Seven Strands of the Serpent's Tail: Creativity and Cultural Improvisation in the Making of a Ritual Whip in Contemporary Taiwan.

Among the most ubiquitous ritual implements in modern Taiwan, the ritual whip functions to dispel demons and to summon spirit soldiers, the material embodiment of a fearsome serpent deity. Known as Saint Golden Whip, a standard ritual whip has a wooden handle carved in the likeness of a snake, a dra...

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Publicado en:Asian Ethnology Vol. 83; no. 2; pp. 199 - 231
Autor principal: Reich, Aaron K.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Nanzan University 2024
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        au: Reich, Aaron K.
        affil: Saint Joseph's University
      su:
        Whips
        Ritual
        Public worship
        Symbolism
        Rites & ceremonies
        Taiwan
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          Taiwan
          Whips
          Ritual
          Public worship
          Symbolism
          Rites & ceremonies
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        craft
        cultural improvisation
        Daoism
        material religion
        ritual
        whip
      ab: Among the most ubiquitous ritual implements in modern Taiwan, the ritual whip functions to dispel demons and to summon spirit soldiers, the material embodiment of a fearsome serpent deity. Known as Saint Golden Whip, a standard ritual whip has a wooden handle carved in the likeness of a snake, a dragon, or a hybrid of the two, and a thong at least six feet in length, woven from straw rope. Despite the prevalence of these ritual whips, scholars have yet to examine the people involved in making them; the stories of these artists have largely been lost to history, their methods unrecorded and unknown. This article details as a case study the production of a single ritual whip, telling the stories of the carver who shapes its handle and the weaver who braids its tail. Both artists discover their own improvisations to navigate the space between invention and inheritance, highlighting how cultural traditions take on new forms and find new expressions, as these traditions move forward from person to person, from one generation to the next.
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