Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsXiamenshihaicang, FujianBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

The Baosheng Emperor folk belief includes sacrifices, incense pilgrimage, the seeking of medicine lots, and processions; its origins can be traced back to the mid-Northern Song dynasty. In the late Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty, the belief in the Baosheng Emperor spread across the sea to Taiwan with the settlers. The Baosheng Emperor, surnamed Wu and named Ben, was a native of Baijiao Township, Tong'an County, in the Northern Song dynasty. In the seventeenth year of the Yongle reign of the Ming dynasty (1419), the court conferred on Wu Ben by imperial order the title "Gracious Lord, Imperial Inspector of the Golden Portal of the Vast Heaven, True Lord of Compassionate Relief and Miraculous Way of Boundless Longevity, the Baosheng Great Emperor." The Ciji Temple is located on Qishan at the foot of the Dongming Hills in Qingjiao Village, Haicang District, Xiamen City, Fujian Province. Every year more than a hundred thousand pilgrims from home and abroad go to the ancestral temple of the Baosheng Emperor at the Qingjiao Ciji Temple on the north bank of the Jiulong River, and the Qingjiao Ciji Temple has thereby become the center of Baosheng–Ciji culture in the world.

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. At present, the sacrifices to the Baosheng Emperor in mainland China and Taiwan both follow the ancient regulations and, combined with local folk customs, have formed a set of sacrificial ceremonies with the regional characteristics of Fujian and Taiwan, which are extremely influential both at home and abroad. He was proficient in medicine and relieved the people with superb healing methods; he was posthumously named "True Man of Medical Numen" by popular acclaim, and after his death received successive honors from successive dynasties. Among the people, the Baosheng Emperor is also called "True Man Wu" or "Dadaogong." The Baijiao Ciji Temple is located in Baijiao Village, Jiaomei Town, Longhai City, Fujian Province. The birthday sacrificial ceremony for True Man Wu at the Baijiao Ciji Temple is a traditional sacrificial rite jointly observed by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait; the participants are mainly people of Longhai, and it extends to the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and to overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The fifteenth day of the third lunar month is the birthday of True Man Wu, and as usual the people hold the birthday sacrificial ceremony for True Man Wu, which had taken shape as early as the Song dynasty. The sacrificial ceremony consists of several stages: first the bell is struck nine times and the drum beaten three rounds, then firecrackers are set off; the participants are distributed incense and perform the rite of offering incense; then flowers, tea, fruit, sacrificial animals, and paper money are offered to True Man Wu; those present perform the rite of three kneelings and nine kowtows to True Man Wu and all the revered deities; the memorial address is read respectfully, the paper money is respectfully burned, and the rite ends with watching the smoke rise. Next comes the procession around the territory: the parade marches out in a fire-walking formation, led by the temple banner of the Baijiao Ciji Temple, the formation of divine children, "silence" placards, the divine statue, and ceremonial parasols, accompanied by a full band. During the ceremony, folk literary and artistic activities are also held; Zhangzhou puppetry, Nanyin music, and Xiang opera from Taiwan all perform.

The three-kneels nine-prostrations birthday rite

The central rite: nine bell tolls and three drumbeats, five kinds of offerings, then three kneels and nine prostrations before the address is read and the offerings burned.

The boys' formation leading the procession

The procession is opened by the temple banner, a formation of boys, silence tablets, the divine image and a ceremonial umbrella, with the full band behind.

Charging through fire in the circumambulation

The climax is the circumambulation, in which the image is carried past waiting altars while firecrackers and gongs follow in overlapping waves.

Drawing medicine slips for a remedy

Worshippers draw a medicine slip at the temple and use it both as a prescription and as a directive for the thanks-offering afterwards.

The folk performances during the festival

Marionette theatre of Zhangzhou, nanyin and Taiwanese opera alternate on the stage in front of the temple, satisfying the god and the crowd at once.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Baosheng Emperor folk belief forms a network in southern Fujian centered on the ancestral temple, with incense distributed in successive layers. The Qingjiao Ciji Temple in Haicang occupies the position of ancestral temple, while the Baijiao Ciji Temple in Longhai is famous for its birthday sacrificial ceremony; the two lie respectively on the north bank of the Jiulong River and at the western end of the coastline, and each receives one of the two incense pilgrimage routes—the official and the popular. The small lineage temples of the Anxi and Quanzhou area incorporate incense distribution, jiao offerings, and the seeking of medicine lots into their daily festivals, forming a three-tier descending structure of ancestral temple—branch temple—pilgrims. The branch temples in Taiwan and Southeast Asia mostly continue to use the two characters "Ciji" in their temple names; within the temple, alongside the main shrine, the local patron deities are also enshrined, and during ceremonies both groups of gods receive incense together. When believers cross the sea on incense pilgrimage, they carry a cloth bag with them, filling it with the incense ash of the ancestral temple and the incense sticks distributed there; upon landing they first place it in the central hall of the house and then distribute it to their neighbors—a route that fixes the exchange between temples into a path that can be walked again and again.

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 Baosheng Emperor folk belief encompasses a series of contents including Fujian–Taiwan folk culture, Fujian–Taiwan history, folk medicine, folk art, and folk religious belief, and has research value in sociology, religious studies, folklore, and the local history and culture of Fujian and Taiwan.

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 (Xiamenshihaicang, Fujian) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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