Kindness over violence (Folktales of Chinese minorities 19. - Jino)

As a sequel to the Following folktales around the world reading challenge, I decided to start reading minority and indigenous folktales. First up are the minority peoples who live in China. You can find previous posts here, and you can follow the challenge on Facebook here.

Once again I encountered a minority that I could not find a full collection for, so I browsed various sources for individual tales. The Jino (Jinuo) people live in Yunnan province in Southern China, and number a little more than twenty thousand people. They are one of the smallest minorities, and the last one of the 55 that were officially recognized (in 1979). They are known for their colorful woven outfits. Next to hunting and gathering, they cultivate land cleared from forests by burning.

Highlights

The tale of Lady Fish was both beautiful and sad: a dragon king's daughter married a mortal man, but her husband started cheating on her after a while, so she left him. The husband learned of a way to win back his wife through magic, but he was too lazy to do it properly, so the relationship ended for good.

Connections

The myth of the goddess Amoyaobai was the most beautiful "shooting the suns" story that I have encountered so far. The goddess gave humans intelligence so that they could solve their problems with thinking, rather than violence. Then seven suns rose into the sky and threatened the world, people threw rocks at them first, but then decided to negotiate in a kinder way. They managed to convince the suns to rise one by one and take turns.
I also read a Jino flood myth: after the flood, the first people of every ethnicity climbed out of a giant gourd planted by a brother and sister. The story explained why the Jino have no written language (they are the ox hide they had written their characters on), as well as the speech and skin color of various peoples. This myth is a very popular part of the Jino tradition: I found it in two more books, here and here.
Tricksters were represented by a man named Atui, in a story where in good trickster fashion he managed to steal other people's food instead of eating his own. 

Who's next?
The Monguor (Tu) people

Heroes make the world (Folktales of Chinese minorities 18. - Hani)

As a sequel to the Following folktales around the world reading challenge, I decided to start reading minority and indigenous folktales. First up are the minority peoples who live in China. You can find previous posts here, and you can follow the challenge on Facebook here.

Once again, sadly, I could not find a full book of folktales for the Hani tradition, so I read stories from multiple different publications. The Hani live in Southern China and other countries of Southeast Asia, numbering almost three million people. Among others, they are famous for their folk songs, folk music, dancing, and beautiful silver jewelry. 

Highlights

The most beautiful origin myth was about a goddess named Lady Yao, who stole from her strict father the seeds of 77 useful plants, and gave them to the people. her father turned her into a dog as punishment, sending her to live with humans. Commemorating her sacrifice, the Hani give the first plate of food from the harvest sacrifice to dogs every year. Selflessness also played a central role in another legend, which explained the origin of rice: here an abused servant girl discovered that the seeds of rice are edible. She used her discovery to save her fellow servants, and get rid of a cruel queen. 

Nimaxingtian was a dragon-slaying hero who would put many others to shame: according to legend he had one eye and one, axe-sharp ear. He defeated two evil dragons by shooting blinding light from his eye, and chopping them up with his ear. Another dragon-slayer was a female hero named Amatu; in her legend she first convinced a monster to eat cows instead of people, and then dressed his two sons up as girls to help them sneak up on the monster and kill it. 

Connections

The Hani also have a myth about shooting down suns: here an archer named Erpupolo shot down eight out of nine of them. The last sun hid, and had to be lured out by the crowing of a rooster (which was not a pretty song, but very honest). Another legend explained why sun and moon alternate in the sky: two brave siblings, Ah Lang and Ah Ang, flew up to the heavens to convince them to keep a regular schedule. They are commemorated every year with a spring festival. 

Culture heroes were represented by Maumay, a monkey who became a man, who, according to legend, stole the first rice seeds from the sky, sacrificing the life of himself and his horse. Another story told of a bird who turned into a man named Ahli, who created a wine water spring for the people as he was dying. 

Who's next?
The Jino people

Shamans and spirits (Folktales of Chinese minorities 17. - Daur)

As a sequel to the Following folktales around the world reading challenge, I decided to start reading minority and indigenous folktales. First up are the minority peoples who live in China. You can find previous posts here, and you can follow the challenge on Facebook here.

China's Dagur Minority

Society, Shamanism, and Folklore 

Kevin Stuart, Li Xuewei & Shelear

Sino-Platonic Papers 1994.

The Daur live on the Chinese side of the border with Mongolia, they are related to Mongolians, and number about 130 thousand people.This detailed book is divided into three parts: The first introduces Daur culture, the second discusses Daur shamanism, and the third contains all the stories - 82 tales and 6 myths total. From the first chapter I learned a lot about Daur life, language, traditions, history, festivals, poetry, music, and crafts. The shamanism essay was very Chinese in the way it labeled all beliefs antiquated superstitions ("all religions are absurd"), but at least it admitted that recording them can be useful from an ethnographic point of view. The folktales in the third chapter have been recorded by a Daur native collector named Sayintana in the 1980s; 50 of them were told by an old storyteller named Qiker. The stories came with their own introduction about translation and cultural elements.

Highlights

The best story in the book was the legend of Nisang Yadgan, a long and epic underworld journey undertaken by a famous female shaman to bring a young man back from the dead. They met (and bargained with) gods, demons, spirits, Nisang's ex-husband, and other obstacles; they witnessed afterlife punishments that would put Dante to shame. Nisang appears in other neighboring cultural traditions as well. She must have bee a remarkable lady.

 I also loved the story of the man who (unwittingly) married a Ginseng Spirit. The feud between ginseng girls and spider demons became a complex multi-generational tragedy, but luckily it ended on a good note. Among the less happy love stories my favorite was the Yearning Swans, in which a boy and the girl fell in love while they studied together. Outside of romance, I loved the tale about the friendship between a kind boy and a tiger.

There was a memorable tale about a hunter and his nephew. The hunter's sister was half-eaten by a monster, so the hunter tried to get rid of her; her son, when he grew up, managed to return the other half of his mother's body, and even befriended the monster. When the hunter attacked them, he tied ten thousand bags of chili powder to birds' feet, and chili-bombed the enemy soldiers...

An interesting legend explained why the Daur don't have writing. It was about the monk Tang Seng who brought the holy scriptures of Buddhism (see Journey to the West). On the way, he lied to a giant turtle, and it ate him in revenge. The scriptures were scattered in the ocean, and the peoples who managed to fish some out are the ones with written literature.

Among the origin myths, the one about Holier Barken was the most fascinating. It was about a magical antelope that brought havoc to all the land; the Chinese tried to kill it multiple times but failed. In the end the antelope and an Oroqen man (see later) were struck by lightning at the same time, and their spirits combined into one deity. Combined spirits like this were actually common in Daur mythology.

Among the shaman legends the stories of Gahucha yadgan were memorable: he could make a river freeze over in the summer, but it cost him 10 years of his life. I also loved the short legend that claimed that trees have their own shamans that heal other trees. 

Image from here

Connections

Once again there was a myth about raising the sky; it said that it used to rain oil and snow flour, but when people started wasting food, the sky grew angry and rose up high out of reach. There was also a flood myth, combined with the tale type where animals rescued from the water are grateful, but humans aren't.

This book contained the best "princess in the shroud" variant I have ever read. In the tale of The boy and the demon, a young man married a dead girl unwittingly, and then they went through all kinds of adventures until an old drunk was brave enough to break her curse and bring her back to life. There was a great variant for "why old people are respected" as well: here the rescued father helped his son climb up to the sky, and find tools to defeat a giant rat demon.

There were other familiar tale types, such as three kidnapped princesses (Bear's Son), handless maiden, magic flight (here with a snake wife), sister turned into a monster (here a vulture spirit), and dragon slayer (here a pearl diver who blew up a sea serpent with gunpowder). The story of Aqinbu was also a kidnapped princesses tale, very similar to an Oroqen story I know.

As for tricksters: Sun Wukong, the Monkey King appeared in a legend - he was responsible for creating caves in the mountains. Tricksters got their own chapter in the book, and were mostly nameless poor boys or orphans. Many stories were familiar: fake fortune-teller, master thief, exchanged punishment, and other classic (and often bloody) tricks. I especially liked the tale where the Chinese tried to build a military camp by a Daur village - so the people moved the camp across the river at night, and pretended it had been blown over by the wind.

Image from here

Who's next?

The Hani people