家將“四季大神”初探

「四季大神」是台灣家將隊伍中的主力，其角色的出現，是因強化展演陣法之需要而產生，用以搭配「四大將軍」合演大型的陣法如七星陣、四門陣、八卦陣、五方陣等，與學界所認為的「審問」功能本來並不相關。至於四季大神的形象，遠則溯源於古代的五瘟使者、五鬼造形，近則脫胎於五福大帝，是五福大帝造形的進一步具體化，並將傳說中五瘟使者及鬼使五人之造形與所持器物，納入四季神的臉譜與所持法器中，稍加改變造形及樣式，使之更符合五行思維中的服色、時間、空間等屬性。目前台灣各家將團四季神在服色、臉譜、所持法器上的錯落與紛亂，部分是民俗藝師以訛傳訛所致；其排序與方位的不一致，則與廟宇的座落方位，以及五行相生相剋的原理有關，各家將團因其所屬廟宇坐向的不同，來調整四季神的排序與方位，以適應廟宇的相對空間位置，並與五行原理相應。

關鍵字

家將；四季大神；五福大帝；五行

並列摘要

”Great Deities of the Four Seasons” is the main force in the military retainers battalion to aggrandize performing formation. They come out to collocate ”Four Great Generals” to perform great formation such as the Big Dipper Formation, the Four Gates Formation, the Eight Trigrams Formation, and the Five Directions Formation instead of the jurisdiction function the academia believed. The image of Great Deities of the Four Seasons could be both trace back the ancient image of Heralds of the Five Plagues (fivehold heads of the Plague Bureau), the Five Devils and derive from Great Emperors of the Five Blessings. Great Deities of the Four Seasons exteriorize the image of Great Emperors of the Five Blessings. Putative images and instruments of Heralds of the Five Plagues and Five Devils are also fitted into Great Deities of the Four Seasons' face-painting and ritual implements that are slightly changed to consist with attributions of the Five Phases theory. At present, the costume colors, face-painting, ritual tools of the Great Deities of the Four Seasons differ a great deal from troupe to troupe, partly because folklorists incorrectly relayed an erroneous message. Different rank and the directions are related to the location of the temple and the Five Phases theory. Due to different locations of the temples, troupes adjust the rank and direction of Great Deities of the Four Seasons to correspond comparatively to the locations of the temples and the Five Phases theory.