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Steeped in history, boat burning festival as big a draw as ever
2009/10/17 19:19:28 |
Photo Nos. 11, 13, 69 CNA staff writer Elisabeth Hsu
The tradition of burning Wang Yeh's boat has persisted for 300 years, but the 100,000 people who flocked to the fishing port of Donggang in Pingtung County for this year's eight-day ritual demonstrated that the attachment to the local deity has only grown stronger with time.
The Donggang Wang Yeh festival, the largest temple activity of its kind in Taiwan, came to its dramatic conclusion at around 5: 30 a.m. on Oct. 17 when Wang Yeh's boat went up in flames, taking with it local evil spirits and worshippers' problems.
The ceremony's somber atmosphere reflected the area's deep-seated belief in this local "god of pestilence, " whose ability to ward off evil has grown to near mythic proportions.
"It was out of fear and ignorance over plagues, typhoid, cholera and malaria that people in the past put their faith in the god, thinking he can expel deadly diseases, " says Lin Mao-hsien, an assistant professor of Taiwanese culture and language at National Taichung University.
Even today, Wang Yeh, who is believed to be a divine emissary patrolling the world for the celestial realm, is evoked to expel the H1N1 virus, Lin says.
This year's festival was the most expensive ever, with the management of the more than 300-year-old Donglong Temple that runs the event estimating its cost at NT$1 billion, 20 percent higher than the previous festival in 2006.
Hank Lin, a Kaohsiung resident who spent the night standing on the beach waiting for the boat to be burned, was attending the boat burning ceremony for the second time. He was willing to sacrifice sleep to be there because of the tradition and his own faith.
"I believe in Wang Yeh. Since I was in junior high school, I've begun believing in this faith. In many points of my life, I believe Wang Yeh was there to help me. It's not just for expelling diseases."
That faith in the deity over the centuries has been derived from "the desire for peace and health, the punishment of evil and rewarding the good, along with strong community cohesion formed around fear-based belief," Lin Mao-hsien explained.
Community cohesion has been particularly important because it has made Donggang natives proud to be from the town along Taiwan's southwest coast.
Local researcher Chen Chien-chien says that no matter how far away Donggang natives move, they also return to fulfill their inherited obligations in the triennial ceremony run by the more than 300-year-old Donglong Temple.
Full-time residents also put aside their daily jobs to get involved in various tasks, including building Wang Yeh's boat and helping organize specific rituals related to the festival.
"I'd feel bad if I did not get involved in this, particularly during the rituals of evoking and seeing off Wang Yeh, " said 41-year-old Su Po-wen, who has served in the festival as a "Ban Tou" -- the title of public officials responsible for maintaining order during the rituals -- since he was five years old.
According to Chen, the Wang Yeh ceremony was initiated by seven communities of early settlers in Donggang centuries ago and some of their descendants still handle the same tasks in the traditional ceremony today.
Huang Feng-chi, 61, said he inherited his job as a sedan carrier from his grandfather at the age of six and has done the same job since then. He sees the job as an honor that will earn him Wang Yeh's direct blessing.
The eight-day festival opened this year as always with a mysterious and complicated ritual on the beach of Jhenhai Park. Five Wang Yeh gods joined the one enshrined at the temple for a four-day procession around Donggang before they boarded their wooden ship on which they "sailed" around the fishing port's streets to expel evil spirits and plagues.
On the seventh day, the temple offered the gods a feast of 108 Chinese dishes accompanied by fine wine and liquor to thank them for warding off evil during the processions over the previous week.
The ritual culminated on Oct. 17 when the elaborately carved wooden boat was set on fire to symbolize the Wang Yehs setting off to heaven, taking with them the evil spirits and diseases they absorbed during the processions.
After Saturday's ceremony, there was only silence. No gongs and drums were allowed to make a sound, nor were bells, drums, local opera music or fireworks permitted, to prevent the "the gods from returning to Donggang" Chen said.
He explained that any festive sounds might have misled the Wang Yehs into thinking that the worshippers actually wanted them -- and the evil spirits leaving with them -- to stay.
Also, no fishing activities will be allowed in the three days following the ceremony to "prevent fishing boats from colliding with Wang Yeh's boat, " Chen said.
Each ritual was performed strictly according to tradition because any planned change must have the permission of Wang Yeh, said Donglong Temple chief executive Hsiao Chih-lin.
Like the Goddess of Mercy Matsu, Wang Yeh is one of Taiwan's most worshipped local gods, particularly along the southwest coast. Thousands of Wang Yeh temples dot the region, with several hundred situated in Pingtung alone where most people live on fishing and agriculture, according to National Taichung University's Lin.
The worship of Wang Yeh can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, Lin says. People in warm, muggy areas of southern China, where plagues often killed large groups of people, decided to make model junks out of wood, straw and paper and then set them out to sea or on rivers to symbolize sending away evil and disease.
When inhabitants of southern China emigrated to Taiwan in the late 16th and 17th centuries, they replicated the tradition to safeguard their health and peace of mind.
Because the symbolic vessels they built were regarded as transporters of evil spirits and disease spreaders, no one would go near them while they were being taken to the water for them to drift away.
When the ships failed to sink in the seas and drifted back to a local beach, local residents felt compelled to pick them up and build a temple to enshrine the gods of pestilence or perform worshipping rituals to comfort them.
If the rule was not strictly followed, the people would face severe punishment from the bad-tempered gods, which could result in the annihilation of their entire village.
As time passed, the great fear of disasters waned as the lives of the Wang Yeh worshippers improved and their populations increased. The tradition of letting Wang Yeh's boats drift away in the water evolved into burning them to avoid creating panic in neighboring villages.
Lin Mao-hsien believes that the feeling of ambivalence mixed with respect and fear consolidated the belief in Wang Yeh in coastal fishing villages.
"Thanks to the desire for peace of mind and many reported successful cases of the gods' blessings, the triennial Donglong Temple's Wang Yeh festival has expanded a little more each time." (With reports by Kuo Chi-hsuan) enditem/CS
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