Village Communities Nuo Ritual And Symbolism

Nuo is an ancient culture form which is titled as "fossil of Chinese drama".So it is not strange that initial study on Nuo was done by drama theorist. But Nuo is not entertaining play,but an "ritual play",as is called by some drama theorist.Beginning from 1980's, studies on Nuo can be classified as "three category" or "three phase": studies on presentation of Nuo;studies on structure of Nuo;studies on meaning of Nuo.Many studies up to now fall into first category .The latter two are relately scarce. The reseach done in this article want to fill in this vacancy.The research objective of this article is Nuo ritual.Nuo is an ancient sacrificial ritual which contain lots of symbols. By implementing culture Anthropologic method and theories, this article looked into the symbolic system structure which brought out through such means as posture , acting ,singing , dancing ,costume ,stage properties,conjuration etc. Aother perspective of this article is search into the local society where Nuo is played to find out the cultural change implied by the change of Nuo .Through social Anthropoligic community reseach instruments, the social meaning and function of Nuo is also looked into. So the Arthur select Guichi county in Anhui Province as the locality of field investigation. Guichi county is the place where the Nuo studies was initiated.And Guichi county is also a typical tranditional agricultural society which could represent the most original Nuo culture.Under the background of Nuo culture studies and religion ritual studies ,the article implement both symbolism theory , interpretation theory and social Anthropologic methods. Historic papers analysis and field work jCommunity studies are the main instrument used in this article. Athough the focus is on Nuo ,cultural change background is distinctive feature of this article from another ones. In a word ,the small community research mirrors the silent but distinct social and cultural change undergone in the whole country.That is the creative point of this article.When historically looking back ,Guichi Nuo evolved through two clues: one is kindredship ,another is geograghical location. So the article search into these two characteristic of Guichi Nuo as clan ritual and community ritual. The two actually blend into each other finally.The conclusion drawed by the article is : The trandition society was organized by the kindredship which is both symbol of social comity and responsible for inner social and economic affairs.Clan is basic unit of both production and cultural activities such as sacrificial Nuo ritual. Peasant society is integrated in the way that social structure is composed in the same way as the cultural structure is. That is the reason why Chinese tranditional community stay so long period of stable state which culminate in modernization process since last century. So, dispite the revival of Nuo ,it cannot maintain original meaning and social function as before.The only thing left over for community members is to search for something new ,somesubstitute for old Nuo ritual, some collective form of ritual through which individuals divided by differential interest ownership could find a new bond for social interaction and solidarity. Behind the process of reviving Nuo,community endeavor to find this bond of society but unlikely success. Whether the cultural change would smooth and what direction the change is in will decide the fate of Nuo as well as the vigor of local culture .