The Primitive Man’s Worship of the Primitive Religion

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As a component of the social ideology, religion is particularly complicated and intertwined with the past and present contradictions in political, economic, cultural and national affairs. The studies of the religious history have led to the finding that no society is void of religion and some belief is indispensable to a nation. Religion is bound up with culture and plays an exceptionally important role in human society irreplaceable by science and materials. Chinese traditional culture features the contradiction and complementariness of the Confucius, the Buddhism andthe Taoism, that is, religion constitutes a part of the Chinese traditional culture.

The primitive religion began to burgeon in the late Paleolithic Age and developed rapidly in the Neolithic Age. To some extent the primitive religion reflected human thoughts on the universe and the life in spite that it contained quite a proportion of backward, benighted and stupid concepts. The religion also contributed to human progress as the human society advanced from the benighted to the barbarian state.

In the initial religious system worship of God was but an insignificant part as it originated from the concept of ghosts and spirits. In the very beginning only the clan ancestors or the spirits who were regarded to have made remarkable contributions to the commune were worshipped. Later on with people attaching more and more importance to kinship, some ancestor’s spirit turned to be the Ancestor Godor the Guard Spirit in people’s mind. The objects of worship were among other things the totems, plants, animals, the celestial bodies, the Nature and genitals, all of which were closely linked to the life patterns in the primitive society.A lot of clay figurines in the shape of Man, animals and poultry were unearthed at the “Temple of Goddess”at No.2 spot of the Niuheliang site and many jade ware in the shape of animals give a hint that the religious system dating back to the Red Mountain cultural period was largely characterized by worshipping many a God. Those God represent the natural elements such as the sun, the moon, the mountains, water, animals and plants. People worshipped them in the fond hope of being blessed with peace, bumper harvests and a flourishing population.

In the latter phase of the Liangzhu cultural period striking changes occurred in religion. Among the few decorative pattern figures on the jade ware, the image featuring a beast’s face and a human body is found to be at the most eye-catching spot with no exception. Thus we have good reason to believe that the Liangzhu religion was by and large characterized by the worship of God. The real man worshipped as the God was probably the Ancestor God of the Liangzhu people. In the Neolithic Age worship sites were mostly built atop the mountains. The Liangzhu altar with a neat layout of three tiers of constructions on the inside as we11 as the outside was found atop the Mountain Yao at Anxi Village of Yuhang in Zhejiang province; the worship site dating back to the Longshan cultural period was set on the protruding terrace in the very centre of the mountain ranges to the west of the Daling River at Kazuo County in Liaoning Province; the Temple of Goddess dating back to the Red Mountain cultural period located at the intersection betweenthe two cities of Lingyuan and Jiangping is also perched atop the mountain. The vastazure sky evokes one’s boundless fancy and imagination. To set the worship site atopthe mountain was based on the thinking that the top of the mountain was immediately close to the “Heaven”.

Divination refers to making prophecies based on the layout of the objects thrown at random. And these objects can be turtle shell, beast bone, the shoulder blades ofcattle or sheep. At many cultural sites of the Neolithic Age shells and bones used in divination have been found.

If the divination in the remote days reflected the human beings’ contemplation of the Nature and the society, the primitive witchcraft was positive in the sense that it was used by mankind in the attempt to defy and conquer the Nature. In the Neolithic Age the witchcraft was practiced to exorcise the evil spirits, curse the enemy, make simulation and so on. Probably it was the elder, the chief of the tribe or some other prestigious figures who practiced the witchcraft at the very beginning. It was some time later that the witchcraft was practiced as a kind of occupation.