Shout out the soul
Text/Liu Hongjian
In the 1980s, there were only a few literate people in the village, there were no doctors, adults and children were sick, basically they would not be sent to the hospital, one was no money, and the other was the "earthworks" that had been passed down by word of mouth for many years and were convinced. It's like having a fried gills (i.e., mumps) smeared with ink; if you have snake gallbladder sores, you not only have to use ink, but also ask the "tall man" to chant a mantra.
When a child was frightened, the anxious elders would put a rune on an inconspicuous telephone pole and ask the gods to bless their children with health and safety: "Heavenly spirit, earth spirit, my family has a night cry." The gentleman who passed by read it three times and slept until the light of day. ”
Shouting souls is an ancient ritual that still impresses me to this day.
In fact, the word "shouting soul" is what I see from books today, and the Zhuang people in that meeting mostly call it "finding the soul" or "summoning the soul".
That summer, the sun was like fire, surprisingly hot, zhuangzi had not yet used electricity, the adults fan out of the hot air, eat lunch kung fu, people are like taking a sauna. The small river that runs by the village has become the most popular place for adults and children, and if possible, everyone is willing to spend a day in the cool water. Of course, children must be brought by their own adults to go into the water. Adults will scare us with water ghosts, and the effect is surprisingly good, except for some bold, most children dare not go down the river alone.
One evening that summer, the calm village was suddenly shattered by hysterical cries. A poor child, naked and warm, was carried home by his father, while the sad and helpless mother cried out for her child and staggered behind. Zhuangzi Shang's respected and experienced "Shi Ertai" stepped on the "three-inch golden lotus" and stepped on it, and under the gaze of the zhuang people who were watching on the three outer three floors inside, he firmly gave the conclusion that the child's soul was scared away by the water ghost. Shi Ertai found a big foot basin, upside down on the child whose life was hanging on the line, she found a stick to knock on the foot basin, let the child's mother shout the child's name loudly, and then embellished Come back, and then she knocked the basin, and shouted back intently, so many times, the child was still gone. Later, "Shi Ertai" said that the water ghost was too powerful, and the time was delayed, and the doll's soul could not be called back.
Another year, I remember it was early winter, and the weather was lukewarm. Usually, except for the old man who collected the dung, there was no one on the road when the sky was just dark. On that day, the whole Zhuangzi was shrouded in a boundless mist, and I was woken up by a noisy noise, and my grandmother told me that the little son of Grandma Ma San's family behind the house, the "little tiger", was gone and had to be recovered. So, half longing and half doubting, I followed my grandmother to witness the "soul hunting" ceremony.
When I arrived at Grandma Ma San's house, before I entered the house, I saw the little tiger's father holding a bamboo rake in his hand and walking out of the house and going up the zhuang road. Grandma Ma San walked in front with the little tiger in her arms, and the "little tiger" did not know what frightened she had, and her hands and feet were still twitching during the fainting. Zhuang Lin, who was watching, commented: "I heard that yesterday people were fine, but when they woke up, people were like this." ”
"Little tiger, the meal is ready, come to Ga (home) to eat..."
Grandma Ma San's face was heavy, and she began to shout out her soul with devotion, and the crowd of onlookers grew, and people spontaneously kept quiet, afraid of annoying the gods because of their inadequacies.
Even the sun, which had just risen, opened its eyes and watched the ceremony quietly through the mist.
Every time Grandma Ma San shouted, her man took the rake and rake it and responded loudly:
"Coming back, coming back!"
The husband and wife silently cooperated and shouted as they walked, until they reached the stone bridge on the east side of Zhuangzi, and Grandma Ma San stood on the bridge and drew a large circle on the bridge deck with her feet. Finally, after she had once again called out her son's soul, her man exerted all his strength and used a rake to rake a ball of air into the circle. At this point, in the cheers of the neighbors who watched all the way, the solemn and sacred ceremony ended smoothly.
As for why the circle was drawn on the bridge deck, some people said that the afternoon before, they saw the "little tiger" on the bridge deck frightened by a snake that suddenly swam by.
Fortunately, in my half-believing waiting, the soul of the "little tiger" was really called back, and in the evening of the same day, I saw him jumping around in his yard and spinning (spinning) up ..
Shouting souls, first seen in the Chu Ci, is said to have been composed by Qu Zi to summon back the soul of the king of the Qin State who died, and has been passed down for more than 2,200 years, and now this ancient ritual with feudal superstitions is gradually declining. In fact, shouting souls is more of a psychological treatment, and what a sick child desires most is to lie in the arms of his mother, and feel good in the center of his mother's call, and the illness will naturally get better quickly.
It is not the soul that is shouting, it is calling the child home.
About author:Liu Hongjian, male, born in 1981, from Huaiyin, Jiangsu Province. Graduated from Huaiyin County Dock Middle School in 1997, he is an amateur literary enthusiast and has published a number of works in the media.
From huaiyin language
Editor: Ma Xuemin
One point number Qingwei Heze creative base