Gangs and gods in the old days of Ankang
In the old days, there were more gods and gangs than we could imagine, and due to the lack of texts, coupled with the complex composition and origin of these gods, some were trade guilds, some were religious ancestral weaving, and some were made of dreams. There is also a lack of detailed information to deduce their respective formation trajectories, and only from the donation list on the remaining stone tablets of some temples and guilds, it can be found that some gods and gangs that existed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and some can still deduce the origin of their formation from their names.
The image originates from the internet
At present, among the surviving stone steles of Ankang, the name of the god society with the largest record is the "Hook Sink" of the Ankang Stele Edition: Hanyin Pingliang Hongxing Township Shuai Qingya Temple Stele (Qing Tongzhi Eighth Year [1869] Standing Stone), the stele text is not much, The record is as follows: The Sun Worm King will help thirty-seven and a half Wen Ancestors will help money 5,000 Wen Bodhisattva will help 10,000 Wen Lantern Flower Will Donate 1,000 Wen Lukan will help 32,600 Wen Mao Guzi will help 68,000 Wen Xinguzi will help Taiwan 47,000 Wen Bao Gu Will donate 12,000 yuan or more Each association will allocate a total of 221,600 yuan to build a house. Among the above names, the Sun Worm King Society and the Lantern Flower Society are more puzzling to be known. The road can be a public welfare organization that repairs the road and makes up for the obstacles, the old grain association, the new grain association, and the baogu association may be the self-help organization of the industry guild, and the respective self-help organizations that plant millet and plant grain can jointly negotiate prices to deal with the underpriced purchases of grain merchants.
It is interesting to note that millet (ankang people call rice millet) will have a distinction between old and new, which may have two meanings, one is that the new millet will be composed of farmers who introduce new grain species, relative to the millet society composed of local grain farmers; and the other may be the millet society composed of newly migrated farmers, relative to the millet society of local old households. Either way, it suggests that there is a custom of association for utilitarian purposes in the culture of ankang.