Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:18:12.236Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

History and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy: The Ma Tsu Cult of Taiwan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

P. Steven Sangren
P. Steven Sangren
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Worshippers of the goddess Ma Tsu constitute Taiwan's most encompassing ritual community. The cult's close association with Taiwanese history and cultural identity is well known to Sinological anthropologists. Every year pilgrimage groups (usually organized by local territorial cults) converge on cult centers at Pei-kang, Hsin-kang, Chang-hua, Lu-kang, T'u-ch'eng, and Tainan, among others (see Figure 1). These centers compete actively for cult supremacy, and the arguments invoked in this rivalry are mainly of an historical nature. The question I explore here is, Why is history so important in establishing the authenticity and charisma of this goddess?

Type
Cultural Power
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 1988 , pp. 674 - 697
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahern, Emily Martin. 1981. “The Thai Ti Kong Festival,” in The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society, Emily Martin Ahern and Hill Gates, eds., 397–425. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
DeGlopper, Donald R. 1974. “Religion and Ritual in Lukang,” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Wolf, Arthur P., ed., 43–70. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Duyvendak, J. J. L. 1939. “The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the Early Fifteenth Century.” T'oung Pao [Leiden], 34:5, 341–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephan, Feuchtwang. 1977. “School-Temple and City God,” in The City in Late Imperial China, Skinner, G. William, ed., 561–608. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Hill. 1982. “The Taipei City Government's Response to Taiwanese Folk Festivals: Bye-Bye Paipai,” in Proceedings of the 30th International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, 283–89. Mexico City: Colegio de México.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1975. Legitimation Crisis, McCarthy, Thomas, trans. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Bruce. 1976. “The Cultural Bases of Factional Alignment and Division in a Rural Taiwanese Township.” Journal of Asian Studies, 36:1, 79–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, David. 1972. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jordan, David 1976. “The Jiaw of Shigaang (Taiwan): An Essay in Folk Interpretation.” Asian Folklore Studies, 35:2, 81–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, Jordan1981. “Subethnic Rivalry in the Ch'ing Period,” in The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society, Ahern, Emily Martin and Gates, Hill, eds., 282–318. Stanford: Stamford University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Hsien-chang. 1979. Matsu Shinkō no enkyū [Studies on Ma Tsu belief]. Tokyo: Taizan Bunbutsu Kai.Google Scholar
Merquior, J. G. 1979. The Veil and the Mask: Essays on Culture and Ideology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Merquior, J. G 1985. Foucault. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Pei-kang Ch'iao-t'ien kung Tung-shih-hui. 1984. Pei-kong Ch'iao-t'ien kung. Pamphlet compiled and published by a committee of the Ch'iao-t'ien temple at Pei-kag.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, Renato. 1980. Rongot Headhunting, 1883–1974: A Study in Society and History. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1981. Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities. Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania Special Publications No. 1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
D, Sahlins Marshall 1982. “The Apotheosis of Captain Cook,” in Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History, and Myth, Izard, Michel and Smith, Pierre, eds., Leavitt, John, trans., 73–102. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D 1983. “Distinguished Lecture: Other Times, Other Customs: The Anthropology of History.” American Anthropologist, 85:3, 517–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
StevenSangren, P. Sangren, P.. 1984. “Great Tradition and Little Traditions Reconsidered: The Question of Cultural Integration in China.” Journal of Chinese Studies, 1:1, 1–24.Google Scholar
Sangren, P.Steven 1987. History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sangren, P.Steven 1988. “Rhetoric and the Authority of Ethnography: ‘Post-Modernism’ and the Social Reproduction of Texts.” Current Anthropology, 39:3, 405–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seaman, Gary. 1978. Temple Organization in a Chinese Village. Taipei: The Chinese Association for Folklore.Google Scholar
Thompson, John B. 1984. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Cambridge: Polity Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wakeman, Frederick. 1985. “Revolutionary Rites: The Remains of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung.” Representations, 10: 146–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, W. Lloyd. 1961. The Family of God: A Symbolic Study of Christian Life in America. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
L, Watson James. 1985. “Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T'ien Hou (‘Empress of Heaven’) along the South China Coast, 960–1960,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, Johnson, David, Nathan, Andrew J., and Rawski, Evelyn S., eds., 292–324. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Weller, Robert P. 1987. Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion. Seattle: University of Washington Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Ch'ing-k'un. 1961. Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zito, Angela Rose. 1984. “Re-Presenting Sacrifice: Cosmology and the Editing of Texts.” Late Imperial China, 5:2, 47–78.Google Scholar