A Study On Folk-custom Dancing In Nao-Mazu Of Meizhou Island

Putian, in Fujian province, is the hometown of Mazu, and the origin of the culture of Mazu. The so-called Mazu-worship has been widely diffused and deeply rooted in the local area. In this dissertation I took a survey on the Mazu folk-custom of Meizhou Island in every first month of the lunar year, and drew the following conclusions, that the worship of Mazu and the Maze folk-custom are exhibitions of the Mazu-culture, that each and every step during the folk-custom is an manifest of the history of thousands of years, and showing the living concerns of those people beside the ocean. The folk-custom, including divine sacrifices for Mazu's protection and amusement and communication with Mazu by singing and dancing, is the particular expression of the longing for a better and more beautiful life.In this dissertation I mainly focused on the singing and dancing in the ceremony on Mazu's sacrifice in Meizhou Island. Based on the abundant first-handed data, which I collected before the study, I took such methodologies as field-investigation, characteristic-induction, dancing bionomics, analysis, description, definition, and more importantly, the combination of history and folk-custom studies. I gave a systematical analysis on the dancing characteristics, acting styles, and array configuration. Furthermore, I put all these into the background of dancing culture, and discussed the intentions, functions and the historical origin of Mazu folk-custom dancing. Finally, I gave some considerations on the heritage and development of the Mazu folk-custom dancing nowadays.