Abstract
Yingshen saishe or saishe is a general name for all types of temple festivals held to offer sacrifices to deities of local communities. With its roots traceable to ancient shamanic beliefs and practices, saishe demonstrates itself as a closely integrated form of religious ritual performance and musical/theatrical performance and proves to be instrumental in the development of Chinese theatre from ritual to drama. Based on my fieldwork on Jiacun Double-Fourth Temple Festival in May 2016, this paper offers a close examination of Jiacun temple culture and temple theatre with focus on the religious ritual performance and musical/theatrical entertainment presented during the festival. In so doing, this paper provides an enhanced understanding of the highly dynamic, interactive relationships between temple and theatre and between efficacy and entertainment.
Highlights
Yingshen saishe 迎神賽社 or saishe 賽社 is a general name for all types of temple festivals and temple fairs held to offer sacrifices to deities of local communities and to entertain them with musical and theatrical performance
As for the meaning of huo 火 in shehuo, no consensus seems to have been reached among scholars: some of them trace it to a Shang oracle-bone script that has been identified as liao 燎, referring to the ritual of ‘burning sacrifice in the shrine to the Lord of the Soil’ (Chao 1995, p. 72n); some treat it as a phonetic loan character of huo 夥, meaning ‘crowd/multitude’ as in the Yilin huikao 藝林匯考 or Collected Evidential Studies in the Forest of Art (Yilin huikao 36.2a), from which is derived the meaning of ‘lively/bustling’
I focus on the religious ritual performance and musical and theatrical entertainment presented during the festival with a view to presenting the highly dynamic, interactive relationships between temple and theatre and between efficacy and entertainment in a real-life setting
Summary
Yingshen saishe 迎神賽社 or saishe 賽社 is a general name for all types of temple festivals and temple fairs (miaohui 廟會) held to offer sacrifices to deities of local communities and to entertain them with musical and theatrical performance. The annual ritual of ‘offering prayers in spring and giving thanks in autumn’ (chunqi qiubao) emerged in the Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BC) (Maoshi 19.333a–335b), evolved into a community festival in the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) (Baihu tong 2.4a; Hanshu 24.8a) and integrated with nuo and baixi 百戲 Musical and theatrical entertainments (xi 戲) are not mere appendages of but integral to rituals of offering sacrifices to deities (sai) during community or temple festivals, saixi 賽戲 (temple theatre). Temple theatre demonstrates itself as a closely integrated form of religious ritual performance and musical and theatrical entertainment and proves to be instrumental in the development of Chinese theatre from ritual to drama (Zhao 2022a, 2002b). I focus on the religious ritual performance and musical and theatrical entertainment presented during the festival with a view to presenting the highly dynamic, interactive relationships between temple and theatre and between efficacy and entertainment in a real-life setting
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