Nezha's Pacifier

哪吒的奶嘴： 三個哪吒儀式的物質文化分析

This video shows three different rituals of the deity Nezha. Each ritual has a different purpose and makes use of different elements of Nezha mythology. Yet they all employ the pacifier.

In my next book I discuss the relationship of Nezha to Baguazhang. The pacifier is now one of the standard signifiers of the presence of the god Nezha, in Taiwan and Singapore. But in the late 1800s before the Boxer Uprising, a primary signifier of Nezha was giant weapons. That's why Baguazhang uses giant weapons.

Baguazhang artists today are deeply concerned with getting the aesthetics of the art correct because they assign all sorts of martial and health prowess to those aesthetics. But these particular aesthetics are rich mines of mythology. Mythology is a primary expression of the collective unconscious. Once I reveal all this Baguazhang-embodied-mythology the flood gates of the collective unconscious may be blasted open. Are you ready?

Cheng Haiting whose father died fighting in the vanguard during the Boxer Uprising. Should we imagine him with a pacifier in his mouth?