Materializing Martial Gods: Thunder Ritual, Material Culture, and the Story of Daoism in Ming China
3: Materializing Daoist Thunder in Priestly Ritual Vestments of the Late Ming
Friday, March 25, 2022
3:30pm – 5:00pm EST
Location: Conv. Center, Room 316B
Paper Presenter(s)
NG
Noelle Giuffrida
Ball State University, United States
Despite the large number of Daoist priestly ritual vestments preserved in museum and private collections around the world, few scholars have moved beyond basic identification of these garments and brief descriptions of elements of the Daoist cosmos that typically appear on them. This paper closely examines a seventeenth-century priestly robe of descent (jiangyi), in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to demonstrate the permeation of imagery associated with the Daoist Thunder Department into the visual and material culture of Daoism during the late Ming. A robe of descent is a square, full-length, sleeveless garment with a center-front opening, which is tied together at the neck and across the chest of the wearer. Representations of Daoist pantheons and aspects of the Daoist universe are usually confined to the large space on the back of these robes, while the front of the garment is sparsely adorned with auspicious motifs. An exploration of the Metropolitan robe reveals the representation of an extensive cadre of thunder divinities on its back and front, and connects its imagery to thunder liturgies of the Ming. This paper argues that the robe not only operates as a materialization of the priest’s inner visualization journey within the Daoist cosmos, but it also functions as a material register of thunder deities summoned during the ritual, providing a visual, material, and bodily connection between the priest and the forces he directs to efficaciously intervene on behalf of a terrestrial community.
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