About the Origin and Present Conditions of Worship of Mazu in the Western Part of Guangdong
By means of literature review and on-the-spot investigations,this paper makes a study of the origin of worship of Mazu in neighboring cities and counties of Leizhou Peninsular and Yangjiang Prefecture and gives a brief account of the present conditions of some representative Mazu temples with a view to having a better understanding of history and developmental tendency of spreading Mazu Culture in the western part of Guangdong.
Publisher Summary The field of kinship appears to have a greater resilience to political and economic forces that change lifestyles and life opportunities. The “modernization” literature stressed the inevitable demise of matrilineality and of extended kinship groupings with the rise of cash-crop economies, occupational diversification, and capitalism. The nuclear conjugal family was accepted as the inevitable outcome of urbanization and industrialization. This chapter examines the case for persistence among the matrilineal Plateau and Gwembe Tonga of southern Zambia, many of whom are living in the cities as wage workers and are dependent on a cash income. Gwembe and Plateau Tonga have not regarded their kinship systems as immutable but have had little need to change formal rules. They have used their kinship systems to obtain their objectives.