Page 228 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

TAOISM OUTSIDE CHINA

Taoism and the Yao people

Groups classed as Yao (most commonly written 3ffi, f~, or fffi) make promi-
nent use of Taoist texts, liturgical paintings, and ritual forms, many of which
only emerged in China from Song times. The Yao ethnonym includes various
ethnolinguistic groups who have interacted with Chinese (and other South-
east Asian) societies and states in the last millennium. The main Yao group
speaks a (Sino-Tibetan) language known as Mien or its Mun, Byau Min and
Yau Min variants, and share many customs and ways of living with groups
speaking forms of Hmong, T' ai / Kadai, and some southeastern Chinese
dialects.
Yao "Taoism" took shape amid the interactions of Chinese customs and
traditions with Mien village-based and oral practices focused on the worship
of ancestors, stemming from their ultimate ancestor Pien Hung )lj~ I:., and
various nature deities, gods of the living, and spirits of the dead. Consisting
of clusters of ritually-integrated clans, Yao society has never developed en-
during political forms beyond the village level. Taoist rites and beliefs, along
with Chinese religious language and divine bureaucratic protocols, provided
Yao (and other) groups a grander socioreligious structure than their native
social and religious forms had. Yao communities crafted a communal form
of Taoism to forge an identity across generations and among communities
(linking their origins in Pien Hung to exalted spiritual bureaucracies), and to
establish a practical ritual means (initiation into transcendent ranks associated
with ritualized Yao ancestors) of consolidating and enhancing this loose, but
larger, cultural identity.
Taoist religious rites, writings, and symbols added a new dimension to Yao
society in addition to other Chinese cultural forms (calendars, funerary rites,
naming practices) and native methods of controlling spirits. Spirit mediums
and exorcists handled minor problems by appealing to lesser spirits and ances-
tors for such difficulties as disease, childbirth, accidents, and rain. Funerals
aim to return deceased relatives to their spiritual homeland, the Plum Moun-
tain Grottoes (Meishan dong W ll) 1I'i]), which many Yao texts also claim as
the source of their traditions; this purgatorial voyage culminates in eventual
salvation and assembly with other ancestors. Weddings unite both the couple
and their "soldiers of the netherworld" (yin beng ~ ~, mien beng ,f$ ~, peng
ma .~,~ ) into a new household.

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