A Study On The Vicissitudes Of Custom In The Period Of People’s Commune

The People’s Commune Movement, happened from the late1950s to the early1980s, is a socialpolitical movement in our country which has got the largest scale and the deepest affection. The People’sCommune, which is born of this movement, is not only an establishment unit of regime of the socialistcountry, but one collective agricultural economic organization, running the system of “integration ofgovernment administration and commune management”. The running of this system made the mainstreamideology seep into the rural society entirely，and then profoundly influenced folk culture，rapidly changedthe local cultural ecology in a short time. As the representative of folk culture，folk customs expressvicissitudes in different degrees under the impact of every factor. So，this thesis is to take People’sCommune of Chayashan as a case study，choose the politics，economy，culture，and the locals’ life habits，behavior regulation，mental consciousness，ideas of that time as the points of penetration，give a deep andcomprehensive study to the vicissitudes of customs in the period of the People’s Commune.In this study, a field-work is running in the investigation place with the help of historical restorationmethod of Anthropology and statistical method of Sociology, and to collect and record the oral informationby taking advantage of participant observation and deep interview. At the same time, this study is todetailedly sort out memoirs, county annals, archives and some other historical materials, and carefully readand study works and theses as well. This thesis is to express the vicissitudes of customs in Chayashandistrict from the perspective of folk belief，life etiquette，and folk literature and art. And then, use thetheory of culture vicissitude in the subject of folklore and cultural anthropology, unearth the reasons ofvicissitude by the use of historical comparative approach, in order to reflect the change of the socialpolitics，economy，culture，locals’ ideas and values, life style, religious faith, which greatly influence theinheritance of folk customs, and reveal the special rule of the vicissitudes of customs as well.This thesis is divided into six parts. The first part is an introduction, describes the origin of the choicefor this topic, as well as the research object and methods, and the academic history of this topic research. Inthe part of research object, this thesis is to definite the main concepts, and summarize the condition of theinvestigation place, as well as the reasons for choosing it. The second part is an introduction about the history of Chayashan People’s Commune. Firstly, introduce the establishment background and process,developing stage and current situation of Chayashan People’s Commune, to entirely present its historicalgeneral situation. Secondly, take transition and recovery as the classification criteria, briefly describe thevicissitudes of customs of Chayashan People’s Commune in stages. The third part is about the culturalvicissitudes of folk belief. At first, introduce the local folk belief from the perspective of gods worship,ancestor worship, ghost worship and witchcraft belief before the period of People’s Commune. And then,concretely describe the disappearance of public sacred space, and the fact that the ritual is changed fromopen to concealment, so as to reveal the vicissitudes of folk belief. At last, make an analysis on the reasonsof the vicissitudes of folk belief. The fourth part is about the changes of life etiquette, taking marriagecustom as an example. First, take the infant matrimony and uxorilocal marriage as two cases, to elaboratethe vicissitudes of special marriage form. Second, present the changes of marriage concept from theperspective of the variety of mate selection criteria and methods, and marriageable age. In the meantime,reveal the vicissitudes of marriage form through the alteration of blind date, wedding process and conjugalrelation. At last, explore the reasons for the vicissitudes of marriage customs. The fifth part is about thevicissitudes of folk literature and art, take the folk opera as a case，and the content of show, opera groupsystem, and performance time as the penetration points of this study, to conclude the vicissitudes of folkopera, as well as analyze the reasons in accordance with local conditions. The last part is conclusion，toconclude the vicissitudes of customs and its reasons in Chayashan People’s Commune，and then reveal theregular pattern of the vicissitudes of customs.