INTRODUCTION
Research Aims
The present study has two research aims: 1. Discuss the relationship of local operas and
puppet plays to religious activities in south China, with special emphasis on Guangdong and
Fujian. 2. Examine the beliefs, rituals and ritualistic plays of performers of regional operas in
south China, with special attention devotes to Cantonese opera (literary opera) and marionette
theatre in western Fujian (ritual opera).
Basic Concepts
In the Sociology of Religion, Joachim Wach (1898 - 1955) identifies the worship of
different kinds of social associations, such as families, kinship groups, local communities, gender
groups, age associations, secret societies, mystery societies, ecclesiastical bodies and sects, in
many great civilizations, including China (Wach 1957, 54 - 107).
In Chinese society, operas and puppet plays have long been performed both to amuse
gods and people, and to thank the gods for renewing the life forces of the community. Mircea
Eliade (1907 - 1986) states that festivals, which are remembered and regularly repeated, function
to renew people's vital forces. In his excellent work, the Patterns in Comparative Religions, he
says:
The religious festival is the reactualization of a primordial event of a
sacred history in which the actors are the gods or semi-divine beings. But sacred
history is recounted in the myths. Hence the participants in the festival become
contemporaries of the gods and the semi-divine beings. They live in the
primordial [or sacred] time that is sanctified by the present activity of the gods.
The sacred calendar periodically regenerates time because it makes it coincide
with.. .the strong and pure time. The religious experience of the festival, that is,
participation in the sacred, enables man periodically to live in the presence of the
gods. (Eliade 1959, 105)
In Chinese society, festivals, such as deities' birthdays (dan %£) and jiao H (Rites for
Purification), are times when sins are eliminated, demons or evil spirits are warded off, and
people's vital forces are renewed. Professor Daniel Overmyer states:
The term "ritual" is defined as symbolic actions directed toward an entity
believed to have powers beyond those of ordinary humans, to petition for aid,
offer thanks or seek forgiveness. These actions can include offering gifts such as