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The Changing Role of the Popular Religion of Nuo (傩) in Modern Chinese Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2010

LAN LI
LAN LI*
Affiliation:
Irish Institute for Chinese Studies, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Email: lan.li@ucd.ie
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Abstract

Since the early 1980s, China's rapid economic growth and profound social transformation have greatly changed the role of popular religion in modern Chinese politics. In the case of nuo, these changes have been directly responsible for the incorporation of this popular religion into the implementation of Party-state's policy on ethnic minority and the provision of evidence to support the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party's regime. Through manipulation and reinterpretation by local governments, the popular religion of nuo has not only become the target of local socio-economic development, a common phenomenon in contemporary China, but has also played a key role in ethnic identification, which is an important step for a post-Mao's CCP to maintain political stability in ethnic minority areas. In addition, nuo has through the research of Marxism-influenced schools fundamentally altered its position from an officially unrecognized religion opposed to both socialist political order and atheist ideology to a politically favoured ‘living fossil’1 of primitive culture. This proves the Marxist evolutionary theory in which socialism and communism are thought to be inescapable consequences of social development. The positive role played by nuo in modern Chinese politics has brought the popular religion much open support and endorsement from party-state officials at all levels, including top-ranking officials within the Central Committee of the CCP. Like any popular religion, nuo has over the centuries undergone significant changes, but never before has it experienced such dramatic changes in its relationship with an anti-religious and pragmatic central government, something which has significantly altered the course of its development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 5 , September 2011 , pp. 1289 - 1311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 The term used almost exclusively by lay persons [not professionals] to indicate: (a) a living species with a morphology similar to that of fossils of great age; (b) indicative of a successful adaptation to an ancient niche, and the maintenance via natural selection of conservative traits that permit the species to flourish in that environment. From this definition two things are apparent: (1) the term ‘living fossil’ is not particularly meaningful in the field of biology, and is not routinely used by academics in the field; (2) a species is sometimes termed a ‘living fossil’ if it appears visually to resemble a fossil of great age. Its genetic and anatomical composition is usually not taken into account when the species is termed a ‘living fossil’. Thus, in terms of culture, ‘a living fossil’ may be defined as a cultural tradition that appears to resemble another, and no longer a practised tradition. However, it should be noted that the histories of the two cultural traditions may be very different. For a more detailed discussion see the section of ‘Nuo as a “Living Fossil” of Primitive Culture’ in this paper.

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