Research On Folk Beliefs In Southwestern Shanxi In The Ming And Qing Dynastie

Fork belief as a kind of unique social phenomenon that reflect our spiritual demands from different levels and became which people need in heart. Feudal ruling class always used the huge influence of fork belief in the public to control people's behaviors and moral in order to consolidate their domination on the basis of the successful experiences of the system for supervision and control for officials in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Therefore, this paper selected the Ming and Qing Dynasties as the research object to analyse the life of the people there.The southwest of Shanxi became one of the original place of human beings in ancient times. From Dingcun Man 100,000 years ago, to the Xia Dynasty, they were all linked to this area. The south of Shanxi basin with fertile soil and warm humid climate located in the lower reaches of Fen River that bred splendid cultures and civilizations. So we choose this area as research object for which is valuable no matter for history or reality.In Ming and Qing Dynasties, there have been formed a relatively mature system of gods in fork society. This article divided the gods into three kinds:nature gods with sky?earth? mountains and rivers; social gods with ancient famous people or celestial beings; and faith of ancestors and spirits. During the period, traditional nature beliefs tended to secularization and personalization. Nature worship also reflected the admiration of people to the nature myriad things in diferent aspects. Founder gods is a major feature of faith there in social gods system which demonstrate its ancient civilizations, the personal gods were related to people's life, so there were many local characteristics. Finally, ghosts and ancestor beliefs as one of the major traditional social beliefs there, reflected the desire of people for ancestors' pray and favor.In Ming and Qing dynasties, with the social control strengthening of top rulers,people pinned all their hopes on supernatural spirits through all kinds of amusing gods activities to pray for help of gods, so fork beliefs had the function of emotional catharsis. Beliefs linked to many countries in spiritual life when they hold temple fairs which played a role in social integrations. However, worship of the people had the function of ideological and cultural control, and there were much material in histories which reflected that the top ruler controlled fork people in many ways. Finally, due to the popularity of the temple activities, to some extent, they promoted the development of trade in goods. They also formed a trading network based on one belief, so folk belief's economy function is becoming increasingly apparent.