Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsYuncheng, ShanxiBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

From the Eastern Han to the Five Dynasties, Guan Gong was worshipped with reference to the ancient rites for the deities of soil and grain and the sacrificial rites for Confucius; in the Northern Song dynasty the ceremony was performed with the tai-lao (great sacrificial) rites. During the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty, elements such as "welcoming the god," "entertaining the god," and "sending off the god" were added. In the Qing dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor officially designated the thirteenth day of the fifth month as the day for the birthday sacrifice to Guan Gong. The sacrificial ceremony held at the Guanlin in Luoyang consists of stages such as inspecting the sacrificial animals, arranging the offerings, washing the hands, the first offering, bowing to the four directions, paying homage, the final offering, and circling the tomb, presided over by the county magistrate of Luoyang. The Jiezhou Guandi Ancestral Temple is the largest Guan temple in the country; it was built by imperial order in the ninth year of the Kaihuang reign of the Sui dynasty (589), with a front court and rear halls, and it holds the highest rank among the tens of thousands of Guandi temples in China and abroad. The temple worship arose because Guan Yu's head was buried there; in the twentieth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty (1592), on the original site of the Han dynasty temple of Guan, the basic scale of today's temple fair took shape.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Folk beliefs, also called "popular beliefs," are conventional traditional ideas formed by people in the long course of production and daily life; under the domination of such ideas, the populace develops psychological and behavioral identification with certain folk phenomena. In Chinese popular belief, Guan Gong is ranked alongside Confucius and is honored as the "Sage of War." The worship of Guan Gong in temples is an important component of traditional Chinese culture; its influence extends overseas and continues unbroken to this day. The belief in Guan Gong gradually assumed a relatively fixed pattern with the development of history. Jiezhou Town, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, is the hometown of Guan Gong, and the folk beliefs of the Guandi ancestral temple formed around Guan Gong are extremely rich in content. From ancient times to the present, temple fairs have been held here every year on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth lunar month, the birthday of Emperor Guan, as well as on the eighth day of the fourth month and the ninth day of the ninth month; over time this became a custom that has been followed ever since. The Guanlin in Luoyang, Henan, is the only ancient architectural complex in China that unites the tomb, the temple, and the grove in one sacrificial site; it has a history of more than a thousand years. The Guanlin temple fair is held on the three sacrifice days of spring, birthday, and autumn—namely the thirteenth day of the first, fifth, and ninth lunar months. The sacrificial ceremony gathers Luoyang local folk arts such as lion dances, drum dances, martial arts, acrobatics, dough figurines, haishen (sea-god) performances, and gaoqiao quzi (stilt tunes), all merged with various folk belief legends.

The birthday of Lord Guan

Every year on the twenty-fourth of the sixth lunar month the region holds its chief fair for Guan's birthday under the ancestral temple's lead.

The fairs of the fourth and ninth months

Fairs on the eighth of the fourth and ninth of the ninth months join the birthday feast to give the year three occasions.

The hierarchy of the grand sacrifice

Worship modelled on ancient altars and Confucius rose to the rank of the grand sacrifice under the Northern Song.

Welcoming, entertaining and sending the god

The Hongwu era added the welcome, entertainment and sending of the god, giving music and opera their place in the rite.

Loyalty and righteousness as common values

The cult's core of trustworthiness and loyalty commands wide recognition across the Chinese world, at home and abroad.

The endangered crafts of the cult

Dough modelling, court music, the sea deity and the tall-stilt tunes have few remaining practitioners and risk being lost.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The folk beliefs of Guan Gong are most concentrated in the area of Jiezhou Town, Yuncheng, Shanxi. The Jiezhou Guandi Ancestral Temple is the largest Guan temple in the country, built by imperial order in the ninth year of the Kaihuang reign of the Sui dynasty, with a front court and rear halls, and of the highest rank among tens of thousands of Guandi temples; the temple worship arose because Guan Yu's head was buried there, and in the twentieth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty the basic scale of today's temple fair again took shape on the original site of the Han dynasty temple of Guan. Below the ancestral temple, the Guandi temples of the various prefectures and counties each form their own fairs; local people attend fairs on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth lunar month (the birthday of Emperor Guan), the eighth day of the fourth month, and the ninth day of the ninth month, which over time became fixed seasonal observances of the locality. The levels of the belief thus fall into two tiers: one is the joint official and popular sacrifice at the Jiezhou ancestral temple, with the largest scale and the most complete ritual procedure; the other is the local Guan temples scattered through the towns and villages of southern Shanxi, where local devotees ordinarily burn incense nearby, saving their strength until they can attend a great birthday gathering such as that of the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month. Guan Gong's status as the Sage of War, ranked alongside Confucius, connects this system of belief to the faith system of the entire Guandong cultural sphere.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The deities worshipped in traditional folk belief are an important source of the genesis of folk beliefs; praying for blessings and avoiding harm is the inner reason why traditional folk beliefs continue to be transmitted; and the aggregation of various folk cultural expressive forms constitutes the cultural space of folk beliefs. The core content of the folk beliefs of Guan Gong is the traditional concept of taking good faith as the foundation and loyalty as the highest value; this idea has won wide recognition among Chinese both at home and abroad and has become an important element of the values of the Chinese world. At present, very few people are familiar with forms such as dough figurines, court music, haishen performances, and gaoqiao quzi in the activities of the Guan Gong folk beliefs, which are in danger of being lost and urgently need rescue and protection.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

Wu Jishan 05-3019
Xu Shunwei 05-3020
Huang Guanghui 05-3021
Chen Jikun 05-3022
Sinapinchu 05-3023
Liu Shimei 05-3024
Zhang Qingming 05-3025
Zheng Quanguang 05-3026
Ye Da 05-3027
Li Yaohui
Luo Shengzong

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Folk Beliefs and Customs (Yuncheng, Shanxi) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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