| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
“Shiai” is a sacred name specifically used to call “the guardian of children” in the Hakka community. Shiai is a deified stone, and Shiai-worship is a kind of the nature worships. Shiai-worship took strong and steady characteristics from the stone as its functional origin and the spell power of strong and steady as its practical purpose. Stone-worship is based on the embryo of the Mother Earth goddess. This study defines all worships related to stones as Shiai-worship, and set the research architecture with the Hakka community, as the main subject, to finish the research of Shiai and Shiye legends. First, this study establishes three purposes: the origin patterns set by Shiai-worship in the progressing society; the cultural images of Shiai-worship on the space-time coordinates; the prospect of Shiai-worship in the long-term changing society. By the three purposes of this study and the questions to be answered, this study went through literature reviews and field researches to get to the root of the problems. By analysis the origin patterns of Shiai-worship in fifty Shiai and Shiye legends; drawing an overview of a distribution map about Shiai-worship using one hundred and seventeen locations of Shiai and Shiye; investigating the symbol in the wise words of Shiai-worship; doing random field surveys and interviews, to discuss the prospect of Shiai-worship. The result shows that the social psychology of Shiai-worship have different actual meanings in the different junctures in time. Shiai-worship conforms to the historical trend of times. With high density religious activities, Shiai-worship accumulates precious cultural heritage to spread out culture incentives for the tourism activities in later generations.
Keywords：Hakka community, Shiai-worship, guardian of children, Shiai and Shiye legends, stone
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