ABSTRACT
With this chapter, attention turns to an often-neglected aspect of the migration experience and its material heritage, that of religion. A detailed account is given of how Chinese migration to Southeast Asia resulted in the development thereof a distinct Chinese sacramental landscape. Chinese migrants took with them to Southeast Asia not only statues of popular gods but also ash from the incense urns of temples in China as a means of ‘seeding’ branch temples in their adoptive countries with the equivalent supernatural power and efficacy possessed by the mother temples. Also described is the way these migrants recognised and began worshipping animistic spirits indigenous to their adoptive countries, seeing them as the equivalent of the earth gods of China. Consideration is then given to the question of why such practices did not occur among Chinese migrants in Australia. Attention then turns to the role of ancestor worship in maintaining transnational connectivity among Chinese migrants, in particular, to the way many overseas Chinese participate in projects to restore ancestral halls in their home villages. Religion emerges as a dimension of the migration experience which, complete with its own transnationally distributed deities, sacramental landscapes and sites, is an integral element of the heritage of migration.
