Introduction of digging tail in Longbaishan Mountain

By the way, there are many versions of Dragon Mother Legend. In recent years, some experts have pointed out that its birthplace may be in the Daming Mountain area of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region today. There, there is a legend of "March 3, Longbai Mountain", which is very similar to the story of the dragon mother in the Pearl River Basin, but more accurate. For example, the dragon in the story is also the incarnation of a snake, and the name of the snake is called "special excavation". The snake buried her mother in Daming Mountain after her death. The snake's filial piety touched the sky, so it was allowed to worship its mother on the third day of March every year, so there was a saying that "on the third day of March, the dragon worshipped the mountain." The geographical environment of Daming Mountain area is very consistent with the background of the story: backed by mountains, there are deep pools and rivers running through nearby; Moreover, it is very important that the story of "digging a hole to sweep the grave" in Daming Mountain area has the most ancient Vietnamese characteristics, and the places and names are all Zhuang vocabulary. For example, "digging a hole" means "bald tail" in Zhuang language. Therefore, Daming Mountain's "special excavation to sweep the grave" is probably the most original version of the story of the Dragon Mother and the excavation of Longbai Mountain in the Pearl River Basin.

Coincidentally, the story of digging its tail to worship the mountain has a similar version in northern China, that is, the story of "Lao Li with a bald tail". The author has an old picture book at home, which tells the story of "Lao Li with a bald tail". Unfortunately, due to poor storage, the beginning and end of the story are missing pages. Fortunately, detailed stories can be retrieved from ancient books. There is such a record in Yuan Mei's Woods Language in the Qing Dynasty:

In March, while washing clothes, Bi's wife in Wendeng County, Shandong Province saw plums as big as eggs on the tree. My heart is different, thinking that there is no plum in late spring, and it is unusual to eat and eat. Since then, I have been pregnant. In April, I gave birth to a little dragon, two feet long, which landed and flew away. Come and drink its mother's milk in the morning. One by one, the father cut off its tail with evil knives, and Xiaolong was from then on. ...

A few years later, his mother died and was buried in the village. One night, there was thunder and lightning, as if something was spinning in the dark. The next day, the coffin was buried and it grew into a big grave. A few years later, his father died and his neighbors were buried together. Lightning strikes again in the evening. The next day, he saw his father's coffin dragged out of the cave, and if he was not allowed to be buried together. Later, the villagers called it "the tomb of the bald-tailed dragon mother" and prayed for good weather.

The story of the bald-tailed dragon described by Yuan Mei is very similar to "digging the tail to worship the mountain". For example, there are mother breastfeeding, tail cutting, mother burial, mother sacrifice and other plots. The difference is that the legend of digging the tail to worship the mountain began to spread from the pre-Qin period, while the "bald-tailed Lao Li" did not begin to spread until the Qing Dynasty. Compared with the spread area, the spread area of "Bald Tailed Dragon Lao Li" is larger. In addition to Shandong, there are also legends about the bald-tailed dragon Lao Li in the three northeastern provinces. It is said that this is related to the trip of Shandong people to Kanto that year. Therefore, the story of the bald-tailed dragon Lao Li also has a new plot development. For example, The Battle of Heilongjiang tells the story of Lao Li, a bald-tailed dragon, driving away the harmful little white dragon and sitting in Heilongjiang. The "Mother Sacrifice" evolved into Lao Li, a bald-tailed dragon guarding Heilongjiang. For business reasons, he only has a little time to go home to visit his mother's grave every year. Because time is tight, lightning and thunder, storms. ...

On the surface, it means that when digging dragons to worship mountains, it will spread sex and rain, implying that people who are right and wrong are gossiping. In the Pearl River Delta region, "digging the tail to worship the mountain" can be regarded as another name for a weather phenomenon in March and April every year: it is sunny and blue, but in a blink of an eye, the sky is as dark as ink, and then the wind howls and the rainstorm pours down. Because the time is clear, when the elderly see this phenomenon, they will associate it with digging their tails to worship the mountains.