XINBIN MANCHU ANCESTRAL WORSHIP CEREMONY: SYMBOLIC STRUCTURE, EMBODIED PRACTICE, AND THEIR TRANSFORMATION INTO CONTEMPORARY EASEL PAINTING

Dake  Liu; Arkom Sangiamvibool

doi:10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i1.2026.7400

Authors

Dake Liu Faculty of Fine-Applied Arts and Cultural Science, Mahasarakham University, Thailand
Arkom Sangiamvibool Associate Professor, Faculty of Fine-Applied Arts and Cultural Science, Mahasarakham University, Thailand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i1.2026.7400

Keywords:

Ritual Symbolism, Embodied Practice, Practice-Based Research, Cultural Memory, Intangible Cultural Heritage

Abstract [English]

The ancestral worship of the Xinbin Manchu is a sophisticated ritual system that preserves cultural memory, social order, and ancestral identity through symbolic frameworks, embodied practices, and ceremonial sequences. This ongoing ritual tradition encounters issues of discontinuity and symbolic erosion with modernization, urbanization, and generational change. Although current scholarship has explored Manchu ancestral worship mainly through folkloric, anthropological, and historical lenses, there has been no focus on the systematic transformation of its ritual logic via contemporary artistic practices. This study used a practice-based research methodology to investigate the translation of the symbolic structures and embodied practices of Xinbin Manchu ancestral worship into contemporary easel painting as a means of cultural knowledge formation. This research, based on qualitative fieldwork in Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, including in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis, examines ritual significance across three interconnected dimensions: symbolic organization (space, material objects, and color), embodied enactment (gesture, posture, and sensory engagement), and temporal structure (ritual sequence and process). These analytical discoveries are then converted into artistic language through a systematic process of experimentation and reflective study. The results indicate that modern easel painting serves as a non-representational medium for cultural memory, reinterpreting ritual logic through abstraction, materiality, and rhythmic composition instead of visual reproduction. By positioning artistic creation as an analytical and generative process, this study contributes an interdisciplinary framework that bridges ritual studies, semiotics, and contemporary art practice, offering a sustainable pathway for the dynamic inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.

References

Andersson, F. (2024). Iconology and Semiotics: With Some Examples from Schapiro and Thürlemann. ICO Iconographisk Post: Nordic Review of Iconography, 1(2), 61–94. https://doi.org/10.69945/ico.vi1-2.27022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.69945/ico.vi1-2.27022

Apaydin, V. (2020). Introduction: Why Cultural Memory and Heritage. In V. Apaydin (Ed.), Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction ( 1–11). UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xpsfp.6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13xpsfp.6

Assmann, J. (2011). Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO970511996306 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511996306

Bachmann-Medick, D. (2015). Culture as Text: Reading and Interpreting Cultures. Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg.

Brandellero, A., Janssen, S., Cohen, S., and Roberts, L. (2014). Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 20(3), 219–223. https://doi.org/10.100/1352725.2013.77399 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2013.821624

Chiu, E. S. Y. (2020). Bannermen Tales (zidishu): Manchu Storytelling and Cultural Hybridity in the Qing Dynasty (Vol. 105). Brill.

Damisch, H. (2020). Semiotics and Iconography (Vol. 1). Walter de Gruyter.

Dan, S. (2011). Remote Homeland, Recovered Borderland: Manchus, Manchoukuo, and Manchuria, 1907–195. University of Hawai‘i Press.

Eco, U. (1979). A Theory of Semiotics. Indiana University Press.

Erjavec, A. (2012). Art and Aesthetics: From Modern to Contemporary. Diogenes, 59(1–2), 14–157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0392192112451604 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0392192112469472

Fronzi, G. (2022). Eco-Aesthetics: The Art and Aesthetics of Relations from a Post-Pandemic Perspective. Aisthesis: Pratiche, Linguaggi e Saperi Dell'estetico, 15(2), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.36253/Aisthesis-13713 DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Aisthesis-13713

Gray, J., and Kontos, P. (2018). An Aesthetic of Relationality: Embodiment, Imagination, and the Necessity of Playing the Fool in Research-Informed Theater. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(7), 440–452. https://doi.org/10.1177/107700417732926 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417736331

Harrison, R., DeSilvey, C., Holtorf, C., Macdonald, S., Bartolini, N., Breithoff, E., and Penrose, S. (2020). Heritage Futures: Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. UCL Press.

Heersmink, R. (2023). Materialised Identities: Cultural Identity, Collective Memory, and Artifacts. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 14(1), 249–265. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-0063-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00570-5

Hobson, N. M., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Xygalatas, D., and Inzlicht, M. (2018). The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(3), 260–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/106317734944 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868317734944

Hoskins, J. (2015). Symbolism in Anthropology. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., Vol. 23, 60–65). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B97-0-0-09706-.12226-3

Kalkanis, E. (2018). An Analysis of Erwin Panofsky’s Meaning in the Visual Arts. Macat Library.

Kapferer, B. (2013). Ritual Practice and Anthropological Theory. Religion and Society, 4, 3–12. https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2013.040102 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2013.040102

Keliher, M. (2024). Ritual in the Early Modern World: Proliferation, State-Formation, and the Work of the Manchu Surrender Ceremony. Journal of World History, 35(3), 377–406. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2024.a935010 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2024.a935010

Liepe, L. (2023). What is the Difference Between Iconography and Semiotics? Iconographisk Post: Nordisk Tidskrift för Bildtolkning, 3–4, 39–55. https://doi.org/10.69945/ico.vi3-4.25311 DOI: https://doi.org/10.69945/ico.vi3-4.25311

Malafouris, L. (2013). How things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9476.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9476.001.0001

Moon, C. H. (2016). Relational Aesthetics and Art Therapy. In Approaches to Art Therapy ( 50–6). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/971315716015-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315716015-5

Qu, F. (2023). Deconstruction of the Trance Model: Historical, Ethnographic, and Contextual Studies of Manchu Shamanism. Religions, 14(4), 496. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040496 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040496

Radhakrishnan, R. (2013). Cultural Theory and the Politics of Location. In Views Beyond the Border Country ( 275–294). Routledge.

Skains, R. L. (2018). Creative Practice as Research: Discourse on Methodology. Media Practice and Education, 19(1), 2–97. https://doi.org/10.100/1462753.2017.1362175 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2017.1362175

Smith, L. (2020). Emotional Heritage: Visitor Engagement at Museums and Heritage Sites. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/971315713274 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315713274

Sullivan, G. (2010). Art Practice as Research: Inquiry in visual arts (2nd ed.). Sage.

Tejera, V. (1991). Eco, Peirce, and Interpretation. American Journal of Semiotics, (1), 149–15. https://doi.org/10.540/ajs19911/231 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs199181/231

Turner, V., Abrahams, R., and Harris, A. (2017). The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/971315134666 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315134666

Xiao, J., Zhang, S., and Wang, X. (2024). The “War of Position” in Memory: The Siden Saman and the Revivification of Manchu Shamanism in Northeastern China. Asian Anthropology, 23(2), 73–93. https://doi.org/10.100/16347X.2024.23152 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2024.2315828

Yuguang, F., Yanjun, L., and Ying, L. (2020). Shamanic and Mythic Cultures of Ethnic Peoples in Northern China I: Shamanic Deities and Rituals. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/971003132516 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003132516