Dark wind for seven days and nights: a Chinese apocalyptic disaster

When we think of messianic or millenarian prophecies, we tend to think first and foremost of the saviours and the precise date when they are supposed to arrive in order to save the world. Clearly these are crucial elements of such traditions, but the kind of disasters that marked the end of times are in fact equally typical. Some of them are rather predictable, such as famine, war, and floods. In the Chinese context, however, one kind of disaster seems to be rather specific to the fear of the end of time. This was the prophecy that a Dark Wind (heifeng (sic)) would arrive and blow for seven days and seven nights (qiri qiye (sic)), causing great destruction, but also initiating the advent of a saviour who would protect the chosen ones against these apocalyptic disasters. In this contribution I investigate the fear of the Dark Wind, in an attempt to throw some light on how people might have experienced this particular prophecy.