For Rain Ceremony And Village Space - Camp Cases

Because rain-seeking ritual has so close contact with people's existence in China,almost all studies regard it as survival method, collecting it out from the environmentin which it was practiced, probing into its origin, symbolizing, etc. But for itsspecialty, rain-seeking ritual has regional meaning, occupying an important status inthe folk life of one place. The purpose of this study is to put rain-seeking ritual backinto its ethnography environment, taking it as breakthrough point to discuss howvillagers construct their village space through this ritual. Houying village lies in the southwest of Henan, china. Most villagers belong toone lineage. they had ancestral temple,genealogy,sacrifice field,ancestor worshiporganization and annual fiesta. Lineage practice together with other rituals constructa multi-level social network with family as its core. An important cycle of this socialnetwork is constructed through rain-seeking ritual. In fact Silongye, the rain god of Houying village play the role of village god. Asthe collective representation of the village, he has condensed the whole strength ofvillage. Through rain-seeking ritual and organization villagers of Houying villageshow their strong consciousness of village border, perform and strengthen theirmotion and strength of being members of a community. But Houying is not totallyisolated. When national administrative strength has not permeated into rural society ,national consciousness is approved in the form of symbol through local worship tocontrol local society. And Houying villagers tactically contact their collectiverepresentation Silongye closely with religion centre Santan who had gained approvefrom the state, thus making this village have outstanding status in it region with theaid of national strength. Ritual embodies a concentrated expression of practices of roles in a group. At theend of this study rain-seeking ritual will be regarded as the breakthrough point toanalyze the unofficial authority and role and status of women in folk life of thevillage.