Study On "Pray For Rain" Ceremony In Ma Ying Village,Ningwu County,Northwest Shanxi Province

It is a very common cultural phenomenon in Chinese traditional agricultural society.Although there are differences in the way of praying for rain due to different nationalities and regions,it is closely related to people's production and life as a traditional way of disaster,and shows strong vitality in the long river of historical development.Ma Ying Village,located in the northwest of Shanxi,is a traditional agricultural village.The annual rain-pressing ceremony is not only a local disaster-picking ceremony,but also a unique local folk cultural activity.It not only holds the hope that the people of Ma Ying Village pray for good weather and good grain,but also carries Ma Ying The long history and culture of the village is a window to understand the cultural life,psychological cognition and group relationship of the people in Ma Ying Village.From the perspective of anthropological holism and guided by function theory,this paper uses participatory observation method and interview method to obtain a large number of first-hand materials on the basis of drawing lessons from previous related research results.Through the combination of field investigation and literature research,this paper makes a comprehensive study on the cultural significance and function of rain-pressing ceremony.The research content of this paper is mainly composed of four parts except introduction and summary.The first part: introduces the natural geographical conditions,the characteristics of human social environment and the cultural life of the people in Ma Ying Village.This paper discusses the interdependence between the rain-pressing ceremony and the overall environment of Ma Ying Village,and comprehensively shows the living soil of the "rain-pressing" ceremony in Ma Ying Village.On this basis,the historical origin and development course ofthe rain-pressing ceremony are combed and the reasons for its existence are analyzed and discussed.The second part: through the field participation observation and in-depth interview to the Ma Ying village "pray rain" ceremony preparation and the exhibition process,and discusses the participating groups and roles in the ceremony,based on this analysis of the Ma Ying village "pray rain" ceremony contains cultural characteristics,mainly introduced the "rain" ceremony spontaneous,utilitarian,entertaining characteristics.The third part: to make a concrete analysis of the cultural connotation and cultural significance contained in the "rain-picking" ceremony of Ma Ying Village,and to further reveal its cultural changes under the current social environment,so as to explore the thinking habits,cognitive system,gender concept and so on of Ma Ying Village people,in order to deepen the understanding of the cultural significance of the rain-pressing ceremony in Ma Ying Village.The fourth part: analyzes the adjustment function of the contemporary "rain-pressing" ceremony to the villagers' psychology,life and social relations,as well as the positive role in arousing the villagers' collective memory,inheriting the village history and culture,enlightening and restraining the people's behavior,strengthening the village cultural identity and maintaining the social order.It is considered that As a traditional folk cultural activity in Ma Ying Village,the rain-pressing ceremony is a net of meaning woven with collective wisdom and life experience,with rich cultural connotations and endless vitality.With the development of history,it conveys the historical information of Ma Ying Village for a long time,reflects the development and change of traditional culture,and is a kind of "living state" culture to show the cultural life of Ma Ying Village people.As a strategic choice for Ma Ying Village people to adapt to the environment,rain prayer ceremony is a kind of "adaptive custom ",which has rational significance and important role.In the face of the changing times and social transformation,still can meet the MaYing Village people to varying degrees of production,life more Yuan demand plays an important role in inheriting village history and culture,educating and restraining people's behavior,strengthening village cultural identity and regulating people's psychological and social relations.The significance and value of this paper are embodied in two aspects:on the one hand,with the change of the times,many traditional cultures of the local society gradually decline or even withdraw from the historical stage.Guided by the function theory of anthropology,this paper discusses why the rain-pressing ceremony in Ma Ying Village in the west and north of Shanxi is still so valued and put into great enthusiasm by the people of Ma Ying Village today with the rapid development of modernization,which can help people to correctly view and understand the rain-pressing culture in modern society to a certain extent function and significance,which provides an anthropological perspective field case for the regional study of rain-pressing culture,and has certain academic value for further enriching local culture in northwest Shanxi.On the other hand,this paper hopes to draw more groups' attention to this kind of traditional culture through the study of the rain-pressing ceremony in Ma Ying Village,and make suggestions for its inheritance and development.It also hopes that people can deeply understand the living conditions of Ma Ying Village people through the rain-pressing ceremony,and arouse the humanistic concern of the outside world to the society of Ma Ying Village,which has definite realistic meaning.