Paper short abstract:

A comparative study of the Nine Emperor Gods festival in Malaysia and Singapore illustrating the inter-relationship between material culture and ritual forms, and the way in which ritual forms define sacred space.

Paper long abstract:

Inherent within emic understandings of the festival, the Nine Emperor Gods are firmly posited as central points of reference around which annually, for nine days, the human actors revolve. The term 'bodies for the gods' was coined by Margaret Chan (2009) to describe the primary role tang-ki spirit mediums play in relation to the deities that possess them. Using the same analogy, I employ the term 'vessels for the gods' to include all natural and man-made objects in which the gods or their spiritual efficacy is perceived to pass through, or reside. Researched in Singapore in 2010 and 2014 and in Malaysia in 2015, methodologically, while maintaining a key focus on the role of tang-ki, the paper explores the role of material objects in the production of ritual and offers a recursive analysis. From literally following or carrying ritual objects from point A to B - from the small: deity statues and oil lamps - to the heavy: wooden palanquins and the Nine Emperor God's ship, I have observed how the vessels themselves have shaped the way in which rituals are performed, even if only doing so due to the conditions imposed on their carriers by their physicality. In essence, the actual choice or recognition of ritual vessels has contributed to the production of local ritual forms which determine the structure and location of sacred space. The paper has a dual focus: the ways in which variance in ritual vessels produces variations in ritual form, and on how ritual forms determine the microcosms and macrocosms of sacred space.