Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsJingchuan, GansuBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

The folk customs of the Queen Mother of the West began in the Song dynasty. On the twentieth day of the third lunar month of the first year of the Kaibao reign of the Northern Song (968), a grand sacrificial ceremony was held at the ancestral temple of the Queen Mother of the West on Huishan in Jingchuan. The Hanlin academician Tao Gu, acting on the order of Emperor Taizu of Song, composed the stele text "Eulogy on the Reconstruction of the Queen Mother's Palace," which records in detail the history of the ancient tribe of the Queen Mother of the West and the magnificent state of the grand sacrificial rites of the Queen Mother of the West in the Jingchuan area.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Folk customs (xinsu), also called "popular beliefs" (suxin), are a conventionally formed traditional idea that takes shape over the long course of people's productive and everyday lives. Under the governance of such an idea, the populace develops psychological and behavioral identification with a given folk phenomenon. The Queen Mother of the West folk customs are a folk culture long popular among the people of Jingchuan County, Pingliang City, Gansu Province. Formed over a long agrarian life, these customs take the culture of the Queen Mother of the West as their vehicle, with rewarding the gods and entertaining the people as their chief features; they include historical, religious, folk, ceremonial, festive, craft, and skill-related cultural contents, and they display a marked local character of the Northwest. Whenever the twentieth day of the third lunar month and the sacrificial rites of the Queen Mother of the West arrive, nearly the whole city of Jingchuan turns out, and many of the faithful arrive at the ancestral temple of the Queen Mother of the West at around three o'clock in the morning to rush for the burning of the first incense. At around seven o'clock in the morning, the masses from the townships and villages surge from all directions toward the ancestral temple, burning incense and paper offerings. Some pray to the gods for offspring, the relief of illness and pain, the descent of good fortune, and the protection of peace; others pray for favorable weather and harvests and for the peace of the nation and the security of the people. The faithful from provinces such as Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Henan, and from cities and counties such as Qingyang, Xifeng, Ningxian, and Zhenyuan, disregard the distance of the journey and also come in succession carrying all manner of offerings to take part in the sacrifice. The Queen Mother of the West folk customs reflect the common people's beautiful wish for a life of harmony and reunion; they help to strengthen the cohesion of the Chinese nation, promote national unity, and further advance the building of a harmonious society.

Rushing to light the first incense

Before dawn pilgrims crowd the temple steps to secure a place for the first stick of incense, an honour that settles their hearts.

The morning sequence of the villages

From about the seventh hour each village in turn burns its written petitions, naming children, health, rain and the peace of the state.

The arrival of pilgrims from other provinces

Pilgrims from neighbouring provinces and counties travel long distances with offerings, worship and then return.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

From that beginning, the sacrificial rites of the Queen Mother of the West have continued unbroken in the local area. More than a thousand years have passed since then, and they have been handed down through 1,039 successive observances, striking deep roots in the hearts of the broad masses. Huishan in Jingchuan, together with the Kongtong mountain area to the north, jointly constitutes the space of the Wangmu (Queen Mother) belief: the ancestral temple on Huishan stands at the core, while the village communities of the townships within Jingchuan County levy contributions household by household, and the offerings consist mainly of wheat flour and grain, directly tying the yields of farming to the blessings of the goddess. Around the twentieth day of the third month, the villages go up the mountain in turn; the head of the column carries spirit tablets of the tree deity, and the tail drags a bundle of wheat straw, so that the smoke of firewood fumigates away the cold of winter and drives off insect pests. The Wangmu Cave below Huishan and the city god temple of the county seat each have their own small shrines, and climbers mostly throw red cloth and copper coins into the stone shrines along the mountain path, linking these with the sacrifices at the ancestral temple. The market held during the festival is set up on the open ground before the temple, with temporary stalls for silks, incense and candles, and paper horses. Within five days the flow of people does not cease, and the villagers call it the incense-and-fire gathering of the Queen Mother. In recent years the locality, taking the promotion of the Wangmu culture and the development of tourism as its call, has linked the festival with the Taoist sacred site of Kongtong Mountain into a single route, and the expansion of the square before the temple has shifted the worship of the surrounding rural communities from scattered to concentrated.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The deities worshipped in traditional folk belief are an important source from which folk customs arise, while praying for blessings and avoiding harm is the inner reason why such customs are transmitted without interruption. The collection of the various expressive forms of folk culture constitutes the cultural space of folk customs.

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 (Jingchuan, Gansu) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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