石頭公 the worship of Stone Deity in Ho Chi Minh City

 石頭公 the worship of Stone Deity on the street in HCM city
photo by Nguyen Minh Vu

         One day, a Vietnamese friend showed me a photo which worship stones on the street in Vietnam. It is located in front of a house in district 3, Ho Chi Minh city.

         I guessed it should be " the worship of Stone Deity", in Chinese is "石頭公" and i checked some information, I made sure it just likes " 石頭公" in Taiwan.

        The history of Han settlers worship stone for a long time.  People believed that the stone is a sacred thing with a mysterious power, and used as a proxy symbolize god on earth. The stone can protect the people.  Beside, 「石頭公」, we also call the worship of Stone Deity to be 「石將軍」、「石佛公」、「石府將軍」、「大伯公」、「大伯爺」or「石聖公」。

         Usually, they are  the stones with strange weird or different color from country farms or below the trees. People found out the stone, and did mysterious story with the stone, then people believe the stone has some power can protect them.  In Taiwan, worship "stone" is belong to nature worship and will establish the temple for 石頭公 in some place. The main function of 石頭公 is  protect the health of children. Taiwanese believe that pregnant women worship 石頭公 ,  the fetus will health; children to be the godson of 石頭公 should be more health and grow up well.

        I am very interesting  What it is the Chinese Vietnamese call ” 石頭公"？ and What the meaning of worship stone in Vietnam?

香爐 the worship of Stone Deity on the street in HCM city

photo by Nguyen Minh Vu

　　有一位越南朋友寄了一張在路邊拍到的照片給我，內容是一個“香爐”，他問我知“香爐”的意義？　我不解，因為是一個很普通的“香爐”，而後，他又寄上全景給我「一顆大石頭前的“香爐”」，我告訴他：重要的不是香爐，而是其後的大石頭。我們稱之為「石頭公」。

　　　在台灣”石頭公“是很普通的民間信仰，就是人形自然石或畸形自然石，在偶然的場合，碰巧某些徵兆，加以附會穿鑿之說，便奉祀為「石頭公」。 石頭公的主要功能是保佑兒童的健康，孕婦拜石頭公，會使胎兒；兒童給石頭公作契子，可以使他們健康。