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Magu () is a legendary Taoist ''xian'' (仙 "immortal; transcendent") associated with the elixir of life, and a symbolic protector of females in Chinese mythology. Stories in Chinese literature describe Magu as a beautiful young woman with long birdlike fingernails, while early myths associate her with caves. ''Magu xian shou'' (麻姑獻壽 "Magu gives her birthday greetings") is a popular motif in Chinese art. ==The name== Magu's name compounds two common Chinese words: ''ma'' "cannabis; hemp" and ''gu'' "aunt; maid". ''Ma'' (the modern Chinese character 麻, which derives from a Zhou Dynasty bronze script ideograph, shows 林 "plants" drying in a 广 "shed; shack") originally meant "hemp, ''Cannabis sativa''". Cannabis has been continuously cultivated in China since Neolithic times (Li 1974:437); for example, hemp cords were used to create the characteristic line designs on Yangshao culture pottery and the fibres were used to produce cloth prior to the introduction of cotton. ''Ma'' has extended meanings of "numbed; tingling" (e.g., ''mazui'' 麻醉 "anesthetic; narcotic"), "pockmarked; pitted" (''mazi'' 麻子 "hemp seed; pockmark"), "sesame" (''zhima'' 芝麻), and an uncommon Chinese surname. ''Gu'' (姑, combining the 女 "woman" radical and a ''gu'' 古 "old" phonetic) is primarily used in female Chinese kinship terms for "father's sister" (e.g., ''gugu'' 姑姑), "husband's sister" (''dagu'' 大姑 "elder sister-in-law"), and "husband's mother" (''wenggu'' 翁姑 "husband's parents"). ''Gu'' can also mean "young woman, maiden, maid" (''guniang'' 姑娘 "girl; daughter; prostitute"), and religious titles (''daogu'' 道姑 "Daoist priestess", ''nigu'' 尼姑 "Buddhist nun"). Translating Magu into English is problematic, depending upon whether her name is interpreted as a "maid", "priestess", or "goddess" of "hemp", "marijuana", or something else. Victor H. Mair (1990) proposed that Chinese ''wu'' (巫 "shaman"), pronounced *''myag'' in Old Chinese, was a loanword from Old Persian *''maguš'' "magician; magi", which is hypothetically comparable with Magu. Chinese Magu (麻姑) is called Mago in Korean and Mako in Japanese. Mago (마고, 麻姑) is a cosmogonic goddess in Korean creation myths. Hwang (2004:1) calls her "the Great Goddess" and proposes "Magoism, the archaic gynocentric cultural matrix of East Asia, which derives from the worship of Mago as creatress, progenitress, and sovereign." According to the Budoji, Korean mytho-history began with the "Era of Mago." Japanese Mako (麻姑) is usually a literary reference to the Chinese story (below) about Magu's long fingernails, for instance, ''Mako sōyō'' (麻姑掻痒 "Magu scratches the itch") metaphorically means "things going like one imagined". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Magu (deity)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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