著者

宇野 公一郎

出版者

日本文化人類学会

雑誌

民族學研究

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, no.2, pp.111-133, 1980

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The conclusion of my previous paper was that the religious sects of the South should be studied in the depth and the length of Vietnamese history and culture. Here, I have tried to decipher the symbolic geography embedded in the myths and the traditions of the primordial kingdoms and to compare it with the symbolic geography of the western Mekong Delta. The first section is a structural study of the myths described in the first volume of the Earlier Annals (Naoki Ky) of the Comprehensive History of Great Viet (Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu) . Descriptions of the first ideal kingdom Van Lang were divided into three parts. The first is about the first king Hung who established the administration. The second is about the child hero who repelled the invader in the time of the sixth Hung king. The third is about the water and the mountain spirits who took charge of the animals and the products of their regions. The first king Hung was born from the union of mountain and water and of China and Vietnam. If a king impairs the cosmological harmony of mountain and water the international harmony will be broken, and vice-versa. The transitional period from one dynasty to the next is the flood (international and cosmological) . The last king of the mythico-historical independent Vietnam was An Duong, who exposed himself to the attack of a Chinese Trieiu Da (m.) by heavily depending on the Golden Turtle (w.). An Duong ran southward into Nghe An and, holding a rhinoceros horn which would give security against drowning, he entered into the east sea with the Golden Turtle. This means the myth had made him accept the mountain element and secured the primordial couple which would give birth to the Vietnamese independent king. The Sea is another mythical world. According to the tradition, An Duong entered into this world from Mo Da Son (Mt. Night) whose image of the night suggests that this mountain was the entrance to another world situated outside-south of Vietnam proper. The second section focuses on these themes. It is shown that the western Mekong region near Chau Doc and the Seven Mountains was divided into three parts. Around Chau Doc Mt. Sam and along the Bassac River was a peopled region and belongs to the present, and everyday life was secured by the goddess of Mt. Sam. Between this area and the Seven Mountains lies the swamp area which belongs to the transitional period from the present to the ideal future. The tradition connects the swamp with the dangerous crocodile which will cause a flood when the Time comes. At the same time the swamp area will be a battlefield of the nations (international flood) . The seven mountains is the Future. The ideal king will be born there. The next theme is the union of water and mountain. Sacred places which have the two elements are androgynous mothers. But at the beginning of the occupation by Historic China, An Duong went outside-south with the primordial union of the two elements. The principle of Mother went with him. The Seven Mountains is this kind of outside mother. It is said that the living Buddha ordered his disciples to plant five magical charms around the Seven Mountains, the mountains being the center. But the central Charm, situated at the foot of Mt. Cam and next to a well, was absent from the quadrilateral formed by the four other charms. The mountains themselves were also absent. The center-mother-future king were symbolically in Cambodia. This center-in-the-outside-south-mountain theme reappears in Nghe An. The shrine of An Duong faces the west and in the west there is Mt. Kim Nhan. The two are symmetrical, one near the sea-outside, the other near the mountain people.