白族水神崇拜雏形的人类学透视

Anthropological Perspective on the Prototype of Bai People’s Water-God Worship

白族水神崇拜早已有之,且一直延续至今,随着社会的发展、历史背景的变迁,不同水神信仰在民间信仰舞台上经历了一次又一次的嬗变。在梳理《史记·西南夷列传》《南诏图传》《白古通记》《大理古代文化史稿》《白族龙文化》《白族文化史》等重要文献及田野调查的基础上,对大理白族水神崇拜的雏形即自然崇拜,具体而言,先后以水、蛇为崇拜对象,后来以赤蛇及金鱼、金螺为崇拜对象,再后来以龙为崇拜对象进行人类学视角下的分析。无论信仰形态如何相异,被接受或被创造的神灵总是与人们的日常生产生活息息相关,并与社会发展紧密相连。

Water-god worship of Bai people has existed for a long time and has been continued till now.However,the construction of water gods is not invariable.With the development of society and the change of historical background,different water gods have experienced evolution again and again on the religious stage.By sorting through important literature,such as The Grand Scribe’s Records,The Biography of Nanzhao Figure,History of the Bai,Dali Ancient Culture,The Dragon Culture of Bai People,The History of Bai Culture,and on the basis of fieldwork,this article probes into the prototype of water-god worship,i.e.the natural-object worship,from an anthropological perspective.Specifically,water and snakes were the primal objects of worship,then red snakes,goldfish and gold escargots,and finally dragons.The created and commonly-accepted gods are closely related to people’s daily life,production and social development regardless of their forms.