Geographical Differences Of The Ming And Qing Dynasty Jiangxi Folk Beliefs

In this paper, based on local chronicles as main material, supplemented by survey and other documents, the author established a basic information database about the popular religions in Jiangxi Province during Ming and Qing dynasties. And based on this database, the author seeked out the main local spirits, classified them, and give a brief introduction to the origion and the spatial distribution of the spirits. The author also described the difference between worship activities in different regions. In addition, the author tried to find out some important factors from the aspects of natural environment and cultural history which affect the distribution and temporal changes of the spirits. In the conclusion section,the author selected 22 spirits as the index to calculate the similarity between the different prefectures, in order to give a preliminary answer to the problem of regional devision of popular religion in the province.