Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One [only, but complete in itself]: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods

Dean, Kenneth and Zheng Zhenman. Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One [only, but complete in itself]: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods

. Leiden: Brill, 2010. First edition. Octavo. xiv, (2), 404, (2)pp. Index, glossary and 14 page bibliography. Text in English with some Chinese. Black cloth with mounted color photo on front cover, spine lettered in white. Illustrated with 48 maps (12 in color), and 32 color photographs. A fine, as new copy.

Volume One, only, but complete in itself. This book documents the revival of local popular religion in Putian, Fujian. Volume 1 provides a historical introduction to 153 regional ritual alliances made up of 724 villages. Volume 2 (not present) surveys the population, lineages, temples, gods, and annual rituals of these villages.

Making ingenious use of a wide variety of sources, and old as well as modern technical resources, Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman here set a new standard for an histoire totale for a coherently well-defined cultural region in China. At the same time it deals in-depth with the ongoing negotiation of modernity in Chinese village rituals. Over the past thirty years, local popular religion has been revived and re-invented in the villages of the irrigated alluvial plain of Putian, Fujian, China. Volume 1 provides a historical introduction to the formation of 153 regional ritual alliances made up of 724 villages. Early popular cults, Ming lineages, Qing multi-village alliances, late Qing spirit-medium associations, 20th century state attacks on local religion, and the role of Overseas Chinese and local communities in rebuilding the temple networks are discussed. (OCLC)

Volume 23-1 of the Brill series, “Handbook of Oriental Studies” (HdO) Fine. Hardcover. (52783) $95