Research On Formation Of The Ancestral Hall At Dongkou Country

In the patriarfeudual society, ancestral hall is the important architecture in theconsanguineous villages. Dongkou County is the fortress of ancient way connected Hunanand Guizhou, It locates in the southwest of Hunan Province, the east of Hsueh-fengMountains and the upstream of ZiShui River. After the lengthy development process, thereare many consanguineous villages in Dongkou County. Building ancestral hall is a veryimportant thing for the close branches of a patriarchal clan. The special geography andculture of Dongkou County bring the unique ancestral hall group. At its best, the number ofancestral halls exceeds300. Nowadays, over40ancestral halls are zealously preserved.After many times in-place surveys, the author chooses twelve ancestral halls to study.On the basis of anthropogeography and culture, the way of the study is illustration andinduction. It’s amazing that Dongkou Country’s ancestral hall group shows its originality,grand-scale, great expressive force and superb craft. At first, the ancestral hall group was theproduct of patriarfeudual system, which is in close connection with the formation,development, culmination and decay of ancestral halls. Patriarfeudual culture was thecrucial factor in the formation of ancestral halls. Besides, single buildings such as thearchways, theatrical stages, the central halls (places for sacrificing ceremonies), Qin halls(places where ancestors’ memorial tablets are put) and bell towers, which fully show theregional characteristics, are influenced by different cultures including Taoist Culture,Buddhist culture, culture of Qiyang opera and western culture. They show uniqueconstruction characteristics in order to adapt to the local climate features and regionalcharacters.The paper is made up of seven chapters. In the first chapter, on the base of an overallunderstanding of the current status and results of the study at home and abroad, the authoranalyses the problems in detail that people have when they do researches on ancestral hall groups as well as the meanings of the study. The author also makes the contents andpurposes of the study clear. Besides, some feasible methods are put forward in this chapter.The causes are analyzed in the following chapter according to some background information.The most important part of Dongkou Country’s ancestral hall group---the general layout isdiscussed in the third chapter. The fourth chapter, the author focuses on the features andstyles of significant single buildings such as the archways, theatrical stages, the central halls,Qin halls and bell towers in Dongkou County’s ancestral hall group. The last part is aconclusion and outlook.