Ethnography Of Soundacpes To The "Fire-walking" Ritual In Yang'tou Village Pan'an County Of Zhejiang Province

"Fire-walking" is a belief ritual for evil eliminating and good fortune praying by walking on the glowing coals in a particular time, which is called "paolianwujin" in Chinese, meaning the same to sacrifice to the god in belief. The author of this essay selected the "fire-walking" ritual from Yangtou village of Pan'an county in Jinhua city of Zhejiang province as her researching object, to explore the interactive relationship among soundcapes, ritual and belief by focusing on the soundcapes and placing it into belief system, thus, the ethnography of soundcapes.Introduction, main body of three episodes and conclusion constitute this essay. The introduction part mainly elucidates the researching object, purpose and the evidences obtained from the rituals, simultaneously, defines the relative conception involved in the research, clarifies and comments on interrelated situation in the same study field, as well as proposes her methodology related to the research of this essay.The subject of the first episode is to clarify the relationship between "fire-walking" and three other factors, those are social and human environment, "fire-walking" ritual in other places and local belief activities. In this episode, the author sets forth that "fire-walking" is a worshipping activity kind of eliminating the insect pests and praying annually for the good fortune by the symbol of fire, and the author also believes that the phenomenon of "believing in Zhu Xiang Gong" is a complex of beliefs in folk witch, Taoism and Buddha and so on, which motivates the local masses mainly by the ritual of "fire-walking".The author describes and compares in the second episode three types of texts from oral narrative, folk writing and field recording in order to make the basic structure of the ethnography of soundcapes by the understanding of the "fire-walking" ritual from multi-dimensional angles. The three texts complement each other and are comprehensive reaction of the ritual and their soundcapes either periodically or as a whole.Combined with inside view and near-to-far two poles variable thinking method, by understanding every links of "fire-walking"ritual and its soundcapes'near-to-far characteristics in three levels such as "core-middle-outer" ring, the author then analyses three issues, which are,Firstly, analysis of the soundcapes in three levels and their structure features, secondly, analysis of the regional and cross-regional factors of the soundcapes in the ritual, lastly, the further elaboration on soundcapes in the ritual in two aspects, such as the sacred and the profane, and multiple symbolism of soundcapes. The author also points out that, soundcapes as a path to the god, the local villagers employ multiple soundcapes with respect, respect plus amusement and amusement to pray the god in order to reach the ultimate purpose of peace and prosperity. The sacred (close to sacred soundcapes) and the profane (close to profane soundcapes) merge into each other in one ritual scene and in the same signification, and compounding into everyday life of local villagers.The conclusion part summarizes the essay. The author makes a further explanation about the cultural meaning behind the idea of the soundcapes in the "fire-walking" ritual, reveals that a belief would open a door to the ultimate room of harmony and balance between human beings and the universe with the assistance of ritual and the symbolic marks of their soundcapes which meticulously create a sort of atmosphere of real and sense of on-air reality.