A Study On The Geomantic Cultural Network Of Traditional Rural Society In The Qingshui River Basin (1644-1949

Due to the special role it played in traditional Chinese culture,fengshui has been a constant concern in cultural anthropology circle.This dissertation,based on materials such as documents,local records,inscription,folk ballads and family pedigree,aims to examine the network structure of fengshui cultural of traditional village society in Qingshuijiang Basin.Apart from the Introduction and the conclusion parts,this dissertation can be divided into five parts.Chapter 1 focuses on the practices under the guidance of fengshui concepts in Qingshuijiang Basin,including old tree worship,cemetery,fengshui woods,ancestor worship,folk ballads.Chapter 2 discusses the impact of those practices on the layout of stockaded villages in traditional society in Qingshuijiang Basin through a study on a picture called“Mansion of Mangling Village”(in Guangxu period in Qing dynasty).Chapter 3 explains the fengshui maps in Qingshuijiang Basin from two perspectives: category of naming and cultural interpretation.Chapter 4deals with the civil dispute on fengshui arisen both in society and kinship in Qingshuijiang Basin,taking cases as examples like bridge construction and destruction,reclaiming wasteland for tree planting,forced burial in cemetery,forced cutting old trees.Chapter 5 concentrates on a comparative study on regional disparity of fengshui culture from the perspectives of the written form and the practical carrier of fengshui concept between Qingshuijiang Basin and other areas such as Shicang,southern Jiangxi province,Fujian province and Huizhou.Based on the research above,this dissertation draws conclusions as follows:1.Various rituals like old tree worship,cemetery,fengshui woods,ancestor worship reflects villagers practice on fengshui concept.Among them,folk ballads having absorbed fengshui concept during its repeated practice in village society,evolved into a folk belief with regional uniqueness.Villagers’ practice under the influence of fengshui formed a fengshui cultural network of village society in Qingshuijiang Basin.2.The site selection of the stockaded villages was not a indiscriminate imitation of the ideal fengshui pattern.Instead,it was the result of optimized selection and collective memory,taking a serious of factors into consideration.The geomancer was in fact the stockaded village designer,since it was his investigation and interpretation on natural environment and landscape that determined the layout of stockaded villages.Therefore,the layout can be seen as the geomancer’s graphic memory of his fengshui oracle,and villagers’ collective memory under the guidance of the geomancer’s oracle as well.3.The drawing of fengshui maps of traditional society in Qingshuijiang Basin played a significant part in the construction of fengshui cultural network by the local geomancer and villagers,displaying the formation of fengshui cultural network in a multidimensional way.Its naming was determined by the physical form of the fengshui map,not exactly by the mascot which the villagers expected.Family fengshui map played a key role in family tomb distribution.Fengshui choice from a combination of Yin and Yang is in nature a comprehensive demand for the ecological environment.Private fengshui map represented regional environment of the burial place,an embodiment of ancestors’ admiration and commemoration of heroes of the clan,and a key knot of villagers’ fengshui cultural network.4.Civil dispute on fengshui after judgment from the authorities shed light on fengshui’s influence on villagers,clans and all levels of government.Therefore,it not only provided a new point of view on the study of the construction of fengshui cultural network,but fully reflected the practice of folk customary law in Qingshuijiang Basin.In constructing the local fengshui clutral network,villagers,clans and officials respectively played the roles of collective memory,seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages,and double standards.5.The construction of fengshui cultural network of traditional society in Qingshuijiang Basin is practice-based.In various types of documents of cemetery in Qingshuijiang Basin,the signatures of most witnesses are simple in form(in contrast to the complexity of signatures in other regions),showing the self-constraint style of Qingshui regional fengshui practice.Many geomancers also signed their names in line with their status in their fengshui practice,but their signatures did not become brands,and were only seen in a few documents recorded some fengshui practices.In the traditional society of Qingshuijiang Basin,there was no phenomenon of renting graves appeared,and the custom of multiple burials rarely appeared,which might be concerned with the development of commodity economy.