Aunt TigerorAuntie Tigress (Chinese: 虎姑婆; pinyin: Hǔ Gūpó; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hó͘-ko͘-pô) is a Taiwanesefolktale with many variations. The story revolves around a tiger spirit on the mountain who turns into an old woman, abducts children at night and devours them to satisfy her appetite. It is often used to coax children to fall asleep quickly. The most well-known version was compiled by Taiwanese writer Wang Shilang, where the setting of the story is in a Hakka settlement in Taiwan.[1][2]
A tiger spirit must eat a few children to become a human, so it descends from the mountains to find children to eat.[3] After going down the mountain, it hides outside a house and eavesdropped, knowing that the mother is going out and there is only a pair of siblings in the house, so it turns into an aunt to trick the child into opening the door and entering the house. Sleeping until midnight, Aunt Tiger ate the younger brother and made a chewing sound. The sister asks Aunt Tiger what she was eating when she hears it. Aunt Tiger says she is just eating peanuts, and then throws a piece of the brother's finger to the sister. The sister calmly pretends to go to the toilet then hides in the tree outside the door. When Aunt Tiger finds out and is going to eat the sister, the latter cleverly asks Aunt Tiger to boil a pot of hot water (otherwise it is hot oil) for her, and asks Aunt Tiger to hang the hot water on the tree because she wants to jump into the pot by herself. When Aunt Tiger hangs the hot water to the tree with a rope, the sister asks Aunt Tiger to close her eyes and open her mouth. Then, she pours the boiling water down Aunt Tiger's throat, killing the tiger.[4] One variation is that there are two girls who are sisters instead of the brother and sister combo.[5]
Similar storylines can also be found in China which the aunt is a wolf or bear.[6] There are also stories with similar plots circulating in South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other countries, similar to the story of Little Red Riding HoodinEurope.[7] In addition, such a story with two children and an adult who intends to murder them is also in Hansel and GretelinGrimm's Fairy Tales. In South Korea, there is a folktale called Janghwa Hongryeon jeon with a similar plot. The purpose of this type of story may be to warn children not to believe strangers who take the opportunity of the absence of adults to enter houses and kidnap children.[8]
Chinese folklorist and scholar Ting Nai-tung [zh] established a second typological classification of Chinese folktales (the first was by Wolfram Eberhard), and abstracted a tale type he indexed as number 333C, "The Tiger Grandma". In this tale type, a child-eating creature (ogress, tiger or wolf)[9] pretends to be an older female relative of the children, and pays them a visit after their mother leaves. The ogress is allowed to enter the children's house, devours one of them, but the survivor escapes to another place.[10][11] In that regard, researcher Juwen Zhang indicated that type 333C, "Wolf grandma", is an example of local Chinese tale types that are not listed in the international ATU index.[12]
The tale has also been compared to the European tale Little Red Riding Hood,[13] classified in the international index as type ATU 333,[14][15][16] and to The Wolf and the Kids (tale type ATU 123).[17][18][19]
Chien, Chi-Ru (2013). 臺灣虎姑婆故事之深層結構─以自然與文化二元對立觀之 [The Research for Structural Analysis and Folk Investigation of Taiwan's Grandaunt Tiger Story] (PDF). 成大中文學報. 22. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-09-13. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
Eberhard, Wolfram (1989). "The Story of Grandaunt Tiger". In Alan Dundes (ed.). Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 21–63.
Hulick, Jeannette (2009). "Review of Auntie Tiger". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 62 (6). Project MUSE: 267. doi:10.1353/bcc.0.0662. S2CID144937417.
Yep, Laurence (1 January 2009). Auntie Tiger. HarperCollins. ISBN978-0060295523.
^Chien, Chi-Ru (2013). 臺灣虎姑婆故事之深層結構─以自然與文化二元對立觀之 [The Research for Structural Analysis and Folk Investigation of Taiwan's Grandaunt Tiger Story] (PDF). 成大中文學報. 22. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-09-13. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
^Hulick, Jeannette (2009). "Review of Auntie Tiger". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 62 (6). Project MUSE: 267. doi:10.1353/bcc.0.0662. S2CID144937417.
^Li, Jing (2008). "Chinese Tales". In Donald Haase (ed.). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Vol. I: A-F. Greenwood Press. p. 197. ISBN9780313334429.
^Huang, Chih-chun; Huang, Chengzeng; Specht, Annette; Lontzen, Günter; Barchilon, Jacques (1993). "The Earliest Version of the Chinese" Little Red Riding Hood": The Tale of the Tiger-woman". Merveilles & Contes. 7 (1). Wayne State University Press: 513–527. JSTOR41390379.
^Hung, Chang-tai (1985). Going to the People. Leiden, The Netherlands: Harvard University Asia Center. p. 125. doi:10.1163/9781684172580_010. In the final episode of "The Tiger Grandma," the ogress (usually a tiger or a wolf) is killed ...
^Nai-tung TING. A Type Index of Chinese Folktales in the Oral Tradition and Major Works of Non-religious Classical Literature. FF Communications, no. 223. Helsinki, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1978. pp. 61-64.
^Dundes, Alan (1991). "Interpreting Little Red Riding Hood Psychoanalytically". In James M. McGlathery (ed.). The Brothers Grimm and Folktale. University of Illinois Press. p. 22. ISBN9780252061912.
^Hung, Chang-tai (1985). Going to the People. Leiden, The Netherlands: Harvard University Asia Center. p. 125. doi:10.1163/9781684172580_010. The Tiger Grandma," a Chinese version of "Little Red Riding Hood," carries a similar message. (...) In the final episode of "The Tiger Grandma," the ogress (usually a tiger or a wolf) is killed, just as the wolf is killed by the hunter in the Grimms' version of "Little Red Riding Hood.
^Hung, Chang-tai. Going to the People. Leiden, The Netherlands: Harvard University Asia Center, 1985. p. 125. doi:10.1163/9781684172580
^Li, Jing (2008). "Chinese Tales". In Donald Haase (ed.). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Vol. I: A-F. Greenwood Press. p. 197. ISBN9780313334429.
^Mercatante, Anthony S., ed. (2009). The Facts on File: Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend. Vol. I: A-L. New York: Facts On File. p. 611. Little Red Riding Hood is tale type 333, the "Glutton," and is known in China, Korea, and Japan as "Grandaunt Tiger."
^Goldberg, Christine (2010). "Strength in Numbers: The Uses of Comparative Folktale Research". Western Folklore. 69 (1): 24. JSTOR25735282. Similarly, there is an Asian tale about children who are visited by man-eating tiger disguised as their aunt. Although this tale shares motifs with both Little Red Riding Hood (ATU 333) and The Wolf and the Kids (ATU 123), these are actually three separate tales ...
^Dundes, Alan (1991). "Interpreting Little Red Riding Hood Psychoanalytically". In James M. McGlathery (ed.). The Brothers Grimm and Folktale. University of Illinois Press. p. 22. ISBN9780252061912. The Chinese tale type 333C, The Tiger Grandma, as summarized in Nai-Tung Ting's A Type Index of Chinese Folktales (1978), presents a curious combination of The Wolf and the Kids (AT 123, Grimm #5) and The Glutton (Red Riding Hood) (AT 333, Grimm #26).
