Construction, organisation et histoire du territoire liturgique de la Dame du Yaoshan

The temple of the Holy Mother of Yao Mountain is located to the north of the city of Pucheng in Shaanxi province. The cult of the Goddess, who is famous for bestowing rain and children, is managed by a network of eleven ritual associations, including their subordinate villages. These ritual associations rotate control of the goddess' statue annually, in a three-day ritual that involves a large procession attended by several thousands of worshippers and spectators. At the latest from 1652, one after the other, one of the eleven ritual associations carries the statue of the deity in a palanquin, from the mountain to its main village temple, and after one year returns it to the mountain, from where the next association takes it away to its temple. A survey and fieldwork conducted from 1999 to 2003 on the spot reveal the mechanisms which have governed the size, the frontiers and the internal structure of the ritual associations and the network. Observing the festival has enabled us to understand the strategies at work for containing the rivalries and conflicts accompanying the transportation of the palanquin. The history of the cult offered in this article is based on the rock inscriptions and the stelae discovered on the mountain and in the villages. Their study shows that the cult of the Holy Mother of Yao Mountain, which has been going on from the Tang dynasty until the present day, has always been vital to the local people. The reader will find in an appendix a translation of 14 representative inscriptions

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Cult · Humanities · Procession · Statue · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies