Research On Symbol Of She People's "Zoumingxuefa" Ritual

The She nationality is an ancient nationality in China,which has formed its own unique national culture in its historical development that has been passed down from generation to generation.As the most representative one in the She nationality's traditional culture,the "Zouming learning method" ritual is the unique cultural characteristic of the She nationality and the most important ritual activity in the She people's life.But nowadays,the ritual activity is disappearing day by day,and it is still spreading only in a few villages in the Jingning She autonomous county in Zhejiang Province.The Shangliao village is the only traditional village in the Jingning county where this ritual has been preserved well.The ancestors of this village have settled here since the Kangxi time,from which it has been more than three hundred years up to now.During that period,the “Zouming Learning Method” ritual activity had never been interrupted.This paper adopts Shangliao village as a field research spot,using the ritual symbolism theory to conduct the research and analysis on the “Zouming learning method” of the She nationality.The content of this paper is divided into four parts.The first part introduces the holding reason,preparation stage and ritual process of the "Zouming learning method" ritual.It is believed that the reasons for holding the ritual include five aspects: sacrificing the ancestors,praying for the protection of the gods,obtaining the qualifications of the "great merit" after death,avoiding to be a “decapitation necromancer” and improving the social status.The second part analyzes the symbolic symbols in the "Zouming learning method" ritual,thinking that "the ancestor's cane" is the key symbol of the whole ritual,and has two symbolic meanings of "generality" and "elucidation" which are the "generality" symbolic expressions of the She people's spiritual beliefs,the reverence of the gods,and the worship of the ancestors and also the "fundamental metaphor" that affects the people's ideological concepts and the "key script" that constrains the people's words and deeds.The third part uses Victor Turner's ritual theory to analyze the threshold of the "Zouming learning method" ritual,dividing the threshold state of the Xingang disciples into three phases: the front threshold: separation from the daily life,threshold period: the marginal state of the learning method's disciples and the post-threshold: the aggregation of the learning method's returning,thinking that the new disciples have obtained the transformation of status and status' promotion in the anti-structure state of the threshold period.The fourth part analyzes the symbolic structure of the "Zouming learning method" ritual,thinking that the underworld and earth plane,the sacred and the secular are the binary symbolic structure widely existing in the society of She nationality.The ternary structure constitutes of the heavens,the human world and the land,respectively symbolizing the three places where the soul rises into the heavens,the human beings are born again,the human beings are beaten into the hell,and the sacred,secular,and evil levels embodied in the real society.Finally,the author thinks that the She nationality's "Zouming learning method" ritual fully integrates the cultural elements of Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism,which is the result and product of multicultural interaction.However,in the current society,influenced by the economic development and foreign culture,this traditional ritual is gradually disappearing and the concern for the sacred world in the traditional culture of the She nationality has started weakening,which is not only the current situation faced by the society of She nationality,but also a ubiquitous phenomenon existing in many ethnic groups in China.