Origin and Functions of Chinese Seasonal Festivals Qingmingjie and Chongyangjie

Abstract

The article analyses the connection between Chinese folk calendar and the fundamental to the whole religious and social tradition of China ancestor worship. With the aim to clarify the role of folk calendar in the formation of the traditional culture, the author makes use of the theory of the Chinese philosopher Li Zehou about the development stages of the mankind evolution and civilization as stages of a process of sedimentation. The article presents two examples with the seasonal festivals Qingming and Chongyang, both dedicated to the ancestor worship. Origin, development and functions of this festivals are traced in the context of the ancestor worship and the culture of the filial piety (xiao), based on the latter. The author uses the Dual Filial Piety Model, developed by Bedford and Yeh and creates a consequent model for describing the functions of the festivals Qingming and Chongyang as a binary complex of corresponding rituals. Thеse rituals are analysed as fulfilling basic psychological and social needs of the members of the Han ethnic community in connection to the specific background of the culture of filial piety (xiao).