Wang Yeh boat burning festival still a big draw

Like the Goddess of Mercy Matsu, Wang Yeh is one of Taiwan's most worshipped local gods, particularly along the southwest coast. Thousands of Wang Yeh temples dot the region, with several hundred situated in Pingtung alone where most people earn their livings through fishing and agriculture, according to National Taichung University's Lin.

The worship of Wang Yeh can be traced back to the Song Dynasty, Lin says. People in warm, muggy areas of southern China, where plagues often killed large groups of people, decided to make model junks out of wood, straw and paper and then set them out to sea or on rivers to symbolize sending away evil and disease.

When inhabitants of southern China immigrated to Taiwan in the late 16th and 17th centuries, they replicated the tradition to safeguard their health and peace of mind.

Because the symbolic vessels they built were regarded as transporters of evil spirits and disease spreaders, no one would go near them while they were being taken to the water for them to drift away.

When the ships failed to sink in the seas and drifted back to a local beach, local residents felt compelled to pick them up and build a temple to enshrine the gods of pestilence or perform worshipping rituals to comfort them.

If the rule was not strictly followed, the people would face severe punishment from the bad-tempered gods, which could result in the annihilation of their entire village.

As time passed, the great fear of disasters waned as the lives of the Wang Yeh worshippers improved and their populations increased. The tradition of letting Wang Yeh's boats drift away in the water evolved into burning them to avoid creating panic in neighboring villages.

Lin Mao-hsien believes that the feeling of ambivalence mixed with respect and fear consolidated the belief in Wang Yeh in coastal fishing villages.

“Thanks to the desire for peace of mind and many reported successful cases of the gods' blessings, the triennial Donglong Temple's Wang Yeh festival has expanded a little more each time.”

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