Magical Creatures Week 13 Report

• Lauren B
• 0
• on Dec 01, 2022

This week our readings focused on religion and how it showed up in China. Our textbook chapter for the week was “Graves, Grave digging, Ancestors and Luck” and the first thing that I found really interesting was that people’s bodies would be dug back up after a certain amount of time. For a culture that demands honoring your ancestors and elders this seems like a pretty sure way to make them mad at you. In order to protect diggers against bad luck they would be given good luck talismans. Ancestors are highly revered in China and have their own festival where people make sacrifices for them, pray, ask questions, and have a huge dinner. Most graves aside from the body of the dead person contained a few significant objects or in wealthier people’s graves warriors to protect them and books to entertain them. In chapter four of the PDF “Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China” it argues that put must events and things into the context of which they belong to for without them their meaning would be lessened. Similarly religion can’t be viewed on its own, rather its whole culture in order to be properly understood. Beyond that you need to identify its different causes and how they interact to fully understand something. Most people prayed to specific gods/deities when they had a specific problem. The Shaneebis had six core beliefs of their religion that consisted of acknowledging that there were gods, to respect them, know they can help, to show them your gratitude, some gods are better than others in certain areas, and that you can go to multiple gods for help as long as you thank them all. There were also four kinds of religious habits like intellectual, nonbeliever, true believer, and practical believer. In all, you need to focus on how people practice religion rather than its concepts as it will provide more context and help explain the widespread diversity in religious practices. In the video “Gravediggers’ Luck” it first goes over which kinds of spirits you could pray to depending on your problem and how many turn to talismans to provide them luck. Talismans are also used to ward off evil spirits while one is working. The Chinese people place so much power in luck and believe in it a lot. During the seventh month in the lunar calendar the ghosts of those exhumed are roaming free so the gravediggers have to heavily protect themselves throughout the month. Many take this time to offer things to the ghosts and ask them helpful questions about their lives. Due to the ghosts’ arrival no one is allowed to marry, move, or exhume graves during the month out of respect. The idea is that if you respect them and give them what they need they won’t have time to harm you. On the last night of the month there’s a great feast where everyone who makes a living off the dead has to pay their respects, enjoy the entertainment and see an auction of lucky talismans. 

There’s nothing on my to-do list for the week.

This week for the textbook I continued going through my partner’s half of the textbook and any new images added. I went onto the visual designers slideshow and typed alt text in the presenter notes so when they add them to the text it will be quick to copy in the alt text.

My question is that if everyone was so scared of ghosts why did they enact the law that required people to exhume the bodies? Also were there any exceptions?