Daxi Ancestral Temple Ritual

123.Daxi Ancestral Temple Ritual

Nominating Unit: City of Jieyang

Daxi Ancestral Temple, located in Jingmei Village, Daxi Town, Jiexi County at the northern foot of Jinshan Mountain, was built by clansmen of the Lee Clan in 1760, 25th year of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, covering an area of 1,882 square meters. Despite different situations of inheritance by remote descendants, all places built ancestral temples, public ancestral temples and public halls based on the style of general ancestral temple, forming an ancestral temple cluster with clear inheritance lineage. Rites are also representative of general ancestral temple with similar rituals and strong local flavor.

Daxi Ancestral Temple Ritual is mainly composed of sacrificial rituals and ceremonies. The major procedures of sacrificial rituals are as follows: beating a drum, beating it again and beating it for the third time. Once the ritual is in place, the person officiating at such rites is invited to the front of a spirit tablet to kneel, to offer incense, to offer fragrant tea, to propose a toast, to read collects, to read pleasant remarks, to present money and valuables, to butcher livestock, to prostrate, and to salute three prostrations before rituals are completed.

The celebration mainly consists of big gongs and drums performance, paper shadow play, lion dance and Chaozhou opera. As part of Chaozhou music, big drums and gongs performance is carried out during the process of the sacrifice ritual. The arrival of guests is also accompanied by music, mainly the percussions. During the ritual, percussions, stringed music and wind music are played at the same time, accompanying the advance of the ritual, to glamorize the atmosphere.(https://www.daowen.com)

Paper shadow play is usually organized by the villages themselves; people build a stage right before the door of the temple. The performance, which is facing the temple, usually lasts for three or more days. Plays are different in day and night with different contents but the same theme—jubilant and auspicious.

Lion dance is also organized by the villages themselves. Usually, there would be eight or more lions, after arriving at the temple, bowing three times to every room and hall in the temple. When all the lions finish the bowing etiquette, they should all wait outside the temple until the sacrifice ritual completes, and then put on the lion dance performance.

Daxi Ancestral Temple Ritual has reserved the traditional culture in Chaoshan characterized by folk beliefs, thus possesses high folklore study values. Besides, Daxi Ancestral Temple is a paragon of architectures in the Qing Dynasty with unique architectural layout, techniques and style. It is rarely seen in Chaoshan region, hence has high value in architecture history and industrial arts history of the Qing Dynasty studies. However, with the acceleration of modernization, folk beliefs activities and customs gradually fade off, the incomplete system of organizing and managing the rituals plus the ageing participants have jeopardized its continuance, effective and pragmatic protective measures must be taken immediately.