In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China

Stephen Jones has been documenting living traditions of ritual and music in rural China since 1986, going on to hold research posts at SOAS while working as a violinist in London early music ensembles. Apart from his two other Ashgate volumes Ritual and Music of North China, he is also author of Folk Music of China, Plucking the Winds, and Daoist Priests of the Li family.

• Contents: Preface; A well-kept secret; Part 1 Singing from a Different Hymn-Sheet: North and Central Shanxi: North Shanxi; North-central Shanxi. Part 2 Temple-Lay Connections: South Shanxi and South Hebei, Shaanxi and Gansu: South Shanxi and South Hebei; Shaanxi; Gansu. Part 3 Just Can't Get the Staff: the Central Hebei Plain: Introduction: ritual associations on the Hebei plain; Daxing: the Liangshanpo transmission; Bazhou and Jinghai; The western area: Houshan and the Houtu cult. Conclusion: It's Daoism, but not as we know it; Appendices; Bibliography; Glossary; Index.

'In this groundbreaking study, Stephen Jones brings to light the service of Daoist rites among common people in northern China and compares them with what until now have been far better researched Daoist ritual performances in southern China. From his extensive fieldwork, he provides convincing evidence that distinctive Daoist ritual traditions are deeply embedded in rural northern China.' Stephan Feuchtwang, London School of Economics, UK Stephen Jones' twenty years of fieldwork with Daoists and musicians in north China come to full blossom with this superb book. Its comparative project is admirably ambitious, looking at key rituals done very differently across an area as wide as Europe; yet the writing always remains lively, witty and focused on actual people and performance rather than theories. Vincent Goossaert, CNRS, author of The Taoists of Peking 'This book is an invaluable work of ethnography, and a landmark accomplishment in the study of Chinese religion. The author comes to the topic with a background of field experience that is virtually unmatched. Beyond this, Jones is deeply versed in Anglophone literature, but also engages a vast amount of Chinese scholarship. The book itself is more encyclopedic than narrative. It is exceedingly well indexed, and will be irreplaceable as a work of reference...I would place this book on a par with the great ethnographic studies of the 1930s and 1940s. Like them, I expect that it will remain unsurpassed for many years to come.' China Quarterly ’... anyone who works on Chinese folk beliefs should appreciate the author’s excellent work in providing valuable fieldwork data, in synthesizing the studies on the subject, and in establishing the focus on the performances of folk ritual specialists in North China.’ Journal of Folk Research 'One of the most thorough and careful studies of the decade, this well-written, carefully researched, and highly entertaining study of what the author calls folk Daoists of N