Guzang Festival As Ritual Politics:An Ethnographic Study Of A Miao Village In Mount Yueliang

The Miao societies are very typical ethnic groups of equality throughout almost all time.The egalitarianism of the Miao has long been considered due to political underdevelopment and the insufficiency of state.However,through the expansion of political definition by political anthropologist Pierre Clastres etc.,Guzang Festival can be regarded as ritual politics;the Miao society remians social equality through such ritual politics.Historically,the Miao people included military functions.After the former warriors no longer had the functions of war and defense,the spirit of the warriors was still preserved.From the perspective of the combination of age group and social division of labor,Miao society in Mount Yueliang is generally composed of youthgroup and elderly-group.The former undertakes the tasks of social war and hunting,while the latter undertakes the functions of cultivation and production.In contrast,young people pursue generosity,equality,and justice as warriors;the elderly,as producers,focus on private property and family wealth.Since Miao society regards generosity over wealth,the value of the youth group overrides the value of the elderly group.Although young people are more virtuous in terms of values,society ultimately needs production and vitality.Since both the actual production and the vitality on the cosmological level needs to be obtained by the elderly,young people must rely on elderly group in their actual life and religious levels.On the one hand,the youth group occupies a high position on the moral level,and on the other hand,it needs to rely on the elderly group.Therefore,young people owe the elderly in terms of emotions and values.This kind of indebtedness makes the Miao people sacrifice to their ancestors in the form of Guzang Festival,to welcome the vitality from the ancestors,but at the same time they must show the absoluteness of the values of the young warrior in the ceremony.Through the ethnographic study of a Miao Village in Mount Yueliang,this paper attempts to expand the understanding of politics and polity,showing that polity did not aim to maintain hierarchy by violence at the beginning of its birth,but formed hierarchy by trying to maintain social equality.The first chapter mainly introduces the question:can we regard the super social structure during the Guzang Festival as a periodic "ritual state",and whether the emergence and elimination of this ritual politics can be used to consider the origin of the state.After this,literature review and refinement is conducted based on the issue.The author explains the fieldwork place,Jiashao Village,Mount Yueliang Congjiang,Guizhou and its surrounding areas,and explains the research methods used in this article.The second chapter mainly introduces the egalitarianism concept found in the myths and legends of Jiashao Village and its surroundings.From the local origin myths,it can be seen that the human ancestors of the Miao people lacked the vitality in the symbolic sense,and the parents of the human ancestors showed more ability to achieve social prosperity.In most of these myths,there are contradictions between "parent" and"child","producer" and "warrior".At the level of belief,the Miao society believes that vitality comes from the world of the dead and ghosts,and material production cannot be separated from the elderly,the dead and ghosts;on the other hand,the dead and ghosts are not given a high status by society.Power is associated with superstitions such as filth,ghosts,and poison.Through egalitarian mechanisms in belief,society achieves resistance to differentiation at the conceptual level.The third chapter mainly introduces the social differences formed by the way of living,as well as the smoothing of the social differences caused by the consumption of daily life,festivals,and rituals.This chapter attempts to explain that in addition to farming and gathering livelihoods,hunting-fishing are also a part that cannot be ignored.The reason for emphasizing hunting and fishing is to highlight the social division of labor among young people in Miao society as warriors.At the same time,this chapter describes the problem that the conflict between the original livelihood and the frequent festivals prevented the Miao society from accumulating wealth.The fourth chapter mainly describes the Miao society and marriage system,which maintain the basic equality of Miao society.The marriage system and inheritance institution of Miao society do not support individuals to concentrate their wealth in the family.It is difficult to accumulate wealth,which makes it difficult to concentrate power.Also,this chapter distinguishes the Miao house,village and Gushe clan,and explains that the house and family are part of the kinship system.Gushe clan is a combat group unit,which is closely related to young people,fighters and Guzang Festival.The fifth chapter mainly presents the process of the Guzang Festival,and explains the political nature of the ceremony in addition to ancestor worship.As an ancestor worship ceremony,the Guzang festival needs to select a chief and 12 priests.In the whole process of the ceremony,the whole society forms the hierarchical difference between the chief,priests and others.However,through the analysis of the ceremony,it can be found that the level composed of ritual chief and priests are just to ensure equality.In the time outside the Guzang Festival,the differences between people must be formed within the society due to man-made or natural factors,including poverty and wealth,population size,disease,and health,etc.The selection of Guzang chief in Guzang Festival is based on his redivision of social wealth as the political chief.At the same time,this chapter still emphasizes that there is a more typical customary law conference system outside the Guzang Festival.This conference system is carried by the elderly judiciary.This customary law system is responsible for more specific and extensive judicial adjudication.Guzang ritual politics,custom-law conference and etc.jointly form the prototype of the country.The sixth chapter is the conclusion and reflection of this paper.Through the summary and review of ritual,political and social systems in the previous article,this chapter attempts to explain the significance of Guzang festival for modern social theory,Miao ritual politics can broaden the understanding of social science for politics and the state.