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The Divine Celebration of Fire
Fire was as crucial to the development of ancient
civilizations as electricity has been to modern times, and the ancient peoples
of both Eastern and Western cultures worshipped those who brought fire as
heroes. In China many ethnic groups still mark the day on which their god of
fire lit up their lives, and the Axi people is one of them.
The Axi ethnic minority group is an offshoot of the Yi people that lives
mainly in Yunnan¡¯s Mile County, 143 kilometers from the provincial capital of
Kunming. On a recent trip to Yunnan, I heard an ancient Axi legend about the
origin of man-made fire.
It describes how the Axi tribe had been using natural fire in primitive times
until a terrible flood extinguished it all. The flood occurred in early
springtime, when the weather was freezing cold. The Axi stamped their feet,
rubbed their hands and hugged each other to keep warm. A villager named Mudeng
noticed from their actions that heat was produced by friction. He cleverly
rubbed a wooden rod against a log until it finally caught a flame. The Axi
people had fire and warmth once again, and from that day to this, they have
referred to fire as mudeng.
The Axi practice polytheism, and believe that divinity manifests itself in
every object in the universe in one form or another. They consider themselves
descended from the tiger, and worship tiger-shaped totems. They respect the
phallus with calabashes and stones. They worship everything: ancestors, heroes,
demons, and divine objects, and of course, natural gods such as those of fire
and water. As their god of fire is also an ancestor, the celebration for Mudeng
is probably their most fascinating.
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