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Rice Deities
Rice is a fundamental food and the staple crop of about half the world population. It is probable that rice was first domesticated in the Yangzi River region of China and then spread south and west to what is now South-east Asia. This region is also known for a belief system focusing on rice deities such as the Rice Mother or Rice Goddess. Rice is commonly used for healing and ritual purposes as well as for food. Many communities believe that rice is sacred and comes from the gods. Rice features significantly in the ritual practices, mythic stories, and folklore of numerous Asian peoples (Sunarti et al. 2021). According to Roy W. Hamilton, Asian peoples believe that “the rice plant possesses a living spirit, and that the spirit lives from year to year in the form of rice spirits, sometimes envisioned as a rice mother or rice deity” (Hamilton, 2003, p.11).

In the mid twentieth century, anthropologists investigated the ritual practices and spiritual beliefs of rice cultivators across Asia and found many commonalities. Hamilton identifies twenty basic beliefs of rice cultivators in Asia. The most important of these is the sacred quality of rice as a gift of the gods. The life-cycle of the rice plant is seen as comparable to that of the human life-cycle. Each stage of this cycle should be accompanied by rituals, prayers, and songs to ensure the fertility of the crop. In many cases people attribute the origin of rice itself to the Rice Goddess or Rice Mother (Hamilton, 2003, p.30).

The deity is personified in artefacts such as the rice sheaf paddle used to harvest rice (for an example see of the Balinese rice goddess Dewi Sri in Hamilton, 2003, p.58). In Thailand one can find posters of the rice goddess, Mae Phosop (Hamilton, 2003, p.70). The Tai people of Vietnam set up simple straw figures on lattice work (Hamilton, 2003, p.129).

There are numerous studies on the cult of the rice spirit in Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam (see Ahuja and Ahuja, 2010; Misra,1966; Hamilton 2003; Shoreman 2007; Hiên Nguyên Xuân, et al.2004; Ohnuki-Tierney, 1993; Van der Kroef, 1952 ). In stories about the rice goddess, she is often portrayed as suffering numerous tribulations in her attempt to provide human beings with the sacred gift of rice (Hamilton, 2003, Chapter 18).

In the case of the China, the classical records have left little evidence of rice ritual practices (Bray 2003). However, in recent decades Chinese ethnographers have uncovered evidence of rituals to a feminized rice spirit that were still practised into the late twentieth century in south China, including the Lower Yangzi Delta. The Chinese rice spirit can appear in different guises, depending on her stage in the life-cycle of the growing plant. As a young girl she is called the Rice Shoot Maiden (yang guniang). Later she transforms into the Rice Flower Mother (daohua niangzi) or Rice Goddess (daohua xian nü) (Jiang 1996, pp.644-646). In rituals carried out in Zhejiang province, it was noted that women were the major participants in rice goddess rituals (McLaren, 2022, pp.14-15).

The mechanization of agriculture has led to the virtual eclipse of the cult to the rice goddess in monsoonal Asia. Nonetheless, the belief system based around rice cultivation is a very important part of the human heritage. Rice spirit beliefs preceded the great world religions. Hamilton points out that in Asian rice cultivation zones: “rice ties humans to their ancestors, defines the family unit, and provides the ultimate human nourishment; the growing and eating of rice define what it means to be human” (Hamilton, 2003, p.30).