| As one of the most traditional festivals in China,the She Festival was widely recorded in many Chinese classics,including The Book of Songs,Rites of the Zhou and The Chronicle of Zuo.As a ritual celebrated by both authorities and common folks,the She Sacrifice has been popular in China for at least two thousand years.Functioning as an organizational form of society and a festival custom,the She Festival has an impact on China so prominent that it is still used in the naming of many social organizations nowadays.For instance,the character "She" is used in many names such as "She tuan","She hui" and "She qu",endowing them with new and rich meanings.Currently,only in quite a few areas can we still find the trace of this traditional culture as many traditional festivals have already shrunk in the process of modernization.One of these areas is the Tujia community of Enshi Prefecture in Hubei Province where the the She Festival has been active in everyday life.What kind of festival is the traditional She Festival?What is its functional mode and cultural features like?What social functions does it aim to achieve?Why the locals in the Tujia community of Enshi Prefecture could still keep this traditional festival alive and active?What opportunities and challenges are they confronted with?What should we do to protect and inherit this tradition which is a non-material cultural heritage and a ritual with broad participation?Being a member of the Tujia community and a PhD candidate on Folklore,as both an insider and outsider,with both sensibility and rationality,I would like to answer these questions through my participation in field work.The dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter one is the introduction illustrating the background,the significance,the research background,the research methods,the difficulties and the innovation of this dissertation,tracing and analyzing the research history in terms of the owner,the form and the meaning of this festival,placing it focus on clarifying the major forms of this festival in Tujia Minority of Enshi Prefecture and exploring its cultural significance.The dissertation aims to be innovative in reconstructing the evolution and current form of She Ji customs through the surveys conducted in three villages in order to describe and demonstrate in depth the process,the symbols,the social functions,the core values and female cultures of the She Festival.Chapter one and chapter two explain the cultural origins of the She Festival.The geographical environment and the traditional Tujia culture are firstly examined.Then the origin of the Tujia Chun She Festival in Enshi Prefecture is analyzed.According to the study of She Festival’s connection with the Han people in the central plains of China combined with the analysis of migration’s influence,the She Festival could be understood as a simplified pattern of She sacrifice of Han people.Also,based on the examination of the unique customs generated in the communication between Han culture and Tujia culture,the She sacrifice of Han people proves to be the origin of Chun She festival with Tujia She Festival being the subordinate branch.Chapter three describes and analyses in detail the She customs of three ancient villages,namely Jin Long Ba,Qiu Mu Yuan and Shuang Yan Tang,based on fieldwork and the research on its origin.Through the village legend to the She customs difference launches the concrete description and the analysis.Jin Feng Ba,reserves the God-of-Mountains-centred and Dragon god-of-Land-centred Chun She customs in a more primitive way.Qiu Mu Yuan possesses the well-preserved tokens and forms the owner-centered tradition of Chun She Festival.Situating in the Urban-Suburban-Integration Area,Long Feng Ba forms the entertainment-centred tradition of Chun She Festival.Epidemic prevention and witchcraft psychology of Chun She customs revealed Tujia’s wisdom of ecological health and family ethics.Chapter four discusses the cultural features of the Tujia minority in Enshi Prefecture based on the analysis of the specific form of Chun She customs,including the primitive outlook on life characterizing open-mindedness,optimism,harmony and rebirth of the Tujia funeral custom is also illustrated in the Lan She customs.Being a unique ethnic belief also fully demonstrated in the She Festival of Enshi Tujia Minority groups,polytheism comes into being in this area as the original belief of Tujia minority is influenced by Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.And the worship for feminine value,delivery of primitive outlook on life and polytheism.The She dining custom is a showcase of the value and status of the women in this area.Influenced by the historic tradition of Female clan society,the Lan She custom is a display of the sublime status of women in family and race.Chapter five discusses the cultural function of Tujia Chun She.As a part exhibiting the unique cultural connotation of Tujia minority,it is capable of compensation and cure,identification and integration,inheritance and education.As for the problems that appear in the spreading and inheriting process of modern culture,the author of this dissertation put forward her own thinking and analysis.Part three concludes the origin and the six chapter,the customs,the examples,the features and the functions of Chun She in the Tujia minority in Enshi Prefecture,touching upon how to pass on and protect this custom in the background of Intangible cultural heritage protection.As Intangible cultural heritage has drawn increasingly more attention today,Chun She is not just a common item in folk-custom,but the actual carrier of funeral culture and gender culture of the Tujia minority,successfully manifesting the detailed development of the dead from human to god,and the status and significance of Tujia women in gender culture and marriage.The dissertation is a comprehensive interpretation of current Chun She customs in Tujia minority in Enshi Prefecture,and the recognition of the huge challenges Tujia traditional culture faced with when the modem society inherits it,including the gradual loss of the authentic self and the real self.The dissertation intends to study the inheritance rules of Chun She Festival and enact feasible measures under the guidance of the government to protect it,so that this traditional culture could be better inherited,offering at the same time the new-era construction of ethnic culture life wisdom of abundant practical value. |
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