ABSTRACT
The procession festivals of local territorial guardian gods are minor versions of a great Daoist rite. This is the rite of cosmic re-adjustment known as a jiao. As people in Mountainstreet said, even the twice-monthly domestic feeding of gods’ soldiers was a substitute for a jiao that should have been performed when the temple was extended and rebuilt. There are by now several recordings and expositions of the jiao, made in Taiwan and Fujian. The full exposition of its programme, which is the most elaborate and important of the rituals for the living in the Daoist canon, takes several volumes. The textual scholar of Chinese culture and custom often describes popular religion as a mixture of rather confused interpretations of Daoism at the hands of half-literate healers, exorcisers and interpreters of mediums. The Daoist seeks to establish a relationship of authority to both magicians and to the popular cults which he attends according to his own, Daoist literacy.
