Articles
FUNERALS IN FUJIAN
Kenneth Dean
Introduction
Unknown to most outside observers of modern China who believe it to be monolithic, atheistic and materialist, and wholly divorced from its traditions, an enormous resurgence of traditional rituals, local cults, and popular culture has been gathering force since 1979, when the Chinese government relaxed its controls on the practice of religion. In the face of continuing government restrictions and prohibitions, villagers in isolated areas of Southeast China have begun an enormously significant effort to restore traditions suppressed since the Communists took power and almost completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
During my two-year stay in Fujian, China ( 1 985-1 987), 1 I visited scores of temples of local gods and attended over fifty rituals. These rites included week- long god processions involving tens of thousands of villagers, five-day community festivals centering around Taoist Jiao Offering rituals, five-day funerals complete with theatrical rituals such as the "Smashing of Hell," and several exorcisms featuring mediums in trance.
I collected over 380 manuscripts in Fujian (mostly photographed). These include Buddhist and Taoist scriptures, sectarian scriptures, liturgical manuscripts, temple records, baojuan, divinatory poems, rare regional opera scripts, and woodblock prints of local deities. Many of these manuscripts had been recently recopied.2
1 ) My two years of research in Fujian were supported by a grant from the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China. A year of related research in Taiwan (1984-85) was supported by a Fulbright-IIE grant. My host institution in China was the History Department of Xiamen University. I would like to express my gratitude to the Overseas Correspondence College, the Foreign Students Section, the Department of History, the Xiamen University Library, the Xiamen University Academic Journal, the Southeast Asian Studies Institute, and the Foreign Affairs Office of Xiamen University. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Fujian Provincial Bureau of Higher Education, the Provincial Bureau of Religious Affairs, the Fujian Provincial Library, and the district level offices of the United Front Division, the Bureaus of Culture, Foreign Affairs, and Public Security in Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhang- zhou, Shantou, Chaozhou, Gutian, Putian, Xianyou, Hui'an, Jinjiang, Nanan, Dehua, Yongchun, Anxi, Tongan, Longhai, Zhangpu, Pinghe, Yunxiao, Zhao'an, Dongshan, and Jiexi. I would also like to acknowledge the grants in support of my research for 1987-88 from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship, the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship.
2) See Kenneth Dean, "Manuscripts from Fujian," in this issue.
Cahiers d'Extrême- Asie 4 (1988) : 19-78
