Ritual Soundscapes And Identity Of Ritual Specailists

This thesis is a case study on ritual soundscapes ofZuo Qi, a kind of Taoist ritual aims at releasing souls from purgatory, which is performed by the local scattered-dewelling Taoists in Changshu,southeastern Jiangsu Province in China.For a long time inthehistory of Taoist’sdevelopment, scattered-dewelling Taoists had been marginalized both bythe government and temple-dewelling Taoists. And theirreligious identitywas questioned, all the rituals performed by them had also been labeled as illegal. Today, this historical problem of their religious identity still has its deep impaction towards the the Taoists’s lifes.In this circumstance, Gu Jia Ban, a blood-lineage-based Taoists group which lived in Changshu area for generations, consider performing ritual as a way to strengthen their religious identity among the local people. So, by using different symbols, mantra-like spells, written talismans and other instruments including singing and dancing,more scattered-dewelling Taoists groups like Gu Jia Ban, try their best to make ritual seemed more effectable to peopleon whose judgments theirreligious identity depends.Whena purpose to soliditatereligious identity has been added to the religious aims of the ritual, there must be a place for the ritual soundscapes to work.Exploring the relationship between ritual soundscapes and the identity of scattered-dewelling Taoists, provides us a foresight on the social meaning of ritual and its soundscapes. Meanwhile, when we focusing on the soundscapes in the ritual contexts from an ethnomusicological academic view, there risesa problem about how these soundcapes been produced and used by the Taoists to achieve the goal of ritual, and how they are received by its belivers, a question refers to the necessity and exclusivity of the ritual soundscapes.In this thesis, data used in the analysis includes field interviews and sound recordings and were all collected from my field work with Gu Jia Ban in Changshu.At the end of this article, I also give a reflection about the challenge to the theory and methodology in ethnomusicology indiscussing the relationship between ritual soundscapes and ritual experience.