Blogs/ What do we look at in anthropology？
By CATHAYPLAY, published on 16 Feb 2024
In anthropology, what we often see is a narrative method presented by anthropologists or filmmakers through the medium of film, which explores and showcases various aspects of different cultures, social groups, or human life.
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Anthropological films typically serve two main functions: one is to preserve human cultural behaviors through imagery, and the other is to accomplish academic expression of ethnography through film. The period around the Spring Festival, being a time of concentrated celebrations/rituals, is naturally a peak season for the production of anthropological films.
The CathayPlay team recommends five anthropological works here for a broader understanding of spring and the first lunar month. For more anthropological film works, you are welcome to check out the CathayPlay Anthropology Film column:
https://cathayplay.com/
"Hundreds Tin Pots Feast" is a folk custom of Hakka people in West Fujian, also known as Protection Rite of Seedlings. On the second day of the second lunar month, Hakka people in the village near Shengping village set up a long table in the open area.
Every household used tin pots to pack the rice wine, rice cakes decorated with flowers, to sacrifice to the Three Great Masters who were the Hakka people’s protectors, and the God of Grains. Neighbors and friends enjoyed the wine together, and looked forward to the new year's harvest and the people's happiness.
"Hundreds Tin Pots Feast" is a folk custom of Hakka people in West Fujian, also known as Protection Rite of Seedlings. On the second day of the second lunar month, Hakka people in the village near Shengping village set up a long table in the open area. Every household used tin pots to pack the rice wine, rice cakes decorated with flowers, to sacrifice to the Three Great Masters who were the Hakka people’s protectors, and the God of Grains. Neighbors and friends enjoyed the wine together, and looked forward to the new year's harvest and the people's happiness.
This film records this folk custom in 2017. Every year around the Beginning of Spring in the lunar calendar, Zhang clan of Xinquan organizes Spring Cattle Festival in Fang as the unit. The most important night is on the Beginning of Spring. Cattls were decorated and led by villagers who acted as farmers, followed by fishermen, woodcutters and readers.
Carp lights, gongs and drums, plaque lights were also in the team. With pine branches and torches, this spring cattle team walked through Xinquan village. When the moment of the Beginning of Spring came, villagers erected bamboo poles with canola flowers tied on the top to welcome the arrival of spring.
In Juh e village, Tongfang town, Changting county, Fujian province, the lord Guan (Xietian the great) visits the fields on the 13th day of the first lunar month. The local people are used to calling it “Mud Buddha” and “Crazy Mud Bodhisattva”, which is officially named “Awaken Springfield ”.
Juhe village is a Hakka community where people with multiple surnames are living together. “Awaken Springfield” is a local carnival festival with blood relationship and geography as the double link. Each year, the chief Fushou changes in turn, according to the unit “shed”, which breaks the clan boundaries. The chief fushou is responsible for treating the god, building jiao, feasting guests, which also accompanied by ship lamps, green lion Kongfu, the ten-fold of the opera, sexy dance and other activities, in order to entertainment the god as well as the local. Young men of each surname will relay the lord guan from one water filed to another, and run and play in different water fields which belong to different surnames.
This kind of activity that people and god are happy together will last for a whole day, from morning to faint, from one end of the village to another end, and will appear on every surname’s filed, such as Liu, Hu, Chen, Wang, Ma, Huang, Zeng. In the past, when there were no chemical fertilizers and pesticides, villagers used this method to reduce pests and awaken the spring fields with vigorous vitality.
On the thirteenth of the first month of each year, Xiafang Village, Anle Township, even in the cold and rain, the Seven Saints Peregrine Falcons, who are shirtless, are powerful and mighty. During the 2008 Spring Festival, Uncle Ghost's desire to record terroir images was irresistibly teased.
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