In a book entitled
Mysterious 30 Degrees North Latitude, the
author has made a mystery of this special area by depicting a
series of dangerous and supernatural phenomena such as the
disappearance of planes and ships in Bermuda and the magical curses
from Pharaoh in the Pyramids. These occurrences happened at 30
degrees north latitude, turning this area into a black hole in
human knowledge.
Thirty degrees north latitude crosses the Wuling Mountains of
China, which span several provinces and autonomous regions and are
the habitat to many people from the Tujia ethnic group. The area,
with dense forest and roaring water, is believed to be the last
home of the ancient Ba people. It is evident that the present Tujia
people still share many customs from their Ba ancestors.
Tao Yuanming, a famous poet of the Jin Dynasty (265-420), wrote an
article entitled, "Peach Blossom Shangri-la" about a group of
extraordinary people who lived in spectacular mountains and
rivers.
Tao would be surprised to know the area he once described still
remains as mystical as if he lived there today. The people he
represented had long since disappeared by the time he wrote about
them.
In
221 BC, General Sima Cuo of the Qin State led his army to conquer
the Shu State in western Sichuan Province. He advanced his troops
onward to Jianmenguan, attempting to take the Ba State in the
middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Several months later, the Ba
State came to an end under the converging attack of Qin and
Chu.
Many folk customs of the Tujia people in the Wuling mountainous
area are rarely known by people. "Climbing the tree laddered with
knife" is one of them. Even though performers of the act themselves
can't tell how the activity originated, they regard it as a form of
entertainment today, and believe the ceremony's significance is of
interest to anthropology.
On
an unearthed artifact of significance from the Ba people, graphics
have been found. Most of them hard to decipher. The item found is
an ancient form of a bronze musical instrument.
The boat is often found on these unearthed articles, with different
boats possessing different meanings. For example, a graphic in the
shape of the Chinese character "zhong" (meaning middle) in a
boat's stem may mean "sacrifice", which might be a combination of
sacrifices and sacred trees. While the symbol "+" is generally
considered to represent the sun.
The sacred tree was an intermediate between human and celestials or
gods. Historical documents show that the ancient Ba people offered
sacrifices to both gods and spirits. For them, sacrificial
activities had the same importance as war. And they believed
burning sacred articles would narrow the distance between
themselves and heaven.
A
sacred tree excavated from the Sanxingdui Ruins and belonging to an
ancient Shu State contains similar graphics to that from the Ba
people. Both show a thick tree trunk, and on top, a flower design.
A bird stands on the tree and the branches are stooped. According
to historical records, Ba and Shu cultures had completely blended
by the time of the last Shu king. In this sense, can we believe the
"sacred tree" was the origin of the "knife tree" activity of
today?
Ancient Egyptians thought that, "the soul of the departed could
avoid ghosts if it stepped onto the big sun boat, thereby finally
reaching paradise." However, ancient Ba people endowed greater
meaning to the boat's significance.
In
the 1950s, archaeologists found dozens of boat-shaped coffins in
both Dongsunba of Baxian County and Baolunsi of Zhaohua in
Chongqing. Wang Jiayou, who participated in the excavation, can
still vividly remember the scene,
"When the boat coffins were unearthed, all the bones had
disintegrated, except for the teeth. However, the burial articles
enabled us to imagine the lives of the ancient Ba people. Weapons,
wooden combs, pottery, remains of various fruit and dozens of
lacquerware and wooden plates, all seemed to be displayed in the
order of a common house."
The ancient Ba people made boat coffins in the way they built
canoes. The boat coffins were to be their home after death. They
were a typical riverside people that lived with water and died in
their boats. These boats therefore were to compose an important
part of the history of the ancient Ba people.
Dragon boats are a symbol between the past and present and
originate from the ancient ceremonies of searching for a lost soul.
Today the dragon boat race can be seen everywhere in the Three
Gorges area.
The designs on unearthed Ba and Shu bronze ware show large-scale
boat troops of the ancient Ba people. They used ships to carry many
soldiers rather than the former canoe made from one log. Today, on
the Daning River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, we can still
see canoes which look similar to boat coffins or are like the
"sacred boat" graphics unearthed. The canoe owners live on their
boats rather than farming. On cliffs on both sides of the river,
many hanging coffins and boat coffins can be found. We know that
the canoe owners are guarding the souls of their ancestors
there.
History has recorded: "In the 7th year of Emperor Zhou He, Sima Cuo
led 100,000 people of Ba and Shu states on 10,000 ships, taking
with them 6 million hu's of rice (hu is an ancient dry
measure), crossing the river to attack the Chu. They took Shangyu
and renamed it Qianzhong Prefecture."
By
then, the Ba State had turned to Ba Prefecture of the Qin Dynasty.
Depending on its strong boat troop and rich resources, Ba and Shu
helped Qin conquer its greatest enemy: the Chu State. The Ba
culture gradually disappeared in history.
A
team of the ancient Ba people, on their magic canoes, entered the
Wuling Mountains and brought the spirit of their ancestors there.
They left, to later generations, many endless mysteries about
themselves.
(CCTV.com translated by Li Jinhui for China.org.cn, May 30,
2003)