Women’s Ritual in China: Jiezhu (Receiving Buddhist Prayer Beads) Performed by Menopausal Women in Ninghua Western Fujian by Neky Tak-Ching Cheung (review)

Book Reviews 83 Women’s Ritual in China: Jiezhu (Receiving Buddhist Prayer Beads) Performed by Menopausal Women in Ninghua Western Fujian NEKY TAK-CHING CHEUNG. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008. v, 320 pages. ISBN 978-7734-4962-6. US$119.95, £74.95 hardcover. Neky Tak-Ching Cheung’s Women’s Ritual in China is a welcome addition to the fields of popular religion and women’s studies. The subject of the book is a ritual called Jiezhu 接珠, or “receiving [Buddhist Prayer] Beads,” which initiates women into nianfo 念佛, primarily referring to the practice of reciting Amitābha’s name in order to accumulate Buddhist merits. While anyone simply can recite Amitābha’s name, the people of Ninghua 寧化 in western Fujian, where the author conducted her fieldwork, believe that the recitation is useless in accumulating merits unless the Jiezhu ritual is carried out first. The book is divided into seven chapters. After the introductory first chapter, the author offers a social and religious background of this primarily Hakka settlement area (ch. 2) and the religio-historical background of the Jiezhu practices (ch. 3). Local oral tradition indicates that the ritual was invented by a magistrate in unknown times to ensure that his newly widowed mother maintained chastity (pp. 92-3). Based on the headdress used in the dress code of Jiezhu women (pp. 107-9) the author suggests that the ritual started in late Ming and early Qing, which also coincided with the increasing popularity of the chaste-widow cult. Chapter 4 contains a great detail, both textural and ethnographic, on the preparation and ceremonial program of the Jiezhu. While nianfo, into which the Jiezhu ritual initiates women, emerged from Pure Land Buddhist practices (discussed in chapter 3), sectarian religion— namely the Luozu jiao 羅祖教—occupies a special position in the ritual. In addition, the ritual never takes place in a Buddhist temple but only in private households, which further attests to its grass-roots nature. Chapter 5 begins a systematic analysis and presents the ritual’s double-sided nature. Jiezhu involves numerous taboos, particularly the pregnancy taboo, one of the main issues in the book (p. 1). A Jiezhu woman who becomes pregnant loses all merits collected through nianfo and has to give gifts to her Jiezhu community in repentance. In order to resume nianfo, she has to perform the Jiezhu ritual all over again, which is costly and a public humiliation. The pregnancy taboo, the author argues, developed from China’s negative attitude toward women’s bodies; by installing this taboo, the Jiezhu ritual reinforced the traditional idea of the “polluting nature of female sexuality.” On the other hand, the author continues, Jiezhu ritual is a “purification rite” (p. 167); it marks the end of the “pollution” of menstruation. It prepares women for coping with menopausal distress by ritual symbolism and reinforces them with the moral support of other Jiezhu women (p. 207). It thus empowers women. The ritual process also shows a parallel with the wedding ceremony and funeral (pp. 192, 195). The author 84 Journal of Chinese Religions determines Jiezhu to be the rite of passage for menopausal women and argues that a rite of passage does not have to contain the three-stage process defined by van Gennep 2 (p. 207). Chapter 6 shows how the matrilineal bond (Margaret Wolf’s “uterine family” concept with an emphasis on daughters) and sisterhood are highlighted in the Jiezhu ritual program. In addition, the costly ceremonial gift-giving, banquets, and other ritual displays produce symbolic capital for Jiezhu women. The ritual is, as the author calls it, “women’s self-gift,” another form of empowerment. Nevertheless, the author notes that this empowerment is undermined when Jiezhu women are given new names (“Buddhist names”) by ritual specialists who are male, and thus, “[n]aming, as a powerful tool of control, remains in the hands of men” (p. 251). Although the book characterizes Jiezhu as a ritual of menopausal women, there is a strong emphasis on the ritual taboo on pregnancy throughout the entire study. Citing the pregnancy taboo, the author argues that Jiezhu, while empowering women, is intended “as a means to contain the reproductive and sexual demands...