曹主娘娘是粵北英德地區一位重要的地方女神。近年一遍申遺（申請把相關信俗成為非物質文化遺產）運動聲中希望把曹主娘娘打造成為北江女神。這顯然是受到天后和龍母兩位女神的啟發。可是，曹主娘娘作為水神的形象與我們田野調查資料不合。英德主祀曹主娘娘的廟宇不多，曹主娘娘作為共祀之一的神明之廟宇則數之不盡。我們採訪得到的曹主娘娘感應故事多與地方抗賊、抗亂有關，而非北江河上的航運；而且故事多發生在山上而非江上。曹主娘娘作為地方水神似是以現在擁有國家級非遺身分的天后信俗作為模範而再創造。從大量的地方神明，特別是曹主娘娘，參與地方抗亂的故事流傳看來，英德是遲於晚期帝國時期方真正被納進中央皇朝裡，而且只是名義上而已。事實上在英德，地方軍事勢力（有時被稱作亂賊）常常打劫農村、侵佔縣政府衙門、又代其收稅。為對拒這些地方軍事勢力，農民要以曹主娘娘的名義把自己組織起來。單是曹主娘娘還是不夠，村民往往還敬拜十多位其他的神明，形成一種地方超自然的勢力聯盟。當中使人最感興趣的是瑤族的神明盤古大王。瑤族後來據說被漢人趕往山上去。本文中，我們嘗試把地方宗教（曹主娘娘信俗）嵌鑲入地方社會與歷史中理解。

Caozhu niangniang (Lady of Lord Cao) is an important local female deity in Yingde, northern Guangdong. An application for her cult as a national intangible cultural heritage was recently submitted by the Yingde County government, in which Caozhu niangniang was presented as a water deity of the North River that flows through Yingde. This application,apparently, takes other female water deities such as Tianhou (the Empress of Heaven) and Longmu (the Dragon Mother) as a model. Caozhu niangniang as a water deity, however, does not agree with the image which we got from our fieldwork. There are comparatively few temples in Yingde that worship Caozhu niangniang alone. She is more often worshipped with a dozen other local deities. Moreover, the miracle stories of Caozhu niangniang we collected have more to do with local defense against robbers than with transportation on the North River. Besides, the events in most stories happened in the mountains rather than along the river. Caozhu niangniang as a water deity appears to have been re-invented after the model of Tianhou, which now has become a national intangible cultural heritage. The number of miracle stories about local gods, especially about Caozhu niangniang’s supporting local defense against bandits and the large
number of accounts of bandits in Yingde recorded by various versions of
the gazetteers lead us to believe that Yingde was integrated into the nation only in name, and not until the late imperial period. In reality, local mili tary forces called bandits periodically occupied county government buildings,collected taxes and robbed villages. To defend against them, villagers organizes themselves under the banner of Caozhu niangniang. Caozhu niangniang alone, perhaps, was not quite strong enough in the matter of local defense. She was, therefore, worshipped in conjunction with a dozen other local deities, forming an alliance of supernatural defense. Among the alliance gods, it is intriguing to find Panggu, the main deity of the Yao, a minority tribe. The Yao are said to have been driven to the mountains by the Han Chinese long ago. In this paper, we try to interpret the worship of Caozhu niangniang in the context of the local history of Yingde.