Association and Analogy: Sexual Symbolism in Naxi Dongba Culture
This article examines sexual symbolism expressed through association and analogy in the Dongba culture of the Naxi people of southwest China. The Naxi preserve rich traditions in which natural objects, plants, and animals symbolize female genitalia (yin) and the male phallus (yang). Dongba pictographic scriptures even contain hieroglyphs depicting male and female genitals. Mountain hollows, ravines, caves, and springs resembling female genital forms are worshipped as fertility deities, believed to grant human reproduction and grain abundance—an original, primitive form of yin worship distinct from later literary, artistic, or architectural representations. Adjacent springs symbolize menstrual blood and reproductive fluids, reflecting beliefs linking women, female genitalia, and water as unified life-generating forces. Animals such as fish, frogs, and conches also carry rich female-genital symbolic meanings. The article further notes that Dongba cosmogonic myths structure the origin of the universe itself around sexual intercourse, portraying the derivation of all natural things as products of reproductive, sexual analogy.
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