Abstract:

Rituals play a vital role in integrating local communities. Within Jianchuan county, two Acarya rituals, i.e., the Birthday Ceremony and the Hell-Opening Ceremony”, are of great significance to the Bai people, embodying the duality of life and death, meat and vegetable, yin and yang, acquaintance and stranger, form and emptiness, construction and deconstruction. By utilizing symbolic interaction theory and conducting field research, this paper analyzes the underlying logic and mechanism of these two rituals using the framework of "structure" and "situational narration." Through comparative research, it becomes clear that the seemingly opposing yet unified nature of the Birthday Ceremony and Hell-Opening Ceremony is the result of the interaction and combination of the macroscopic social and cultural structure with the microscopic "situation-narrative" of the Bai people.

Key words: Bai people in Jianchuan County, Acarya ritual, symbolic interactionism, Birthday Ceremony; Hell-Opening Ceremony