Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China
The “hand-waving sacrifice” is a large-scale sacrificial ceremony with more than 2000 years of history. It was passed down from ancient times by the Tujia ethnic group living in the Wuling Corridor of China, and it integrates religion, sacrifice, dance, drama, and other cultural forms. It primarily...
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2025-06-01
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| description | The “hand-waving sacrifice” is a large-scale sacrificial ceremony with more than 2000 years of history. It was passed down from ancient times by the Tujia ethnic group living in the Wuling Corridor of China, and it integrates religion, sacrifice, dance, drama, and other cultural forms. It primarily consists of two parts: ritual content (inviting gods, offering sacrifices to gods, dancing a hand-waving dance, etc.) and the architectural space that hosts the ritual (hand-waving hall), which together constitute Tujia’s most sacred ritual space and the most representative art and culture symbol. Nonetheless, in existing studies, the hand-waving sacrifice ritual, hand-waving hall architectural space, and hand-waving dance art are often separated as independent research objects, and little attention is paid to the coupling mechanism of the mutual construction of space and ritual in the process of historical development. Moreover, with the acceleration of modernization, the current survival context of the hand-waving sacrifice has undergone drastic changes. On the one hand, the intangible cultural heritage protection policy and the wave of tourism development have pushed it into the public eye and the cultural consumption system. On the other hand, the changes in the social structure of traditional villages have led to the dissolution of the sacredness of ritual space. Therefore, using the interaction of “space-ritual” as a prompt, this research first uses GIS technology to visualize the spatial geographical distribution characteristics and diachronic evolution process of hand-waving halls in six historical periods and then specifically analyzes the sacred construction of hand-waving hall architecture for the hand-waving sacrifice ritual space throughout history, as well as the changing mechanism of the continuous secularization of the hand-waving sacrifice space in contemporary society. Overall, this study reveals a unique path for non-literate ethnic groups to achieve the intergenerational transmission of cultural memory through the collusion of material symbols and physical art practices, as well as the possibility of embedding the hand-waving sacrifice ritual into contemporary spatial practice through symbolic translation and functional extension in the context of social function inheritance and variation. Finally, this study has specific inspirational and reference value for exploring how the traditional culture and art of ethnic minorities can maintain resilience against the tide of modernization. |
| format | Article |
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| institution | DOAJ |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj-art-cff03d5566dd4dde96e2f0d6293094b52025-08-20T02:47:14ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442025-06-0116781110.3390/rel16070811Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, ChinaTianyi Min0Tong Zhang1Visual Image Research Base of Chinese Nation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, ChinaVisual Image Research Base of Chinese Nation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, ChinaThe “hand-waving sacrifice” is a large-scale sacrificial ceremony with more than 2000 years of history. It was passed down from ancient times by the Tujia ethnic group living in the Wuling Corridor of China, and it integrates religion, sacrifice, dance, drama, and other cultural forms. It primarily consists of two parts: ritual content (inviting gods, offering sacrifices to gods, dancing a hand-waving dance, etc.) and the architectural space that hosts the ritual (hand-waving hall), which together constitute Tujia’s most sacred ritual space and the most representative art and culture symbol. Nonetheless, in existing studies, the hand-waving sacrifice ritual, hand-waving hall architectural space, and hand-waving dance art are often separated as independent research objects, and little attention is paid to the coupling mechanism of the mutual construction of space and ritual in the process of historical development. Moreover, with the acceleration of modernization, the current survival context of the hand-waving sacrifice has undergone drastic changes. On the one hand, the intangible cultural heritage protection policy and the wave of tourism development have pushed it into the public eye and the cultural consumption system. On the other hand, the changes in the social structure of traditional villages have led to the dissolution of the sacredness of ritual space. Therefore, using the interaction of “space-ritual” as a prompt, this research first uses GIS technology to visualize the spatial geographical distribution characteristics and diachronic evolution process of hand-waving halls in six historical periods and then specifically analyzes the sacred construction of hand-waving hall architecture for the hand-waving sacrifice ritual space throughout history, as well as the changing mechanism of the continuous secularization of the hand-waving sacrifice space in contemporary society. Overall, this study reveals a unique path for non-literate ethnic groups to achieve the intergenerational transmission of cultural memory through the collusion of material symbols and physical art practices, as well as the possibility of embedding the hand-waving sacrifice ritual into contemporary spatial practice through symbolic translation and functional extension in the context of social function inheritance and variation. Finally, this study has specific inspirational and reference value for exploring how the traditional culture and art of ethnic minorities can maintain resilience against the tide of modernization.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/7/811ritual spacecultural resiliencehand-waving sacrificeTujia ethnic groupWuling Corridorhistorical GIS |
| spellingShingle | Tianyi Min Tong Zhang Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China Religions ritual space cultural resilience hand-waving sacrifice Tujia ethnic group Wuling Corridor historical GIS |
| title | Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China |
| title_full | Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China |
| title_fullStr | Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China |
| title_short | Cultural Resilience from Sacred to Secular: Ritual Spatial Construction and Changes to the Tujia Hand-Waving Sacrifice in the Wuling Corridor, China |
| title_sort | cultural resilience from sacred to secular ritual spatial construction and changes to the tujia hand waving sacrifice in the wuling corridor china |
| topic | ritual space cultural resilience hand-waving sacrifice Tujia ethnic group Wuling Corridor historical GIS |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/7/811 |
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