Two Miao women from Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province display the hundred-bird dress that they made. Considering themselves to be the descendants of Chi You tribe, one of the greatest Dongyi tribes, Miao people worship the birds as their ancestors.  (WANG BINGZHEN/XINHUA)

 

The bird worship of ancient Chinese Dongyi people is deeply rooted in the worship of natural phenomena that recur periodically.

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The song The Swallow in the Book of Songs contains the following lines “From eggs of a god-sent swallow Qi sprang, Forefather of the House of Shang.” This song contains a myth about the origins of the Shang people who established the Shang Dynasty (c.1600-c.1046 BCE).

Three women bathed in a river in spring. A swallow flew past, dropping an egg. One of the women, Jian Di, picked up that egg and ate it. To everyone’s surprise, she got pregnant. Later she gave birth to a boy named Qi, who was later considered the first ancestor of the Shang people. This story of the “swallow that gave birth to the Shang people” was also recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian. This version was adopted by Liu Xiang (77-6 BCE) in Biographies of Exemplary Women, Zheng Xuan when annotating the Book of Songs, and used by Wang Yi as well when annotating the Songs of Chu.

Another version goes that Jian Di put that egg into a basket and later Qi hatched. This version was adopted in literature like the Spring and Autumn of Lü Buwei and the Collection of Omitted Anecdotes.

The Dongyi people are also called “Niaoyi” which literally means “bird tribes.” When annotating the entry “Niaoyi” in Book of Han, Yan Shigu (581-645) said “These people in the northeast catch birds and other beasts. They took their flesh as food and fur as clothes. Another version goes that they lived by the sea, and they dressed themselves and behaved imitating the birds.” A description about the Dongyi people as having “bird body,” “bird head” or “bird beak” can also be found in literature like Classic of Mountains and Rivers and the Records of the Grand Historian.

The Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals recorded that Emperor Shaohao named government positions after birds. There are 24 positions named after birds, with the phoenix as their leader. The phoenix tribe inhabited in areas around the Taishan Mountain and Yishan Mountain in present-day Shandong Province. 

The bird worship of ancient Chinese people is deeply rooted in the worship of natural phenomena that recur periodically. Most of the birds used to name government positions were migrant birds, including swallow, butcher-bird, yellow warbler and cuckoo.

These migrant birds were worshipped by ancient people because they were the “weatherperson” in ancient antiquity. Zuo’s Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals specified their roles in taking charge of calendar and the 24 solar terms. For example, the phoenix officials were in charge of the general affairs of the calendar while the swallow officials were in charge of the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes.

 

Liu Dezeng is the vice-president of Qilu Normal University in Shandong Province.

(edited by CHEN ALONG)