Jerome Yuchien's Ph.D Thesis
Chapter Four: Festival Dates of the Three Deities (part I)
I. Introduction:
There is, in Chinese popular religion, no organisation of theologians to debate the details of religious questions, nor is there any apologetics to defend its dogma (Jordan 1985: 63; Cohen 1987: 290). Elaborate codification of beliefs is not of great importance for the common believers. Therefore, even though there are many inconsistencies in religious belief, in practice they are of little consequence. What is vital is that rites are carried out sincerely, at the proper time and in the proper manner.
The proper time to hold a ceremony to worship deities can be distinguished according to two types of rites; one is occasional rites and another type regular rites. On occasional rites, the local deities are invoked with offerings in difficult cases of childbirth, in times of pestilence, drought and other calamities; or at the time of graduation, promotion or making big money etc..
Regular rites can be subdivided into life-cycle rites and calendrical rites. The former are associated with life-cycle events such as the ceremonies held at a birth, on a girl or boy's sixteenth birthday, upon marriage, and at death. Special rites are held in the local temple and/or household altar for these occasions. The latter are based upon the Chinese lunar calendar for the rituals of formal religious festivals: the Lunar New Year festival, the Grave Sweeping day (on this day, ancestors are remembered by visits to their graves), Dragon Festival, Ghost Month, the annual birthday festivals of deities, the Moon Festival etc. (cf. Wu Lien-chin 1987:115). The dates of these calendrical rites are clearly recorded in the Almanac circulated in Chinese societies.
Actually, the annual birthday festival (shengri jidian) is a suitable time to approach a deity (cf. Wang Mingming 1995:56). It is the time to clean the environment of the temple thoroughly, to decorate inside and outside, to refurbish the altar elaborately, and to give the deity's statue new clothes or a new headdress (cf. Yang 1961:98; Cohen 1987:292f). The deity's images in the offspring temples are carried back to the parent temple during the festival and temporarily installed on the altar to join the festival. It is also a good occasion for community celebration and feasting. The inhabitants of the temple neighbourhood, through the solicitation of local leaders, are urged to sponsor operatic performances and the birthday parade of the deity. Families invite guests (e.g. friends and relatives from other areas) to attend operatic performances and the deity parade, and most importantly, a banquet feast. Through the festival the community maintained among themselves a sense of belonging (Granet 1975:50).
I have checked many different editions of the Almanac, the dates of annual birthday festivals for the Stone and Tree Gods were not ever written in them. Under such circumstances, how do the believers of these deities identify the date to hold the birthday festival? It is the main purpose of this chapter to study how the deities are identified with the dates of birthday festivals and why some of them do not have any birthdays attached. Then, I argue that under the pressure of anthropomorphism, people make every effort to anthropomorphise these deities in order to stress that they were originally deified human beings. Finally, I assert that since the Land God has long been standardised, those natural objects which are identified with the Land God have similar legends and unified dates for birthday festival. Because the other stones and trees are not standardised, their legends, the dates of birthday and the form of images vary.
II. How Their Birthdays Are Identified:
First of all, let us fathom how the dates of birthday festivals of these natural objects are identified. I delineate seven methods by which people identify the dates.
1, they identify the dates with those of the Land God:
In Taiwan, people may worship the Land God on their family altar everyday. Nevertheless, most Taiwanese, especially Hollo people, believe that both the second day of the second lunar month and the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month are the birthdays of the Land God (Tho-ti-kong Sen) and hold a festival on both days for him (Sangren 1987:62; Feuchtwang 1992:92). Thus, the sites of most stones and trees representing the Land God hold birthday festivals on the second day of the second lunar month and/or on the fifteenth or sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month. (note.1)
There are some exceptions. Both the birthday festivals of the tree Land God of In-suan Street (#T11; see figure 76) and the tree Land God of the East Gate of Bi-liong Town (#T12; see figure 77), a Hakka-speaking village, are held on the second day of the second month and the second day of the eighth month. It is slightly unusual to hold festivals on these days in Hollo communities. However, according to certain field reports from China, those of Hubei (Chamberlayne 1966:179) and Jiangxi Province are on the same day as those of Hakka in Taiwan (Hsiao Kung-chuan 1960:38).(note.2)
2, the dates are decided in the course of negotiations with deities themselves through the mediation of religious specialists:
The main festival of the Literate and Militant Emperor of Po.-ho Village (#S38; see figure 40) is celebrated on the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month. At first I guessed that the reason for the date of the annual festival might be a result of the generally scheduled date near the 15th of the eighth month, one of the important dates for the birthday of both the Stone/Tree God and the Land God. However, I was wrong. This stone god was first found by the villagers about 60 years ago, but regarded as an evil spirit and kept at a distance. In 1984, the villagers started to venerate it at the command of a shaman (jitong). Moreover, in trance, the shaman also told villagers that the birthday of this god is on the sixteenth day of the eighth month. From then on, people hold festivals on that date.
The case of the main festival of the Emperor of Six Areas of Tan-suan Rural-town (#S10) is similar. Even though this cult was initiated around the 1870s, the date of the birthday was not fixed until as late as the 1900s when the current temple was inaugurated. When the building was completed, the god made an announcement through a shaman that his official title was "the Emperor of Six Areas" ("Liok-kah Then-te") and his birthday was on the ninth day of the sixth lunar month.
The main festival of the Tree God of Lam-huin Ward (#T37) is held on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month. I was told that about 100 years ago a tiny shrine was built under the tree for the worship of the Land God. But when it collapsed about 20 years ago, the local inhabitants built a new temple for the Land God on a spacious place nearby and left the tree alone. About five years ago, a religious specialist (xiansheng) told the villagers that the tree had been possessed by an immortal; therefore they started to worship it as the Tree God.
Moreover, because the local inhabitants celebrate a five- day-long birthday festival for a god named Huat-chu Kong enshrined in a hall in front of the Tree from the twenty-third day to twenty-seventh of the seventh lunar month, after the recognition of the Tree God, they decided to celebrate his festival with an opera show on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh lunar month.
The birthday festival of the Tree God of Cheng-bik Ward (#T32; see figure 98) was also decided by the Tree God itself through a religious specialist. About fifteen years ago, a respected vegetarian advised the local inhabitants of the Ward that the tree had become godly and should be worshipped. Gradually, the local inhabitants found the tree was really divine, because he blessed the village very much. However, since the religious specialist did not tell them what god the tree was, people sometimes regarded it as the Tree God and sometimes as the Land God of this area. Therefore, they hold two birthday celebrations for the tree, one on the second day of the second month for the Land God and one the tenth day of the ninth lunar month for the Tree God. I asked them why the Tree God's festival was on the ninth month? They answered that: "Nobody knows the birthday of the Tree God, we just use the memorial date of the temple inauguration for the birthday festival of the Tree God and the temple inauguration day was decided by the God."
3, they identify the dates with the same birthdays of some goddesses who are also guardians of children:
According to my field work, some festivals of the Stone and Tree God are celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, on the fifteenth day of eighth lunar month, or at the end of each year.(note.3) Of course, there are many other religious dimensions to each of these dates. However, these specific dates are coincident with the festival dates of some Chinese goddesses who are also the guardians of children.
The fifteenth day of the first month was called Sion-goan or Goan-siao and is known in the English world as "the Lantern Festival". This day is also called "the Small New Year" (Xiao Guonian). For several days beforehand, lanterns are sold everywhere on the streets; then on the fourteenth day, lantern booths are set up in the temples, colourful lanterns are hung up and narcissus flowers arrayed for public viewing. On the night of the Lantern Festival, the streets are always crowded with people carrying lanterns while dragon and lion dances are performed, and musical troupes go from place to place adding to the extraordinary activity of the evening (see also, Wei & Coutanceau 1976:10).(note.4)
The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is also the birthday of the Bed Goddess (Chhng-bo Sen). At dusk, every family prepares sacrifices and worships gods, especially the Bed Goddess - a goddess who is said to watch over children - by giving offerings of glutinous rice mixed with hemp oil, wine and chicken; then paper money (on which there is a woodblock cut of clothes) is burned in order to give thanks to the Bed Goddess for protecting children (cf. Wei & Coutanceau 1976:68).
Also, in some places in China, the bed is believed to be protected by a pair of divinities, the Lord of the Bed, Chuangkong, and the Lady of the Bed, Chuangmu, to whom offerings are presented on the day of the Lantern Festival or on the last day of the year (Maspero 1981:118). Nonetheless, in some areas of Taiwan, the birthday of the Bed Goddess is also celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
Moreover, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month is also considered the birthday of the Near Water Goddess (Lim-sui Hu- jin). The cult is one of the three biggest cults in Fujian Province. She is one of the water deities that predate Han Chinese settlement of the southern China (Watson 1985:298f), and the cult of the Near Water Goddess has fascinated people in the Prefecture of Fuzhou since the fourteenth century. The cult goes back to the Tang Dynasty. The base temple was constructed in 792 CE. in Gutian, at a place called "Linshui" (i.e. "Near Water"). According to certain sources, the Lady was born in 766 CE., which corresponds to the dates of the temple.(note.5) The story has been re-told in the numerous accounts between then and the twentieth century. Throughout the various accounts, the Near Water Goddess is referred to by many different names and official titles. Although the legend changes, there are certain constant features. For example, she always keeps the surname "Chen", but her personal name changes; later records tend to identify her as Jinggu (the pacifying maiden) or variations of this form. Other common details are the Song Dynasty bestowal of the title of Linshui Furen (literally, the Near Water Lady) and Shunyi (literally, in accord with virtue) and the location of her base temple in the vicinity of the town of Gutian.
The cult spread in the 18th century throughout southern China and Taiwan and is still very active. Many legends in these areas say that the Near Water Goddess once fought against a white serpent and tamed the demon. However, she died after having aborted her pregnancy when she performed a ritual for the rain to come and save the people from drought. Probably because of her tragic and heroic death, she has been revered as a divine protectress of women and children since.(note.6)
