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Boats. Pestilence Wang Yeh are also quite common on the altars of Fukienese community temples in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia having been carried there by emigrants.
Although there are no Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altars of temples in Hong Kong and Macau, there are two deities bearing the same honorific, and also there is the concept of pestilence demons being exiled during a major festival. One of the two deities is the comparatively rare Cantonese cult deity, Chang Wang Yeh (E), consulted before building a house or fixing the date for a wedding. His image is to be seen on a side altar in a secondary hall in the Hung Hsing Temple in Wanchai, and again in another Cantonese temple in Waterloo Street in Singapore where his title is Chang Wang Lao Yeh. The other deity is K'ang Wang Yeh (E). He is one of the four life-size images at floor level before the main altar of the Northern Emperor [Chen Wu] in Mong Tseng Wei near Deep Bay in the New Territories. These four are known simply as the Four Generals and whilst the other three are relatively common deities from Chinese mythology, Hua Kuang, Chao Yuanshuai and Yin Yuanshuai, nothing is known in this temple about K'ang Wang Yeh.8
The Five Ubiquitous Ones, the Wu T'ung (F), formerly worshipped in North China as pestilence deities have been seen in Ch'aochou (Teochew) illegal squatter temples in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan. According to several temple keepers the Five are potentially harmful unorthodox (H) spirits and not beneficial spirits (#). One keeper added that the Five had been worshipped in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces as well as by Ch'aochou people and that they were in some way connected with the roaming spirits of the tens of thousands soldiers killed during the wars which ended the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty and led to the founding of the Ming. The Five have no individual identities whereas the Pestilence Wang Yeh do have surnames.
Unlike other deified Chinese, images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh are floated out to sea or burnt to carry away the pestilence demons associated with them. The nearest in comparison here would be the paper images of deities burned after major festivals such as the image of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy in her form as Ta Shih (±) the very ugly demonic form which she assumes to prevent lustful demons from assaulting her when visiting the Afterworld during her missions of mercy. Her image as Ta Shih in paper and bamboo is burnt to carry her over
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Boats. Pestilence Wang Yeh are also quite common on the altars of Fukienese community temples in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia having been carried there by emigrants.
Although there are no Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altars of temples in Hong Kong and Macau, there are two deities bearing the same honorific, and also there is the concept of pestilence demons being exiled during a major festival. One of the two deities is the comparatively rare Cantonese cult deity, Chang Wang Yeh (E), consulted before building a house or fixing the date for a wedding. His image is to be seen on a side altar in a secondary hall in the Hung Hsing Temple in Wanchai, and again in another Cantonese temple in Waterloo Street in Singapore where his title is Chang Wang Lao Yeh. The other deity is K'ang Wang Yeh (E). He is one of the four life-size images at floor level before the main altar of the Northern Emperor [Chen Wu] in Mong Tseng Wei near Deep Bay in the New Territories. These four are known simply as the Four Generals and whilst the other three are relatively common deities from Chinese mythology, Hua Kuang, Chao Yuanshuai and Yin Yuanshuai, nothing is known in this temple about K'ang Wang Yeh.8
The Five Ubiquitous Ones, the Wu T'ung (F), formerly worshipped in North China as pestilence deities have been seen in Ch'aochou (Teochew) illegal squatter temples in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan. According to several temple keepers the Five are potentially harmful unorthodox (H) spirits and not beneficial spirits (#). One keeper added that the Five had been worshipped in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces as well as by Ch'aochou people and that they were in some way connected with the roaming spirits of the tens of thousands soldiers killed during the wars which ended the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty and led to the founding of the Ming. The Five have no individual identities whereas the Pestilence Wang Yeh do have surnames.
Unlike other deified Chinese, images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh are floated out to sea or burnt to carry away the pestilence demons associated with them. The nearest in comparison here would be the paper images of deities burned after major festivals such as the image of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy in her form as Ta Shih (±) the very ugly demonic form which she assumes to prevent lustful demons from assaulting her when visiting the Afterworld during her missions of mercy. Her image as Ta Shih in paper and bamboo is burnt to carry her over
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