Flesh Bodies, Stiff Corpses, and Gathered Gold: Mummy Worship, Corpse Processing, and Mortuary Ritual in Contemporary Taiwan

Gildow, Douglas M.

doi:10.1179/073776905804759913

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 17 publications

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“…In the present case, Déjiāo followers want to express both the decay-resistance of these dead and the high value conferred on them. According to a common belief in the Chinese world (Faure 1991;Gildow 2005), our Déjiāo informants were persuaded that these dead have resisted the process of decay, because of an exceptional imbalance in favor of their yang aspect. Consequently, the mummies are believed to have turned into very powerful spirits.…”

Section: The Ritual Sequences Of the Festivalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ritual Treatment of Fortunate and Unfortunate Dead by the Chinese Redemptive Society Déjiāo in Thailand

Formoso

2020

Religions

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This paper compares the ritual management of fortunate and unfortunate dead (hungry ghosts) by a Chinese new religious movement named Déjiāo 徳教 (lit. Teaching of Virtue), which emerged in Chaozhou (the northeast of Guangdong province) in 1939, before spreading to Southeast Asia after World War II. Based on ethnographic data collected in Chaozhou and Thailand between 1993 and 2005, the analysis reveals significant differences concerning both the ideological and performative aspects of the ritual processing of the two categories of dead. The funeral care of orphaned dead by Déjiāo conforms to the Chaozhou tradition of xiū gūgú 修孤骨, a festival of second burial allegedly devised during the Song dynasty by a local Buddhist monk; most of his sequences require the activity of mediums. Turned toward the salvation of the unfortunate dead, this festival was enriched by a universalist ambition through its adaptation to the Thai context. In doing so, it perfectly expresses the moral and religious goals of Déjiāo, one of the most active Chinese redemptive societies.

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Section: The Ritual Sequences Of the Festivalmentioning

confidence: 99%