作者：李炳泽 文章来源：蚩尤文化网 更新时间：2011/4/28
To Approach the Subject That Chi You’s Troops Moved to the South and
Later Turned into the Miao Nationality as well as the Han Nationality
李炳泽
前附：这篇小文章原是提交1998年8月在河北琢鹿召开的“三祖文化”研讨会的论文，汉语原稿都不知道丢哪里了，去年无意中通过Google查到这篇英文稿，至于在什么网站也忘了。我通过这篇译文学了一些英语，这里贴出来也让大家共飨。——Li Bingze
To Approach the Subject That Chi You’s Troops Moved to the South and
Later Turned into the Miao Nationality as well as the Han Nationality
Writer: Li Bingze, Translator: Li Haixia
After Chi You was defeated in Zhuolu, his troops crossed the Huanghe River to the south. At last they entered the middle and lower valleys of the Changjiang River. Afterwards some of the descendants became the Miao people while others turned into the Han or other nationality. In this article the writer will approach the subject from the people’s attitude towards maple trees who are separately from the Han nationality living on the both sides of the Changjiang’s middle reaches and from the Miao nationality in Hunan and Guizhou. It was recorded that there were close relations between Chi You and maples. And that people in some southern areas worship this kind of trees might have something to do with the fact that Chi You’s troops moved to the south. The descendant’s worship of maples expressed their memory of Chi You and his achievements.
The record about the relations between Chi You and maples was read first in Mountains and seas as following. “There was a mountain named The Sun Mountain on which grew a kind of trees named maples. The trees were changed into from Chi You’s shackles thrown onto the mountain”. And there were similar words in Biography of Xuan Yuan (another name of Huang Di) as “Huang Di killed Chi You on the Li Mountain and then threw his shackles onto the Sun Mountain, which turned onto maples trees”. The main reason why the shackles made of maple wood could change into maple trees was that Chi You was respected by his later generations. Although he was dead, head separated from body, he could change into strange appearance of phenomenon.
We don’t know where the Sun Mountain was located, yet the wonders coming from Chi You’s leavings are often seen in present Shanxi, Shandong and other provinces. And such mythology of maples exists in the legends of the Han and the Miao people, both of whom live in the middle valley of the Changjiang River.
Liu Xun in the Tang Dynasty wrote in his book “There were many maple trees on the Maple Mountain. When the trees grew very old, tumors came out. On a stormy night, the trees were struck to death. But the tumors grew several feet tall secretly, which were called maple figures by the southerners”.
Another author Chang made such records in his words, as “There was a lot of maple figures in the mountains in Jiangxi Province Born under the maple trees, they looked like persons, and were three to four feet tall. Whenever thunderstorm came in the evening, the figures would grow as tall as trees. If seeing people, they shrank bask as usual. Once a person put bamboo hats over their heads. But the hats were seen on the tops of the trees the next day. When a rain was desired on drought days, bamboo twigs were bound round the figures heads, and wooden nails were driven into their bodies”.
It should be noted that most of these legends and stories about maple trees exist in Jiangxi and Hunan in the middle valley of the Chiangjiang River and Guizhou in the upper. Now, the Han people and the Miao race in these areas still retain the worship of maple trees and related customs in varying degrees.
In addition, maples are looked upon as god trees in some villages of Daye, Hubei. After Japanese occupied Wuhan in the years of Resistance Against Japan, large numbers of enemy entered Daye to plunder the mineral resources. They wanted to cut down trees and use them as mine timber. When they began to cut the maples in Jinshandian Village, the villagers gathered before the trees to offer sacrifices to them on purpose and attracted the people in the neighboring villages to do the same thing so that the maples were saved.
In some areas in Chenxi, Hunan, maple trees around villages, especially those tall ones with luxuriant foliage, are treated as a sign of vigor and prosperity as well as beautiful scenery. There are some tall old maples around almost all of the villages with long history.
There are more vestiges about worship of maples than the above in the Han areas and they remain to be collected.
In the Miao areas in the south of Guizhou, such a myth is handed down as the following. A tall maple tree was cut doown. Its leaves and branches changed into swallows and other birds, its roots into many fishes, while its trunk turned into a female with the name of Bangx Lief (The Miao language). She didn’t bear any children like ordinary women, but she laid twelve eggs, which later hatched human, thunder, tiger, dragon and so on. Now maples acting as Defending Trees/det fangb vangl (the Miao language) can be seen standing around some villages in the southeast of Guizhou. These trees don’t defend the surrounded villages, but certain one nearby. Meanwhile, the maples round other village defend this village. It is said the maple trees were the best materials for pillars of houses in old times, because they used to be high and strong, and Thunder God in the heaven would feed the leaves to horses. People hoped to make their families prosper and happy with the highness.
However, the worship of maple trees is found mostly in the southeast of Guizhou Province, not all in the Miao areas. In another words, if the way of treating maples of the Han and the Miao people in some southern places is related to Chi You, the remaining phenomenon in the few areas can show the problem better that Chi You’s people were mixed with other local races after they moved down to the south, and these people later changed to part of the Han, the Miao or other nationality. That is to say, Chi You’s descendants are not merely among the Miao people now.
The Miao nationality is a race in the south on the whole, and its culture is based upon the southern key. The component of the northern races in the Miao culture was formed more or less after the northerners moved down to the south and then were mixed with the Miao people.
Note: About the writer,Li, Bingze is an expert in the Miao Cultural Research Institute, the Central National University
