子弟教育、签诗和童:南洋闽粤公庙神道设教的信俗操作与实践

The Operation and Practice of Heavenly Sacred Education among the Fujian and Guangdong Public Temples in South

南洋各埠闽粤公庙代表华人在南海的开拓主权,建构社会和维续公共秩序的机构,也是祭拜神明场所,是以神明叙事和信俗,凝聚中华历史文化与价值观为内在元素,完成教化民众、建构属于集体的地方社会文化。当公庙神道设教的操作是通过签诗、扶乱或乱童等方式,以人神之间沟通文字为形式,实则辅导着信众的自信与多方向思考,这样便很容+易促进民众集体体验文化和文字的重要,理解不论本群体社会发展,或由神明代言民族社会之神圣,都须要文化支撑。所以庙宇透过各种活动推动民族教育,大众以捐献教育回馈神明求功德,也可谓至今最常见的信俗。

The Fujian and Guangdong Public Temples in various cities and towns of Nanyang Region not only serve as internal social order institutions for the establishment of their local community,but also the focal centre for the worship of guardian gods,where the narrations of gods and the related folklore embody a lot of Chinese cultural elements for the internal public education to enhancetheir collective social-cultural identity.While the public temples are to practice their way of human-god communications involving the Chinese prescription lots,planchette writing and trances which are always supported by written text and cultural understanding,this also makes it easy for the public to collectively experience the importance of culture and words,and understand that for the social development of their communities,or theirs social and cultural concepts endorsed by the name of gods,cultural support is required.Therefore,in such historical context,public temples always existed as promoter or founder for ethnic education,and people also regarded donation for education as a kind of feedback to the gods for merit,which become a popular tradition that continues until today.