The history of worshipping Fuxi is long and colorful, but what is the true face of Fuxi, and even whether there is this Fuxi in history, or a personified god or a deified person? Since the name "Fuxi" first appeared in Zhuangzi, Yijing and other works of the Warring States period, all this has been shrouded in a thick fog for a long time.
Some people think that Fuxi is an ancient god, and there is no such person in history. The legend about his marriage with Nuwa's brother and sister is the memory and record of the ancestors of ancient primitive society on the marriage custom of blood relatives. It has also been pointed out that Shi Fuxi is an emperor god in the myth of emperors in patriarchal society, while Nu Wa should be the god of matriarchal society, representing the gods of two different social development stages respectively. The legend about their brother and sister getting married should come from the ancient myth of Pangu Nuwa.
People also argue about Fuxi's role in the worship of ancient gods. For example, ancient books such as seventy-eight Poems with Fog, Notes on Water Classics, and Supplement to Three Biographies of Huang claimed that Hua Xu, the daughter of the Emperor of Heaven, stepped on a snake path in Razer, so she became pregnant and gave birth to Fuxi. However, Lu Sixian deciphered that "Hua Xu" is the seed of crops, "trampling" means scattering seeds in the ridge of fields, "Fuxi" means that seeds germinate and grow in the soil, and "Razer" means that spring comes and everything begins to grow. It is known that "Hua Xu traces the birth of Fuxi" as a myth of agricultural phenomenon, and Fuxi is a spring god (about "new myth" in myth archaeology, Folklore Research No.3, 1998). Some people think that Fuxi is a snake god according to the records of "The Emperor's Daughter visited the Garden and was pregnant with snakes" ("Lu Jiyi") and "Bao Ji" quoted by Luo Ping. The circumstantial evidence is that there are two stone carvings of Fuxi and Fuxi Nuwa in the stone room of Wuliang Temple in the Eastern Han Dynasty, both of which are the heads of snake gods, and the others are like the genealogy of the emperor. Others interpret "Razer" as Raytheon, and Fuxi became the son of Raytheon. There is also a story circulating around Huaiyang: A long time ago, Raytheon was often angry, and thunderstorms caused the river to flood, hurting people and animals. A beautiful girl from Hua Xu volunteered to accompany Raytheon to save people, and the weather was good from then on. After Hua Xu gave birth to the boy Fuxi. Some people think that Fuxi is the sun god. How to point out that Fuxi's real name should be Puxi, the great sunrise god-the sun god (The Origin of the Gods, Sanlian Bookstore, 1986). However, it is also said that the folk data preserved in Huaiyang area show that Fuxi has nothing to do with the sun god, but it is one of the ancestral gods.
Fuxi's viewpoint does exist in history, which has existed since ancient times. The emperor's century even pointed out Fuxi's birthplace, capital and how many years he was in office, saying that he was born in Ji Cheng, Du Chen and collapsed in the reign of 1 10. Later generations verified Tianshui in Gansu and Huaiyang in Henan. Today, there are buildings such as Fuxi Temple in Tianshui and monuments such as Fuxi Mausoleum in Huaiyang. After comprehensive study of ancient books and folk materials, Zhao Lin of Song Dynasty came to the conclusion that Fuxi was an outstanding figure in ancient times, a leader, inventor and wizard of clan and tribe. Fuxi, who lived before the invention of agriculture, may have made great contributions to the improvement of fishing and hunting tools and technologies. Judging from the image of Fuxi on the stone reliefs in the Han Dynasty, Fuxi appeared as a snake with a human head, which indicates that it has entered the totem era and is in the early stage of matriarchal society. Under the condition of extremely low productivity at that time, people depended on the strength of the group to survive. Clan tribal leaders are the embodiment of blood relationship and group strength, and become the ancestor gods and mythical figures of clan tribes after their death (China's Fertility Belief, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1999).
Comparatively speaking, the view of denying Fuxi's existence among modern scholars has the upper hand. Some scholars point out that the main reason for this misunderstanding is that some ancient scholars mistake myths for history, but they think that through combing and studying these myths, we can deepen our understanding of the general characteristics of prehistoric society. For example, Lu Zhenyu thinks that "Fuxi" is a reflection of fish's economy and society in time (social research on China's early history, Sanlian Bookstore,1961); Xu thinks Fuxi is a name of ancient Miao tribe group (China Ancient History Legendary Times, Science Press,1960); Wen Yiduo wrote a textual research on Fuxi, believing that Fuxi was a snake totem of ancient southern Miao nationality. Liu Yaohan believes that Fuxi is the totem name or leader name of the Hu Rong clan tribe of the Qiang nationality in the ancient northwest and southwest mountainous areas (A New Exploration of the Source of Chinese Civilization-Taoist and Yihu Cosmology, Yunnan People's Publishing House,1985); Zhu Bingxiang thinks that "Fuxi is an all-encompassing cultural symbol" (Fuxi and China Culture, Hubei Education Press, 1997), and so on.