A Study On The Treatment Ritual Of The “planting Roots” Of The Bai People In Northwest Yunnan

Zaigen is a specific ceremony that is performed to treating children physically weak or ill, which gets popularity among the people of the Bai nationality in the northwest of Guizhou. Basically, as a part of culture emphasizing people's happiness, it is a psychological treatment that its effect is only be sensed by a mysterious insight. In fact, it is also a national culture heritage passing on from generation to generation. Some trees, some special people, some gods(superstitious belief in China's gods and ghosts) and some special culture worship in someone's belief are totally involved in the Zaigen rite.From the perspective of ethnology combined with anthropology, this paper is going to undertake research on the Zaigen ceremony among the Bai people in the northwest of Guizhou. Based on the detailed field investigation, the dimensions of culture holders and cultural anthropologists will be illustrated respectively by focusing on “treatment ceremony”,representing the whole process and then analyzing some traits.The first chapter called as introduction briefs on some key parts such as the reasons why the topic is selected, the research objectives, the research significance, some problems review, research approaches and the representative areas for investigation.The second chapter, called as the reviews of living conditions and Zaigen custom among the Bai people in the northwest of Guizhou, mainly talks about the living conditions and Zaigen custom.Firstly, this part provides a brief introducti on to general informationabout Bai people here, including population, population distribution and ethnic source, etc; secondly, divided into natural environment and cultural environment, the living conditions of Bai people here will be discussed; furthermore, this part will introduce the custom that every village owns a “Genshu” for blessing from heaven that can be shared by every household.Lastly, this part will talk about how the most important culture activities —Zaigen develop.The three chapter,called as the process of Zaigen ceremony, offers a detailed introduction to the process including the preparation, ritual process and after-ceremony work. Before people hold the Zaigen, people need to pray and consult an oracle, inform others of rite time, prepare ritual items and select the tree-planting orientation by divinity. When performing the ceremony, people need to go through thirteen steps starting from setting altars(offering sacrifice to heaven) to expressing gratitude to gods and others. After the ceremony, there are still some necessary work to be done such as taking care of “Genshu”and some taboos, planting “Genshu” according to the traditional seniority order and explaining the last resting place of “Genshu”.The fourth chapter called as the Zaigen features analyzes the features of Zaigen rite. The author believes that Zaigen is characterized by collectivity, publicity, steadiness, universality, night-performing and holiness. The another distinct feature is that the rite is closely linked to culture because the roles, the gods and the treatment are multiple and multidimensional, which is endowed with multiple symbols.The fifth part, called as the two explanation dimensions for Zaigen ceremony, illustrates the two explanation dimensions of culture holders and cultural anthropologists by adopting the hermeneutics theory put forward by Clifford Geertz. To begin with, this part is going to talk about the treatment reasons, the rite time, the ritual process, the holy “Genshu”, the effect and the attendance of non-family members from the point of culture holders; furthermore, based on the anthropology theory, the nature of Zaigen is defined as a rite worthy to be advocated as it is holy and environmental after the author illustrates how the belief and treatment is related to each other, how the rite reflects the traditional folk custom and social field and what should be rethought profoundly.The conclusion part discusses “the illness within culture scope” and relevant multiple treatment again. By offering a profound analysis of a single case in the multiple medical culture heritages and drawing people's attention to the traditional treatment ways, the author argues that Zaigen is a kind of culture heritage and all human traditional treatment culture is worthy to be respected by us for whatever existsin this world, it may has its own reasonability.