The Dongba Scripture - the Story of Creation

[Alix]

Naxi people mostly live in the Naxi Autonomous County in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, while the rest live in Sichuan and Tibet. In the name Naxi (also spelled Nakhi), Na means 'senior' and honored and Xi means 'people'. In 2000, they were estimated to number over 300,000. The research paper 'Higher Levels of Neanderthal Ancestry in East Asians than in Europeans' (2013) discussed that the results of a study conducted by the Institute for Human Genetics showed that East Asian groups carried 40% more Neanderthal genes than modern Europeans. Among Eurasians it was shown that the Lahu and Naxi peoples are the closest living relatives of Neanderthal. Now, this doesn't mean I think they are modern-day Neanderthals; it simply gives what geneticists have said they have found in their DNA.

I'm very interested in the religion of ancient peoples in general but when I saw the 'art' of Dongba characters (shown below).


The Naxi say that originally the characters were written using bamboo pens and black ink made of ash.

I wanted to know more - and wondered if their Creation story and other stories found in what is called the Dongba Scripture could be found. It is said that the script was written around the 7th Century, but was it the result of writing down the oral traditions of the Naxi from ages past? The Dongba Scripture is read from right to left and is to be read orally, not silently. The Naxi have a creation myth that tells the story of how, after the heavens and the earth were separated, the people all came together to build the holy mountain Jjuqnalsheel’loq, which acted as an axis mundi, propping up the heavens. Once the mountain was completed, they used a giant iron chain to tie the sun to the left of the mountain and the moon to its right. Thus, in the Naxi cosmogony, the sun and moon rotate around the holy mountain, in between the sky and the earth, and these opening lines are a microcosm of the Naxi cosmogony:

“The stars shine bright in the sky
And today they shine brightest
The grass grows green on the earth
And today it grows greenest
The sun comes from the left, giving off its warmth
The moon comes from the right, giving off its light.”

Below is the part of the script that illustrates the above:

The three dots are the stars; the cross stands for 'to hang' (no doubt speaking of the stars); and below is the grass. The swastika means 'good luck' and we can see the sun and moon bestowing light on the two figures below. The Naxi believed that the creation of the world, etc. was accomplished by Nature and not by a god.

I'll relate the Naxi Creation Story in the next post - because it's rather long.

 

[Alix]

The Dongba Creation story with a little bit of bad weather thrown in:

“In the ancient times, heaven and earth were in constant turmoil. Trees can walk. Stones can talk. Heaven, earth, moon, fire, water, mountains, and rivers had not yet formed, but the shadow of heaven and earth, the shadow of sun and the moon, the shadow of stone and wood, the shadow of water and fire, the shadow of mountains and rivers had appeared first.

First there were three shadows, of the sun, the earth, and the moon. Three produced nine and nine produced the mother of everything. Truth and reality transformed into the day, and false and non-existing transformed into the moon.

Sunlight became bluestone, bluestone became white air, and white air became wonderful sound. From the harmony of air and sound, a god named YiguAghen was born. YiguAghen became white dew, white dew became white egg, white egg became divine chicken EnyuEnman.

After some time, moonlight also turned into blackstone, then to black gas, then to noise, and then to the evil god YiguDina. YiguDina turned into a black egg, and the black egg turned into a black chicken.

YiguAghen morphed out white egg and white egg morphed out god chicken, who named self EnyuEnman. Between the little world, there was only EnyuEnman, fly and fly… EnyuEnman, so clean! How good it was! It used three clouds in the sky to make a quilt, and used three earth grasses to make a nest. So it gave birth to nine pairs of white eggs. White eggs turned into God.

A few generations later, the earth shook. The nine god Brothers and seven goddess Sisters opened up to fix the world, erected white conch Tianzhu (Giant Pillar) in the east, vertical jasper Tianzhu in the south, black pearl Tianzhu in the west, gold Tianzhu in the north, and white iron Tianzhu in the center; sapphire used to patch sky, and gold used to stabilize the valleys, so the sky and the earth began to separate.

Later, the white chicken’s tail egg gave birth to a cow-shaped monster, which shook the sky. God YinYang killed it and sacrificed its parts to the heaven and earth, the sun, the moon, the mountains, the rivers, the rocks, and the trees. Gods built the RinaRuoshan St (Holy?) Mountain to hold the sky vault.

On RinaRuoshan St. Mountain, there was a starling bird. It was said to be the incarnation of White. However, it had a black hair on its tail, so it was not an incarnation of White! There was a black crow. It was said to be the incarnation of Black, but the crow had three white feathers, so it was not the incarnation of Black.

White butterfly, born in frosty winter, so weak were its wings, swayed by wind and fluttered all the way to the foot of the mountain, so they were not the incarnation of White! Black ant, born in the hot summer, its small waist could not stand the s hock of the summer flood, how could it be a Black incarnation?

On RinRuoshan St Mountain, there was a muttering sound at a high place, and a hissing breath appeared at a low place. The sound and breath met to form three drops of white dew. The white dews turned into three seas, the seas gave birth to HenGu, HenGu gave birth to MeiGu, and after seven generations, they were the human ancestors.

When human ancestors passed down to the 9th generation, the brothers began to fight, the brothers and sisters had incestuous marriages, which polluted the heavens and the earth, God was very angry, and they decided to cleanse everything between the heaven and the earth with a great flood.

The flood was so gigantic, all being were erased except for Chorenlion. Chorenlion was the only human who survived the flood because he once helped God. God told him to hide in a drum made of yak skin.

After the flood, there was no other humans, no animals, no trees, and only desolate weeds on the vast land. Chorenlion felt very lonely and went to seek help from God. God said to him: “Under the cliff of high sky, there are two goddesses. The Goddess with the vertical eyes is very beautiful, and the Goddess with the horizontal eyes is very kind. You can try to abduct the kind Goddess with the horizontal eyes. But don’t take that pretty one with the vertical eyes.”

Chorenlion came to the cliff and saw the two beautiful heavenly girls. Chorenlion was fascinated and couldn’t control but abduct the Goddess with the vertical eyes. (The script comments) Body is not as good as heart, heart is not as beautiful as face, and face is not as beautiful as eyes. But what Chorenlion did just violated God’s warning to him.

After a while, the vertical eye Goddess gave birth to their babies. Unfortunately, their babies were not human. They turned out to be pine and linden trees in the first birth, sheep and chickens in the second birth, bears and pigs in the third birth, and snakes and frogs in the fourth birth. Chorenlion had no choice but to ask God for help.

After hearing this, the God said, “You didn’t listen to my advice, you are in trouble. Now, Go and put the things of your births where they should be, pine and linden to the place where pine and linden trees grow; sheep and chickens to the steep cliffs; bears and pigs to the large forests; snake let it live in the rock crevices; and the frog let it go into the deep water”. Chorenlion he did according to God’s advice, and then started looking for his new partner again.

Chorenlion went to the junction zone of black and white, and fortunately met and fell in love with the heavenly girl ChenHongChenBai. ChenHongChenBai was the daughter of the god Laopu. Chorenlion went to heaven with ChenHongChenBai and proposed to Laopu and asked to marry his daughter.

Laopu didn’t like humans. He planned many mental and physical tasks to challenge Chorenlion. With the help of ChenongChenBai, he completed all the tasks. Laopu had to marry his daughter to him. Chorenlion and ChenHongChenBai returned to the earth after all the hardships and restarted humanity.

 

[Alix]

From the book 'Sons of Heaven, Brothers of Nature: the Naxi of Southwest China' by Pedro Ceinos Arcones:

‘Among the spirits of nature the Shu serpent spirits (also known as nagas or dragons) are the most prominent and important. They are water spirits that inhabit also high mountains, spurs, alpine meadows, trees, rocks, cliffs, fields, villages, houses, and the ground on which the houses are built.’

‘They are easily offended if a man trespass on their rights, when they may steal one of the man souls, causing him to fall ill and even to die.’

‘According to Naxi myths, men and Shu are brothers from the same mother and different fathers. They separated the realms of their dominions, but as later men continuously trespassed into Shu territory (mountains and rivers), enmity surged and many fights happened.’

‘The Shu, which control the rain and are full of life-giving power, are closely associated with feminine, and worshipped as feminine deities, manifestations of the spirit of the Great Earth symbolizing motherhood (Xi 2002: 93). The principal goal of Shu worship is to ask for rainwater and offspring.’

'The brotherhood between humans and Shu could be a development of the Naxi brotherhood with their original totems: frog, snake, monkey, and bear. The Naxi call their ancestors “monkeys”.'

*

Now, a very interesting part of Naxi life is the fact that they had shamans. The shaman's (originally and exclusively the task of women diviners or paq) job was as a ritual practitioner who identified and corrected imbalances in the state of the cosmos e.g. illness and disasters. They would go into a trance in order to travel to that part of the cosmos where the demons dwell in order to confront the demon who was causing the problem.

The paq or female diviners were the oldest religious practitioners, who could divine thanks to Pangzusamei, goddess of divination. It was not until the Naxi fell under Chinese influence that men were given more importance in all religious affairs. The priests were considered to be wise in all knowledge concerning the heavens and the earth.

The first Dongba, or priests, were known as 'those who dance and sing'. Their trance states were said to be brought upon by the sound of the drum and after hours of dancing. They were also said to have partaken of a 'kind of tea' before the start of the ceremony.

The Naxi believed that everything on the earth had a spirit. Humans were said to possess two things - a soul and a sv life.