The "black ghost" in southern Fujian refers to "fanzi", which is commonly known as "wufanzi ghost". "Fanzai" is straightforward and easily instigated. In the early days, to "fire" (a kind of gunpowder cannon), you had to use incense sticks to light the fuse on the "cannon". Once the "cannon" was fired, the sound was loud and deafening. Many people didn't like to do this, so they instigated "black ghosts" ( Fan Zai) to complete.

The Black Ghost's Xiaojie

One of Du Fu's "Two Poems of Hai Hai Comedy to Relieve Boredom" contains: "It's strange to have foreign customs, and it's hard for people to live together. Every family raises a black ghost. Ghosts, eat yellow croakers for a while. The old knowledge is still alive, and the new knowledge is hidden. The only way is to cultivate and dig the ditch." ("Fu Tang Shi" Volume 231) There are different opinions on what "black ghost" refers to. Inconclusive.

The term "Wugui" has had six interpretations since the Song Dynasty: one is the god served by Bashu. Or the "Seven Divine Heads of Wuye" (Cai Qi's "Cai Kuanfu's Poems"), or the "Wuman Ghost" (Shao Bo's "Henan Shao Family Hearing and Seeing Records"), or the Sichuan altar god "Zhutan Luo Gong" (Li Shi's " "Sichuan Language"); the second work "Cormorant" (Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan·Yi Wen 3"); the third work "The Divine Crow" (Cheng Dachang's "Yan Fanlu" Volume 13); the fourth work "Pig" (Hu Zai "The first collection of Tiaoxi Yuyincong Hua·Du Shaoling Qi" quotes "Mansou Poetry Talk" and Ma Yongqing's "Lazy True Son" Volume 4); the fifth work is "Ghost Slave" (Fu Dawei); the sixth work is "Turtle" (Jiang Xianwei).

(1)

There are many doubts in the "cormorant theory". First, it is unreasonable for "cormorants" to catch "yellow croakers". First, cormorants are unlikely to catch yellow croaker. Volume 2 of Cai Mengbi's "Poetry in the Thatched Cottage of Du Gongbu":

Mengbi said: The words of "Shi Lue" should be regarded as correct. The words "raising crow ghosts" and "eating yellow croaker" have two meanings, and they all record the customs of Bazhong. The largest yellow croakers in the gorge can weigh hundreds of kilograms, while the small ones can weigh tens of kilograms. Note: There is a poem in the collection that says, "Every day I see the Badong Gorge, yellow croakers are out in new waves. They are fat and feed dogs, and they cannot grow up to be healthy." But how can cormorants catch fish? He used the "crowd ghost" as a cormorant, which is particularly absurd.

Of course, Fang Yizhi pointed out that this "yellow croaker" may not be the fish mentioned by Du Shi. Volume 45 of "Tongya": "Do you know that it is not a yellow-cheeked fish?" Lu Ji's "Mao's Poems on Grass and Trees" Birds, Beasts, Insects and Fishes" Volume 2 "Fish are more beautiful than Kuai Kun" "Kun, a famous name, is now a yellow-cheeked fish. It is like a swallow-headed fish, with a thick and long body shape and yellow bones. The fish is large and powerful to fly. Today, the yellow-cheeked fish is called the yellow-cheeked fish in the east of the Yangtze River. The tail is slightly yellow, and the big one is about seven or eight inches long. "But the yellow-cheeked fish and the yellow-cheeked catfish are mostly not found in the literature of the Tang Dynasty. Secondly, at that time, bamboo tubes and wooden barrels were used to catch yellow croaker, not cormorants. This is evidenced by Du Fu's poem: Every day when I see the Badong Gorge, the yellow croakers emerge in new waves. He is a fat dog and a dog breeder, and he cannot grow up to be healthy. The barrels and barrels stay together for a long time, and the wind and thunder are willing to stretch. The mud and sand roll up in saliva, and looking back, I wonder about the dragon scales. ("Yellow Fish", "Complete Tang Poems" Volume 231)

Du Fu's poem does not mention the fish caught by the "black ghost".

Since it is "a black ghost that every family raises", it must have caught a commonly eaten fish. There are two main types of fish mentioned in the poems written by Du Fu during his stay in Kuizhou: yellow croaker and white croaker. The poem "Yellow Fish" can be seen above, and the poem "Bai Xiao" is as follows:

Bai Xiaoqun is divided into two-inch fish. The people who are slightly exposed to water are accustomed to be garden vegetables. The silver flowers are everywhere, and the snowflakes in the box are empty. Generation is like picking up eggs, how about taking all the meaning? (Volume 231 of "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty")

Bai Xiao is a small fish of 2-3 inches. Du Fu criticized the people of Kuizhou for "Bai Xiao is born like picking up eggs" ("Bai Xiao"), that is, " Indiscriminate arrest." If cormorants were used to catch fish, there would be no such thing as overfishing.

Secondly, it is unreliable that "Black Ghost" is an alias for "Cormorant". The word "cormorant" has been around for a long time. Yan Zhitui's "Ji Sheng Fu" states that "a cormorant is pregnant in its mouth". There are also four views in Du Fu's poems. Du Fu directly uses the word "cormorant" in other poems, so why does he use the word "black ghost" here only? The only explanation is that "wugui" is a dialect. However, it is said that it is an alias, and it is not mentioned in other books. Those who hold this theory all directly or indirectly rely on Liu Deli's "Kuizhou Illustrated Book". Lu Dian's "Piya" Volume 6:

"Kuizhou Illustrated Book" says that people in the gorge call cormorants black ghosts. People in Shu who live near the water all raise this bird and tie a rope around its neck. Get into fishing. If you catch a fish, bring it up. Du Fu's poem says, "Every family raises a black ghost".

Volume 16 of Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan·Yiwen III":

The scholar Liu Kebo viewed different books. In Du Fu's poem, "Every family raises black ghosts, and eats yellow croaker every day." The world's commentators all say that there are ghost households in Kui Gorge, and they are Yi people. Their owners call them ghost masters, but they have never heard of "black ghosts". said. Also known as ghost households, they are called by barbarians, and they are not raised by other people. According to the "Kuizhou Picture Book", Kenai said that the people in the gorge called the cormorants "black ghosts". The Shu people who live near the water all raise cormorants and tie ropes around their necks so that they can catch fish. When they catch a fish, they lift it out upside down. This is still the case today. When I was in Sichuan, I saw people raising cormorants for fishing, and I believed them, but I didn't know they were called "black ghost" ears.

Huang Chaoying (Volume 5 of "Jingkang Xiansu Miscellaneous Notes") and others quoted Liu Deli's theory as the fundamental evidence of the "Cormorant" theory. However, "Kuizhou Illustrated Book" is only recorded in "Yi Wen 3", Chapter 157 of "Song History", and the original book has been lost long ago, so this theory cannot be tested. Even if the "Kuizhou Illustrated Book" cited by the Song Dynasty is correct, how do you know that what Liu Deli said is definitely correct? Therefore, Cai Qi said in "Cai Kuanfu's Poetry Talk, Chapter 12 of Cong Hua": "When I was young, I went to Bazhong. Although I saw some people fishing with cormorants, I didn't hear them and thought they were crows. I don't know why the "Kuizhou Illustrations" Got it." Of course, since this poem is a "haiku style", it cannot be ruled out that Du Fu intentionally used "black ghost" to refer to "cormorant" to achieve a humorous effect.

Third, "every family raising cormorants" cannot be regarded as a "weird" custom. "It's strange to have strange customs, and it's hard for local people to live together. Every family raises black ghosts and eats yellow croaker every meal." It can be seen that Du Fu regarded this as a strange custom. Although "yellow croaker" is common, it must be eaten with every meal, so it is indeed rare. Therefore, Qiu Zhaoao's "Detailed Notes on Du Shi" quoted Lu's note: "The black ghost can be different, and if every family supports it, it is normal to think that it is different; the yellow croaker is normal and eats every meal, so even though it is normal, it is different." Although Du Fu was from Gong County, Henan However, he may have seen "cormorants" as early as when he was in Qinzhou. "Cormorants peek into shallow wells, and earthworms go up to deep halls" (No. 17 of "Twenty Miscellaneous Poems of Qinzhou"). It is common for Shu people to raise cormorants. "The sun shines on the cormorants in the west, and their fins are covered with fish beams." ("Field House") "Don't be overjoyed by the cormorants and the birds. Rucao and I both have sharp eyesight." ("Spring Water Produces Two Wonders") 》1) Moreover, according to archaeological data, the Ba people in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River in the Shang Dynasty had domesticated cormorants, which slowly spread to the entire Bashu region, and also went north to the Central Plains. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, domesticated cormorants for fishing were more common. So, Du Fu may have seen cormorants earlier, so why did he regard the domestic cormorants in Kuizhou as exotic?

(2)

Analysis of the "Shen Crow" theory. Yuan Zhen's "Hundred Rhymes for Rewarding Han Lin and Bai Xueshi" (Volume 405 of "Complete Poems of the Tang Dynasty") contains:

The disease is called a ghost, and the witch is called a turtle. When the people in the south got sick, they competed with black ghosts, and Chu witches set up shop and sold tiles.

From the notes on Yuan Zhen's poems, we can see that "black ghosts" are "crows". At that time, the custom of worshiping Wu was prevalent in the south, and people in Shiwu worshiped Wu as their family god. In Yuan Zhen's poems, the custom of "doing things in the dark" is also common. Other poets in the Tang Dynasty also expressed the world's worship of the Crow: "Lingwu", "Xiangwu", "Shenwu", etc. Yuan Zhen's own annotation of "black ghost" became the main evidence for later generations to interpret it as "divine ghost" or "divine crow". Huang Che's "Xi Shihua" Volume 8 No. 7:

"Every family raises black ghosts." Shen Cunzhong thought it was a cormorant, but the speaker said it was wrong. Yuan Wei's poem goes: "The disease competes with the black ghost and is called a ghost, and the witches use the tiles to make turtles." An own note says: The southerners are sick and compete with the tortoises, and the witches and witches of Chu sell tiles. This is "Two Songs in Haiku Style with Dramatic Effects". The second one also goes like this: Wabu conveys the divine words. They are all prescription dialects, so it is clear that a black ghost is not a cormorant.

However, there are also doubts about this theory: First, why is "crow" called "ghost"? People in the Tang Dynasty had long had doubts about this. Volume 3 of Zhang Xuan's "Suspicious Yao" contains:

Zhen Zi's note says: Southerners are sick and compete with black ghosts. Therefore, "Gong Shixi" uses the "crow ghost" as the Ministry of Industry calls it as a ghost, not a cormorant. I have some doubts, saying that Zhen may have come from rumors, so the play has entered the ears of poetry. One day when I was reading Zhenji, I heard someone playing "The Cry of the Crow at Night". The poem was quoted as saying: When he was banished while working as a relic, his wife actually prayed to a black ghost before she could return her official position. This was a real match for the black ghost, and the black ghost Ghosts are ghosts and gods. Diwu ghost doesn't know who the god is, but Zhen's wife prays to it, and Zhen believes in it, which is enough to hide her mouth.

Volume 45 of Fang Yizhi's "Tongya": "Wisdom Note: There is a crow on the Badong Road. People and boats will throw meat at it. Otherwise, it will be unlucky. Is it a crow ghost?" But I don't know this explanation. What basis. Second, since it is a popular custom among southerners, it must also exist in Chengdu. Why did Du Fu only sigh with emotion when he arrived in Kuizhou?

(3)

The theories of "gods and ghosts". Wang Zhifang's "Wang Zhifang's Poetry Talk" Volume 6 Du's poems use dialect:

Du's poem also says: "Every family raises black ghosts and eats yellow croaker every meal." Many people on the road in Sichuan Gorge offer sacrifices to black ghosts. It's near the river, so I eat yellow croaker ears every time. The common people were puzzled and read it as the word "raising animals", so Shen Cunzhong interpreted it as "a black ghost" as a cormorant. ("Fun" 6)

Cai Qi's "Cai Kuanfu's Poetry Talk·Twelve Cong Talks": "Wugui" in Du's poem is the name of a god

Ran Yuanweizhi's "Jiangling Poetry" It says: "When the disease competes with the black ghost, it is called a ghost, and the witches occupy the tiles to represent the turtle." Note: "The southerners are sick and compete with the black ghost." This is where the name of the black ghost comes from. There were people in Bachu who caught people and sacrificed people to ghosts. When they asked the gods, they said they were the seven-headed gods of Wuye, so Wugui was the name of the god he was doing. It may be said that "raise" is a corruption of the word "race", which is natural. Because they killed people and sacrificed them, the poem begins with: "It's strange to have strange people, but it's hard for people to live together." If cormorants are raised to catch fish and eat them, why can't they live together? Then the cormorant is definitely not a black ghost, and it should be regarded as Cong Yuanzhu.

Volume 26 "Black Ghost" in Wang Mao's "Yeke Series":

Viewing "Tang Shu·Nanman Biography", the custom is still witch ghost, big tribes have big ghost masters, hundreds of families Then set up a little ghost master, one with the surname Baiman and the other with the surname Wuman. The so-called Wuman. If the woman wears black silk clothes, she will wear white silk clothes. Also test the theory of "Leng Zhai". Liu Yuxi's "Nanzhong Shi" also said: There are many green ghosts in obscene sacrifices, and there are few white-headed people living there. There is also the theory of green ghosts. Because of the spread of barbarians in Guangnan Sichuan Gorge, there were names such as Qinggui and Wugui at that time. Du Shi used the yellow croaker to confront the black ghost, knowing that it was a black man ghost and judging it. However, Guan Yuanwei's poem said: "The local flavor is especially precious clams, and the family gods are aware of the black ghosts." He also said: "Sick people compete with crows and call them ghosts, and witches occupy the tiles and represent turtles." Note: "Southerners get sick and compete with crows and ghosts." "This statement seems to be different. According to "Nanman Zhuan", the crow is the black crow, and the Yuan poem uses clam to crow, which is the crow of the crow.

Li Shi's "Sichuan Language" says:

A test of "Yanxi Jiwen" says: Luo Luo, originally Lu Lu, was mistakenly called Luo Luo. There are two types. Those who live in Twelve Camps, Ninggu, Machang and Caoxi in the west of Shui River are called Heiluoluo and are called Wuman; those who live in Muyong are Bailuoluo and are called Baiman. Luo custom respects ghosts, so it is called Luo ghost. Today they are worshiped in market wells and farmhouses, but not in the Jin gentry's family. Du Zimei's poem said: "Every family raises black ghosts." That's it. Keep reading and get rid of your voice.

Li Shi's statement is based on Tian Rucheng's "Yanxi Jiwen", but it is almost unreliable to use Ming customs to prove Tang poetry. "Wuman" refers to the ethnic minorities living in Yunnan, western Sichuan and western Guizhou during the Tang Dynasty. In this sense, "Wugui" cannot be the provincial name of "Wugui".

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Wang Mao's "Yuke Series": Liu Yuxi's "Nanzhong Shulai" has "The king asked about the customs, this place is connected to Yanzhou. There are many green ghosts for obscene sacrifices, "There are few people living there with gray heads", which means that many people in Kuizhou offer sacrifices to "green ghosts". There are also "green ghosts" in Buddhist scriptures. Generally speaking, Buddhist dictionaries believe that "green ghost" refers to "a green ghost who scolds sinners in hell." From Buddhist scriptures, it can be seen that "green ghost" is also a "god who saves all living beings under the seat of Bodhisattva." Originally an evil ghost, he later took refuge in the Buddha and became a benevolent deity protecting the Dharma. Buddhism was introduced to Fengdu along with Taoism during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and Buddhist ideas began to be introduced to the people in the Tang Dynasty. The Three Gorges Reservoir Area Archaeological Team unearthed 269 Tang Dynasty bronze Buddha statues at the Yuxiping site in Fengdu. From this, it can be speculated that the "green ghost" in Liu Yuxi's poem may have originated from Buddhist scriptures. ? Of course, we cannot rule out whether "Green Ghost" originated from Taoism. In Buddhist scriptures, there are also cyan ghosts, transliterated as "Abhamala" (shape ghost), or "Vedara" (ghost rising ghost); black ghost "Umalga" (human-eating spirit ghost) . They were originally evil ghosts, but were later inspired by Bodhisattvas to become good gods, similar to the "green ghosts". Therefore, the author speculates whether there is some kind of relationship between "Abhamari" or "Vedhara" and "Green Ghost", "Umolga" and "Wugui"?

Kuizhou is located in the southwest border, in a remote place between high mountains and river canyons. Although nature has given the people of Kuizhou the advantage of being able to travel by boat, it is also more difficult to navigate. Therefore, local people often place their hopes of changing their living conditions in gods and ghosts. Belief in ghosts and witches has a long history. Furthermore, according to Volume 117 of Zhang Junfang's "Yunji Qixian", "The Immortal Capital Temple in Pingdu Mountain, Fengdu County, Zhongzhou, is the place where Wang Fangping, a real person of the former Han Dynasty, and Yin Changsheng, a real person of the later Han Dynasty, attained the Tao and ascended to heaven." Later generations attached the "king" , "Yin" is the "King of Yin", so the trend of worshiping ghosts is very popular, and every family worships ghosts. Many people in Kuizhou believe in ghosts, so they offer sacrifices to "green ghosts" and so on.

"Nurture" has long had the meaning of "support". "Zuo Zhuan·Thirteenth Year of Chenggong" says: "Reverence lies in nourishing the spirit, and dedication lies in keeping the industry." Yang Bojun noted: "To nourish the spirit, to worship ghosts and gods. So in Du's poem The "black ghost" is probably a kind of ghost worshiped as a household god, but what it refers to remains to be verified.

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"Eating yellow croaker every day". It may also be a custom of offering sacrifices to ghosts and gods. Yellow croaker, also known as sturgeon in ancient times, is noted by Guo Pu of Jin Dynasty in "Erya Shiyu": "It is a big fish with a short nose, a mouth under the chin, and no armor. The scales and flesh are yellow, and the big ones are as big as two or three feet. Today they are called yellow croakers in the east of the Yangtze River. "Mao's Poems on Plants, Trees, Birds, Beasts, Insects, Fishes: There Are Snakes and There Are Tuna": "Shens come out of the rivers and seas, and come up from the bottom of the river in the middle of March." The body of the dragon resembles a dragon, with a sharp head. The mouth is under the chin, and there are armors on the back and abdomen, four to five feet wide in length. Today I caught one on the stone moraine in the east of Mengjin. The big one weighed more than a thousand kilograms. "The ancients often used "tuna" as a sacrifice. "Tuna", which is a rare sturgeon and has a very similar shape, may also be used as a sacrifice, but unfortunately there is no documentation. "Youyang Zazu" (Duan Chengshi) Volume 17 "Yellow Fish" : “Every yellow croaker in Shu will be overcast and rainy. "It seems that "yellow croaker" is an unusual fish. "Eat" also has the meaning of "sacrifice". "Pian Hai Lei Bian·Shi Huo Zhi·Food Department": "Eat means food, so the sacrifice is called blood food. . "

Therefore, "eating yellow croaker every day" probably refers to the fact that the locals eat yellow croaker every day, but also refers to the fact that they use it every day to sacrifice "green ghost". People in Kuizhou use "yellow croaker" to sacrifice " "Green ghost" happened every day, so Du Fu felt very strange.

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There are not many examples of "black ghost" in the literature. In the Song Dynasty, it was mainly used to refer to "Cormorant" comes from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

He Zhu's "Wan Bo Xiaogu Mountain": The mountain is opposite Penglangji, and the monkeys and cormorants occupy it in May. , It was a strong wind at night. ”

What’s very interesting is that the title of He Zhu’s poem uses “monkey” and “cormorant”, while in the poem, he uses “wangsun” and “wugui” to compare with them. It seems that he The "black ghost" is another name for the cormorant. Hong Shi's "Tiaoxiao Ling":

When the fisherman is drunk, the black ghost is idle, and the fishermen can't sleep because of the white waves shaking the boat. The father is drunk, and the endless sound of the beach clears his ears.

The reason why literati in the Song Dynasty used "wugui" to mean "cormorant" may have been influenced by "Piya" or "Mengxi Bi Tan". Generally speaking, "cormorant" is used much more frequently than "wugui". It is worth noting that "History of the Ming Dynasty" Volume 325 "Biography of Foreign Countries Six Helan Biography" calls "black slave" ". "Wugui".

The person he served was called Wugui. He could not sink into the water and walked on the sea as if it were flat ground.

Volume 1 of "Emperor's Tribute Map of the Qing Dynasty" (Dong Hao et al. during the Qianlong Period) (Compiled by the imperial edict):

The black slaves enslaved by the Yi people were the so-called Kunlun slaves in the Tang Dynasty. The "History of the Ming Dynasty" also records that the Dutch slaves were named Wugui, who first came to the overseas islands and became famous with them. After eating, it is said that the person has died of illness, but his body is as dark as lacquer, but his lips are red and his teeth are white.

It can be seen from the above that "black ghost" actually refers to a black person. What exactly "black ghost" refers to is not confirmed based on the existing literature, but the author is inclined to the theory of "family sacrifices to gods and ghosts".