Nüba
Mythological Narrative
On Mount Xikun in the northern wilderness, where archers dare not draw a bow toward the north, lives a figure in blue-green robes: Ba, daughter of the Yellow Emperor. Her story is fixed to the great war. When Chiyou forged weapons and attacked, the Emperor sent the winged dragon Yinglong to hoard the waters against him; Chiyou answered with the Lord of Wind and Master of Rain and a blinding tempest. Then the Emperor sent down his heaven-daughter. The storm died at once, and Chiyou was killed.
The cost fell on her: Ba could not return to heaven, and wherever she settled no rain fell. Shujun, patron of ploughing, reported it to the god on high, who lodged her north of the Red River — but she kept escaping. Those who would expel her first cleared the watercourses and dredged the ditches, then shouted 'Goddess, go north!' The classic preserves the exorcism verbatim, an actual drought rite embedded in myth.
Her name was already proverbial when the Book of Odes lamented 'the drought demon ravages, like scorching, like burning.' The Shenyijing shrank her into a southern creature two or three feet tall, naked, eyes on top of its head, running like the wind, bringing drought to any land that saw it. By Ming and Qing times the fall was complete: villagers believed fresh corpses turned into drought demons, and in dry years dug up graves to flog them — the goddess who saved her father's war reduced to a revenant hunted by farmers.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Nüba.
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Yinglong
A winged dragon who killed Chiyou and Kuafu for the Yellow Emperor, then could not return to heaven. It settled in the far south, which is why the south is rainy; drought-struck people mimicked its shape to call rain.
Chiyou
Chief of the Nine Li tribes, bronze-headed and iron-browed with eighty-one brothers. He raised a great fog against Huangdi at Zhuolu, and even in defeat was worshipped as the god of war.
The Yellow Emperor
Xuanyuan, first of the Five Sovereigns, who defeated Yandi at Banquan and Chiyou at Zhuolu. The calendar, writing, and music were credited to his reign; he rose to heaven on a dragon.
Changxi
A wife of Di Jun who bore twelve moons in the western wilderness and bathed them — the twelve months personified. Scholars widely take her as the prototype of the moon goddess Chang'e.