God Cohabitation: Folk Beliefs And Rural Society Of The Chahar Region From Qing Dynasty To The Early Republic Of China

Folk belief is a common folk phenomenon of popular culture, which has accompanied the development of human society. Folk belief is the faith traditions of people's daily living activities, it has a mutual penetration and influence to folk custom, and meanwhile, it has a steady mass base in the local community. Study of folk belief, not only helps to understand basic social culture, but also conducive to the lives of the people, to understand traditional social order and grasp the structure and operation of local society. The study materials about folk beliefs in northern China are less than in the south, particularly less in Chahar region. The writer is trying to make up for the weak link in this regional study according to put the folk belief in the social context and study diachronic. This paper explains the situation, characteristics of folk beliefs in Chahar region of the Qing Dynasty to early Republic of China, describes the mutual relationship between the folk beliefs and family, clan, community, civil society, industry and the interaction of economic activities, explores functions and roles of folk beliefs and how they become the basis of social lives and organizational development and existence in the local community according to the historical records, local records, inscriptions, history information in Chahar region by using social anthropology, folklore, religion, sociological theories.This paper includes introduction, body, conclusion three chapters. The first chapter defines the concept of "Chahar," "folk religion" and "local community", introduces the academic community, "Chahar" regional history, social history and historical status research and illustrates the conception and research value. The body part includes three chapters. The first chapter generally introduces folk beliefs in Chahar region of the Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China, shows that people has a wide range of features about the beliefs and the diversity of form of performance. The second chapter introduces the folk beliefs impact on people's lives in Chahar society. From birth to death, from the material to the spiritual world, every aspect of life is closely related with the gods. The third chapter introduces the important function of folk belief in local society. As an effective means of social control, folk belief is an important issue of family, clan and village. Not only for shaping the personality of people and social psychology it plays an important role in, but also the integration and control villages, stability and unity plays an active role. Folk beliefs had changed a lot, some disappear, some fading, and some form of simplification, some of the functions conversion occurs in the end of the Qing, accompanying by great changes in Chinese society. General speaking, the folk belief remains a tenacity as the underlying culture. The last part concludes the paper.