Duan Siping (893-944) founded the Dali Kingdom in 937 and ruled as its first king. In Benzhuism, the indigenous patron-god religion of the Bai people of the Dali region, he is enshrined as the benzhu of the Duan family's home village at Qingdong near Xizhou, one of the deified rulers and ancestors whose worship knits each village to its history. A Ming-era legend made him the son of Baijie Amei, a maiden born from a plum who conceived him after touching a dragon, a motif that lent the founder of Dali divine paternity while giving his mother her own miraculous origin.