Worship Change In A Village Of Lahu Nationalities

This article is an ethnograhical research about the sacrifice changes of Lahu ethnic group. Based on a long period of field work and documents collection, the author has done a research on the sacrifice activities and their changes of Lahu group,which is located on Gala town, Langcang county, from the perspectives of social cultural changes theory and sacrifice circle theory.In the middle period of Qing Dynasty, Buddhism began to be introduced to Lahu ethnic group, and be intergated to their traditional belife, thus a new public sacrifice structure was set up ( the Buddhist temple played as the main role),which became a stong social force to resist the central government and local Toast. However, since liberation, this structure was destroied,because of the intervention of state power,thus the sacrifice which was beyond a villege stepped out of the historical stage.Although the mountain-worshipping activity which is within a villege is continued, with the development of market-orinted ecomomy, it also shows the sign of downfall. Only the individual sacrifice is popular till today, which isn't affected by historical course.This research finds that ,both politic and ecomony have changed the form and content of Lahu people's sacrifice.Before, the Buddhist temple-centered sacrifice structure reflected the relationship between the center and brik of the politic and religion within a villege, when this structure was disappered, mountain-worshipping activity became an important ritual to maintain the socal order of a villege,but it didn't get development either. The author gets a conclusion that ,the law of Lahu people's sacrifice change is from the disapperance of Buddhist temple-worshipping beyond villeges ,to the downfall of mountain-worshipping within a villege, and to the flourish of individual sacrifice within a family, the sacrifice confine changes from a society to a family, form public to individual, thus the static analysis of the sacrifice circle theory can't explain the dynamic process of the sacrifice changes of Lahu ethnic group.