Asian Ritual Systems

by Stewart, Pamela J.; Strathern, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9781594601576
• ISBN10: 1594601577
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-01
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Press

Summary

This unique set of essays explores the multiple ways in which ritual practices have responded to, or have been a part of, historical and political changes. Particular chapters on China deal with the revival of festivals in Pucheng, Zhejiang Province (Paul Katz); the Emperor Huizong's musical insignia (Joseph Lam); music and rituals for Hong Kong's reunion with the Mainland (Yu Siu Wah); Christianity in nineteenth century South China (Joseph Tse-Hei Lee); and refusal by Buddhists and Christians to bow to the Emperor (Eric Reinders). Chapters on Taiwan discuss cultural revival movements (Stewart and Strathern); a Daoist master's performances (Marc Moskowitz); history in spirit-writing morality books (Philip Clart); and the cult of a female figure, Wang Yulan, on Jinmen Island (Michael Szonyi). Vesna Wallace's chapter is on transformations in Indian Tantric Buddhism. Throughout, the emphasis in this book is on complex connections between ritual, state politics, and changing senses of local and personal identity.

Author Biography

Pamela J. Stewart is an Anthropology Research Associate at the University of Pittsburgh. Andrew J. Strathern is a Mellon Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction : ritual practices, 'cultural revival' movements, and historical change	p. 3
Huizong's ritual and musical insignia	p. 35
Magic tricks, midnight grave outings, and transforming trees : performance and agency in Taiwanese religion	p. 63
God's villages : Christian communities in late-nineteenth-century south China	p. 83
The cultural negotiation in the rituals of the 1997 Hong Kong reunion with China	p. 113
The unbowed foreigner : postural identities of Buddhists and Christians in China	p. 129
Festivals and the recreation of identity in South China : a case study of processions and expulsion rites in Pucheng Zhejiang	p. 153
The virgin and the Chinese state : the cult of Wang Yulan and the politics of local identity on Jinmen (Quemoy)	p. 183
Generals, pigs, and immortals : views and uses of history in Chinese morality books	p. 209
A generation of power through ritual protection and transformation of identity in Indian Tantric Buddhism	p. 239
Epilogue : syncretisms, ruptures, continuities	p. 263
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