Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at the ritual practices of the Naxi people in southwest China to keep their separate sense of locality from the realms of others. Such efforts can be seen as existential struggles to make sense of their places in the world.

Paper long abstract:

The early history of the Naxi people is widely accepted as one of migration across the vast territory of west and southwest China. Their ritual practices emerging from such long processes are characterised with a strong sense of displacement. They are attempts to constantly claim or negotiate separate space from other indigenous groups, wild animals, ancestors and ghostly beings in the shared experience of diaspora. This paper examines the fragmented remnants of these attempts made by the Naxi people in their everyday practices of place making. I explore how human bodies, living things and other worldly beings are creatively mobilised and engaged with to activate ritual efficacy (Mauss 2006). For instance, they map out a spiritual route for the deceased to embark on back to the ancestral lands with the help of multi sensory practices including chanting, bodily movement, incense burning and painting displaying. Altogether they contribute to a sense of rootedness whilst living with the weight of the displaced past.

The rituals are not simply echoes of history, but are more importantly infused with contemporary concerns. They take place against a background of huge shifts and ruptures in almost every aspect of everyday life in recent decades given rise to by an unprecedented scale of encounters with outside. They can be summarised as existential struggles (Jackson 2013) to inhabit the world full of change, contingency, and uncertainty.