Nüba (), also known as Ba (魃) and as Hanba (旱魃), is a Chinese

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

deity. "Ba" is her proper name, with the ''nü'' being an added indication of being feminine and ''han'' meaning "drought".

Legend

Ba is the daughter of the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

(Huangdi) whom she aided during his Battle at Zhuolu against

Chiyou Chiyou (蚩尤, ) is a mythological being that appears in East Asian mythology. Individual According to the Song dynasty history book ''Lushi (book), Lushi'', Chiyou's surname was Jiang (surname 姜), Jiang (), and he was a descendant of Flame E ...

. After Chiyou had fielded a wind god ( Feng Bo) and a rain god (

Yu Shi Yu Shi () is a Chinese spirit or god of rain, also known as or conflated with Red Pine (Chisong, 赤松, or Chisongzi – Master Red Pine), among other names. Translations of ''Yu Shi'' into English include "Lord of Rain" and "Leader of Rain". As ...

), Ba descended from heaven to use her drought power to defeat their wind and rain powers. She is one of the first goddesses attested to in Chinese literature, appearing in the early collection of poetry, the ''

Shijing The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, co ...

'', as well as in the later ''

Shanhaijing The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shan Hai Jing'', formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed sinc ...

''. Nüba can be considered to be an ancient Chinese mythical drought demon. After having descended from Heaven to aid Huangdi at Zhuolu, instead of returning to heaven, Ba wandered to the northern parts of the earth. Wherever Ba appeared, there would be a drought.

Appearance

Ba is described in the ''Shanhaijing'' as dressed in green clothes. In the '' Shenyijing'' of the

Han Dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

Six Dynasties Six Dynasties (; 220–589 or 222–589) is a collective term for six Han-ruled Chinese dynasties that existed from the early 3rd century AD to the late 6th century AD. The Six Dynasties period overlapped with the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms, ...

times, she is described as being about two to three

chi Chi or CHI may refer to: Greek *Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ); Chinese *Chi (length), ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter *Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon *Chi (surname) (池, pin ...

s in height, but otherwise looking like a person, who walked naked as fast as the wind.Yang, 78

Rain ceremonies

Up through the middle of the twentieth century, ceremonies to produce rain were held in many regions of China. The basic idea of these ceremonies, which could last several hours, was to drive Ba out of the region. Once Ba was chased away, then the drought was thought to depart along with her and rain would then be sure to soon commence.

Notes

References

*Yang, Lihui, ''et al.'' (2005). ''Handbook of Chinese Mythology''. New York: Oxford University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nuba Chinese goddesses Drought goddesses

Legend

Appearance

Rain ceremonies

See also

Notes

References