Mountain gods
In the upper-Min River area, mountain-god Template:Wiki is the most common form of religion. Generally Template:Wiki, every zhaizi has its own mountain god, and at the same time shares a mountain god with several of its neighboring zhaizi. From a broader view, the residents of several valleys will share an even larger mountain god.
The various mountain gods with different degrees of power and Template:Wiki are believed to Template:Wiki the various units of village people in the competition for and sharing of resources.
The closer to the north and west the village is located, the more deeply it is influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, to the point that such villages’ mountain gods are assimilated into the Tibetan Buddhism deity system.
The northernmost Template:Wiki village, the Aiqi Village of Songpan’s Xiaoxinggou, is a good example of a Tibetanized village.
Each of the three local villages has its own mountain god, and the residents of two of these villages also share a mountain god with the people of the other village. In addition, the three villages also collectively Template:Wiki a mountain god called “Gerinangcuo.”
The temple gathering at Longtou Temple (which is affiliated with Tibetan Buddhism) brings together all the Qiangs and Tibetans in Xiaoxinggou.
Ultimately, the mountain-god bodhisattva on the “Xuebao Peak” in Songpan (which is affiliated with both Tibetan Buddhism and mountain god Template:Wiki) brings together all the Qiangs and Tibetans in the entire Xiaoxinggou and neighboring regions.
In the villages in the eastern and southern counties of Wenchuan and Li, mountain gods have eventually been replaced by various types of Han temples, including those dedicated to the Template:Wiki, Guanyin, Dongyue, Chuanzhu, Bull King, and Erlang.
The mountain-god belief system has diminished layer by layer, and in the end people only Template:Wiki the mountain god within their own Template:Wiki, which is no longer ruled by a mountain god of a higher ranking, but a Template:Wiki of Han temples instead.
For example, in a big zhaizi and little zhaizi in Ganmuruo Village of Mao County’s Yonghegou, there live four families with Han surnames—Li, Xie, Xu, and Bai.
Each of the families worships its own mountain god, and together two villages Template:Wiki at the temple of Chuanzhu, Earth Mother, or Bull King.
All the villagers in Yonghegou Template:Wiki the Guanyin Temple on Baihu Mountain (Buddhism), or the Yinguo Zhushi Temple on Weimen’s Yunding Mountain.
Children of Abamubi and the Template:Wiki
In the more sinicized villages of Li County and Wenchuan County, in addition to mountain gods and various forms of Taoist and Buddhist deities, the local people also Template:Wiki the Heavenly God “Abamubi” (or “Mubita”).
In the “Battle between the Template:Wiki and Ge” described in a duangong scripture, Abamubi is the god that helped the Qiangs defeat the Ge people;
in a scripture called “Mujiezhu and Douanzhu,” Abamubi is the father of the fairy Mujiezhu, who got married to a man-monkey in the human world, and brought with her crops and livestock.
The magical powers of the duangong (Template:Wiki) allow him to heat up a pot and walk barefoot on a scorching hot hoe, and his Template:Wiki include the Snow Mountain Chant and Dissolving Chant.
These show a close relation with the Han people’s Taoist practices. Therefore, the duangong often say “Template:Wiki in the place of “Abamubi.”
The villagers, like the duangong, are influenced by Taoism, and therefore they too equate their heavenly god with the Template:Wiki, and the man-monkey in the story of “Mujiezhu and Douanzhu” with Sun Wukong the Monkey King.
Abamubi-related Template:Wiki contain many Tibetan elements.
The previously mentioned “monkey transforming into human” theme not only exists in many Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, but also has been passed around among the people who believe in Tibetan Buddhism.
Tales of how human beings originated from monkeys are popular among the Jiarong and Heishui Tibetans, who live close to the Qiangs.
Some villagers who are influenced by both Han and Tibetan religions believe that Abamubi is the “Western Buddha” in charge of the heavens, and that the Template:Wiki is the god in charge of the human world.
The Children of Jehovah
In the 1920s, when Template:Wiki Template:Wiki Thomas Torrance entered the Template:Wiki region to spread the Template:Wiki faith, he was surprised to find himself among people who reminded him of Israelis.
The Qiangs that he saw were Template:Wiki similar, wore white robes, and lived in stone houses just like Israelis. He also noticed that the Qiangs were monotheists who believed in their only god Abamubi.
Their Template:Wiki of sacrificing sheep reflected, moreover, the famous Template:Wiki act of the Template:Wiki Israelis.
Torrance believed that in the context of the evolution of human Template:Wiki, monotheism is more sophisticated than the Han’s and Tibetans’ Template:Wiki religions, and therefore concluded that the Qiangs must be descendants of the Israelis.
In Journal of the West China Border Research Template:Wiki, which was published in English, other Template:Wiki scholars and missionaries shared similar “discoveries.”
They believed that many Template:Wiki groups in southwestern China were the descendants of Indo-Europeans and Template:Wiki Asians who had migrated eastward. Up to this day, some Template:Wiki Template:Wiki and groups still believe that the Qiangs are descendants of the Israelis.
In order to back up this view, Torrance provided religious and Template:Wiki Template:Wiki.
For example, Torrance believed that the Template:Wiki people’s love of the Template:Wiki white was the same as an Template:Wiki Template:Wiki notion of white’s being spiritually and Template:Wiki pure.
He also pointed out that the fact that the Template:Wiki people do not Template:Wiki Template:Wiki, but instead use white paper and white stones to represent their god, something comparable to the Jews’ relationship with the Ten Commandments.
Furthermore, the Template:Wiki that the Qiangs hold in the mountains, worshipping Template:Wiki Template:Wiki and using altars built of stones, were seen by him as practices of the Bible.
Torrance also thought that the Qiangs believed God to be Template:Wiki, while humans burdened by sin. Humans need to rid themselves of sin before they can approach God, and therefore God sent sinned Template:Wiki into the world of humans to help in absolution.
He likens duangong to the sin-combating Template:Wiki, and says that their Template:Wiki of “huanyuan” is the same as praying for redemption.
At the time, Torrance had a local assistant, Gou Pingshan of Wenchuan County’s Mushan Village, who, after himself becoming Template:Wiki, helped spread the Template:Wiki that “all Template:Wiki people are subjects of God and descendants of the Israelis.”
In his “Message to My Fellow Qiangs on the History of Template:Wiki Template:Wiki” he proclaimed that after hearing Torrance’s explanation and reading the Template:Wiki, he realized that the Template:Wiki people’s Template:Wiki of presenting their god with Template:Wiki sacrifices is related to the sacrificial rituals of the Template:Wiki Israelis.
Believers of the Zhou People’s God
Twenty years later, in the 1930s and 1940s, when American scholar David Crockett Graham was conducting a field study at the upper reaches of the Min River, he noticed that many Template:Wiki people called themselves descendants of the Israelis, claiming that their god was the Template:Wiki god Jehovah.
Graham refuted this in his work on the Template:Wiki people by pointing out that the Qiangs are in fact polytheists, and that the phenomenon of “Israeli descent” was a result of the intrusions of Thomas Torrance and his Template:Wiki assistant.
Graham pointed out that the Qiangs are not monotheists, and each household worships as many as five major deities.
The types of deities as well as their titles differ from region to region. Moreover, the twelve secondary deities that are generally worshipped in the household also vary according to the region.
Besides household deities, every village and region has its local deities, and therefore it can be assumed that there are as many different deities as there are place names. Graham also did not think that “white stones” symbolize a single god. He pointed out that in many places white stones are considered to represent various local deities.
For example, In Wenchuan’s Keku Village, white stones are recognized by some as the deity of grain, and the deity representing Cangjie by others. Han deities such as Chuanzhu, the Template:Wiki, Guanyu, Guanyin, Wuchang, Meishan, and earth gods are also worshipped by the Template:Wiki as their own.
Graham particularly noted that in Puxigou, the duangong are categorized by the Template:Wiki of their outfit—red duangong Template:Wiki Sun Wu-Kong and Sha Wu-Jing,
and specialize in driving away Template:Wiki, curing illnesses, and granting wishes, while white duangong are dedicated to the Buddha of the Template:Wiki Skies, and specialize in praying for offspring, rain, and worshiping mountains in hopes of an abundant harvest.
Graham himself believed that the definition of “mubashe” (abamuba) is tian (heaven), which is the god worshipped by the Zhou people in Template:Wiki Template:Wiki history.
Historically the Qiangs (or the people surnamed Jiang) was an ally of the Zhou people.
Apparently, judging from this explanation, Graham viewed contemporary Qiangs as the descendants of the Template:Wiki (or Jiang) people of the Shang(1600-1046 B.C.) and Zhou Dynasty(1122-256 B.C.).
The Template:Wiki people’s faith in tian is Template:Wiki of the historical continuity of this Template:Wiki group.
Followers of Primitive Religions
The first Chinese scholar to study Template:Wiki religions was Hu Jian-Min, working mostly in the 1930s.
He observed that Template:Wiki Template:Wiki was deeply influenced by Han and Tibetan Template:Wiki, but “the most precious components of Template:Wiki culture—the Template:Wiki, rituals, history, Template:Wiki, mythology, and Template:Wiki and dances, etc., are still presented again and again under the leadership of their Template:Wiki and elders.” Therefore, he focused his research on the Template:Wiki people’s religious beliefs.
First of all, Hu pointed out that the Template:Wiki believe in spirits and deities, and that “their religious activities are still at the stage of worshiping spirits and objects.”
Therefore, he also disagreed with the idea that Template:Wiki religion is monotheist.
Secondly, he conceived that what the Qiangs worshiped was not the white stones themselves, but the skies and the earth, the trees, the god of fire, and the twelve deities worshiped within the household.
He explained that these gods are different in every region. A few deities from Han Template:Wiki religion are mixed in among them, including Guanyu, Jiang Ziya, earth gods, stove gods, and gods that bring wealth.
Households that are even more influenced by the Han only Template:Wiki the five categories of people to be respected according to Template:Wiki thought—heaven, earth, king, parents, and teachers.
At the same time Hu also noticed that each Template:Wiki region has localized gods, as does every village.
This is where his view corresponds with Graham’s.
Hu also pointed out that Template:Wiki Template:Wiki and magic are “just like that of many primitive tribes in the world.”
He described the various magical powers that the duangong are known to demonstrate, and concluded that “this type of magic is known in the context of studies of primitive religion as simulated magic,” and is “established upon a kind of primitive mentality.”
Finally, Hu used totemism to interpret Template:Wiki Template:Wiki and religions, believing that the Template:Wiki people can be symbolically represented by the Template:Wiki.
In his opinion, since Template:Wiki Template:Wiki is already mixed with many Han and Tibetan elements, religion has become the only aspect that can exhibit the uniqueness of Template:Wiki Template:Wiki.
However, it is also the aspect that shows how “backward” and “primitive” Template:Wiki Template:Wiki is. Quoting Hu, “References to the Di and Template:Wiki first appeared during the Shang Period(1600-1046 B.C.).
It makes one wonder how such a mature Template:Wiki group can be so backward in terms of religion.”
Hu’s “discovery” of the primitiveness of Template:Wiki religion was, however, much the product of the contemporary rise of Template:Wiki Template:Wiki and nationalism, with its Template:Wiki between the core and Template:Wiki of Template:Wiki groups.
The above three Template:Wiki and Template:Wiki scholars all presented biased views regarding the people they observed due to the Template:Wiki Template:Wiki background of their time.
What they were looking at was the same Template:Wiki and religious phenomenon, and yet all three of them were wearing different glasses, they saw different things.
Due to his sense of Template:Wiki Template:Wiki Thomas Torrance saw the Qiangs as noble monotheists whose faith and customs could be traced back to Template:Wiki Template:Wiki.
Under the influence of Sino-centrism, Hu Jian-Min saw the Qiangs as backward and primitive people who believed in Template:Wiki and worshipped objects—in other words, far behind the Template:Wiki in terms of evolution despite their long history.
David Crockett Graham agreed with the history of the Template:Wiki people which was constructed by Template:Wiki scholars, and therefore he viewed Template:Wiki people’s faith in their “Heavenly God” as the Template:Wiki residue left over from centuries of Han and Tibetan influence since the Zhou Dynasty(1122-256 B.C.).
Abamubita as the Template:Wiki People’s Heavenly God
Nowadays, no one in the Template:Wiki people remembers the saying that “the Qiangs are descendants of the Israelis,” but a few Westerners are persistent in their quest to find descendants of the Israeli people.
Furthermore, after two stories in the duangong scriptures—“Mujiezhu and Douanzhu” and “The Great Battle of Template:Wiki and Ge”—were published, Abamubita became the heavenly god of the Template:Wiki people.
This particular Template:Wiki memory is circulated via print copies of Template:Wiki Template:Wiki Tales, which are mainly read by Template:Wiki intellectuals.
The villagers in Wenchuan and Li still believe that Mubita is the Template:Wiki or Great Buddha of the West, while the majority of villagers in Mao and Songpan does not recognize this deity at all.
Mountain Gods Worshipped by the Tibetans