The Taipei Times reports that an international conference sponsored by the Academia Sinica (the national academy for Taiwan) will be held to look into belief in the Taoist sea goddess Matsu.

A shrine to Matsu in Taiwan.

“Academia Sinica is organizing an international conference next month to discuss belief in the goddess Matsu and her connection with the Matsu Islands, officials with the Lienchiang County Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau said yesterday. The officials said that Academia Sinica’s Institute of Ethnology would invite 40 academics from Taiwan and abroad to participate in the conference on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18 at the Matsu Folklore Culture Museum in Nangan, one of five major islands in the Matsu archipelago … Today, Matsu has become the most widely worshipped deity in Taiwan, with temples dedicated to her seen in almost every township and city.”

Matsu (“Mother-Ancestor”) is a deified human once known as Lin Moniang. According to the stories, Lin Moniang was the daughter of a fisherman who used her affinity with the sea to help people in her village, at the age of 28 she was taken to heaven and became a goddess (though other stories say she drowned, then became a goddess). As the article mentions, Matsu is the most popular deity in Taiwan.

Reading this story you can almost envision a world where European paganism never diminished, and international conferences at Cambridge or Harvard would be called to discuss belief in Brigantia or Athena.

Tags: academia, Academia Sinica, goddess, Matsu, Paganism, Taiwan, Taoism