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Internecine wars plagued Táiwān 臺灣 in the 1700s and 1800s among groups —sometimes called "ethnic" groups— associated with different places of origin in Fújiàn 福建 and Guăngdōng 廣東 provinces.
Groups of immigrants often united in the worship of gods who had been important in their home districts on the mainland. When immigrant groups allied with other immigrant groups in Taiwan, these alliances also had divine patronage. Although it may not be obvious to the casual visitor to a modern Taiwan temple, the deities enshrined there sometimes do (and sometimes do not) have associations with past alliances or competition. "Sub-ethnic" alliances among villages continue to be associated with divine patronage up to the present. An example is discussed in my book, Gods, Ghosts, & Ancestors, available free on this web site. (Link)
The following tables list towns in Fújiàn and Guăngdōng whose emigrants in Táiwān tended to affiliate with each other, and the patron gods they typically selected. On the following map, different shapes and colors roughly correlate with different patron divinities.
In general, immigrants from Fújiàn were loosely classifed into:
These reflected not merely the history of migration, but minor dialect differences as well, which, to a limited extent, can still be heard in Táiwān speech today.
The Zhāngzhōu 漳州, or (Lóngxī 龍溪) Alliance included immigrants under the patronage of a god named Kāizhāng Shèngwáng 開彰聖王, including groups from towns located in the basin of the Jiŭlóng Jiāng 九龍江 river and its tributaries, as follows (reading upstream):
| Place | Patron Divinity
|
|---|---|
| Jīnmén 金門 county | Kāizhāng Shèngwáng 開彰聖王 |
| Xiàmén 廈門 city | |
| Shímă 石碼鎮 zhèn (Lónghăi xiàn 龍海縣) | |
| Lóngxī 龍溪 county (Zhāngzhōu 漳州 prefecture) | |
| Huá'ān 華盦 county | |
| Zhāngpíng 漳平 county |
The Quánzhōu 泉州 or (Jìnjiāng 晉江) Alliance included immigrants from towns located in the basin of the Jìnjiāng 晉江 river and its tributaries, as follows:
| Place | Patron Divinity
|
|---|---|
| 1. "Sānyì" 三義 alliance, consisting of: | Guăngzé Zūnwáng 廣澤尊王 & Băoyí Dàifū 保儀大夫 |
| A. Jìnjiāng 晉江 county
(Quánzhōu 泉州 prefecture) | |
| B. Nán'ān 南安 county | Guăngzé Zūnwáng 廣澤尊王 |
| C. Huì'ān 惠安 county | Líng'ān Zūnwáng 靈安尊王
(= Qīngshān Wáng 青山王) |
| 2. "Xiàjiāo" (possibly 廈礁 or 厦郊?) alliance, consisting of: | |
| A. Ānxī 安息 county | Qīngshuĭ Zŭshī 清水祖師
& Băoyí Dàifū 保儀大夫 |
| B. Tóng'ān 同安 county | Băoyí Dàifū 保儀大夫
& Xiáhăi Chénghuáng 霞海城隍 |
| 3. Yŏngchūn 永春 county | |
| 4. Déhuà 德化 county | |
The Hakkas were generally devotees of Sānshān Guówáng 三山國王 and came from four main areas:
A scattering of other groups, apparently either composed of Hakkas or allied with Hakkas most of the time, traced their origins to a range of areas in Guăngdōng and Fújiàn and occasionally elsewhere. They tended to be devotees of Guānyīn Púsà 觀音菩薩 when they sought a "neutral," pan-Chinese patron divinity to reign over their alliances.
The goddess Māzǔ 媽祖 (Tiānshàng Shèngmǔ 天上聖母 or Tiānhòu 天后) also played a cross-group role in some cases, although she was less likely than Guānyīn to be perceived as pan-Chinese, and she was sometimes appropriated as the patron of particular ethnic sub-groups.