Zhyge Alu
Zhyge Alu is the great culture hero of the Nuosu Book of Origins and perhaps the best-known figure of Liangshan-Yi oral tradition. His mother, Pumo Hniyyr, conceives him when three drops of blood from eagles and dragon-eagles circling overhead fall upon her as she weaves; the resulting child is so strange-natured that, refusing his mother's milk and bed, he is placed in a cave and reared by dragons, whence the dragon-element lu in his name. In the epic's central exploit he ends an early catastrophe of scorching heat by climbing a fir tree and shooting down the surplus suns and moons, leaving a single sun and a single moon to light the world. Bimo priests invoke him in exorcistic scriptures for his prodigious strength and power over ghosts, where he is often pictured alongside a dragon-like reptile, Bbahxa Ayuosse. He has become an emblem of Nuosu cultural identity, lending his name to the modern poetry of Aku Wuwu.
Domains
- heroism and monster slaying
- sun and moon
- dragons and serpents
Powers
- to shoot down the surplus suns and moons that scorched the earth
- to overpower hostile spirits and ghosts with prodigious strength
Epithets
- Zhyge Alu
Sources
- Bender, Mark, Aku Wuwu, and Jjivot Zopqu, trans. The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019.
- Bamo Qubumo. "Traditional Nuosu Origin Narratives: A Case Study of Ritualized Epos in Bimo Incantation Scriptures." Oral Tradition 16, no. 2 (2001): 453-479.