The Folk Faith And Local Society Since Ming And Qing Dynasties

The Vulcan Faith is one of the oldest folk faiths of China. It came from the worship to fire, and then it changed with the development of the society, it changed from a kind of nature worship to the Vulcan worship. In some place, people who worked near fires considered it as their ancestors.Because of its special natural conditions and social conditions, the Vulcan Faith became very popular in Changsha. Its earliest history which had been written in books was in 1747, the Vulcan of this temple was called ZhuRong.The Vulcan Faith was included in official worship since Qing Dynasty. Local people all believed in the Vulcan, combined with the promotion of local gentry, the Vulcan Faith became more and more popular. There were two official worship to the Vulcan every year in Spring and Autumn, while the folk worship was occasional. From the worship process to sacrificial rituals, it had its own particular ways. Because the incense of this temple became more prosper, it gradually formed a temple fair. The temple fair became a staging -ground of popular culture, formed a unique snacks culture of Hunan, especially the eight kinds of snacks were well known ; Xiang Ju, HuaGuXi, Shadow, Puppetry and other local hip-hop folk arts were well developed; Paper-cut, ZongBian, MianSu, TangHua and other handicraft arts were gathered here; these together was the characteristics of their temple. The temple's business became larger, it was controlled by YeDeHui , Lao Ba Dong and the New Ba Dong in succession. As a folk faith entity, the Temple of Vulcan not only played an important role in the spiritual area, but also made a positive contribution to invest ,to the construction of theLiZe school, to the creation of Qianyuan Palace Fire Brigade, these measures had a positive significance to the local community .The incense of this temple became more prosper, this was closely linked to the society, it became a truly reflection of people's daily life. On one hand it was benefited from relaxed political environment since Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the local gentry's promotion. On the other hand, it also had made deep impact to the local society, it meet people's spiritual needs in their daily life, it also had a social education function in moral, it strengthened the cohesion of community, it provided a stage for folk culture and so on. The development of popular religion is inseparable from the impact of the social environment, at the same time it had a profound impact on society. People are the creators of history, concerning the daily life of most people, concerning about their faith, this is a valuable study to social history.