女魃

The Classic of the Great Wilderness, North: there is one who wears blue, named Nüba, daughter of the Yellow Emperor. Chiyou made weapons and attacked the Yellow Emperor; the Emperor ordered Yinglong to strike him on the plain of Jizhou. Yinglong gathered water; Chiyou summoned the Lord of Wind and the Master of Rain, and loosed a great storm. The Emperor then sent down the heavenly woman Ba, and the rain stopped, and Chiyou was killed. Ba could not go back up. Where she dwells, no rain falls. Shujun spoke to the Emperor, and afterwards she was settled north of the Red Water. Shujun became the Ancestor of Fields. Ba sometimes flees; those who wish to drive her out command: Spirit, go north! First clear the channels, open the ditches. The first half is a war story. The second half is a technical instruction. The story first. Chiyou forged weapons and attacked. The Emperor sent Yinglong to meet him on the Jizhou plain. Yinglong gathered water; Chiyou called the wind and rain gods and brought down a storm. The Emperor then sent down the heavenly woman Ba. The rain stopped. Chiyou was killed. Ba is the Emperor's daughter. She wears blue. She did one thing: she stopped the rain. On a battlefield that is decisive. Yinglong's stored water is scattered by the downpour, bowstrings go soft, fire cannot be used, soldiers cannot move in mud. The moment the rain stops, the battle turns. So she won the war. And then: "Ba could not go back up." She could not return. Why? Because her power is stopping rain. A goddess who stops rain carries drought in her body. Wherever she goes, no rain falls. Heaven cannot hold a deity who makes heaven dry. So she was left among men. "Where she dwells, no rain falls." The next four characters are the coldest in the passage: "Shujun spoke to the Emperor." Shujun is the nephew of Houji, ancestor of the Zhou, later worshipped as the Ancestor of Fields — a farming god. He went to the Emperor and said something. What he said is not recorded. The next line is: "afterwards she was settled north of the Red Water." Move her. North of the Red Water: further out, emptier. A father, on the word of a farming god, moved his daughter onto a wasteland. Then the last sentence, the hardest one: "Ba sometimes flees. Those who wish to drive her out command: Spirit, go north! First clear the channels, open the ditches." Ba sometimes runs away from where she was placed. Those who want her gone give the order: Spirit, go north. And then: first clear the channels, open the ditches. Read together, they look like two things. But what if they are one? What if "spirit, go north" and "clear the channels" are two halves of a single command? Then the ritual of driving out the drought demon is, in practice, the mobilisation of a drought-relief works project. Picture a village in a dry year. The well is down, the fields are cracked, people are frightened. The shaman says: Ba has come. We must drive her out. The whole village turns out. Then the shaman shouts: Spirit, go north! Everyone shouts it back. And when the shouting is done, the shaman or the clerk says: now go dig. Why? Because "spirit, go north" means "let the drought go north" — and for drought to go north, there must be a channel for it to travel in. If the ditches are blocked, water cannot be held; if water cannot be held, the drought will not leave. It is a remarkably efficient piece of mobilisation. In a community where most people cannot read, you cannot post a notice saying: all villagers will assemble at dawn tomorrow with tools at the east end of the village to clear the ditch. But you can say: the drought demon has come, and we are going to drive her out. People come. People bring tools. People dig. And afterwards, if rain comes, the water is held. If it does not, at least the ditches are open, and the next rain will be held. That is the weight of those eight characters. They are not decoration on the spell. They are the purpose of the spell. After that, Nüba's fortune gets worse. From the Han onward the figure deforms. The blue-robed heaven-sent woman becomes a monster: three feet tall, naked, eyes on top of her head; or she moves like wind and leaves a thousand li of red earth behind her. By the Ming and Qing, the drought demon has become a zombie. Yuan Mei's ghost stories describe her as a newly buried corpse, with no grass on the grave and firelight on the mound. The cure is to dig up the grave and burn the body. From the Yellow Emperor's daughter to a corpse that must be burned: two thousand years. And through all of it people were doing the same thing — replacing "the weather" as the cause of drought with "some person." Because weather has no shape. You cannot seize it. You cannot kill it. A person has a shape. So every great drought required someone to be named. A stranger. A widow. A girl in a blue robe. "Spirit, go north." Three thousand years of shouting it. And what actually ended the droughts was never the shouting. It was the eight characters after it.

หนี่ป้า ธิดาของจักรพรรดิเหลือง สวมเสื้อสีน้ำเงิน ในสงครามกับชื่อโหยว อิ้งหลงกักน้ำ ศัตรูเรียกพายุฝน เหลืองอี้จึงส่งหนี่ป้าลงมา ฝนหยุด ชื่อโหยวถูกสังหาร แต่นางกลับสวรรค์ไม่ได้ เพราะพลังของนางคือ "หยุดฝน" เทพที่นางอยู่ที่ไหนที่นั่นแล้ง สวรรค์รับไว้ไม่ได้ นางจึงถูกทิ้งไว้บนดิน แล้วถูกย้ายไปเหนือน้ำแดง หลังเทพการเกษตรทูลขอ ประโยคสุดท้ายสำคัญที่สุด: "ผู้จะไล่นาง สั่งว่า เทพจงไปทางเหนือ! ก่อนอื่นจงล้างทางน้ำ ขุดคูให้โล่ง" สองประโยคนี้คือสิ่งเดียวกัน: พิธีไล่ปีศาจแห้งแล้ง คือการระดมคนขุดคู ในหมู่บ้านที่คนอ่านไม่ออก คุณประกาศเป็นลายลักษณ์ไม่ได้ว่า "พรุ่งนี้เช้าให้ทุกคนเอาพรัวมาขุดคู" แต่คุณพูดได้ว่า "ปีศาจแห้งแล้งมาแล้ว เราจะไล่มัน" คนจะมา คนจะเอาพรัวมา คนจะขุด หลังราชวงศ์ฮั่น หนี่ป้ากลายเป็นปีศาจตัวเตี้ย ผิวเปลือย ตาอยู่บนหัว ถึงสมัยหมิง-ชิงกลายเป็นผีดิบที่ต้องขุดศพขึ้นมาเผา จากธิดาจักรพรรดิ์ สู่ศพที่ต้องเผา ห่างกันสองพันปี สิ่งที่ยุติภัยแล้งจริง ๆ ไม่เคยเป็นคำสวด แต่เป็นแปดตัวอักษรที่ตามมา

Nüba, anak Huangdi, berpakaian biru. Dalam perang melawan Chiyou, Yinglong mengumpulkan air; musuh memanggil badai; Huangdi menurunkan Nüba; hujan berhenti; Chiyou terbunuh. Tetapi ia tidak dapat kembali ke langit, kerana kuasanya ialah "menghentikan hujan". Dewa yang menyebabkan kemarau di mana ia berada tidak boleh tinggal di langit. Ia ditinggalkan di bumi, kemudian dipindahkan ke utara Air Merah atas permintaan dewa pertanian. Ayat terakhir paling penting: "Sesiapa yang mahu menghalaunya memerintahkan: Pergilah ke utara! Dahulu bersihkan saluran, buka parit." Dua ayat itu satu perkara: upacara menghalau roh kemarau ialah penggerakan orang untuk menggali parit. Dalam kampung yang tidak boleh membaca, anda tidak boleh mengumumkan secara bertulis: "esok semua bawa cangkul ke hujung timur untuk bersihkan parit." Tetapi anda boleh berkata: "roh kemarau sudah datang, kita halau." Orang akan datang. Orang akan bawa cangkul. Orang akan menggali. Selepas dinasti Han, Nüba menjadi raksasa pendek, bogel, mata di atas kepala; menjelang Ming-Qing ia menjadi zombi yang kuburnya mesti digali dan mayatnya dibakar. Dari anak seorang maharaja kepada mayat yang mesti dibakar: dua ribu tahun. Yang benar-benar menamatkan kemarau tidak pernah ayat itu, tetapi lapan aksara selepasnya.

Nữ Bạt, con gái Hoàng Đế, mặc áo xanh. Trong chiến tranh với Xi Vưu, Ứng Long trữ nước; địch gọi bão mưa; Hoàng Đế sai Nữ Bạt xuống; mưa tạnh; Xi Vưu bị giết. Nhưng nàng không về trời được, vì năng lực của nàng là "làm tạnh mưa". Một vị thần khiến nơi mình ở thành hạn hán thì trời không thể giữ. Nàng bị bỏ lại dưới đất, rồi bị dời lên phía bắc sông Xích Thủy theo lời một thần nông nghiệp. Câu cuối quan trọng nhất: "Ai muốn đuổi nàng thì hô: Thần hãy đi về bắc! Trước hết khơi đường nước, thông mương rãnh." Hai câu ấy là một việc: lễ trừ tà hạn hán chính là việc động viên người đi đào mương. Trong làng mà đa số không biết chữ, bạn không thể yết thị: "mai mọi người mang cuốc ra đầu đông khơi mương." Nhưng bạn có thể nói: "con ma hạn đã đến, chúng ta đuổi nó." Người sẽ đến. Người sẽ mang cuốc. Người sẽ đào. Sau đời Hán, Nữ Bạt thành quái vật lùn, trần truồng, mắt trên đỉnh đầu; đến Minh-Thanh thành cương thi phải đào mộ lên thiêu. Từ con gái hoàng đế đến cái xác phải thiêu: hai nghìn năm. Thứ thật sự chấm dứt hạn hán chưa bao giờ là câu hô, mà là tám chữ theo sau.

Nüba, anak Huangdi, berpakaian biru. Dalam perang melawan Chiyou, Yinglong mengumpulkan air; musuh memanggil badai; Huangdi menurunkan Nüba; hujan berhenti; Chiyou terbunuh. Tetapi ia tidak dapat kembali ke langit, karena kekuatannya adalah "menghentikan hujan". Dewa yang menyebabkan kemarau di mana ia berada tidak boleh tinggal di langit. Ia ditinggalkan di bumi, lalu dipindahkan ke utara Sungai Merah atas permintaan dewa pertanian. Ayat terakhir paling penting: "Siapa yang ingin mengusirnya memerintahkan: Pergilah ke utara! Dahulu bersihkan saluran, buka parit." Dua ayat itu satu hal: upacara mengusir roh kemarau adalah penggerakan orang untuk menggali parit. Di kampung yang tidak bisa membaca, Anda tidak bisa mengumumkan secara tertulis: "besok semua bawa cangkul ke ujung timur untuk membersihkan parit." Tetapi Anda bisa berkata: "roh kemarau sudah datang, kita usir." Orang akan datang. Orang akan membawa cangkul. Orang akan menggali. Setelah dinasti Han, Nüba menjadi raksasa pendek, telanjang, mata di atas kepala; menjelang Ming-Qing ia menjadi zombi yang kuburnya harus digali dan mayatnya dibakar. Dari anak seorang kaisar menjadi mayat yang harus dibakar: dua ribu tahun. Yang benar-benar mengakhiri kemarau tidak pernah ayat itu, melainkan delapan aksara sesudahnya.