Warriors of Ancient Ba Tribe
After all these findings, researchers directed all their attention to just one person: a man called Linjun. Stories about this man are an important part of the legends about the origins of the Ba. They say, that thousands of years ago Linjun was a chieftain of one of the Ba tribes. Stories of his death have become incomplete with passing of time. As a warrior, he took part in every battle fought among the Ba tribe.
According to historical accounts, the five chiefs of the Ba tribe competed for the throne of the kingdom. The competition consisted of two parts. One was to throw swords into the caves on the cliffs; the other was to navigate a boat through the rapids. Linjun won the competition, and was chosen as king. Many stories came to be told about him involving love, murder and conquest.
One day, Linjun and his warriors arrived at a place teeming with fish and a n abundance of salt. The Goddess of Brine and her matrilineal tribe had lived here for a very long time.
The goddess fell in love with Linjun, but he was preoccupied with territorial expansion. Linjun presented a keepsake to the Goddess of Brine. Later, he used the keepsake as the target for one of his arrows, and killed the goddess. He was highly skilled at sword throwing, so shooting the goddess would not have been difficult.
The local people in this area have an age-old custom of taking baths in the open-air hot spring. There is river named Qingjiang which is the most important tributary of the Yangtze River. And the hot spring lies right on the north bank of the river. Experts have long believed that the Ba originated in the Qingjiang valley. Scientific tests show that the hot spring contains 0.3 percent of sodium chloride. The water tastes salty.
Was this the place where the legendary Goddess of Brine used to bathe?
Since the 1980s, archeologists have found plenty of pottery fragments and exquisite decorations. These relics bring to mind the matriarchy and the sad love stories.
Later, archeologists discovered a tomb complex along Qingjiang, ten kilometers away from the salty water springs. They had expected this discovery for a long time. At this site, a mysterious figure aroused attention.
Wang Shancai (Research Fellow, Hubei Provincial Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology):
The 1.76-metre-tall skeleton was buried with two important objects. One was a big oracle bone and the other a large bone spoon. According to our analysis, he would have been a chieftain. If he wasn't, such important burial objects shouldn鈥檛 have been buried with him.
