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Yunlin’s Matsu worship recognized as nation’s 18th folk custom

  • Date:2018-05-27
Yunlin’s Matsu worship recognized as nation’s 18th folk custom

Yunlin County's "Liufangma Guolu (雲林六房媽過爐)" festival, which has been celebrated for over three centuries, has been registered by the Ministry of Culture as an important folk custom, and May 27, which corresponds to April 13 on the traditional lunar calendar, is now officially known as Guolu Celebration Day.

 

This festival marks Taiwan's 18th recognized important folk custom, as well as the third piece of intangible cultural heritage in Yunlin County to be so honored. "Liufangma Guolu" is a part of the worship of the goddess Matsu that has been celebrated in Yunlin for over 300 years.

 

Ceremonies are held in rotation in five townships around Yunlin, including Huwei, with the investment of community resources. Throughout its long history, the festival has maintained its traditional form; it is a powerful demonstration of folk organization that is managed by the people, rather than the temples, and one that brings the community together.

 

The ceremonies are led by one of five locales each year a five-year cycle between Dounan, Tukun, Dapi, and Huwei Townships and Douliu City. Each host negotiates the order in which the celebrations make their way through the five townships each year, as well as organizing the main banquet on Guolu Celebration Day, which is the day when Matsu's main incense burner is transferred from one host to another.

 

Held every year in mid-April of the lunar calendar, the Yunlin festival has become not only a major, large-scale part of the worship of Matsu, but also a core part of the hometown identity of those who have moved away from their family homes in the five locales.

 

There are many different suggestions as to the origins of the worship of Liufangma, but the most commonly accepted at present is that she is an interpretation of Lin Moniang, a shamaness from the 10th century who would go on to be honored as Matsu, the "Holy Heavenly Mother."

 

As for the name "Liufang," literally "six houses," this is for the most part considered to be from a legend telling of her six male relatives who migrated from the mainland and carried on the worship of Matsu in six different parts of Taiwan, with the sixth brother settling in Yunlin.

 

This tale not only emphasizes the ties between faith, family, and region, but also reflects the vital part that migration has played in the historical development of Yunlin and Taiwan as a whole.