The Deity-Human Relationship and Emotional order in the NaZha Beliefs in Macau

The Deity-Human Relationship and Emotional order

in the NaZha Beliefs in Macau

FANG Huan

Abstract: Against the background of the continuous expansion of scientific rationality, folk beliefs are often placed within binary evaluative frameworks such as “tradition versus modernity” and “rationality versus superstition”, which tends to oversimplify their social functions and meanings. Ethnographic materials from Nezha belief practices in Macao indicate that, within a highly modernized and culturally plural social context, this belief system remains embedded in local life through a series of routinized and sustainable ritual practices. Among these, the distinctive practice of “establishing fictive kinship” incorporates the deity into a kinship-based ethical structure, thereby shaping a form of human-divine relationship centered on an affective order. Overall, Nezha belief in Macao represents a practice with Chinese characteristics in which affective experience complements the limits of rationality and contributes to the maintenance of social ethics and psychological stability. 

Key words: Nezha Belief in Macao; Human-Deity Relationship; Emotional order; Fictive Kinship;Folk Belief

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