Folk Beliefs and Customs

Ⅹ-85Folk CustomsHaining, ZhejiangBatch 4 (2014)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The essay "Yanguan Dao Hai" (Praying to the Sea at Yanguan) in the Mingshui Collection, written by Cheng Bi (1164-1242) of the Southern Song, is the earliest known written record of the sacrifice to the tide god in Haining. The seawalls of the Haining section of the Qiantang River were destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly, so governments of successive dynasties attached great importance to tide-god sacrificial activities.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The tide-god sacrifice is a traditional belief custom circulating within Haining City, Zhejiang Province, that worships the tide god of the Qiantang River. The tide god is a god born of the Qiantang tidal bore, able to let people pray for blessing and avoid disaster. Many figures have been honored as the tide god, among whom Wu Zixu, a senior official of the state of Wu in the Spring and Autumn period, is relatively famous. The tide-god sacrifice has a long history. The Guangxu-era reprint of the Jiajing Haining County Gazetteer of the Qing includes many sacrificial texts for Haining tide-god sacrifices of the Yuan and Ming periods. The Draft Gazetteer of Haining Prefecture records that on the 23rd day of the eighth month of the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty (1729), the court issued an edict to "allocate one hundred thousand taels from the imperial treasury to build a temple of the sea god in Haining" for the sacrifice to the tide god, and had the Court of Imperial Sacrifices prescribe the ritual regulations, marking the peak of the tide-god sacrificial rite. To this day, the Haining Temple of the Sea God, repaired several times over, enshrines twenty-one tide gods. In 1994, the People's Government of Haining City organized the restoration of the tide-god sacrificial rite, held every year on the 18th day of the eighth lunar month at the Yanguan Temple of the Sea God (the temple is a fifth-batch national key cultural relic protected unit), continuing this tradition to the present. The forms of the tide-god sacrifice include two parts: official sacrificial ceremonies and popular sacrifices. Official sacrificial ceremonies are divided into small sacrifices, medium sacrifices, and great sacrifices; popular sacrifices are held on the birth and death anniversaries of the tide god, in years of disaster, or when boat people, fishermen, or seawall workers encounter matters, with relatively simple rites. In addition, according to the different places of sacrifice, they can also be divided into home sacrifices, seawall sacrifices, temple sacrifices, and so on. Home sacrifices are generally set up in the home at New Year and festivals; seawall sacrifices are set up beside the seawall, praying for the tide god's protection to turn ill fortune into good; temple sacrifices are conducted in temples enshrining more than twenty tide gods, each tide god having a corresponding sacrificial rite. The tide-god sacrificial rites are of relatively high standard and diverse in form, with abundant related documentary materials and rich cultural remains, and have a certain historical reference value. As a typical sample of "sacrifice" in the Qiantang River basin, it fully reflects the social life, ideas, and ideals and beliefs of the people along the Qiantang River in the relevant historical periods, and has high socio-cultural value.

The official great sacrifice on the eighteenth

The highest official rite, held for twenty-one river deities each with its own text and protocol, followed by prostrations and the burning of silk.

Impromptu altars on the dyke

Dyke workers, boatmen and fishermen set a small altar on the embankment with incense, wine and cake when a storm or accident occurs.

The bowl of wine at home

At home a single bowl of wine is offered before leaving for the river and renewed on returning, without the formality of the temple rite.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The tide-god sacrifice of Haining takes the Yanguan Temple of the Sea God as its hub, spreading along the line of seawall-work villages and forts on the north bank of the Qiantang River; each seawall-work crew is responsible for its own section of the embankment and accordingly sets up a sacrificial altar on its own seawall. The regulations for the official sacrifice were prescribed by the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, with the 18th day of the eighth month as the proper day, and small and medium sacrifices coordinated before and after it; the popular side pays no heed to the official calendar — when seawall workers go up the embankment, boat people set out, or fishermen cast their nets, they set up a temporary table when they meet winds, tides, or danger, the prayer words mostly composed and spoken on the spot, telling the tide god directly of the day's water conditions and dangers. Home sacrifices are performed at the incense table in a corner of the main room; before going to sea or up the embankment one first invites the god and then leaves, and on returning pours an extra cup of watery wine. This belief is transmitted downward in a collective manner: boat workers, seawall workers, and fishermen have stayed on the water for three generations, with no room for anyone to set up a separate house or start a separate name.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The tide-god sacrifice project continues in a collective manner of transmission; boat workers, seawall workers, and fishermen are the main inheriting groups.

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 (Haining, Zhejiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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