There are stories of mermaids in the world, but have you ever thought that there are also legends of mermaids in Guangdong where we live?
Moreover, the image of these mermaids may subvert your original perception.
This peculiar creature that lives near the waters of Guangdong is known as the Luting people.
Unlike western legends, where only the lower body is a fish, the Luting people are covered with scales and can survive in the water for three days and three nights.
According to legend, their main food was seafood and they also drank chicken blood. There are also legends that they would exchange their catches with fishermen for chickens to eat. From this, it can be inferred that the Luting people are good at fishing.
In the seventeenth-century "Guangdong New Language", a more detailed introduction to the Luting people, who lived in Lantau Island, Xin'an County... It is as long as a person with burnt yellow and short hair, the eyes are also yellow, the face is dark yellow, and it has a tail.
The Ming Dynasty Dongguan Deng Chun's "Lingnan Congshu" also mentions that "Daxi Mountain, Thirty-six Islands, in the Guanyi Sea, waterside caves, many Yiman species, or the legacy of Lu Xun, now known as Lu Ting, also known as Lu Yu".
The Lu Ting people are said to be descendants of Lu Xun, the leader of the local civil rebellion during the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China.
The Lu Ting family, who lived on the Daxi Mountains, originally had no dispute with the Han people in the Central Plains. Later, the Court of the Southern Song Dynasty sent troops to Daxi Mountain in the first year of the Song Ningzong Qing Dynasty on the grounds that the Luting clan did not have their permission to sell illegal salt, and massacred the islanders, and the Luting clan was almost annihilated, and the survivors were the ancestors of today's Ying family.
In the Song Dynasty Zhou Go non-"Lingwai Dai Answer" volume III, it is recorded that there was a kind of water battle in Guangzhou called Lu Shushan.
Among them, "Yan" refers to the "Yan family" and "water people" of that year.
They are fishermen who use boats as a room, see water as land, and float rivers and seas. Therefore, it can be inferred that the so-called Lu Ting was actually a water tribe at that time. Only because they often go to sea and are exposed to the rain, their skin and hair are different from ordinary people. The level of education is also low, it is difficult to communicate, so it is misunderstood, discriminated against and ugly by people on land.