Dou'anzhu, the Earthly Ancestor

Dou'anzhu, known locally as Tugantsu, is the earthly hero-husband of the Qiang origin epic. An earthborn Qiang man covered in fur, he rescues the heavenly maiden Mujiezhu from a tiger and wins her love; to gain her hand he accomplishes the impossible labors set by her father, the God of Heaven, felling and burning the forests of ninety-nine mountains and raising a crop on the ash-cleared land. In the burning his coarse fur is scorched away to reveal a handsome man. Marrying Mujiezhu, he becomes with her the ancestral couple from whom the Qiang descend, and he is venerated as the male progenitor deity alongside his heavenly bride. His tale is among the best-known of the Qiang and is enacted in the rituals and dramas of the mountain sacrifice.

Domains

• ancestral progenitor
• herding and tillage

Powers

• to clear and burn the trees of ninety-nine mountains and raise a crop

Epithets

• 斗安珠

Relations

• spouse: Mujiezhu, the Heavenly Maiden

Sources

• Yu, Shiao-ling. "Sacrifice to the Mountain: A Ritual Performance of the Qiang Minority People in China." TDR/The Drama Review 48, no. 4 (184) (2004): 155-177.
• Li Xianglin. "Goddess Worship and Ethnic Consciousness in Qiang Folk Literature" (Qiangzu minjian wenxue zhong de nushen chongbai yu zuqun yishi). Wenhua yichan (Cultural Heritage), no. 1 (2012).