A Survey Reasearch On "Deities Of General Lion" In Huangpi District

Activities of Deities of General Lion are unique religious cultural phenomena in Huangpi district,Wuhan,and their activities of sacrificial ceremony have strong religious implications.Deities of General Lion can't be included in the categories of civilian religious faith,because they merge a variety of folk customs and gather many forms of folk performances in the process of the development of history,hence forming a complete system of folk performance.Futhermore,activities of Deities of General Lion can't be included in folk cultures either,the core content of which is inseparable from the religious concept of the worship of deities.The people in Huangpi District pay more attention to the Lantern Festival than Spring Festival.That is,they always attach importance to the Lantern Festival,of which Deities of General Lion is an important part.This kind of lion dancing must be led by the general himself who can reach the highest heaven and go to the lowest hell in the view of people in Huangpi District.The leading role of Lion dance is called Majiao,who begs deities go in him through a specific ceremony to show a special magic power and send blessings to the people.The whole process is enjoyed both by the people and deities.What this thesis tries to investigate and research are the historical and cultural origins,the formation,the change and the cultural connotations of Deities of General Lion under the vision of cultural research.Based on the understanding on the blendings of folk customs brought by natural humanities and historical population changes in Huangpi District,this thesis is devoted to roundly understand what Deities of General Lion are effected by and many merging folk elements in the process of formation,in order to better understand the social and cultural connotations of Deities of General Lion.At the same time,the survey research makes up the gap in the historical and cultural textual research of Deities of General Lion,and enrichs the local cultural knowledge of the folk belief in Wuhan through the complete record of Deities of General Lion.This thesis consists of six parts,including the introduction,four chapters and the conclusion.The introduction part,at first,represents the research origin and the research significance,and illustrates differences between the two nouns,“General Lion” and “Deities of General Lion”,to determine the standards for the use of the noun,“Deities of General Lion”.Secondly,the academic situation of folk belief research is briefly summed up.Research path and research method of this thesis come to the last.In the first chapter,the geographical position and natural condition in Huangpi District are introduced.Through the intoductions of the religious and cultural customs in Huangpi District,the cultural survival soil of the folk religion bilief in Huangpi District is explained.The second chapter,combined with historical change of population in Huangpi District,analyzes the impact of WuNuo Culture,buddhist culture and folk customs on the historical forming of Deities of General Lion,and makes a distinction between Deities of General Lion and southern lions.The third chapter in detail describes the whole process of sacrificial ceremony of Deities of General Lion in Li Village,Fang Anji Street,Huangpi District,and then uses the theory of ceremony by Turner and cultural interpretation method by Geertz to correspondingly analyze and interpret sacrificial ceremony of Deities of General Lion.The fourth chapter discusses the social and cultural connotations of Deities of General Lion from three aspects that include cultural expression form,emotional catharsis form and social order form,realizing that Deities of General Lion are not only religious cultural phenomena of extremely local characteristics and folk innovativeness,but also a continuation of daily life for people,forming a cultural community of the strong cohesion power in the rural society.In the last part,the author describes the rural bad habits encountered during the investigation,and expresses the worries about the future fate of Deities of General Lion.Finally,it is concluded that Deities of General Lion are based on the bilief of deities in the place of Jing and Chu.With the aid of all kinds of myths and legends and the image of deities,Deities of General Lion merge historical and regional customs,and through a lot of artistic expression accommodates religious,moral,life and emotional experience of people,which can sacrifice and and eliminate the evil disease,and then fuction as regional cultural symbols to reconstruct rural life order and domesiticate morale.