Born in 1205 in a small town near Shengyang, one year before Temujin united the Mongols, Biya was never suited for a normal life. As a child she failed at everything--unless it involved speaking to birds or spiritual things. Then one day a shamaness passed near her home while traveling to Yanjing. Seeing the hapless child, she recognized at once the shaman's gift and rescued Biya, named no less for the Moon Goddess Herself. Within days of her discovery, she and her mentor set out for the great capital of Yanjing. But war was brewing. The Qidans who had fled the Jurchen re-conquest over them (the Qidans had conquered her people, the Bohai Jurchens, centuries before and ruled them as the Liao dynasty) were under Mongol attack. Yanjing was soon under siege too. But it held strong for years as no other city before or since ever could. She apprenticed in a world of war and siege, but in that learned much about the many peoples in Yanjing. She met all the different kinds of Jurchens, Chinese, and nationalities that were influenced by the Chinese but had their own languages and cultures. And she heard of a religion called Buddhism too. Strange religions in Yanjing, especially when studying to be a priestess of your own.
In 1222 Biya took vows and became known as Biya Sama or “Moon Shamaness" in the language of the West. Having finished this essential training, Biya chose to take a path she felt would take her away from war--to the northern lands of the Jianzhou Jurchens where she could commune with the gyrfalcons, sakers, and the dragons. Spending her formative years in a war zone was NOT her idea of a pleasant youth and being quite a pacifist, she hated all hints of war and pain. She wanted only to be with the birds and in her cloister and hoped that things would work out so that war would leave her alone.
Alas it would not be. For the Jin emperors would not take defeat and remained in constant revolt.
And so it was in 1240 that Feng Huang herself called Biya Sama out of her cloister and into the World again: find the White Parrot of Guanyin. And in a dream, the Moon Goddess added this: the White parrot and the white falcons are sacred to me. Gather unto yourself all you may: protect them, help them, for they are threatened. Help my sacred birds.
