| As the last one among the four ceremonies in one's life:birth, death, wedding and birthday ceremony, funeral ceremony is composed of obsequies& burial rituals, and include a whole set of rituals to deal with death from his last breath to be buried and to the sacrifice ritual after being buried. Basing on the Confucian etiquettes and past dynasties'burial system, the folk funeral ceremony has gone through an evolution after some additions and deletions according to local customs and the prevailing social conventions. As an important part of folk culture, funeral ceremony plays a unique role in social, cultural and psychological areas, and a more universal significance for the contemporary. So, a study on it has some certain theoretical and practical significance, which will help us learn and understand the traditional culture in the whole more completely, build up correct views of death and life. In addition, the excavation of contemporary funeral customs will help to change the social customs of contemporary society, and find more appropriate ways and methods for funeral reform.Taking the folk funeral ceremonies of Shandong Laoling as a research objective, the paper means to provide a new way out for modern funeral reform practice through an analysis over the ultimate concern comprised in funeral ceremony and reality beyond the limited life.The paper will make a discussion on the folk funerals in Shandong Laoling, and an extension over them. The paper includes seven chapters. Chapter One is the preamble, which puts forth the thesis of the study and its significance, collects some literatures about death and the ultimate concern at home and abroad, as well as offers the methodology and writing outlines. Chapter Two summarized the historical and cultural backgrounds, geographical and social environmental profile of Shandong Laoling. First, the chapter traces back the historical process Qilu culture as the origin of Shandong culture synchronically; Second, the chapter surveys the historical and geographical situations of Laoling, and provides the readers the cultural background. Chapter Three introduces the views of death philosophically and religiously, and two different views of life and values in materialism and idealism; the chapter focuses on the views of death and values from the three traditional Chinese Taoism and Confucianism and the world's three major religions, including Confucian life and death, suicide pay the price, reverence for his ancestors, the Naturalist theory, Taoist immortal, Christianity and Islam, salvation and so on. Chapter Four discusses the theoretical meanings of ultimate concern and its practice in Western religious areas, including Confucianism on death on the set of etiquette deal, Buddhist and Taoist beliefs and Chao Du dead ghost ceremony, Christianity and Islam in the funeral and other aspects of the performance of ultimate concern; Chapter Five is the practice of ultimate concern in folk funeral ceremony. It is a specific description over a set of funeral ceremony in Shandong Laoling based on field investigation. Chapter Six is the analysis of the spirit of ultimate concern and its extension, which is a deep analysis of ritual process, and extension to the funeral after the funeral rites and ceremonies. First of all, the chapter analyses from the dead's ultimate concern and ultimate concern, and subsequently expanded into two areas so that the dead were a worthy death, but not absolutely dead, spirit forever, blood Inheritance, comfort the live, resolving grief, reconstruction of social relations and other small points, and finally through the Ching Ming Festival, Cold Food Festival, Ghost Festival, adoptive, ghost marriage custom of the funeral rites for such extension, trying to explain not only the Funeral contains the ultimate Concern but also to beyond the limited components of life. Chapter Seven is a conclusion. Through the exposition and analysis of the above-mentioned, the chapter summarizes the limitation of Funeral Customs in the care and substance beyond the limited life,and provided some new ideas, which will offer a new way out for the modern funeral reform. |
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