A Custom of Southern Fujian from the Perspective of Anthropology -- Buddha's Birthday

Religious syncretism is a very prominent feature of Southern Fujian culture. It also generates a variety of festival customs in that part of the province. "Buddha's birthday" is a very important traditional festival in rural areas of Southern Fujian, with a great impact on rural interpersonal relations, culture, spirit, and so on. Through the methods of participation observation and in-depth interview, based on the detailed description of the custom of "Buddha's birthday", including food procurement, sacrificial ceremony, guest banquet, drama performance, etc, this paper attempts to analyze the social function and cultural implication of the festival with the anthropology theories, such as the social function theory of Émile Durkheim and the reciprocity theory of Marcel Mauss. In recent years, due to the prevalence of drunk driving, fighting and comparison, the government has asked people to simplify this custom, which has gradually been weakened. Therefore, at the end of the paper, through the questionnaire, we try to learn about the attitudes of people towards the official simplification of this custom, analyze the significance and value of this custom to local people, and reflect on the way out of the traditional customs in the process of modernization.