Memory And Reconstruction Of The Culture: A Research On Dragon Mother's Belief Around Daming Mountain

The folk religion of the Zhuang is an integral part of the Zhuang's culture. Since 1949, the scholars have made great achievements on the Zhuang's folk religion research, among which the results of the research on the Dragon Mother's belief of Yuecheng, Guangdong province and Wuzhou, Guangxi autonomous region are fruitful. However, the culture embodied around Daming mountain hasn't been attached much intention by the researchers. Therefore, the dissertation takes a Zhuang's village---Stone Gate village near the mountain as a case, with enough materials through the field investigation method, in order to make out the reasons why the religion has rooted and developed strongly in the area by analysis of the folklores, the temple and the relative religious rites. From that, some conclusions will be proved. One hand, the Zhuang people's worship for Mother Dragon is originated from the social memory of the past. By the way of narration, the Zhuang have kept and continued people's historical memory of the belief. On the other hand, the belief embodies the traits of practical function and interests, which not only meets people's spiritual pursuit of happiness, but also becomes the basis of people's cultural reconstruction in order to find the way to the development of the village. In addition, the sacred places like the temple have come to be regarded as a symbol of their collective memory. In the process of repeated rites, the Zhuang's sense of cultural identification has been formatted and strengthened.