Symbol And Rite

Taking the personification of the primordial image through the clay sculptures of gods in Yuncheng Shandong as a case ,the article probes into its origin developing process,natural environment,historical and cultural background to show its environmental feature,cultural origin and humane value.Then from the aspects of its function,evolution,oral folklore and so on, people can comprehend its profound traditional concepts about culture,the reason of its consistently getting thriving and prosperous and its various effects on both people's life and social system with its cultural evolution and tendency to be further analysed. Whether taken as a custom of handicraft or as a folk culture industry,clay sculptures of gods are supposed to satisfy and adjust common people's psychological life meets. Viewing From the angle of folklore idea,this paper adopts the thinking methods of"from small to big,from single to common", regarding man as its orientation, lying stress on the reality and striving for dynamic. In terms of the research methods,this article takes the methods of the combination of field work and documents and mainly positivism, through which the thesis analyzes and describes the folk use and humane value existing in clay sculptures of gods, comprehensively and relatively.This research is of great originality,not only in pushing clay sculptures of gods culture research to a vertical and deeper expansion,but,the more important,in analysing the closely relationship between this spiritual belief which has been existing for thousands of years and people's life in terms of the cultural heritage protection, which takes clay sculpturs of gods culture research as its turning point and help us acquire the theoretical knowledge of how to develop and protect our traditional folk culture, except just knowing how to do the on-the-spot research work of clay sculptures of gods.