All clans in Chi Village worship a group of community deities called Three Mountain Kings. They are a group of community deities widely believed in the east of Guangdong Province. Chi Village has formed its own sacrificial circle based on the folk religion of the Three Mountain Kings.
The belief originated from Jinshan, Mingshan and Dushan mountains in Jiexi County, a Hakka ethnic area in Chaozhou. They were originally the mountain deities of these three mountains. According to the legend, in 677, General Chen Yunguang wrote the Inscriptions on the Temple of Chaozhou Three Mountain Kings (si Chaozhou sanshan shen ti bi 祀潮州三山神题壁) when he stationed his troop in Jiexi County.
Moreover, another historical celebrity Han Yu is also related to Three Mountain Kings. Han Yu was a Chinese essayist, poet, philosopher, and politician during the Tang dynasty. In 819 AD, he was demoted and exiled to Chaozhou because of his strong protest again Emperor Xianzong’s support of Buddhism. The biggest river in Chaozhou was renamed Han River for honoring him. In 819, during his stay in Chaozhou, Han Yu went to Jiexi County to pay homage to Three Mountain Kings and wrote the "Text to Worship the Boarder God" (ji jie shi shen wen 祭界石神文). In general, articles of General Chen Yunguang and Han Yu praised the three mountain gods' effectiveness in bringing rain.
During the 14th century, Three Mountain Deities were upgraded to the rank of the king (Wang 王), and thus became Three Mountain Kings. Because Three Mountain Kings appeared on the battlefield and assisted Song Taizong, the second emperor of the Song Dynasty, to win the victory, they were promoted to King of the Country (Guo Wang 国王). Mingshan was granted the title De Hua Xian De Bao Guo Wang (清化咸德报国王), Jinshan was granted the title Zhu Zheng Ming Su Ning Guo Wang (助政明肃宁国王) and Dushan was granted the title Hui Gan Hong Ying Feng Guo Wang (惠感宏应丰国王).
Regardless of whether the story of the Three Mountain Kings helping to win the battle is true or not, it objectively demonstrates that the authority of the Three Mountain Kings is recognized by the state. Moreover, it promoted the worship of the Three Mountain King among the people in Chaozhou at a large scale, making Three Mountain Kings superior to other community deities. Many villages worship the Three Mountain Kings as the main protector. Temples for Three Mountain Kings predominated in most of the villages in Chaozhou.
Since Three Mountain Kings became the village's protector, the village generally only allowed their people to enter the temple to worship. According to the tradition of Chaozhou, there is an unwritten rule that when it rains, they can go to the Tudigong (Lord of the Soil and the Ground) Temple to take shelter from the rain, but they cannot go to the Temple of Three Mountain Kings in other villages to take shelter from the rain. They believe that this is because Tudigong protects the whole world, while Three Mountain Kings in each village only protect the people of their villages. It states that Three Mountain Kings, as tutelary deities, have exclusiveness, indicating the boundary between inside and outside the village.
Chi Village worshiped Three Mountain Kings as the main deity of the village. They built the West Lake Temple, commonly known as Da Gong (Grand Palace), to worship Three Mountain Kings. Apart from being worshiped in the temple, the statues of the deities were also carried out for a deity procession in the Spring Festival every year.
Nonetheless, due to the importance of Three Mountain Kings, how to allocate their statues to each clan in the village became a dispute. Finally, it was decided by Poe divination. People drop two little wooden pieces of a crescent shape on the floor and get the divine answer by the positions of the pieces. Each cup has two sides, one flat and one curved. If one piece has its flat side facing up and the other has its curved side facing down, it is called Winning Poe (Sheng Bei, 胜桮), representing the god's agreement with the devotee's wish; if both pieces have their flat sides facing up, it is called Laughing Poe (Xiao Bei, 笑桮), meaning that the god is laughing and the devotee has another chance to drop again; if both pieces have their curved side facing up, it is called Unfortunate Poe, meaning that the god's disagreement with the devotee's wish.
However, according to my observation in the village, even if the devotee gets an unfortunate Poe, normally they will drop it again to get a winning Poe to satisfy themselves. David Jordan (1982) argues that the results of Poe divination are known and deliberately manipulated by the people while they simultaneously believe the fall of Poe is governed by divine will.
As long as humans can manipulate the result, the distribution of Three Mountain Kings was not simply decided by the random result of the Poe divination either. Notwithstanding the form of Poe divination adopted in the procedure, It was in fact determined by the power of different clans. The temple has six deities: the First King, the Second King, and the Third King, along with their consorts, the First Lady, the Second Lady, and the Third Lady. As a result, their distribution is as below.
Table. Clan and Distribution of the Deities in Chi Village
Deity
Clan or division
The First King
Ke
The Second King
Xie and Down Yang
The Third King
Hong
The First Lady
Chen’s first division and Upper Yang
The Second Lady
Chen’s second division
Third Lady
Chen’s third division
Consequently, the Chen clan actually got three ladies, while the Xie clan only got the Second King. It is indicated that Chen is much more influential than Xie. Before 1949, Chen’s population in three villages Buding Zhuang, Tianqian Zhuang and Yueyingku reached 315 households and 1425 people. Xiecuo Village was dominated by Xie’s clan, yet there were only 248 households and 976 people.
When the Japanese army invaded Chaozhou in 1939, they came to Chi Village and tore down the Temple of Three Mountain Kings. Villagers saved the statues of the deities and hid them in ancestral halls. The villagers had not rebuilt the temple since the Japanese invasion. Unfortunately, the statues did not survive afterward. They were demolished in the communist political movement after 1949.
Bibliography
Jordan, D. K. (1982). Taiwanese Poe Divination: Statistical Awareness and Religious Belief, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 114-118
