A Research On Zhuang’s Mojing Myth

In the process of the formation of Chinese culture, Zhuang nation provided their great contribution with their lives and heroes:Mrs. Washi led6000brave Zhuang soldiers marching all the way to Fujian to fight against Japanese invasion in Southeastern China400years ago, and in the Tai’erzhuang battle in the Anti-Japanese Invasion War, the troops from Guangxi again showed their surprising bravery and won the famous battle. Then, what’s the powerful, prosperous cultural gene in Zhuang people as the descendants of Baiyue nations or ancient nations in South China? The answer comes up as more and more collection and research of Zhuang myths are carried out.With the publication of A Translation and Explanation of Zhuang Mojing Buluotuo Photocopy (or Mojing, literally translated as Mo Scriptures), various and systematic Zhuang myths are demonstrated to readers. This book is collected and edited from29versions of Mojing scriptures found in Youjiang river drainage area, the middle and upper reaches of Hongshui river in Guangxi and Wenshan County Zhuang area in Yunnan province. These scriptures were truly recorded by Mogong, or priests in Zhuang religion, with Zhuang ancient writing characters. Like other religious scriptures such as Bible and Koran, Mojing also has reserved rich myths in its content. Mojing is not only a religious classic, but also an epic about the creation of the world like other ones among other nations in China such as Sigangli of Wa nation, Zhepama and Zhemima of A Chang nation and The Creation of Dulong nation. Mojing was published recently and not enough research is done. Therefore, a research on it from a mythological perspective has an evident significance to the understanding of Zhuang’s history and culture.By studying Mojing’s myths about Three World gods, cultural heroes, the world creation and fairy world, this dissertation explores and represents Mojing’s rich myth contents and its whole myth system.Mojing isn’t a literary work, but a religious scripture with a huge, complicated content and broad range. In it, as a whole belief background, myth is very important, but the narration of myth doesn’t have a clear line and looks like pearls scattered on a beach, which brings huge difficulties to the research. Taking this into account, the dissertation carefully and systematically explores and studies the myth motifs in Mojing by taking Folk Literature Motif Indexes (edited by Stith Thampson) as classification tool which is popular in international academic field; this is methodologically different from other researches in existence. With motif analysis, the myth elements in Mojing are pointed out and Zhuang myth system is restructured and these myths’kernel connotations are analyzed.Take Pangu myth for example. The contents in Folk Literature Motif Indexes that correspond with Pangu are:AO. Creator; A10. Nature of the creator; A1200. Creation of man; A500.Demigods and culture heroes;A530.Culture hero establishes law and order.; A545.Culture hero establishes customs.; A2685.1, grain’s origin; A100. Deity; A641, universe’s egg:Pangu created Yingyang, grain and Mo religious rituals and Pangupo (female) created Yuanjie which is also rituals in Mo religion. A20, demiurge’s origin; A21, demiurge coming from heaven; A510, cultural heroes’or semi-human gods’ origin:Pangu was born by Lightning King and fairy or sent to the human world from heaven, and so on. Based on the preceding motifs, I outline the Pangu myth in Mojing:Pangu is a creation God who was sent from heaven, took part in creating sky, earth, human beings and who is also a cultural hero who created rice, Ying, Yang, Mo religious rituals such as Yuanjie. Pangu sometimes appears as a male, and sometimes a female. Taking the preceding motifs as clues, I outline the main content of Pangu myth in Mojing; Pangu is a creation God who was sent from heaven, took part in creating sky, earth, human beings and who is also a cultural hero who created rice, Ying, Yang, Mo religious rituals such as Yuanjie. Pangu sometimes appears as a male, and sometimes a female. In the collection and restructuring of Pangun myth, motif plays a role both in distinguishing myth gene and restructuring myth contents.By using this method, the dissertation selects hundreds of motifs in Mojing, based on which, the dissertation systematically explores, collects and clearly represents the main contents of Zhuang myth system, such as Pangu myth, sun-worship myth, Buluotuo myth, Han King myth, creation myth, universal pattern and fairy world.Mojing has very rich contents related to myths, because of which, when different, specific problems are explained, I use relevant knowledge in mythology, ethnology and so on as well as motif analysis method.This dissertation has four chapters:Research on Gods in Mojing, Mojing’s Cultural Heroes, Mojing’s Creation Myth and Mojing’s Fairy World.In the chapter of "Research on Gods in Mojing", by using relevant motifs in Folk Literature Motif Indexes as clues, I clear up and analyze the contents related to creator and the Three Worlds. The dissertation takes Pangu and Sun God as important examples to analyze god characters in Mojing. Pangu in Mojing is featured both with Han myth in Weishu, or books explaining mysterious culture, and myth motif in Baiyue nations, therefore he (she) is a god or goddess that integrates Zhuang traditional culture with Han Pangu myth. Pangu in Mojing shows characters of many gods, that is, it has both Zhuang national character and other cultures’characters. The sun worship in Mojing reserves Zhuang’s ancient sun belief and in Mojing, sun god might be Fuxi. With the development of society, the power of sun god declines, but sun worship is handed down in another different way:copper drum god. The changes of sun god reflect the constant changes of gods’functions in Mojing.In the chapter of "Cultural Heroes in Mojing", through motif analysis, one can see that Zhuang cultural heroes can be divided into five main types:primogenitor-demiurge, semi-human god, god, binary star, tale figure and animal. The dissertation focuses on and analyzes two types of cultural heroes:primogenitor-demiurge and cultural heroes, taking Buluotuo and Han King and Zu King as main research objects. The myth motifs of Buluotuo and Han King and Zu King are systematically explored and cleared up, and then comprehensively turned into Buluotuo myth and Han King and Zu King myth respectively. Buluotuo is not only the tribe patriarch, human primogenitor and cultural hero but a war god with holy superpower featured with Zhuang profound war culture. There are many similarities between Buluotuo myth and Han’s Huangdi myth, which indicates the influence of Han culture. Han King myth also shows the influence of Shun myth. Besides, as binary star cultural heroes, Han King and Zu King reserve quite old, plain mythical character.In chapter "Creation Myth in Mojing", I believe that, different conceptions of universe’s origin have different influences on Mojing’s cultural origin. The original theories which believe that universe was created from stone or by animal or human can be summarized as non-god universal creation pattern. And the universal creation by demiurge or gods can be summarized as god-dominating universal creation pattern. The narration of non-god universal origin tends to be specific and universe was created in magic thinking with simulation and imagination. Mojing represents the universe as one with circular sky and square earth, based on which, soul space concepts, namely "blood pond" and "fairy world", which have strong Zhuang national character, are demonstrated. Besides, Mojing has its particular time value.In chapter "Mojing’s Fairy World", the dissertation points out that, based on the notion of immortality, Mojing creates rich soul cultures and ancestor gods. The fairy world in Mojing is vague, and there is little difference between spirits’ or gods’living places and mountains, rivers and fields where human beings live, and gods even show up in the places where human beings live. Mojing also develops water mansion (or "blood pond") as a ghostdom notion."Blood pond" is a ghostdom featured with the concepts of heaven and hell. In Mojing, there are various souls, and animals, plants and even minerals all have souls and human beings’souls are more colorful. The duality of human soul reflects people’s dualistic and opposite attitude towards it:soul shall be watched out for and meanwhile shall be protected. People have a complicated attitude towards an individual and certain soul, but when it comes to an abstract, collective soul, people tend to turn it into a god and thus they have ancestor god worship.In short, there are very rich myths in Mojing’s content, which have a complete system. This system has many similarities with other nations’ myths, which is a result of the long-term communication between nations’ cultures. But it does have its own special system and is spiritual wealth that is constantly created and handed down by Zhuang people in the long history and is undoubtedly an important part of the world’s myths.