The Tujia lan she (拦社) Rituals in Enshi

The lan she 拦社 ceremony is performed by the Tujia people in China to worship the ancestors in the family, while the yuan fen 圆坟 ceremony is an occasion to formally bid farewell to the dead in the family. Based on a field investigation of the lan she ceremony in Dajichang Village 大集场村 in western Hubei province, the article analyzes the ritual process and its historical background and argues that the Tujia sacrificial tradition still retains some of the basic characteristics of the original religion. The lan she ceremony embodies the sacrificial propensity of the local Tujia minority to transform the identity of the deceased as a family member of the household into the identity of the ancestor to be worshipped in the family. It has an important function in promoting the integration of interpersonal relationships, adaptation of relatives to changes in the identity of the deceased, and community construction practices

Ancestor · Ceremony · China · Clan · Interpersonal communication · Kinship · Worship · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Chinese history and philosophy · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology