- 會議論文
Tua Pek Kong Procession and the Social Structure of a Bazaar Community in Sarawak
摘要
Deity procession remains one of the main features of religious life among the Chinese community in Sarawak. This paper documents the procession of Tua Pek Kong (大伯公) on the deity's birthday, which is celebrated on the 10th day of the first month of the new lunar month. The site of the research is a bazaar called Pekan, situated about 260km from Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo. The one day vibrant procession is participated not only by the Tua Pek Kong deity but also by five other deities from temples around the bazaar. This paper illustrates the underlying social structure of the bazaar through the organization of the annual procession by two Chinese dialect groups, the Hakka and the Teochew. In a Durkheimian sense, the social and historical forces structure the community into its present form, where the groups assert life into the community more than the assemblage of individual consciousness. Within this bazaar, the Hakka and the Teochew are interdependent. The Hakka constitutes a larger and more extensive coverage but the Teochew, despite smaller in population, forms the core of the community. The Teochew exerts strong influence on major event such as the Tua Pek Kong procession. Historically, the Hakka are more established with more in-depth influence on the origins of the bazaar and its religious beginning. This paper examines the theory of collective social structure and uses the case study of the Tua Pek Kong procession as a parameter for explanation.