China’s Creation and Origin Myths Religion in Chinese Societies Edited by Kenneth Dean, McGill University Richard Madsen, University of California, San Diego David Palmer, University of Hong Kong VOLUME 2 China’s Creation and Origin Myths Cross-cultural Explorations in Oral and Written Traditions Edited by Mineke Schipper, Ye Shuxian and Yin Hubin LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data China’s creation and origin myths : cross-cultural explorations in oral and written traditions / edited by Mineke Schipper, Ye Shuxian, and Yin Hubin. p. cm. — (Religion in Chinese societies ; v. 2) Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 978-90-04-19485-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Creation—Mythology— China. 2. Mythology, Chinese. I. Schipper, Mineke. II. Ye, Shuxian, 1954– III. Yin, Hubin. IV. Title. V. Series. BL1812.C74C55 2011 202’.40951—dc22 2011005125 ISSN 1877-6264 ISBN 978 90 04 19485 4 © Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................ ix List of Figures and Tables ......................................................... xvii List of Color Plates .................................................................... xxi List of Contributors ................................................................... xxiii Ethnolinguistic Map of China ................................................... xxvii Dynasties and Periods of China ................................................ xxix PART I COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Humanity’s Beginnings in Creation and Origin Myths from Around the World ........................................................ 3 Mineke Schipper The World of Chinese Mythology: An Introduction ............... 25 Yang Lihui and An Deming From Frog to Nüwa and Back Again: The Religious Roots of Creation Myths ................................................................. 55 Ye Shuxian Water-of-Immortality Myths in Altaic and Japanese Cultures .................................................................................. 79 G. Namjila Myths of Giant Corpse Transformation ................................... 99 Jung Jaeseo vi contents PART II REDISCOVERING THE BEGINNING IN TEXTS Sacred Order: Cosmogonic Myth in the Chu Silk Manuscript ............................................................................. 117 Kao Lifeng The Wholeness of Chaos: Laozi on the Beginning .................. 135 Kristofer Schipper Gun and Yu: Revisiting the Chinese “Earth-Diver” Hypothesis .............................................................................. 153 Chen Lianshan Pangu and the Origin of the Universe ..................................... 163 Wu Xiaodong PART III ORAL TRADITION AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY Chinese Creation Myths: A Great Discovery ........................... 179 Wu Bing’an Minority Creation Myths: An Approach to Classification ....... 197 Wang Xianzhao Humanism as a Paradigm for Creation Myths ........................ 219 Liu Yahu Performing Myths Today: A Field Study of the Renzu Temple Festival ...................................................................... 239 Yang Lihui Perspectives on the Environment in Miao and Yi Creation Narratives ............................................................................... 261 Mark Bender contents vii PART IV ANTHOLOGY OF CREATION AND ORIGIN MYTHS Creation Myths in Chinese Minority Cultures ......................... 279 Oroqen Origin ........................................................................... 281 Oroqen Dangun ...................................................................................... 283 Korean All Creatures Made out of Clay ............................................... 285 Ewenki Bear Origin ................................................................................ 287 Ewenki God’s Creation of the World .................................................... 289 Manchu The First Man: Son of Celestial Maiden Fukulun ................... 291 Manchu Creation of the World by Goddess Mai Deer .......................... 293 Mongolian Khudai Blows to Create the Heaven and the Earth ................ 295 Salar Creation of the Mortal World ................................................... 297 Tu Beauty Ai Sema ......................................................................... 299 Uyghur Zhe Pama and Zhe Mima ........................................................ 301 Achang Origin of all Living Creatures ................................................... 305 Bai viii contents Bu Sanggai and Ya Sanggai ...................................................... 307 Dai How Heaven Came to Be Separated from Earth .................... 309 Derung Muq pung gyeu ......................................................................... 311 Derung Four Generations of Man ......................................................... 313 Gelao Creation of Man, Heaven and Earth ....................................... 315 Hani Heaven and Earth Created by Frog .......................................... 319 Hani Heaven and Earth Created by E Ya and Sha Ya .................... 323 Lahu Bibliography ............................................................................... 325 Index .......................................................................................... 335 Color Plates ................................................................................ 347 PREFACE In China academic interest in mythology emerged at the beginning of the 20th century after the concept of myth and the subject of mythol- ogy had been introduced into China through Japan. Over the past hundred years researchers in this field were individual scholars with rather personal motivations, who mainly worked on their own, in dif- ferent parts of the country. In the relatively brief history of Chinese myth research, scholars first wondered whether Chinese creation and origin myths existed at all, and if so, how to define and classify them. Chinese scholars concentrated on ancient Chinese written texts and on three major themes: Chaos (Hun Dun Jun in Zhuangzi), Pangu and Nüwa, since Huang Shi (1927:13–23) first interpreted the fixed stanza hundun chukai, qiankun shi dian (“the chaos clears, and heaven and earth separate”) as a world creation myth. Yuan Ke’s influential monograph Zhongguo Gudai Shenhua (Ancient Chinese Myths), published in 1960, gave prominence to the diversity and complexity of Han people’s view on the world’s creation. Later folklorists, such as Tao Yang and Zhong Xiu (1989) and Ye Shuxian (1992) extended Yuan Ke’s classifications to the myths of other Chinese ethnicities. The idea that China had no creation myths has been widespread among Western sinologists, an idea pushed to the extreme by the American scholar Derk Bodde: “What draws people’s attention is that except for this single myth [i.e. the Pangu myth] China is pos- sibly the only one nation without creation myths among the world’s ancient civilizations. This is also the case in Chinese philosophy, which tried from the first hand to inquire the interpersonal relationship and human being’s adaptation to a material world, rather than the origin of the universe.” (Bodde 1981:81) The prevailing and misleading idea among scholars home and abroad that there is no creation myth in ancient China has had such an impact that, in spite of their huge efforts to correct it, scholars both in China and abroad seem to have swallowed it. In his Zhongguo Shenhua Yanjiu ABC (The ABC of the Studies of Chinese Myths) which dates back to the 1920s, Mao Dun (reprinted 1981:137–9) pointed out that no traces of creation myths could be found in ancient literatures earlier than the Han dynasty. x preface Nonetheless, those who look for various types of world creation myths, will find them in ancient Chinese traditions, including the crea- tion idea of Dao. The myth of Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor)’s crea- tion of the universe, if not preserved in its original story form, existed in philosophical and historical variations that became the starting- point for an ancient Chinese ideology, from which the belief in the unique pedigree of Chinese emperors and the concept of the crea- tion of the universe in the I Ching (The Book of Changes) originated. Chinese ancient myths can even be dated back prior to the Zhou dynasty. From the central plains of northern China colorful creation myths were handed down and, around the Western Zhou dynasty, these myths were transformed into a pedigree of emperors. In another well-known myth it is Pangu who cracks open the egg and thus creates the universe. There is no evidence of the cosmic-egg Pangu myth in Chinese classics, and the dead-body Pangu myth did not show up in written documents until Records of Three Kingdoms, but the