The Study On The Ritual And Symbolic Of Nanning Pinghua Shigong Drama

The most essential difference between the Nanning Pinghua Shi Gong drama and the pure drama performances is that it is rooted in some folk beliefs, and is closely related with the ritual and folk customs. Shi Gong is a powerful sorcerer in the Guangxi civil society. This thesis chooses a series of the ritual of Nanning Pinghua Shi Gong drama as the study objects, such as the beginning ritual, building bridge and inviting gods, mowing green grass to feed the "horses", driving out ghosts from houses, rewarding the Thor,"flower" rituals, convening the gods’troops. The author tries to describe all these ritual processes, and interprets the symbols and metaphors of the rituals from the perspective of symbolic anthropology.The author will focus on illustrating a series of symbol and metaphor in the performing ritual situations. The opening ceremony is the necessary procedure before the performances start, it should be conducted by a Shi Gong who has already finished the initiation rite. Building bridge and inviting gods displays the process of greeting deities. Lu Ban, who is considered as the greatest of the ancient Chinese carpenter, builds up a bridge for the gods crossing. The bridge contributes to the communication between human-being and gods. The paper horses are regarded as sacred horses which are presented to the gods. The "men" who are made of couch grass are used as the evil spirits, which are expelled from houses by Shi Gong so that they can’t haunt at home and do evil to human. The flags play a key role in the ritual situation, they not only symbolize the sign of summoning, but also stand for military order and power. Shi Gong submits the flags to gods devoutly, so that the gods are able to defend human’s homeland with the help of the "army". All these which are applied to the performance in Shi Gong drama reveal the logic of metaphorical imitation.In the local people’s opinion,"flowers" symbolize human-beings, even little babies. They believe that human beings derive from flowers, and are spawned by flowers. What’s more,"white flowers" represent the males. On the contrary,"red flowers" symbolize the females. With such folk religious concept, a great many of "flowers" related rituals had been invented, to console the native people’s psychological demands and spiritual pursuits.