Auntie Wind

Feng Yi—also known as the Eighteenth Aunt of the Feng Family—is a folkloric feminisation of the wind deity, paired with the male wind god Fengbo. The Tang-dynasty tale collection *Bo Yi Zhi* recounts how the scholar Cui Xuanwei encountered a banquet of flower spirits one night, among whom the inebriated 'Auntie Feng, Eighteenth of the Feng Family' appeared as the Wind God herself—her drunken gesture scattering blossoms from their branches—evidence that this epithet was already current during the Tang era. In later Daoist temples and rain-praying altars, Feng Yi was enshrined alongside Leigong, Dianmu, and the Rain Master, forming a divine cohort responsible for summoning winds and dispensing rain. Canal boatmen and coastal fishermen venerated her to ensure smooth, wind-assisted voyages. After the Ming-dynasty novel *Fengshen Yanyi* (Investiture of the Gods) was composed, popular imagination further conflated her identity with figures such as the Rainbow Cloud Immortal, leading to her frequent depiction in New Year prints and temple murals as one of the deities presiding over wind, rain, thunder, lightning, and waterways.