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The temple of Dajia Mazhu is located at Dajia area, of which habitants include four towns (Dajia, Daan, Waipu and Holi) and fifty-three villages. The temple’s annual big event is the eight-days pilgrimage held before Mazhu’s birthday on March 23 of lunar calendar. The pilgrims follow the Deity Mazhu’s path and experience an eight-days journey of pilgrimage by visiting fifty-three village temples. It is to insure that Deity Dajia Mazhu’s blessing can be received and passed on. The folk religious activity has been held annually for centuries. It has become one of the most important religious events in Taiwan. The whole ritual ceremony is a sanctifying process of manifesting Mazhu’s godhood status and a fulfillment of her will as a merciful goddess.
The paper will discuss Dajia Mazhu’s ritual costumes and embroideries worn and used during the pilgrimage. These costumes and embroideries embody significant meanings and purposes. The statue of Dajia Mazhu has been dressed up with a gold-string-woven coat. Her palanquin is decorated with embroideries of auspicious animal Qilin delivering a child. The team that escorts Mazhu’s palanquin carries different kinds of pennants that represent different auspicious and symbolic meanings. The subject matter of these pennants include dragon, phoenix, two dragons worshiping a tower, pattern of Taiji and Eight Diagrams, Eight Immortals, the king of Four Seas…etc. The significance of the rituals and its relations to the sanctifying space and atmosphere created by the costumes, embroideries, the ceremonies and pilgrims’ participation will be discussed in anthropological aspect.
The paper will also discuss the development of family-run studios that designed and produced most of the ritual costumes and embroideries during the 50s. Some of them still practice the same skill now. There are six of them: the Tsai Sheng-zong’s (the very first in Taiwan) at Gaomei, Qingshui, Taizhong; the Sheng-xing studio at Zhanghua (ca. 1965 ~ present); the Longcai studio at Dajia (ca. 1988 ~ present); Yushan Xuan Buddhist store at Dajia (ca. 1990 ~ present); Huazhang studio at Zhanghua (1996 ~ present); Jinxiu studio at Quanzhou (2000); Xiufeng studio at Longjing (2004 ~ present). These designers have used traditional Chinese auspicious elements and created a whole set of symbolic meaning and iconography. They applied them into the ritual embroideries they designed. The application and consideration of Yin Yang, the five primary elements of the world, auspicious symbols, sacred name, form, colour, pattern, size, orientation, sequence, location and weight can be understood historically, socially and culturally.
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