Taiwan's most popular folk deity is Matsu, a deified 10th century maiden who has been worshipped for centuries as the goddess of the sea and the protector of seafarers. She also links local supplicants with their historical and cultural roots on the Chinese mainland.
Fear. Genuine fear. That's the dominant, and legitimate, emotion to feel on a small boat in the Taiwan Strait when the weather starts shifting toward the tempestuous. The sky becomes an eerie grey-green dome, pressing down toward the increasingly agitated waves slapping loudly against the wooden hull. Low, white-and-wispy clouds race across the sky at different angles and speeds, warnings of the swirling winds building in the hundred-mile-wide channel that separates Taiwan from the southern coast of mainland China.
The wind builds, nearly drowning out the shouts of the crew as they batten hatches and secure storm rigging. Below deck, the darkness and the deafening impact of waves and wind on the boat push the passengers to prayer. At first a murmur, the individually spoken appeals rise to join those of others and become a communal call for a safe passage. For centuries, the object of these prayers has remained constant: Matsu, goddess of the sea and the patron saint of seafarers.
Many are the stories of sailors and fishermen who have said that, on the brink of a watery grave, they witnessed an apparition of the goddess who suddenly materialized and rescued them by calming the waves or casting a protective veil over their vessel. This deified 10th century maiden was first honored in coastal temples in South China, and her fame gradually spread throughout maritime Southeast Asia. She was worshipped in Taiwan as early as the 15th century, when the first boatloads of immigrants from Fujian province braved the waters of the strait to settle on the island's rich western plains.
Although details of Matsu's life are clouded by somewhat conflicting legends, most accounts have these essentials: In 960, at the beginning of the Sung dynasty, Matsu was born in Meizhou, an island off the coast of Fujian province. An exceptional girl, she became a vegetarian at an early age and also chose a chaste life. By 16, she was recognized as possessing supernatur al powers. Once, in a dream, she saw her father and two brothers drowning after their fishing boat capsized. She was able to rescue her father and one brother, but was awakened before she could save the other. Later, word arrived that one of her brothers had drowned, but that her father and other brother had miraculously survived.
Matsu died at 28, but her reputation steadily increased as more and more sailors attested to her intercession when they were in danger. Chinese fishermen and traders built temples to her wherever they established a port of call, as did those who made successful passage to Taiwan across the strait. These grateful immigrants established branch temples in Taiwan's earliest ports, and these same spots are today the most revered of the island's approximately four hundred Matsu temples.
The oldest of Taiwan's Matsu temples is on the offshore island group of Penghu (the Pescadores). More than 140 temples dot Penghu and its nearby islets, but the most important one of all is the temple to Matsu. Called the Tienhou Temple, it was founded during the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), making it the earliest religious edifice constructed in Taiwan. The temple was first enlarged to commemorate a Chinese naval defeat of the Japanese in 1563. It was further enlarged and renovated in 1592, when Ming dynasty armies won another victory over the Japanese, and again in 1624 when the Dutch occupiers were driven out of Penghu.
In 1683, Admiral Shih Lang, who commanded the Manchu forces that attacked Penghu, destroyed the remaining Ming loyalists still rejecting rule by the Ching dynasty. Following the battle, the admiral wrote in his report to the emperor that his forces had received divine aid and protection during the naval battle. When he stepped ashore and entered what turned out to be a Matsu temple to pay his respects, he claimed that the robes of the goddess were wet and her face was still moist with perspiration--signs of her assistance. In the following year, an imperial procl amation raised Matsu's official status to Tienhou, "Queen of Heaven." This official recognition of her religious status further increased the importance of Matsu temples in the eyes of her worshippers.
One of Taiwan's earliest ports was Peikang, on the southern coast, and settlers began construction of a Matsu temple there almost as soon as they built their own homes. The temple traces its origin to the arrival in 1694 of a Buddhist nun, who brought an image of the goddess from a temple in her native town of Meizhou. A small and undistinguished shelter was at first built for the statue, but the temple grew in size and decorative splendor as the port town itself expanded. Today, after renovations and reconstructions over three centuries, it is one of the island's most extravagantly decorated temples. Also called the Chaotien Temple, it is the site of Taiwan's largest celebration of Matsu's birthday, which falls on the 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month.
Chaotien Temple, widely acknowledge d to have the highest status of all the island's Matsu temples, each spring welcomes hundreds of thousands of worshippers to these birthday celebrations. The pilgrims arrive in buses, cars, or on foot to pay their respects to the goddess. For instance, each year thousands of people walk to Peikang from the town of Tachia, more than 100 kilometers to the north, stopping at sixteen different Matsu temples along the way during their one-week pilgrimage.
These pilgrims have an important purpose that goes beyond the birthday celebration itself. Throughout the day and night, worshippers from around the island bring their temple statues of Matsu to pay a visit to Chaotien Temple's statue of the goddess. Walking through streets amid billowing incense smoke and exploding fireworks, each group of worshippers enters the temple to perform an important ritual, one that binds each Matsu temple to all others.
This linking of all Taiwan's Matsu temples is done through the ritual known as fen-hsiang, ''dividing the incense smoke." According to early temple traditions, if a new deity image was to be more than a carved piece of wood, it had to acquire "power" from older, established representations of Matsu. This was done by passing the image through the smoke of the incense burned in an established image's censer.
Matsu images were initially consecrated at primary Matsu temples in mainland China--especially at Meizhou--before being brought to Taiwan and installed in the new temples. Oftentimes fire and ashes from mainland temple incense burners were also brought to the island. Periodically, groups of Taiwan pilgrims returned to the older temples in order to rejuvenate the spiritual power of their images by again passing them through the smoke of the home temple's incense fire.
Through this ritual division of the incense and associated ceremonies, the new image and its temple are made to share in the power and identity of the old. In this manner, the Matsu cult has spread thro ugh "generations" of images and temples over the centuries, and all relationships trace back to a common origin. As far as Taiwan residents are concerned, if they were to break the fen-hsiang ritual that renews the ties between the island's Matsu temples, they would symbolically cut their links to a shared spiritual history. They would also lose the social relationships formed among Taiwan's communities by the annual pilgrimages.
Although Matsu's spirit is believed to reside in all her images, the power each one has to respond to supplicants varies. Worshippers generally believe that the older the statue, the greater its power. For believers to benefit most from the the "essence" of Matsu's power, they need to visit the image least diluted through divisions, and the one most authenticated by having performed the most miracles.
The tradition of visiting old mainland temples was broken (until the recent thaw in cross-strait relations) because of the decades-long obstacl e to free travel between Taiwan and mainland China. As a result, Taiwan's pilgrimage network has for decades been a truncated portion of the much more extensive system of the past. Thus, Taiwan's oldest Matsu temples, especially the Chaotien temple in Peikang, have assumed greater status as pilgrimage destinations.
Today, the majority of pilgrims travel to Peikang by chartered bus. Organized in groups by local temples and religious associations throughout the island, these groups come from rural villages, country towns, and urban neighborhoods. After they arrive, they continue the tradition of ritual rejuvenation by passing the Matsu images they have brought with them through the smoke of the Chaotien Temple incense burner.
During the pilgrimage season around Matsu's birthday, these pilgrim groups converge on the streets leading to the temple, competing with each other by giving performances in honor of the goddess. As spectators fill the streets, each group proudly parades its image, carried i n an elaborately carved sedan chair and accompanied by entranced shamans, colorful dance groups, bands of musicians, and the constant exploding of firecrackers.
The extravagance and excitement of the Matsu birthday celebration at Peikang have turned the festival into a major tourist attraction. The streets around Chaotien Temple have an intense, carnival-like atmosphere. Costumed children wave from elaborate floats, huge effigies of the gods sway through the crowds, and food vendors sell festival delicacies as well as the usual snack foods and bowls of steaming noodles. In the temple courtyard itself, performers demonstrate martial arts, hold lion dances, and give Chinese opera performances. These activities compete with the sounds of drums, gongs, and giant strings of firecrackers resounding through the streets and alleys of the city.
With the modernization of Taiwan, one may wonder why Matsu continues to have such widespread popularity. Although fishing and shipping remain important econom ic sectors, the percentage of Taiwan residents who depend directly on sailing treacherous seas has certainly diminished.
The answer lies partly in the social, historical, and cultural dimensions of Matsu temples. Besides Matsu's concern for individuals, she also has an important role in Taiwan's social structure. Perhaps more than any other religious symbol, Matsu has come to represent a local, Taiwanese cultural identity based on the shared experience of the island's settlers. For Taiwan's Matsu pilgrims, the annual journey and its sacred stops relate not so much to the life of Matsu, but more to the generally accepted history of their pioneer ancestors. Thus, when Taiwan worshippers pay their respects to the goddess, they are also honoring their ancestors who crossed the strait over the centuries.
This feeling of shared experience is still an important feature of contemporary Taiwan. Cloud Gate--Taipei's internationally renowned modern dance groupgained early fame in Taiwan with its creation and performance of Legacy, a vivid and captivating reenactment in dance of the dangers faced by the island's early immigrants as they crossed the strait and built new lives on the island. The worship of Matsu can also be seen as a means by which each new generation can renew personal ties with Taiwan's history.
The popularity of Matsu has led to her inclusion in many other temples as well. It is a common practice for Chinese temples to accommodate a number of deities from other cults or even other religions. Matsu is thus frequently found in many a niche and alcove in the thousands of temples and shrines around the island, including the famous Lungshan temple in Taipei, where she has the place of honor in the courtyard just behind the temple's main god.
Matsu temples also share in the cultural dimension found in all of Taiwan's temples. Each edifice, large and small, is a rich repository of Chinese culture. The stone, wood, cloth, and tiles that compose temple decorations are carriers of history, literature, and myth. The cultural lore of centuries is carved and painted on columns, walls, and ceilings. Calligraphic scripts tell of ancient heroes and recent benefactors. Carvings in stone exhort one to ethical heights, and warn of unacceptable conduct. From soaring dragons and phoenixes on the rooftops, to the historical battles carved on walls, to the symbolic birds and flowers that grace the base of pillars--here is the Chinese religious pantheon, as well as a panorama of Chinese cultural experience.
In temples, the heroes of literature, history, philosophy, and myth have a home together. In Matsu temples, as in most others, a large number of gods and goddesses share the altars. Because temples are full of historical and cultural references, each worship experience is also a reminder of the rich Chinese past.
Matsu may be the quintessential goddess for Taiwan residents, but she is also a link with the larger pantheon of ethereal spirits of gods, goddesses, ghosts, and ancestor s that are distinctly Chinese. Her worship is therefore a reaffirmation of Taiwan's unique history and its continuity with Chinese culture.