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The Huayansi 華嚴寺, situated at the frontier stronghold of the Liao Dynasty in the Western Capital, is a significant royal temple that preserves two main halls from the Liao and Jin Dynasties to this day. Through a systematic examination of the Liaoshi 《遼史》 and the related literature, this study offers a novel interpretation of the east–west dual-axial layout of the Huayansi and its historical significance. It further discusses the integral artistic space of the Buddha and the Dharma within the Bhagavata Scriptures Hall 薄伽教藏殿, which shapes the spiritual realm of the Western Pure Land, thereby repositioning and enhancing the historical value of the Bhagavata Scriptures Hall. The article elucidates the political and cultural core elements embedded within the formation of the parallel axes of the Bhagavata Scriptures Hall and the Mahavira Hall, which are closely associated with three pivotal years in the Liao Dynasty: 1038, 1044, and 1062. This not only reflects the grand historical context of the Liao Dynasty's domestic governance and foreign policy during the 10th and 11th centuries but also encapsulates the rich and diverse religious beliefs and cultural traits of the Khitan 契丹 people. The axis space of the Bhagavata Scriptures Hall, constructed earlier during the reign of Xingzong 興宗 to house the Liao Canon 《遼藏》, along with the architectural complex of the Huayansi—named and commissioned by Emperor Daozong 道宗 24 years later—collectively establishes a dual-axial worship space at the Grand Huayansi, sanctified by the triad of the Buddha 佛, the Dharma 法, and the Ancestors 祖. This underscores the Liao Dynasty's political objectives of deterring hostile states and ensuring national security within the framework of Buddhist veneration and ancestor worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationality is a multifaceted idea that displays one of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese philosophy. In Confucianism, it is primarily associated with the issue of human relations. Drawing on John Dewey's proposition of 'relationally constituted individuality', Roger T. Ames identifies a 'thick' nature in Confucian relationality whose cosmic foundation may be novel to the West. This thick relationality corresponds with a narrative approach to human nature (xing 性), inspires a Confucian neologism of 'human becomings' and challenges the conventional idea of 'human being' that implies a Western foundational individualism. Through a proposed theme of 'contextual individuality', this study aims to evaluate whether Confucian relationality could be too 'thick' for individuality (in a non-atomistic/non-foundational sense) and uncover the implication of thick relationality on the study of comparative philosophy in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pig slaughter ritual is still practiced by the Tayal aborigines in the mountainous area of northern Taiwan today. Even after the conversion of the majority of the Tayal people to Catholic and Protestant Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s, Tayal Christians continue to employ this ritual to cope with the challenges of an increasingly materialistic society. This article draws on years of fieldwork and pastoral ministry, including interviews with over sixty people, to investigate the compatibility of Tayal tribal ethics with Christian beliefs and values. It argues that the survival of the pig sacrifice ritual throws light on some significant transformations that Christianity has brought to the Tayal communities, especially with regards to a universal understanding of the world, the moral vision of living in solidarity with fellow Christians and helping strangers, and the protection of the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent scholarship has clarified the spelling of the little-known Old Assyrian nasbītum rite, formerly glossed as naspittum , its etymology and social context have remained obscure. This paper suggests the elusive rite has its etymology in the OA verb sabā'um , "to brew/draw beer," and refers to the act of libation. While the textual evidence for nasbītum is currently limited, an analysis of the rite as it occurs in the OA corpus suggests that nasbītum was the OA term for the care and feeding of the spirits of the dead, analogous to the better-known Old Babylonian kispum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specific plants and animals which are within the domain of nature are considered sacred and related to different religious occasions. The connection of the duality between supernatural beings and such natural beings is executed by human action. Whilst the intersecting domains of nature, spirit, and human influence the cultural life of the people concerned. The present paper discusses on the interrelationship of the man, nature, and spirit in disseminating sustainability of the Meiteis, an indigene of Manipur in the north-eastern corner of India. Methodologically, the study focused mainly on observation and in-depth interview of key informants such as amaiba-amaibi (religious practioners), piba (lineage leader), etc. Through the thick and thin times of the Meiteis, the appeasement of the ancestor spirits known as apokpa and sylvan deities locally known as umanglai lead to forest reservation. Besides, schemas epistemologically translate the enduring of resources in the sustainable way. It may be concluded that by tapping the spiritual assets in the context of the people's own tradition, it paves a way to rethink in the sustainable consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some features of the mythological beliefs and funeral rites of Siberia's two related Uralic peoples—the Nenets and the Nganasans. The afterlife fate in the mythology of Nenets and Nganasans is similar—the souls of the dead go to the Lower World, where they continue to live as they lived on Earth. However, the two cultures' attitudes towards the dead have intriguing differences. A comparison of Nenets and Nganasan beliefs and rituals reveals significant correspondences between the ideas about the benevolence of the dead (the Nenets) or their harmfulness (the Nganasans), on the one hand, and the presence of the practices of substitutional incarnation (images of the dead) (the Nenets) or the absence of such images (the Nganasans) on the other. The differences between the Nenets and the Nganasans, as I suggest, are due to the origin and history of the peoples: the Nenets' customs reflect the traditions of the Uralic tribes who came to the far north from Southern Siberia in ancient times. At the same time, the Nganasans' ideas are probably rooted in typical concepts of the Palaeo-Siberian population assimilated by the Uralic tribes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes as its focus an examination of instances of occasional commemoration of the dead in Udmurt culture. Descriptions of such commemorations are based on sources drawn from published research literature as well as the author's own field materials collected between 2007 and 2022. It should be noted that, to date, no specific research has been conducted on this issue, most probably due to its irregularity and, to some extent, its intimate nature. The material shows that cases of occasional commemoration within Udmurt culture cover a fairly wide range of social, ceremonial and magical aspects of life. Faith in the power and strength of ancestors has built up an entire system of relationships and behavioural strategies that vividly characterise a traditional worldview that is actualised in extraordinary life circumstances. It can be said that today examples of occasional commemorations are quite diverse, and are commonplace in the everyday and ceremonial life of the Udmurt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slavic folk culture is a fusion of Christian and of pre-Christian, pagan beliefs based on magic. This article is devoted specifically to ancient pre-Christian ideas about death and posthumous existence and the associated magical rituals and prohibitions, which persist to our time. It considers the following interactions between the living and the dead: 1. the measures taken and prohibitions observed by the living to ensure their well-being in the other world; 2. the measures taken by the living to ensure the well-being of their dead relatives in the other world (including funeral rites; memorial rites; cemetery visits; providing the dead with food, clothes, and items necessary for postmortem life; and sending messages to the other world); 3. communication between the living and the dead on certain days (including taking opportunities to meet, see, and hear them; treat them; prepare a bed for them; and wash them); 4. fear of the dead and their return and the desire to placate them to prevent them from causing natural disasters (hail, droughts, floods, etc.), crop failures, cattle deaths, diseases, and death; 5. magical ways for protecting oneself from the "walking dead"; 6. transforming the dead into mythological characters—for example, house-, water-, or forest-spirits and mermaids. The material presented in the article is drawn from published and archival sources collected by folklorists and ethnographers of the XIX and XX centuries in different regions of the Slavic world, as well as from field recordings made by the author and his colleagues in Polesie, the borderland of Belarus and Ukraine, in the 1960–1980s, in the Russian North and in the Carpathian region in the 1990s. It shows that the relationship between the living and the dead in folk beliefs does not fit comfortably within the widespread notion of an "ancestor cult". It argues that the dead are both venerated and feared and that the living feel a dependence on their ancestors and a desire to strictly observe the boundary between the two worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse facial similarity and apply it to identify the individuals depicted in the mural paintings of the apse of St. Leocadia Church, located in Chaves Municipality (North of Portugal), which were painted during the first quarter of the 16th century. This study also compares the portraits of this mural paintings with the oil paintings by the Proto-Renaissance Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves. Through this research, the feasibility of face recognition technology is explored to answer many ambiguities about Manueline stylistic identity and iconography. Additionally, it aims to associate historical events, artistic discoveries, and the expansion of portraiture as propaganda of power during the Portuguese Proto-Renaissance and Early Renaissance. On the other hand, it focuses on the prevalence of the religious and devotional over the sacred in Manueline painting. A proposal was made to identify the characters that are fundamental to the meaning of the mural paintings. An experiment was conducted on seven characters from the paintings at St. Leocadia Church, which were then compared to Nuno Gonçalves' portraits. Facial similarity analysis was conducted on the faces portrayed in the Panels of St. Vincent, a remarkable portrait gallery from 15th-century Portugal, which has been the subject of national and international research for 130 years. Other paintings that were analysed were the oil paintings of St. Peter and St. Paul and of Infanta St. Joana, which were created by the same Quattrocento master. The purpose of the mural paintings of St. Leocadia Church could be catechetical in nature or related to the ritual practices of royal ancestor worship in royal portrait apses of the churches. It could also be associated with the Portuguese maritime expansion and the macro-imperial ideology of D. Manuel I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scroll paintings for ancestor trees have been used to inherit the spirit of ancestor worship as a historical record of family development since the late Ming Dynasty in China. A severely degraded scroll painting of an ancestor tree (made of cotton textiles) needs intervention and conservation treatment to mitigate further deterioration. On the basis of the previously reported characterization results for the painting, in this paper, a suspension that is composed of 0.6% cellulose nanofibril (CNF) and nanosized 0.15% MgO in aqueous solvent (denoted as the CNF-MgO susairpension) was prepared. Conventional characterization methods were used to assess the properties of model samples before and after treatment with the CNF-MgO suspension, as well as before and after degradation under two sets of conditions. The results show that the treated model samples are slightly alkaline, given the deposit of alkaline particles, and demonstrate good mechanical properties before and after degradation due to the increase in fiber-to-fiber bond and mitigation of acid-catalyzed hydrolysis. In spite of the non-transparency of CNF and MgO nanoparticles, they have little impact on the optical properties of textiles, as verified by transmittance data and the determination of color changes. This suspension was then used to reinforce and restore the scroll painting in a practical conservation process. The application of CNF and MgO nanoparticles on textile objects investigated in this study would expand our understanding of the conservation of such objects, especially for those that have already become acidic and degraded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ernest Koliqi (1901-1975) was a dramatist, novelist, journalist, poet, translator, and one of the pioneers of contemporary Albanian storytelling. In this genre, he is known for three well-known works in Albanian literature, in which elements such as narration, theme, and discourse are distinguished, which, in addition to the authorial figure of Koliq, also represent the purpose of this study. Ernest Koliq's creativity in prose is an interweaving of tradition and modernity. The object of the study will be his three most representative works in Albanian literature, with the titles "Shadow of the Mountains," "Flag Merchant," and " Mirrors of Narşiz." The prose of Ernest Koliqi points out the social and cultural situation of the Albanians at the beginning of the 20th century, in the 20s-30s, where the themes that dominate these stories are: mountain, blood, canon, friend, the given word, faith, myths, legends, the fantastic, the cult of the ancestors, including also the elaboration of social, psychological, and psychoanalytical character topics as well. The methodology of this paper includes a combination of comparative, semiotic, anthropological, and social methods. The expected results of this study are related to the author's viewpoint and his perception on the concept of tradition and its application in front of the open world, the civilized world, and the Western world. It has to be emphasized the fact that Koliqi grew up in the Northern Highlands, where customs prevailed strongly, but he was educated in the Western world, in Italy. Therefore, his style represents a compound of modern and traditional aesthetics. This intercultural clash has influenced his artistic world and this was also reflected in the following study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Arabian Peninsula (Jazīrat al-Arab), before Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was commissioned with the mission of preaching Islam and conveying the message of worshipping only one God, the Arabs believed in various religions during the Jāhiliyya period. Therefore, they did not have a single understanding of religion. In the pre-Islamic period, beliefs such as ancestor cult, fetish cult, totem cult, etc. were common among the Arabs. In addition to these beliefs, they also had beliefs in a secret realm (jinn, ghul and devil). There has naturally been mutual communication and interaction between these religious groups. One of the most important reasons for the coexistence of groups with so many different beliefs is that the islanders were in constant communication with the people living around them. Communication with them was mostly through trade and tribal migrations. They believed in the spirits of various people and objects until the end of the fourth century AD. The fact that they had these beliefs can also be determined through their poems. In this context, most of the poems we include in our study are praise-type poems. In addition, poems of praise and satire are also included. Based on these poems, it is seen that idolatry constituted the dominant religious phenomenon in the region before Islam. The dominant beliefs in the region before Islam were basically idolatry. The religious phenomenon of the period was also shaped by the cults that developed on the axis of idolatry. It is expected that our study will contribute to the field and guide new studies in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes changes in sacrifice by burning and the space inhabited by ghosts in ancient China from philological and linguistic perspectives. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, rulers believed that they could convey their offerings and reverence to their ancestors in heaven by burning firewood and sacrifices (尞). From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Han dynasty, the ancient Chinese metaphors for naming the underground space inhabited by ghosts experienced a transformation from a natural space (Yellow Spring (黄泉)) to human settlements (li (里), big cities (都)) and then to government institutions for criminal penalty (government (府), prisons (狱)), which symbolized the gradual establishment of a living order in the space inhabited by ghosts based on the human society. When the new living order of the space inhabited by ghosts was established, the ancient Chinese began to reconstruct sacrifice by burning during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and the objects burnt were represented by joss paper. The use of the term "transforming (化)" to refer to sacrifice by burning suggests that people believed that burning with fire was a way to transfer objects from the real world to the world of ghosts. The act of burning joss paper not only embodied the Chinese concept of ancestor worship to "treat the dead as if they were alive" but also gave "fire (火)" rich religious connotations while greatly simplifying the process and cost of sacrificial rituals, thus gradually becoming popular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the lens of performance study, this article analyzes five sacrificial texts that are read or sung in ritual performances worshipping ancestors (and deities) organized by the Chen and Wang lineages in Qimen County, Huangshan City, traditionally known as part of Huizhou area. Viewing these texts in a communicative process rather than as static and isolated items, I firstly entextualize them and find them to be structured in a set of distinctive communicative means or keying devices such as special formulae, parallelism, and archaism, which aim at the arousal and fulfillment of formal expectations to evoke the resonant associations among audiences. The sacrificial texts are then recontextualized in different communicative events to endow the aesthetic forms with social meanings. I find that the keying devices of sacrificial texts and their interactive processes within the ritual performances establish the ancestral authority in an imperial metaphor that both reflects and shapes current social and political realities. This article aims to facilitate a better understanding of generic flexibility, form-function relationship, and text-ritual interplay in theoretical concerns across disciplines such as folklore, anthropology, history, and literature. Keywords: sacrificial text--ritual performance--ancestor worship--keying device--imperial metaphor--Huizhou, Since the late 1980s, there has been a performative turn within and across various disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, folklore, and cultural studies that 'reflects significant rethinking about human nature' [...]

The relevance of studying is determined by the ongoing renaissance of the ohuohai dance in the cultural practice of modern Yakut people. The novelty of the research is seen in the proposal of a scientific version: circular dances following the course of the sun (from east to west) signified movement downward, while dances against the course of the sun (from west to east) signified movement upward. It is noted that the west and east reflected different worlds, and movements in a circle symbolized a journey along the fragile boundary between the two worlds. The work implements a comprehensive approach to the subject of study using historical-comparative, structural-semiotic, functional types of analysis, synthesis and generalization of folklore, ethnographic, linguistic, leading to a unified picture of the semantics of circular movements. The authors conclude that the modern name ‘ohuohai’ dance is an innovation of the Soviet period, absent in sources from the pre-revolutionary and early Soviet periods, in which the term ‘үҥкүү’, equally meaning the circling-dance of the shaman, is consistently mentioned. It is emphasized that the ohuohai round dance included ecstatic elements of shamanism, clearly similar to the shaman’s beliefs about transitions to other worlds.

By examining the evolution of pre-Qin Confucian thought on the Heaven–human relationship, and a new interpretive perspective can be applied to understanding ethical relations within pre-Qin Confucianism. In the pre-Classical period, the absence of scientific explanations for human origins shrouded these origins in mysticism, leading to practices such as totem worship, ancestor worship, and the worship of Heaven. However, through continuous exploration of the Heaven–human relationship, pre-Qin Confucians began to liberate human rights from divine authority, highlighting a profound sense of humanism. In light of this transformation, this paper aims to address three key questions: first, what distinctions did pre-Qin Confucians draw between humans and animals, and how did they emphasize individual human value? Second, how did pre-Qin Confucians transform ancestor worship through the traditions of Li and Yue? Third, how did the focus of pre-Qin Confucians shift from Heaven back to humanity? These three research areas are crucial for analyzing how the ethical relations of pre-Qin Confucianism closely integrated with political order. This exploration not only illuminates the philosophical evolution of the period but also offers a deeper understanding of how early Confucianism laid the groundwork for the interplay between personal value and societal responsibilities.

This article inquires into questions of state violence, cultural trauma, commemoration, and memory politics with respect to the Cheju April 3rd Incident or 'the 4.3' (1947 -1954), which is regarded as the precursor of the Korean War. After the Special Law for Investigation of the Truth about the Cheju April 3 Incident was established in 2000 by the government, 'the 4.3' was officially recognized as a case of state violence and civilian massacres. Due to long-term enforced silence and suppression of 'the 4.3 memory,' however, the divergence between state memory and local individuated memory has created conflict over the identity of the victims of mass killing, the commemoration of the event, and the complex politics of postmemory. Drawing on Hirsch's concept of "postmemory" (the type of inter-generational memory that mediates the past memory in its affective force), this paper explores the way in which this divergence is mediated in commemoration rituals of ancestor worship and reburial of dead bodies exhumed from mass graves. As material evidence of mass killing and its affective presence, the remains 'animate' political action for moral judgment about responsibility for massacres. Placing the dead in a proper family tomb or public enshrinement hall shared with other mass dead in the 4.3 Peace Park becomes the most significant concerns of the bereaved families. It shows how state involvement in the management of remains and ancestral veneration custom continues to exert an influence on the surviving families of the dead as well as the victims of the 4.3. In opposition to the structural state intervention, there persisted a community action that continually repaired the loss of social relations and restored communal history through creating the children's collective grave and family cemetery and inventing island-wide shamanic rituals in the public sphere. In this article, we witness the community of death and loss, which is newly formed through cultural trauma and restorative justice in the post-atrocity era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultic image, the matter par excellence of the relationship between the living and the dead, is not an immediate given, accepted by all and at all times. It has oscillated between iconomachy and iconoduly, between disparaging and justifying discourses, between often contradictory theories and practices. In this article, I use literary sources to take a closer look at the upheavals that images of ancestors and masters underwent over time, from the beginning of the Common Era onwards, blending biological and spiritual genealogies, and the role and type they accorded the representation of the dead. I thus endeavour to analyze the so-called Chinese religions -Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism - in a transversal manner, so as to bring to light the differentiated regime of the living's worship of the dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1995, thousands of people in Taiwan have pledged each year to donate their cadavers to the medical college run by the Buddhist Tzu Chi (Ciji) Foundation. The "surge of cadavers" seems intriguing in a society where ancestor worship continues to be salient. Drawing on my fieldwork in 2012–2013 and 2015, the purpose of this paper is to describe a series of practices involving the transformation of a cadaver into a Buddhist moral subject: the donor, the family, and the medical school engage in various endeavors and rituals involving "emotional practices" to honor the deceased; situate the donation as a "good death"; and fulfill the family's obligations to ancestor worship. I argue what makes the ritual transformation efficacious is the dominant currency of emotional practices. Emotional practices "authenticate" the ritual transformation. The main ethic for commemorating the cadaver donation is not generosity or dāna but equanimity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original beliefs of the Uyghurs, which have been overshadowed by their conversion to Manichaeism and Buddhism, have not been thoroughly studied until recently. However, Uyghur inscriptions as well as Chinese and Islamic sources provide us with some information regarding their beliefs. In the first part of this article series, the Uyghurs' belief in various cults related to celestial and natural beings was explored. In this second part, other religious elements will be analysed. The Uyghurs possessed a cult of ancestors, in which souls were believed to fly away. Funeral ceremonies called yoγ are noted to contain animal and human sacrifices as well as self‐harming activities. Worship included animal sacrifice and idol worship. Qam (shamans) performed rituals, including fortune telling and weather magic. Religious terminology included qut (divine fortune), ülüg (destiny), yol (luck), and yazuq (sin). They held the numbers seven and nine in high esteem as sacred numbers, while sacred lights descending from the sky and the sacred consort of a mythological ruler were important motifs. Although some scholars have written that Buddhism was practiced by the Uyghurs before their conversion to Manichaeism in the 760s, further research has shown that this was not the case. This article also reveals how their ancient beliefs survived even after their conversions to major religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous researches have maintained from the perspective of relevant literature that mountains and birds from Sanxingdui Site are both related to ancestral gods, but none of them have identified the close relationship among mountains, birds and ancestors from the perspective of iconology. Based on the unearthed cultural relics in Sanxingdui Site, and combined with the background of bird worship in the Shang Dynasty and prehistory period, it is found that the sacrificial pattern is ancestor worship and new-year pray ceremony held by Sanxingdui people on the mountains in spring. In Sanxingdui, birds are respected as ancestral gods (totems) and god of agriculture. At the same time, mountains are seen as a symbol of ancestral fertility. In the ceremony, the main sacrificial representative of the bird ancestor, who communicates with the gods, would symbolically sows seeds and prays for the new year together with the sacrificial assistant. Ivory and Yazhang (a blade-shape jade) are both divine objects for new-year praying. The inheritance and exchange among the Sanxingdui bird belief and the prehistory period and Shang Dynasty ones fully reflect the diverse and integrated pattern of early Chinese civilization. In addition, compared with the concept of women germination in Xindian culture, Sanxingdui culture emphasizes the reproductive role of men in the sowing and germination process, and incorporates mountain worship into the Sanxingdui sacrificial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America" edited by Christina Perry Sampson explores the concept of complexity among hunter-gatherer societies in North America. The book challenges the traditional binary categorization of simple vs. complex hunter-gatherers and argues for a more nuanced understanding of variability within these societies. The authors emphasize that complexity should not be limited to socioeconomic aspects but should also include other domains such as worldviews, ritual, knowledge, and historical trajectories. However, the reviewer disagrees with the book's premise and argues that complexity should primarily be understood in terms of socioeconomic inequalities. The reviewer also critiques the book for oversimplifying the ethnographic record and creating strawman arguments. Overall, the book does not offer new perspectives but instead attacks traditional concepts of complexity. [Extracted from the article]

Sacred stone veneration is a global mythical phenomenon historically practiced by many groups, including ancient Semitic-speaking peoples. In their physical capacity, sacred stones themselves are not the object of worship or veneration. Their sanctity comes from the divine spirit believed to dwell within them. The common denominator among the mythological traditions of sacred stones veneration is the belief that they possess enormous spiritual powers that enable them to act as mediators between the worshipper and the gods. Stones were employed as tools in the rituals of veneration in many types of sanctuaries, such as stone circles. This study highlights this type of religious folklore in Palestine, representing one of the bridges linking the Palestinian present to its distant Canaanite past. It traces the various patterns of sacred stones in the central region of Palestine, the rituals that were practised using them, and the remnants of these practices found in oral folklore traditions. To these ends, the researchers relied on religious and historical primary and secondary sources, including oral interviews where available and possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Cultural Studies / Roczniki Kulturoznawcze is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Institute of Cultural Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through the lens of performance study, this article analyzes five sacrificial texts that are read or sung in ritual performances worshipping ancestors (and deities) organized by the Chen and Wang lineages in Qimen County, Huangshan City, traditionally known as part of Huizhou area. Viewing these texts in a communicative process rather than as static and isolated items, I firstly entextualize them and find them to be structured in a set of distinctive communicative means or keying devices such as special formulae, parallelism, and archaism, which aim at the arousal and fulfillment of formal expectations to evoke the resonant associations among audiences. The sacrificial texts are then recontextualized in different communicative events to endow the aesthetic forms with social meanings. I find that the keying devices of sacrificial texts and their interactive processes within the ritual performances establish the ancestral authority in an imperial metaphor that both reflects and shapes current social and political realities. This article aims to facilitate a better understanding of generic flexibility, form-function relationship, and text-ritual interplay in theoretical concerns across disciplines such as folklore, anthropology, history, and literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the aspects of sacral and divine kingship in the Seleucid Empire and Western Han dynasty. It explores the divine origin of rulers, their role as chief priests, their divinity, and the authority derived from the gods. The article provides a cultural comparison between ancient China and ancient Hellenistic states, discussing the deification of rulers in both empires. It also includes a list of various books and articles related to the topic, offering a comprehensive collection of resources for further research. [Extracted from the article]

India is home to many different cultures, traditions and customs articulated and represented by different ethnic groups, communities and castes. The cultures have emerged in India through the development of indigenous civilizations and the arrival of different cultural groups from different parts of the world at different times. Kapala is a distinct community living in Kodagu district in the state of Karnataka. They look like the mixed descendants of the Ethiopian Siddis (Siddhis) of the South African continent. Kunhi Boltu is a folk deity and immortal personality of the community who has attained god-like status. The Kapalas worshipped their ancestors and respected the forces of nature that governed their lives. The aim of the ethnographic study is to get to know the Kapala community and their way of life, beliefs and practises. To learn more about the Kapala society and their culture, anthropological research tools and techniques such as holistic, ethnographic, comparative and historical methods were used. Participant observation and in-depth interviews were used in the study. Both primary and secondary data were used for the study. The primary data required for the study was collected in the field while the secondary data was obtained from the existing literature on the Kapala community. The research paper is organised as follows: The first part deals with detailed information about the Kapala community. The second part deals with the Kapala society and their way of life, beliefs and practises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the traditional image of women in religion portrays them as passive and docile, women have not been mere victims of subordinate religious and gender roles but active agents in the construction of their religious identity and belief. The study explores the historical and psychosocial dimensions of African traditional religious beliefs and practices which have exacerbated the subordination of women. A revelation is made that; while Christianity challenged the hegemony of the local eco-religioncum-royal ancestor cults, within both traditional and Christian religion, women have fought for and continue to fight for their own free space in which they can develop a sense of solidarity and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Taiwan Law Review is the property of Angle Publishing Co., Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Taiwan Law Review is the property of Angle Publishing Co., Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the transformation of ancestor worship in the context of socio-political and religious conditions and identifies the characteristics of worship in contemporary Japanese society and the changes in the form of practices and functions of this worship occurring today. Ancestor worship is not a phenomenon unique to traditional societies: in 21st century Japan, ancestor worship rituals are practiced by a large part of the population. After World War II, Japanese veneration practices underwent significant changes. The post-war modernization and urbanization of Japanese society played a major role in these changes, leading to the breakdown of the traditional family system. The concept of ancestor itself changes: the concept of ancestor tends to expand and begins to extend bilaterally (to both the husband and wife lines). There has been a transition from the “obligatory” concept of an ancestor, which includes all deceased ancestors in the direct line of succession regardless of personal preferences, to an “optional” one, which limits the concept of “ancestor” to close relatives whose memories are dear to the descendant. With the change in the concept of the ancestor, the functions of ancestor veneration also undergo a transformation: the former functions of veneration rituals contributed to the stability of the ie system, while the new ones consist in relieving psychological tensions between the living and the dead and bringing comfort to particular people. There has been a “privatization” of ancestor veneration, that is, a growing dominance of personal functions in veneration. Diversification of family types, especially pronounced in the first decades of the 21st century, is also reflected in the rites of ancestor veneration: alternatives to traditional funerals and new forms of burial and storage of remains are appearing. The article concludes that, despite changes in the functions and forms of ancestor worship, the place given to the dead in their lives by the living remains invariably important. And the individualization of veneration practices and the undying belief of a large part of the Japanese population in the power of ancestor spirits indicate that the ancestor cult in contemporary Japan is apparently at the next stage of its unfolding, but by no means of extinction.

Ancestor worship is regarded as the key element of the Han people's belief system across most of China. However, the rituals pertaining to death, such as in funerals and annual ancestor worship, vary from place to place. For decades, the state has made tremendous efforts to reform and standardise funerals consistent with its path to modernization by insisting on more socialist practices rather than those that are perceived as 'superstitious' and 'irrational', such as burning paper and incense or performing rituals. I argue that despite regulating the use of funeral materials or memorial types, the state has failed to reform the essence of death rituals, that is, the duty of filial piety and people's conception of the afterlife. In addition, funerals and other rituals related to death contribute to individual's social reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of cultural interference and integration among ethnic groups in the new land, the Tay people in Dak Lak province retain a deeply-rooted ethnic cultural tradition. Ancestor worship ranks high in their spiritual life; therefore, the passage of the dead from the physical world to the afterlife one of their ancestors is an essential part in the funeral rites. The long-standing ethnic cultural values in the funeral rites of Tay people are crucial norms of their spiritual culture which reflect their moral values and views of human and life. The article explores the rites of passage of Tay people in Dak Lak province, thereby clarifying their worldview and concept of afterlife¹. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the theory of 'interaction ritual chains' proposed by the sociologist Randall Collins in understanding popular religion in China today. It contributes to ongoing conceptual debates over approaching Chinese religions and draws conclusions for general socio-economic theory. We concentrate on the specific phenomenon of the resurgence of ancestor worship and lineage rituals which we have explored in fieldwork done in Shenzhen metropolis. We study two empirical cases, the re-emergence of ritual spaces that project the ritual infrastructure of the traditional village onto the modern urban infrastructure, and the role of the internet in mediating ritual activities between the local and the global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RumeliDE Journal of Language & Literature Research / RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of RumeliDE Uluslararasi Hakemli Dil & Edebiyat Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Philippe Papin writes: "The stele contains more than the archive.... No Vietnamese historical document goes so far and so deep into the society of the past.... In Vietnam there exists no source more specific, more technical, more arduous than what village epigraphy allows to be known" (9-10). Papin discusses how stele rubbings were made and have been preserved, problems of dating, and local oral accounts of steles. Papin concludes that the ideology of the literati was not a peasant practice; the inscriptions show how people circumvented the ideology. [Extracted from the article]

The list of filial duties from the Aqhatu story constitutes a passage unique to the literature of the ancient Near East, emphasized in the epic by its fourfold repetition in close proximity. This is why the list has attracted much attention of scholars, who are particularly interested in the wisdom nature of the list, the ancestor worship in Ugarit and in the Ancient East, the family ritual and the responsibilities of children towards their parents, as well as the Sitz im Leben of the list, considered by some to be part of a larger and independent work, which has been included in the Aqhatu story because of loose connections with the topic of son and heir. As the current translation and interpretation efforts seem insufficient, the article proposes a new translation and a new attempt to highlight the meaning and the context of both individual duties and the entire list.