屈原《河伯》祀主探源

The God Origin of "Hebo" by Qu Yuan

屈原《河伯》一般被认为是祭祀黄河水神的篇章,但对其祀主的理解却各执己见,难于定论。通过对相关文献资料的甄别分析,人们不难发现后世对先祖神的祭祀包含着民族发展的文化根源性,它是在种族迁徙与融合中难以割舍的民族记忆,这种族源性是代代相传,在模糊的传说中逐渐放大先祖的功绩与光芒,进而景仰和崇拜的结果。因此,屈原《河伯》应是以河伯族人的先祖为原型载体,在楚地风俗的基础上杂糅神话和史实而形成的祭歌,其祀主即是河伯族先祖。

“Hebo” by Qu Yuan is generally regarded as a sacrifice to the water God of Yellow River. In fact, it is hard to decide who is the real God because of various understandings. The analysis of related literature material helps find that the descendants worship the ancestor gods including the cultural roots of national development, which is a national memory difficult to give up in the ethnic migration and integration. The memory about the origin of a race is told from generation to generation and the achievements of ancestors are enlarged step by step in the vague story and even develop to be worshiped. Therefore,“Hebo” by Qu Yuan is a work about sacrifice which takes the ancestors of ethnic Hebo as the prototype and puts the myths and history together according to the customs of People Chu. Thus, the god is the ancestors of ethnic Hebo.