The Guanshan Oboo Ceremony:Invented Tradition Or Living Tradition?

Since ancient times, the Mongolians have embraced the customs ofbelieving in Changshengtian and offering sacrifices to Oboo. After thousandsof years of continuity, Oboo has become one of the representative forms of theMongolian national culture. According to some scholars’ statistics, betweenthe40degrees and50degrees north latitude, in21000kilometers of Eurasiansteppe zone, numerous big and small obooes are to be found everywhere. As aMongolian autonomous area outside Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,Liaoning Mongolchin area is no exception.In recent years, with the advance of the intangible cultural heritageprotection work, folk customs everywhere have been paid more and moreattention. The Oboo sacrifice activity of the Mongolians is also graduallyrising everywhere. In the meanwhile, this phenomenon has also receivedextensive attention of academic circles. The studies concerning the Oboosacrifice are not few, and the fields involved are comparatively wide. However,few studies have been conducted, regarding the Oboo sacrifice in theMongolian autonomous area outside Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.More importantly, there is a so-called inheritance and invention part in the recovery process of Oboo sacrifice as a Mongolian tradition. There arecomparatively few studies concerning this issue.This thesis tries to take Guanshan Oboo sacrifice in LiaoningMongolchin area as an example. It applies the theory of “Invented Tradition”and combines the theory with the history and recovery process of theGuanshan Oboo to probe into the problem of inheritance and inventioncompetition of the Oboo sacrifice tradition in Liaoning Mongolchin area.The introduction part introduces the research aim and significance,scope and content, research general situation, research methods andperspectives, the theoretical framework and definition of the concept, plus datasource etc.Chapter1mainly introduces the Oboo sacrifice phenomenon inLiaoning Mongolchin area. It begins with a brief introduction of the Oboosacrifice of the Mongolians and expounds the extant Oboo and sacrificecontents in Liaoning Mongolchin area. Moreover, it extracts the history andlegend of banner Oboo, namely Guanshan Oboo, in Mongolchin area.Chapter2mainly sets forth the recovery construction process ofGuanshan Oboo, the status quo of the sacrifice activity and the activitycontents, which are related with Guanshan Oboo sacrifice. Among them, thelocal government and the populace view this activity either in the same ordifferent perspectives. Different statements have come into being to prove thehistory and inheritance of Guanshan Oboo. Chapter3applies the theory of “Invention of Tradition” to giveinterpretations. It combines with the history and the status quo of GuanshanOboo to analyze its change of connotation, and does theoretical discussions tothis phenomenon and comes to conclusion.The conclusion part concludes viewpoints of the full text, and makescomplements and interpretations to the final accounts.