For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors

For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors
Title For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors PDF eBook
Author Janet Lee Scott
Publisher Hong Kong University Press
Pages 360
Release 2007-05-01
Genre Religion
ISBN 9789622098275

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Offerings of various kinds – food, incense, paper money and figures – have been central to Chinese culture for millennia, and as a public, visual display of spiritual belief, they are still evident today in China and in Chinatowns around the world. Using Hong Kong as a case study, Janet Scott looks at paper offerings from every conceivable angle – how they are made, sold, and used. Her comprehensive investigation touches on virtually every aspect of Chinese popular religion as it explores the many forms of these intricate objects, their manufacture, their significance, and their importance in rituals to honor gods, care for ancestors, and contend with ghosts. Throughout For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, paper offerings are presented as a vibrant and living tradition expressing worshippers' respect and gratitude for the gods, as well as love and concern for departed family members. Ranging from fake paper money to paper furniture, servant dolls, cigarettes, and toiletries – all multihued and artfully constructed – paper offerings are intended to provide for the needs of those in the spirit world. Readers are introduced to the variety of paper offerings and their uses in worship, in assisting worshippers with personal difficulties, and in rituals directed to gods, ghosts, and ancestors. We learn of the manufacture and sale of paper goods, life in paper shops, the training of those who make paper offerings, and the symbolic and artistic dimensions of the objects. Finally, the book considers the survival of this traditional craft, the importance of flexibility and innovation, and the role of compassion and filial piety in the use of paper offerings.

Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors

Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors
Title Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors PDF eBook
Author David K. Jordan
Publisher
Pages 234
Release 1972
Genre Religion
ISBN

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The Last Heathen

The Last Heathen
Title The Last Heathen PDF eBook
Author Charles Montgomery
Publisher D & M Publishers
Pages 332
Release 2009-09-01
Genre Travel
ISBN 192681231X

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In 1892, the Bishop of Tasmania set sail for Melanesia with the intent of rescuing islanders from lives of fear, black magic and cannibalism. Over 100 years later, his great grandson, Charles Montgomery, followed the bishop’s route through the South Pacific, seeking out the spirits and myths his missionary forebear had sought to destroy. Montgomery explored remote shores where gospel and empire never took hold. He rubbed shoulders with barefoot preachers, witch doctors and gun-toting rebels, only to discover that the pagan spirits were more tenacious than the missionaries had imagined. Melanesians had stirred Jesus and Mary into an already spicy broth of ancestor worship, ghosts, shark gods and magic. Through confrontations with a bizarre cast of characters—the randy ethnographer, the soft-talking assassin, the leper prophet—the journey becomes a debate on the nature of magic, myth and faith, and a metaphor for the transforming power of story. The Last Heathen marks the debut of an exciting young writer who charts his adventures with passion, insight and grace.

African Religions

African Religions
Title African Religions PDF eBook
Author Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 177
Release 2014
Genre History
ISBN 0199790582

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This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

Way and Byway

Way and Byway
Title Way and Byway PDF eBook
Author Robert P. Hymes
Publisher Univ of California Press
Pages 388
Release 2002
Genre China
ISBN 9780520207585

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"Only Robert Hymes could have produced such a vivid, fascinating portrait of a Taoist mountain, with its immortals, its clergy, and its devotees. Extensive translations of poetry, ghost stories, and canonical sources make it possible for the first time to glimpse the richness of life in a Taoist community in the distant past."--Valerie Hansen, author of The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600

The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma and Ghosts

The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma and Ghosts
Title The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma and Ghosts PDF eBook
Author Stephen Feuchtwang
Publisher Walter de Gruyter
Pages 222
Release 2010-06-29
Genre Religion
ISBN 3110223562

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It has been said that Chinese government was, until the republican period, government through li. Li is the untranslatable word covering appropriate conduct toward others, from the guest rituals of imperial diplomacy to the hospitality offered to guests in the homes of ordinary people. It also covers the centring of self in relation to the flows and objects in a landscape or a built environment, including the world beyond the spans of human and other lives. It is prevalent under the republican regimes of China and Taiwan in the forming and maintaining of personal relations, in the respect for ancestors, and especially in the continuing rituals of address to gods, of command to demons, and of charity to neglected souls. The concept of ‛religion’ does not grasp this, neither does the concept of ‛ritual’, yet li undoubtedly refers to a figuration of a universe and of place in the world as encompassing as any body of rite and magic or of any religion. Through studies of Chinese gods and ghosts this book challenges theories of religion based on a supreme god and that god’s prophets, as well as those like Hinduism based on mythical figures from epics, and offers another conception of humanity and the world, distinct from that conveyed by the rituals of other classical anthropological theories.

Studies in Chinese Society

Studies in Chinese Society
Title Studies in Chinese Society PDF eBook
Author Arthur P. Wolf
Publisher Stanford University Press
Pages 392
Release 1978
Genre History
ISBN 9780804710077

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A Stanford University Press classic.