Mehnangz, the Flower Mother goddess of fertility
Zhuang · deity · Zhuang traditional religion; continuing · deity
Mehnangz, the Flower Mother, sinicized Huapo and widespread among the Tai-speaking peoples as the Flower Goddess or Po Wang, is the Zhuang deity of fertility and childbirth. She tends a celestial garden in which golden flowers are boys and silver flowers are girls; a child's life is its flower, and when a child sickens the mother makes offerings and waters the wild flowers that stand for it, praying for the goddess's protection. Her cult overlaps with that of the creator-mother Moloxgyap, and some communities make her Baeuqloxdoh's wife or even his mother, but in much Zhuang practice she is venerated as a distinct flower-goddess of reproduction.
Domains
- childbirth and fertility
Powers
- to grant children and guard their souls as flowers in her garden
Epithets
- Huapo
Sources
- Nguyen Ngoc Tho. 'Goddess Beliefs in Chinese Lingnan Area.' Harvard-Yenching Institute Working Paper; paper read at the 9th Annual Conference of the Asian Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok, 2009.
- Kao, Ya-ning. 'Religious Revival among the Zhuang People in China: Practising "Superstition" and Standardizing a Zhuang Religion.' Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 43, no. 2 (2014): 107-144.