Zigu: On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, people used to invite a goddess from the toilet to answer questions

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, people today view lanterns and eat yuanxiao. From the Southern Dynasties until the Song Dynasty, in some places, there was another thing called "welcoming Zigu."

Zigu is a goddess who manages toilets and also pigpens. A book from the Southern Dynasties records her story: Zigu was originally a concubine in a household. She was beautiful and could write poetry. She was envied by the principal wife and was murdered in the toilet on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. She died unjustly, and the Heavenly Emperor pitied her and conferred divinity upon her.

So every year on the evening of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the women of the household would make a straw effigy, or take a winnowing basket, dress it up as a woman, and invite her by the toilet or the pigpen. After inviting her, everyone would ask her questions: whether the silkworms would be raised well this year, whether the marriage would succeed, whether they were pregnant. She would use a brush to write answers on a sand tray.

Shen Kuo recorded this matter in the Dream Pool Essays, saying that some of the answers were quite accurate. Su Shi, when he was exiled to Huangzhou, also wrote an essay called "Record of the Goddess Zigu," recording how local people invited Zigu, saying that she could not only write characters but also compose poetry.

This custom is one of the sources of later "fuji" (planchette writing), and some say that later Chopstick Immortals, Pencil Immortals, and Disc Immortals can all be traced back to Zigu.

Nowadays, most places no longer have this. In Fujian and Taiwan, some places still retain similar names, inviting "Li Zai Gu" or "Chopstick Sister," but mostly it is treated as a game for children to play.

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