The Yellow River God Worship In Ancient China

In the ancient period of China, the survival environment of human is bad, andpeople were affected by their own cognitive ability and the ability that transformnature .People had fear and sense of awe on nature of all things and phenomenon.Concept of animism produced, natural worship had important status and rich contentin primitive religion. This included the universe, such as the Day、the Month、theStars、the Mountains、the Rivers of worship, and the human own worship. Humanrelied on raising of the nature to survive, but people often felt fearsome to a lot ofunable to explain natural phenomena in the nature, as well as the disasters comingunexpectedly. Therefore humans broke into various Gods to master and control allthis. People were devout to worship and sacrifice to these Gods, and peopleexpected to obtain blessing and protection from them. Thus, ancient mythsproduced.In the rich and colorful nature worship, the Rivers of worship occupied theimportant status. The Yellow River is the cradle of feeding all the children of theYellow Emperor and Chinese civilization. She is called China ’s“Mother River”.people relied on her to survive and develop. Chinese created brilliant and splendidculture of the Yellow River. But her occasional flooding and diversion in the historybrought devastating disasters to the people living in the Yellow River .The YellowRiver experienced six major migrations. Every migration and diversion was a brutal“massacre”. Because of the influence of primitive religious ideas, people thoughtthat the Yellow River of calm and capriciousness was controlled by a God. Peoplewere grateful for its grace. But people felt helpless for its oppressive. So the YellowRiver god worship produced in the feeling of thanksgiving and fear.Ancient Chinese of worship and sacrifice to the Yellow River God started theShang dynasty. After thousands of years, the River God developed from the initialnatural God to a personality, socialization, secularization of God. In the Ming andQing Dynasties it became a heroic spirit of humans. Any forms of religion were closely related with society, and they had social attributes. Ancient China of theYellow River God worship was also so. The River God of evolution illustrated thispoint. It adapted to the social demand and generation, and it developed with thesocial development. It had rich historical and cultural connotations as well ascolorful myths and legends.The ancient Chinese of the River God worship reflected the universality andrepresentativeness of Chinese belief. There was no uniform system of myths aboutthe River God. People were capricious to the River God. The River God was alsosubjected to the secular social ethical restriction. All these were due to people’spractical and utilitarian psychology, and the utilitarian of social role was the realreason that the Yellow River God worship could continue thousands of years. Afterthousands of years, the belief of the River God had precipitated into a brilliant gemof the China’s traditional customs and culture. In the contemporary era of advocatingand carrying forward the Chinese traditional culture, the Yellow River God worshipand culture of sacrificing should also be absorbed and accommodated by the modernsocial civilization.