Panhu ( hanzi: 盤瓠;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

''Pánhù'';

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners ...

: /pʰan³⁵-xu⁵¹/) is an important figure in Chinese and Yao mythologies. The Panhu mythological complex includes myths in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and also other languages. This myth has a long history of being transmitted by

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

and several of the other ethnic groups of the fifty-six officially recognized by the current administration of China, both orally and in literature. (Yang 2005:4) The Panhu myth is an important origin myth for various ethnic groups.

Basic myth

The basic Panhu myth is about a dragon-dog who transformed into a man and married a princess. In the myth, there was an old woman in an ancient Chinese king's palace who had ear pain for many years. A royal physician plucked out a small, golden worm from her ear, and placed it inside of a gourd covered with a plate. This is the origin of Panhu's name, which literally means "plate gourd". The worm then turned into a dog, Panhu, who in some versions had five colored fur. The king offered to marry his daughter to anybody that would present him with the head of his enemy. This was accomplished by Panhu. Accounts vary, but eventually Panhu and the princess had six sons and six daughters who became the famous 12 clans of Chinese mythology.

Variants

There are also variant versions.盤瓠神話
/ref> In some variants, the dragon-dog became transformed into a human, except for his head. (Christie 1968: 121-122) This is sometimes attributed to the princess worrying that he was starving inside the golden vessel he was placed inside of for seven days and seven nights to transform into a human, which resulted in the process being incomplete.

Myth versus history

In the study of historical Chinese culture, many of the stories that have been told regarding characters and events which have been written or told of the distant past have a double tradition: one which tradition which presents a more historicized version and one which presents a more mythological version. (Yang 2005:12-13) This is also true in many of the accounts related to Panhu.

Religion

Many of the myths regarding agriculture in China are related to popular religion and ritual. In modern times, Panhu has been worshiped by the She people and

Yao people The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; ; vi, người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in t ...

as "King Pan". (Yang 2005: 52-53).

Basic myth

Variants

Myth versus history

Religion

See also

Works cited

References

Further reading