Belief, Rituals And Symbol

This thesis is based on folk belief in Longnan in Gansu, the belief culture of dragon king god is taken as its studying object. Though field—Taiqi—investigating the belief culture of dragon king god try to show the characteristics and social function and values from three angles---the system of the believes, the belief rituals and the belief symbols.The thesis is developing with six chapters. The first chapter is preface, which presents studying cause, studying content and methods and studying conditions related to the theme of this thesis. The second chapter is to introduce the institution about Taiqi and through combinding historical documents, folk memory with folk documents to make an analysis on historical development. The aim of the third chapter is to analyze the belief system of the dragon king in Taiqi, which includes the origin and development of the dragon king, the system of god, the structure of power, the theological function, the status and character of the god. The fourth chapter is to study the system of the belief rituals. On the basis of classification of the dragon king belief rituals, the both forms of dragon king Chuan Shen rituals is taken a consideration study in case form, the character and functions is further made. The fifth chapter is to study the symbols in the culture of the dragon king belief of Taiqi. The final chapter is the section of the result of the study, which shows that it is helpful to understand and cognize the location society and cultural construction.