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Popular Religion in China; The Imperial Metaphor by Stephen Feuchtwang I read as several chapters were on the suggested reading list for this week's class. It was actually the only book on there I had not previously heard of, but that's probably because it's author came from an English anthropological background.
The first chapter looked at "History Identification and Belief" how we look at the different ideas of religion and attempt to classify it. He saw rituals and conventional celebrations at the center of religion. Religion took place under the classical (texts) familial and local areas of life. While a little dry and full of previous anthropological theories on the analysis of religion and religion in China he made some interesting points.
Chapter 2 looked at what he termed the annual apocalypse, the events of the New Year's/ Spring Festival. This festival was seen as a celebration of being alive, the world was supposed to end, (for several different reasons) but because it didn't everyone was very happy. This really seemed to me though to be more of an annual aversion of apocalypse as even though it was threatened it didn't happen.
In Officials and local cults he looked at the role of the City God as the controller of the local demons, these fearful creatures have often been associated with the uncared for dead and because of this become to represent the out casts of Chinese society. However, Feuchtwang saw them as militaristic and a representation of that side of Chinese life.
He had descriptions of local festivals and celebrations that he witnessed as part of his fieldwork in Taiwan, unfortunately they didn't have any real new insight and were a lot like other festivals that anthropologists who have been to Taiwan write about. One thing he did that was new however, and something I've never come across before was to analyze the role of the incense burner as a means of communication and deference between man and gods both at home and in the temple. This was all new to me and very interesting. He also had a very interesting and descriptive use of divination in temples. It was interesting to point out the cultural differences in how divination was being used, in these cases it was a question you needed help deciding, a course of action you should or shouldn't take, rather than what event will happen to you.
His chapter on Daoism focused only on the tradition of the modern Daoists that he was currently studying. Interesting though questionable in some cases. He mentioned that there were no medium possessions in Daoism, however Davis wrote a book on just that issue entitled Society and the Supernatural in Song China That was very good.
Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the last chapter read last night as I had a migraine and the book was only a week loan so I had to give it back today. The book was good and had some interesting points but just wasn't as engaging as some I've read.
The first chapter looked at "History Identification and Belief" how we look at the different ideas of religion and attempt to classify it. He saw rituals and conventional celebrations at the center of religion. Religion took place under the classical (texts) familial and local areas of life. While a little dry and full of previous anthropological theories on the analysis of religion and religion in China he made some interesting points.
Chapter 2 looked at what he termed the annual apocalypse, the events of the New Year's/ Spring Festival. This festival was seen as a celebration of being alive, the world was supposed to end, (for several different reasons) but because it didn't everyone was very happy. This really seemed to me though to be more of an annual aversion of apocalypse as even though it was threatened it didn't happen.
In Officials and local cults he looked at the role of the City God as the controller of the local demons, these fearful creatures have often been associated with the uncared for dead and because of this become to represent the out casts of Chinese society. However, Feuchtwang saw them as militaristic and a representation of that side of Chinese life.
He had descriptions of local festivals and celebrations that he witnessed as part of his fieldwork in Taiwan, unfortunately they didn't have any real new insight and were a lot like other festivals that anthropologists who have been to Taiwan write about. One thing he did that was new however, and something I've never come across before was to analyze the role of the incense burner as a means of communication and deference between man and gods both at home and in the temple. This was all new to me and very interesting. He also had a very interesting and descriptive use of divination in temples. It was interesting to point out the cultural differences in how divination was being used, in these cases it was a question you needed help deciding, a course of action you should or shouldn't take, rather than what event will happen to you.
His chapter on Daoism focused only on the tradition of the modern Daoists that he was currently studying. Interesting though questionable in some cases. He mentioned that there were no medium possessions in Daoism, however Davis wrote a book on just that issue entitled Society and the Supernatural in Song China That was very good.
Unfortunately I didn't manage to get the last chapter read last night as I had a migraine and the book was only a week loan so I had to give it back today. The book was good and had some interesting points but just wasn't as engaging as some I've read.