A Comparison of Hokkien and Hakka Ancestor Worship

Anthropological research into Chinese lineages and their ritual behavior has been quite active in the past several years. Ancestor worship has been even more attractive as a topic of discourse. Older generations of scholars, such as Freedman (1958, 1966) and Kulp (1925), paid special attention to the rituals of ancestor worship in lineages. More recently, however, scholars such an Li Yih-yuan (1972, 1976, 1982, 1984, 1985), Wang Sung-hsing (1971, 1974, 1976), Ch'en Hsiang-shui (1975), Ahern (1973), Jordan (1971, 1972) and Wolf (1974) have turned from the idealistic to the realistic and have paid attention to variant forms such as multiple surname ancestor worship resulting from uxorilocal marriage. The stress in such research is centered on a discussion of (1) Do the spirits of the ancestors only protect the descendants or do they also haunt or even harm descendants? (2) What is the nature of the relationship between ancestor tablets and transmission of property? (3) Is there a suspicion that geomantic rituals at graves are used to (manipulate' the mortal remains of the ancestors? Chinese ancestor worship ritual does, in fact, display great resilience and multiple variations. The work of scholars in the past has been based on field data from a single community or district and lacked a broad scale analysis. The purpose of this article is to make use of field data from two Taiwanese communities in Hsin-chu County, one Hokkien and one Hakka, to compare the worship of ancestor tablets in lineage temples and in domestic halls as well as worship held at collective and individual burials. The data will be used to investigate the similarities and differences between the two dialect groups (or ethnic groups) and the factors which have influenced them. This will be done in order to more fully understand the characteristics and different forms of Chinese ancestor worship on Taiwan. The principal contents will include: (1) Introduction; (2) The ecological and socio-cultural background of the two communities; (3) Ancestor tablet worship; (4) Worship at tombs; (5) Conclusion