Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume Two

By: Dean, Kenneth

Making ingenious use of a wide variety of sources, and old as well as modern technical resources, Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman here set a new standard for an histoire totale for a coherently well-defined cultural region in China.At the same time it deals in-depth with the ongoing negotiation of modernity in Chinese village rituals.
Over the past thirty years, local popular religion has been revived and re-invented in the villages of the irrigated alluvial plain of Putian, Fujian, China. Volume 1 provides a historical introduction to the formation of 153 regional ritual alliances made up of 724 villages. Early popular cults, Ming lineages, Qing multi-village alliances, late Qing spirit-medium associations, 20th century state attacks on local religion, and the role of Overseas Chinese and local communities in rebuilding the temple networks are discussed. Volume 2 surveys the current population, lineages, temples, gods, and annual rituals of these villages. Maps of each ritual alliance, the distribution of major cults and lineages, are included.

Find information about a film related to the book here.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9004176012
• ISBN13: 9789004176010
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Brill
• Length: 1092 Pages
• Weight: 3.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.4" x 6.9" x 9.7"