that the Yin Stone is always wet and the Yang Stone is always dry, exactly matching the characteristics of male and female reproductive organs. The functions of the two stones are respectively to govern rain and clear weather. So-called whipping the Yin Stone will stop rain and clear the sky, and whipping the Yang Stone will stop clear weather and bring rain. Why are the Yin and Yang Stones linked with rain and clear weather? This must be discussed starting from the application of reproductive worship in agricultural production. Originally, primitive people regarded human reproduction and crop reproduction as the same kind of thing. In the primitive conception, since the two kinds of reproduction belonged to the same category, they could produce a sympathetic effect on each other: human reproductive power could act on agricultural production and promote crop growth; the growth power of crops could also act on human fertility and promote human reproduction and offspring. The examples that once existed worldwide of using sexual intercourse between the sexes to stimulate crop harvests are clear evidence of applying human reproductive power to agricultural production. The famous British anthropologist Frazer listed examples of this in The Golden Bough: "Among the Papal people of Central America, four days before sowing seeds in the field, husbands all separated from their wives, in order to ensure that on the eve of sowing they could fully indulge their passions. Some were even appointed to perform sexual intercourse at the moment the first seeds were put into the soil. The priests ordered people to have sexual relations with their wives at such times, actually completing it as a religious duty. If this was not done, the sowing was illegal. The only possible explanation for this custom seems to be that the Indians confused the process of human reproduction and childbearing with plants having to perform the same function, and therefore thought that by invoking the former they would also promote the latter."
"In some places in Java, during the season when rice seedlings are forming ears, flowering, and bearing grain, farmers always take their wives to the fields to look at them, and have sexual intercourse right at the edge of the field. The purpose of doing this is to promote crop growth."
"The Baganda of Central Africa strongly believe that there is a close connection between sexual intercourse and the fertility of the earth. If their wives cannot become pregnant, they generally divorce them, believing that they hinder the fertility of the fruit trees in the husband's garden. Conversely, if a couple gives birth to twins, this shows that their reproductive power is extraordinary, and the Baganda believe that this couple also has a corresponding ability to make the fruit trees in the plantation fertile, so they supply them with their daily staple food. Shortly after the birth of the twin infants, a ceremony is held in which the mother lies on her back on the dense grass near the house, and a large banana flower from the garden is picked and placed between her legs. Then her husband is asked to come and use his genitalia to lift the flower out. The purpose of this ceremony is very clear: to transmit the reproductive capacity of this couple to the fruit trees in the garden. In addition, this couple must also travel throughout the local area, dancing in the plantations of all their close friends, and the purpose is obviously also to make the fruit trees bear more fruit." ② In agricultural production, the greatest threat comes from floods and droughts. Therefore, the means of using male and female reproductive power to stimulate crop growth and harvest was also borrowed to pray for rain and stop rain, in order to ensure the smooth growth of crops. Its meaning also lies in this: people believed that rainwater was the product of intercourse between deities (mostly heaven and earth deities). To make rain was to promote intercourse between deities; to stop rain was to prevent deities from having intercourse. And sexual intercourse between men and women was precisely the magic to induce divine intercourse and bring rain. In magic, the ritual of sexual intercourse between men and women is often symbolic, such as a naked woman pulling a plow and harrow, which uses the plow and harrow plowing the earth to symbolize the act of copulation. A naked woman exposing her sexual organs is also a kind of sexual stimulation. Frazer's The Golden Bough says:
"In a region of Transylvania, when the fields have become so dry that they are cracked, the girls strip off all their clothes and, led by an older woman who is also naked, steal a wooden harrow used for preparing the land and carry it across the fields to a stream
side, where they put the harrow in the water to float. Then they sit on the harrow and light a small fire at each of its corners, which burns for an hour. Then they leave the harrow in the water and walk home themselves."
"In some places in India, there is a similar rain-making magic: naked women drag a plow across a field at night, while men carefully avoid this path, because their appearance would break the spell." Burne's Handbook of Folklore also has a similar record: "...the prominent role played by women in rain-praying ceremonies attracts attention. Even in India this is so, where women normally never plow the fields. In the dry season, women take off their clothes and drag plows in the fields at night. Even upper-class Brahmin women disregard their status to participate in this ceremony."
In China, early sexual magic rituals often appeared as wild unions between men and women, especially in spring when rain was urgently needed, and later appeared as intercourse between husband and wife. For example, the Lu Shi: Yu Lun quotes Dong Zhongshu's Method of Praying for Rain: "Order the wives of officials each to go look at their husbands, and stop when rain begins." This is a magical act of praying for rain through reproductive power. The magical act of praying for rain and stopping rain through reproductive power gradually formed in people's minds the idea that male and female reproductive organs had a corresponding relationship with clear weather and rain. Yin governs rain, so the female genitalia were linked with rainwater; Yang governs clear weather, so the male genitalia were forcibly tied to clear skies. This is the secret of whipping the Yin Stone to stop rain and whipping the Yang Stone to bring rain. Whipping the Yin Stone, the Yin Stone dares not bring rain again, and without rain it clears; whipping the Yang Stone, the Yang Stone dares not clear again, and without clearing it rains. Based on this, it can be inferred with certainty that the Yin Stone in Lin Jun's cave should be a symbol of the female genitalia, and the Yang Stone a symbol of the male phallus.