A Study of the Cultural Meaning of Zhuang's Frog Festival in Guangxi, China
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Abstract
The frog festival is a cultural large-scale folk activity, centered on frog worship of the Zhuang ethnic group, which mainly live in Guangxi, China. Now the Zhuang ethnic group has the largest population of all the ethnic groups in China. Therefore their culture is an important part of Chinese civilization. Although there were some Chinese scholars studied the frog festival, but I have not found anyone studied it through the cultural meaning of frog worship for promote reproduction yet. This document-based research collect data from ancient document (the Epic of Buluotuo), archeological artifacts and other concerned archaeological research.
The study concluded that the Frog Festival is celebrated annually by the Zhuang in Guangxi, China during the first month of the lunar calendar; the tradition has been handed down through generations of Zhuang. The cultural meaning of this festival, which focuses on 2 main objectives: (1) Frog Worship for rain and to a bountiful harvest, since the Zhuang significant ways of living is rice planting on seasonal rain. When the dry occurs, they must held a ritual as frog worship (2) Frog Worship for reproduction; historically the population and reproduction of the Zhuang had a low growth rate. The rituals of frog worship for increase their population. Importantly they hoped that the Zhuang population could have the ability to reproduce just as well as the frogs.
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References
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