Duan Chicheng, the Python-Slayer

Duan Chicheng is a hero-type benzhu of the Bai, the patron god enshrined at the Erhe memorial temple in Heyicheng village near Xizhou. By legend a monstrous python infested the Erhe River that feeds Erhai Lake, devouring people and livestock and flooding the crops, until the youth Duan Chicheng slew it and perished in the deed; he was thereupon deified as the god of Erhai. His sacrifice is commemorated at the Sea-Playing (Shuahai) festival, and he is among the chief benzhu welcomed during the Raosanling pilgrimage.

Domains

• lake guardianship
• heroic protection

Powers

• to slay the man-eating python and so calm the waters of Erhai

Epithets

• 洱海之神

Sources

• Megan Bryson, Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017).
• C. P. FitzGerald, The Tower of Five Glories: A Study of the Min Chia of Ta Li, Yunnan (London: The Cresset Press, 1941).