Gaoche Thunder Rite

The Gaoche are the “high carts” whom the later histories call the Tiele. They answered thunder with a rite that the Wei Shu describes in some detail.^[1] When it thundered, they shouted, shot arrows at the sky and left the place.^[1] In the autumn of the next year, when the horses were fat, they came back to it.^[1] They buried a ram, lit a fire and drew their knives. A female shaman spoke prayers.^[1] Then they rode round the place in troops until they had made a hundred circuits.^[1] The Wei Shu compares what was done with the purification rites of China.^[1]

The account of the Wei Shu

The passage stands in the Wei Shu’s description of Gaoche customs, after the wedding and before the burial of the dead.^[1] It opens with two short statements. Their ways were unclean, and they often drew down thunder, 喜致震霆.^[1] Whenever it thundered, they cried out and shot at the sky. Then they abandoned the place and moved away.^[1]

In the autumn of the following year, when the horses were fat, they came together again and waited at the place of the thunder.^[1] They buried a ram, lit a fire and drew their knives.^[1] A female shaman, 女巫 in the Chinese, spoke prayers. The Wei Shu says that this was like the purification rites of China, 祓除.^[1] Then they galloped round the place in troops and stopped only after a hundred circuits.^[1] Each of them took a bundle of willow twigs, set it upright and poured milk over it.^[1] The word that says how the twigs stood, 回, is read as round about.

The next sentence describes the headdress of the Gaoche women. They wore sheep bones wrapped in hide on the head, with the hair wound round and fastened to them, so that it looked like the official caps of China.^[1]^[2] The text does not say whether the headdress belonged to the rite.^[1]

Deaths by thunder

The Wei Shu returns to thunder after the burial of the dead.^[1] When someone was killed by thunder, or when there was pestilence, the Gaoche prayed for blessing.^[1] If all stayed well and nothing else befell them, they made a thanksgiving.^[1] They killed many animals of every kind and burned the bones in a fire. Then they rode round in circles, as many as several hundred times.^[1] Men and women, young and old, all came together.^[1] Those who were at peace and in good fortune sang, danced and made music. The families of the dead chanted in grief and wept.^[1] Riding in circles belonged also to the great sacrifice of five Gaoche tribes under the emperor Wencheng.^[1]

The witnesses

The Bei Shi gives the same passages almost word for word.^[3] Its description of the customs was first translated into English in 1990.^[4] The chapter of the Wei Shu that survives was restored in the Song period from the Bei Shi. The two texts are therefore one witness and not two.^[5]

The Tongdian, compiled by Du You in 801, gives a shorter form of the same notice.^[6] In it the Gaoche gather at the place of the thunder instead of waiting there. The twigs are willow branches, set up bent.^[6] It has no prayer for those killed by thunder and no thanksgiving.^[6] Its circuits, up to several hundred, follow directly on the burial of the dead. In the Tongdian they therefore belong to the funeral.^[6] The Tongdian draws on the same notice and adds nothing to it. It is therefore not a further witness to the rite.

Interpretations

The Wei Shu names no god.^[1] The arrows went up at 天, the word for both the sky and Heaven. The text does not say whether they were meant to drive the thunder off or to answer it.^[1] It does not explain the ram, the fire, the knives or the willow twigs either.^[1]

The opening phrase can be read in two ways. Read as above, it says that thunder often came down among the Gaoche. One rendering takes the first word in its sense of liking and makes them glad of the thunderbolt. It also identifies the Gaoche with the Uyghurs.^[7]^[8] The same work sets the rite beside Rashid al-Din’s report. According to this report, the Uriangkhai of the Mongol period did not fear lightning and shouted when it thundered.^[7] On the same page, the work records a spring custom of the women of the Urenha, the Kazakhs and the Kirghiz. On the day of the first thunder, they carried vessels of milk, ayran and kumys round the tent and sprinkled them.^[7]^[9]^[10] Rashid al-Din wrote early in the fourteenth century, and the customs of the women were recorded in modern times. The rite itself is known from the one notice of the Wei Shu, which the Bei Shi and the Tongdian repeat.

A third view sets the wording of the opening phrase aside.^[11] It takes the phrase for a textual corruption.^[11] Steppe peoples fear lightning, which strikes man and beast on the flat plains where no tree stands.^[11] In that case the ceremonies are meant to exorcise the evil omen.^[11]

Other interpretations concern the purpose of the rite. One takes the shooting of arrows at the sky for an appeal to the spirits for help. It sets beside it a Buryat rite in which a vessel with an arrow in it is turned towards the east to call a sick man’s soul.^[12] Another takes the rite for a ceremony of the whole people, not of single households. If so, the sacrifices are the means of sending back to the sky the spirits that came down with the bolt, as Buryat shamans do with the felt, the libation and the lead-casting.^[13] Both parallels come from later peoples, and the Wei Shu gives no such explanation.

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Wei Shu, juan 103
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 25
^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 98
^ Pulleyblank 1990, p. 23–25
^ 内田吟風 1937, p. 534,539
^ a b c d Tongdian, juan 197
^ a b c İnan 2017; first edition 1954, p. 30
^ Ögel 1995, p. 283–284
^ Potanin 1881, p. 91–92
^ Holmberg 1927, p. 445
^ a b c d Pulleyblank 1990, p. 24
^ Turan 1945, p. 311–312
^ Ögel 1995, p. 283–288

Sources

Wei Shu, juan 103
Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 98 (after Wei Shu, Zhou Shu and Sui Shu)
Tongdian, juan 197 (after Sui Shu and Zhou Shu)

Literature

Abdülkadir İnan, Tarihte ve Bugün Şamanizm: Materyaller ve Araştırmalar (2017; first edition 1954)
Uchida Ginpū 内田吟風, 魏書の成立に就いて (1937)
Grigorii Nikolaevich Potanin, Очерки Северо-западной Монголии. Вып. 2. Материалы этнографические (Ocherki severo-zapadnoi Mongolii, Bd. 2) (1881)
Uno Holmberg (Harva), The Mythology of All Races, Volume IV: Finno-Ugric, Siberian (1927)
Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The 'High Carts': A Turkish-Speaking People Before the Türks (1990)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) II (1995)
Osman Turan, Eski Türklerde okun hukuki bir sembol olarak kullanılması (1945)