Jerome Yuchien's Ph.D Thesis
Chapter Three: the Land God in Chinese Popular Religion (part III)
3, Symbol of Community:
One important function of the Land God in Taiwan is that he or his temple is a symbol of community. Only after a temple to him is installed is a sense of community established. The field reports written by many scholars appear to bear this out. Ahern (1973:27f), in her field site, was often told by a local leader that the Land God Temple of the settlement is "for everyone who lives here. We all live in the same place and worship at the same earth-god temple."(note.19) Harrell (1981:131) observes that all the villagers of a settlement, and no outsiders, participate in its yearly festival at a temple of the Land God. The organisation of religious rituals thus supports geography and formal administration in defining the settlement as a discrete community, separate from its neighbouring communities.
If a household moves to the territory, it then participates in the festival of the Land God in its new neighbourhood rather than that in its old one (Sangren 1987:93). The festival of the Mazu Goddess Temple of Songshan, the biggest festival of the area, each of the 13 administrative units which are territorially defined for the big festival is based on its own Land God temple. When an administrative unit is split up generally a new temple is built for the new unit (cf. Baity 1975:273).
From my field interview, I was told that originally the dwellers of Khe-te hamlet had to go to worship the Land God at another village where they are from. About 20 years ago, when the dwellers of the hamlet became numerous, they could not tolerate not having their own Land God temple to guard their own hamlet, so they worked to built the temple.(note.20) Similarly, Suenari (1985:37f) reports that a shrine of the Land God, one of the oldest in the area where he did research, had many worshippers from a newly established market street in spite of its location in the paddy field. But the number of worshippers decreased to a few after a new shrine of the Land God was built on the market street since the residents of the street came to worship their own new shrine on the street.
The field work of Wang Shih-ch'ing (1974:80-82) in the Shulin area of Taipei County can also indicate that Taiwanese regard the Land God temple as a symbol of a community. From the time of its earliest settlement, the history of the Shulin area has been one of amalgamation, of people of diverse origins uniting to create organisations that overcome their differences. The first example is the establishment of the Land God Temple in Tandi District. Tandi was a district of ethnic strife between residents with diverse origins. However, after many difficulties, the residents there started considering themselves a community and decided to establish a temple for the Land God in 1765. They contributed money to buy a piece of paddy land that was given over to the support of the temple and annual worship of the Land God to demonstrate that they were all members of a community.
A second example is the settlement of Lan lineage. Despite the fact that Lan lineage resided in Sanjiaopu District, they did not participate in the festival of the Land God there. Instead, because they considered themselves as an independent social unit from the District, they set up their own Land God Temple.
A third example about the establishment of the Land God Temple in Pengcuo District is noteworthy. Despite its early settlement and its importance as the site of a rent-collection station, Pengcuo was the last district to establish a Land God Temple among its surroundings. Of the eight districts into which the Shulin area was partitioned during the Qing Dynasty, Pengcuo District had the deepest ethnic divisions. Its settlers included Hakka people from Guangdong Province as well as Hollo people from both Zhangzhou Prefecture and Quanzhou Prefecture. Hollo people from Zhangzhou Prefecture and Quanzhou Prefecture of this district fought each other many times; having gained an advantage, they declared a truce in 1861, at which time they blamed their troubles on their Hakka neighbours and drove them out of the area. To affirm the truce, and perhaps also to celebrate their victory over the Hakka, they jointly built a temple of the Land God and purchased a piece of paddy land, donating its earnings to the temple as an endowment (Wang Shih- ch'ing 1974:81).
In fact, the worship of a common god can provide an unusual, if not unique, possibility for the residents to interact in occasions such as reciprocal exchanges of helping hands and gifts in rituals of life crisis, owning the common property and sharing the decision making process. It acts as a cohesive force to transcend the threat of the narrowly compartmentalised interests of the family as well as the clan, immigrant groups, or ethnic loyalties among the same community (cf. Ahern 1973:71; Wang Shih- ch'ing 1974:80-82; Baity 1975:238; Suenari 1985:29; Overmyer 1987:281) to the state of "following the custom of the neighbourhood".(note.21)
It is remarkable that since the Land God is not an ancestor who is always venerated by a family or a lineage, nor is he a particular god such as the Three Mountain Kings (Sam-san Kok-ong or Sanshan Guowang) who was usually worshipped by an ethnic people, through creating and maintaining of the temple of the Land God, all residents of the same settlement expect to cooperate.(note.22) This might be one of the reasons that Taiwanese people like to choose the Land God to be their community god. (note.23)
4, Patron Deity of Wealth:
In some areas of China, the Land God is worshipped with two figures. On the left hand side, there is the figure of a boy - called Tongnan (the Boy) or Jintong (the Golden Boy). On the right hand side, there is the figure of a girl - called Tongnyu (the Girl) or Yu'nyu (the Jade Girl). These two children are believed to be very auspicious in bringing wealth and precious gifts, especially fertility, to the village (Chamberlayne 1966:173). Sometimes, the wife of the Land God is also associated with a patron deity of wealth (Day 1974:65).
In Taiwan, the Land God is held to be a god of wealth. There is a widespread legend narrating that the God was originally a "Shoucainu", a "slave who zealously guarded the money of his wealthy master" (Schipper 1977:661). Another legend states that the name of the Land God was Tongxiao who lived on the earth one hundred years ago. During his mortal life, he gave his wealth to the poor and engaged in many charitable works, but his property never decreased. Therefore it was said that his possessions were bequeathed to him from the heavens, and were an inexhaustible supply (Wei & Coutanceau 1976:31f), as would be suitable for a god of wealth.
In fact, it is unlikely that a shop is without the statue of the deity. Many people told Schipper that "there would be nobody to guard the money," when he asked friends in Tainan why a street without the Land God might be subject to ridicule (1977:772).(note.24)
5, Recorder and Reporter:
The God is also believed to keep records of all that goes on of the locality and report the same regularly to the City God, his superior. While customs vary, usually the announcement of births and deaths and other important events in the village is made at the temple of the Land God (Hodous 1929:62). Wolf (1974:134) also notes that most people in the Sanxia area reported vital events to the God (Burkhardt 1958a:154f; 1958b:151; Maspero 1981:111).
V. Guardian of Community:
From the above descriptions, especially of the five major functions of the Land God, it is not surprising that Taiwanese regard him as the guardian of community. Actually, each community considered independent from others has its own altar of the Land God. Schipper (1977:770) notes that the Land God played an important role as the first cult established by new settlers' communities to protect them against demons and aborigines alike when the island was being colonised. There is a widespread legend that in ancient times a courageous county official drove out ghosts from one locality after another with such vigor that they dared not return, he was deified as the Land God (Schipper 1977:660f) to guard the community. A legend collected by Baity (1975:245) has a similar notion. It says that the head monk of Zhonghe Temple of Taipei was a venerable old man of 94 at the time that his study was undertaken. He had a wife a few years his junior, as well as a son. Some of his parishioners were heard to say that after he died, he might hopefully become the Land God of his parish, meaning that his spirit might guard the area from evil.
During my field work, I heard an interesting story. It is that about five years ago, a young man came from neighbouring county to the site of the stone Land God of San-tiau Hill (#S23) to build a sheet-metal shelter for the God. The act surprised the neighbours of the God. He explained that: "My father came to tell me in a dream that he was a good man when he lived in the world. When he died, he was deified and was appointed to become the Land God of this area to guard it". "But unfortunately," he continued: "he told me that because the temple has no big tree to shade, he was very hot here. Therefore he asked me to build the shelter here for shade (see figure 24)." (note.25)
In Xinzhu City, I found a deity statue of the Land God whose face looks different from Han Chinese people. I was told by a deity statue sculptor that it is "the aboriginal Land God" ("Huan-a Tho.-ti"). He told me that before the Chinese came, the area was inhabited by an aboriginal tribe. In memory of the aboriginal landowners of the area, Chinese worship them as the Land God of this area and hope that "the aboriginal Land God" will guard the community.
From the role that the Land God plays in the rite "Nocturnal Detecting" and the procession the goddess Mazu in a town we can also observe that the Land God is considered as the guardian of the community.
The rite "Nocturnal Detecting" ("Am-hong") is a religious procession for the purpose of expelling malign influences from an area. The most well-known of these rites is held in a historical town in central Taiwan. I summarise a rite described by DeGlopper (1974:47f) below:
After dark a procession of perhaps fifteen deities in sedan chairs passes along every street and alley in the town all night in near silence and near total darkness. Householders, usually in their night clothes, stand in their doorways with incense sticks and worship as the deities pass. The participants are mostly young men in their regular clothes and are not expected to go into trance.(note.26) There is an intense but somewhat hurried and furtive atmosphere about the whole event. The rite is rather spooky. There are no bands, no floats, no costumed troupes of performers one sees in processions in Taiwan. Most importantly, the rite is led by the Land God together with the City God.
On the day of a festival of the goddess Mazu of a town in north Taiwan where Sangren (1987:99) conducted his field research, the statues of the goddess accompanied by many gods, are carried in procession through the temple's domain. Before the procession, which begins about nine o'clock in the morning, many households not scheduled to sacrifice pigs bring less elaborate offerings to the tables in front of their homes. At the head of the procession is the Land God, followed by the god Kaizhang Shengwang (First Divine Patriarch of Zhangzhou Prefecture), and then the temple's own statue of the goddess, and finally, three visiting goddess statues.
Some scholars even observe that in traditional Chinese world, any offence against the moral law of a community is considered an offence against the Land God who guards it (Bredon & Mitrophanom 1927:455f; Burkhardt 1958a:154f).
