Fengdu : cité de l'abondance, cité de la male mort

Abstract

Both a mountain — located on the upper Yangzi river near the famous Three Gorges in the extreme East of Sichuan province — and a mythical location in Taoist scriptures of the Six Dynasties, Mount Fengdu has been at least since Tang times a celebrated place of pilgrimage. People went there not only to worship their deceased but also to untie the "knots of death" and proclaim the "vow of living." Originally a holy place in the legend of two immortals of the Han dynasty, Fengdu was known as the entrance to the Taoist hells where the souls of the deceased were temporarily consigned to subterranean prisons. It is still today the site of impressive religious processions. This historical and ethnological study of Fengdu seeks to contribute to the interpretation of the meaning of death in China. On the basis of several types of texts — Taoist scriptures, ancient mediumistic revelations, mirabilia, local histories, epigraphy, and ethnographic works, as well asfteldwork, this article retraces the history of the sacred site and the evolution of the beliefs and ritual practices associated with it. In conclusion, Fengdu appears like a polysemic place that, beyond the management of mourning and the consecration of despair, answers a therapeutic need: for the pilgrim who comes to express his vow of living, Mount Fengdu is a source of healing. Thus Fengdu is not only a circuit joining the world of the living and the netherworld, but also a "discursive place" set up against that which is "not said," where people come to express the incommunicable — the traumatic gulf between oneself and the world — and to ritualize the language of sorrow.