Folklore Investigation On Mourning Colors By Han Nationality

Mourning apparel, a generic term of wears and accessories dressed by family, relatives and friends in funeral operations and mourning period when their loved one passed away, is a part of Chinese full dress, including not only clothes but also traditional caps, sash, shoes, cane as well as fashionable accessories in modern cities, like white flowers and crapes. Chinese traditional mourning apparel has lots of colors and forms than one’s imagination and various colors have various proportions, usages, and causes. Exactly the same color may stand for different moral sign in various ethnic groups in China. Abundant of mourning colors were gradually settled down in the long historical river of culture. They became cultural items in folkways that established by long usage and were inherited by following peoples. Based on the case in Siping village, Jinhua city, Zhejiang province, this thesis analyzed the relationship between mourning colors and symbolic culture of5-elemental theory and investigated the inheritance and development of mourning colors through the description and discussion on characterizations of affective association, sign symbolism and psychological feelings behind four of those mourning colors, i.e. white, black, red and blue.This thesis contains five parts:Part Ⅰ is introduction. This part introduced the reason for topic selection and topic significance, reviewed the current studies on the culture of Han’s mourning color from principles of mourning apparel system, color folklore, and culture of clothing color, and described the criteria of case selection and methods of investigation used in this thesis.Part Ⅱ is outline of mourning culture. Through the definition, origination, categorization and cultural significance of mourning apparel, this part provided the concept definition as a background for the investigation of mourning colors in this thesis.Part Ⅲ is current situation of mourning color in Siping village. This part was written mainly according to author’s on spot investigation. Firstly, by the method of categorization, the principles of mourning apparel system and mourning colors in Siping village were divided into dutiful-son group, affinity group, family-relatives group, and general guest group, and were respectively analyzed in details. Secondly, the particular mourning colors issues and corresponding funeral ceremonies in Siping village were described in details. Lastly, the causes of the current mourning colors in Siping village under major and minor traditions were analyzed.Part Ⅳ discusses the significance of mourning colors in the sense of folklore in Han ethnic group. Starting mainly from those mourning apparel issues in Siping village, complemented by culture of mourning colors that listed in literatures and historical records, this part discussed in details about the status of mourning colors in Han ethnic group as well as the hidden folklore significance and functions behind those colors from four of those mourning colors, white, black, red and blue.Part Ⅴ is a summary. This part presented the conclusion of this research as well as those un-involved research fields in mourning colors due to my limitation.