本文以洞天福地申遗项目为契机，聚焦于宁德霍童溪流域，从民间信仰视角切入，以深入的田野调查为基础，辅以比较详尽的地方文献梳理，讨论该区域内的猴神信仰与人猴关系。与以往研究不同的是，本文将猴神信仰置于霍童洞天整体性的自然生态、生计贸易、佛道圣地，以及人与动物比邻而居的生活方式中进行讨论，突破了过去民间信仰研究停留于文本、观念或仪式的层面，进入到当地山民生产生活的基本方式去讨论这一问题。

霍童溪流域是霍林洞天所在地，也是大圣信仰分布的核心区。在当地深厚的道教与佛教传统中，大圣信仰更多样化，也更贴近本地山民的日常生活。本文认为，当地丰富乃至复杂的大圣信仰，与霍童溪流域庞大的野生猴群、人猴长期毗邻而居的历史有关。在这里，猴子既是人类探索山林的老师，也是与人类争夺资源的对手。基于这种关系，一方面人类将猴子视为充满灵性的生物，这直接影响到大圣信仰的观念逻辑；另一方面人猴关系也直接影响人类社会自身的组织结构，当地集体农业经济的形态就与此有莫大关系。

本文第一章从地形地势、环境生态、人群与生计、山林出产与交通贸易、信仰传统五个方面梳理概括霍童山区的自然与社会环境。山高林密的自然环境与依赖山林的生计方式使人猴频繁相处成为必然，霍童溪优越的水路条件带来了发达的商业贸易，使得当地的猴神信仰同时具有农业社区的保护神，和商业贸易的财富神两种性质。长期作为洞天福地的道教传统在很大程度上保护和延续了当地良好的生态环境，尤其是药食同源与采集农业的传统使得多样性的植物资源成为可能，这是猴群可以在当地与人共存的根本原因。佛教经典中很早就有白猿信仰，其时间远远早于《西游记》小说。我们可以认为，早在《西游记》故事出现之前，当地已经有关于猴神或“有灵气的猴子”的信仰，这是本文强调要在《西游记》之外去理解大圣信仰的重要原因。要理解人猴关系的现状，必须将整个社会文化结构视为整体进行分析。

本文第二章着重介绍当地的大圣信仰。霍童溪流域的猴神信仰以齐天大圣信仰为主流。当地的大圣信仰形式多样、内涵丰富，既有其整体性和统一性，也可因其核心功能的不同归纳为两种系统，分别是作为村落保护神的大圣与作为乩僮附体神的大圣。其中，作为乩僮附体神的大圣具有强烈的商业属性，与商品经济、金钱（尤其是不义之财）、赌博、偷渡这类强烈的不确定性和冒险性有关。但是，无论是哪种大圣，它们始终都以猴子的形象出现，也始终带有猴子的行为特征。这意味着，要探讨大圣信仰的内在逻辑，还必须得回到猴子这种现实存在物上，从现实中的人猴关系入手去思考。

第三章梳理现实中的人猴关系。通过历史文献挖掘与田野调查的结合，我们发现当地的人猴关系在不同的历史时期呈现出不同的特征，但这些不同特征并没有随着环境的变迁而消亡，我们可以在当下的人猴关系中看到它们的影子。总的来说，猴子既是人类的老师，也是人类的对手。山民对于当下人猴关系的表达可以用“猴子不能打，也打不到”来概括。猴子作为农田的破坏者让当地人十分头疼，但猴子的神圣性及其与大圣的密切关系使当地人否定了“打猴子”的可行性。不能打并不意味着当地人对猴群来袭束手无策，集体化种植就是他们分摊风险、降低家户损失的重要策略。

在结论部分中，本文指出：首先，大圣信仰植根于人猴关系，人猴之间的复杂关系催生了大圣信仰的丰富内涵。其次，当地人多样化的生计方式是大圣信仰从村落保护神向乩僮附体神转向的重要原因。最重要的是，当地的人猴关系呈现出“人进猴进”的共生性，在人类适应猴子的过程中，猴子也在不断适应人类。

当地的人猴关系，其实也是人与动物的关系、人与自然的关系，这是洞天福地文化的核心所在。本文多次提到，要理解当地的大圣信仰和人猴关系，必须回到整个自然文化环境中，我们今天所看到的观念与实践，无不是在这种整体性的结构中生发的，而这些观念与实践，就是我们的活态传承中最重要的部分。那么对于今天的遗产保护和生态研究而言，如何打破自然、物质与非物质遗产之间人为制造的藩篱，如何避免将“人”从生态环境中剥离，正视人在生态文明中的位置，或许洞天福地给了我们答案。

This paper takes the opportunity to discuss the relationship between the beliefs of the monkey gods and the human-monkey relationship in the area from the perspective of folk beliefs, based on an in-depth field survey and supplemented by a relatively detailed review of local literature, focusing on the Huotongxi watershed in Ningde. The Huotong Stream watershed is the location of the Huo Lin Cave and the core area where the belief in the Great Sage is distributed. Within the deep Taoist and Buddhist traditions of the region, the Great Sage beliefs are more diverse and closer to the daily lives of the local mountain people. This paper argues that the rich and even complex local beliefs in the Great Sage are related to the huge wild monkey population in the Huotong Stream watershed and the long history of humans and monkeys living next to each other. Here, monkeys were both teachers to humans exploring the mountains and rivals to humans for resources. Based on this relationship, on the one hand humans saw monkeys as spiritual beings, which directly influenced the conceptual logic of the belief in the Great Sage; on the other hand, the human-monkey relationship also directly influenced the organisation of human society itself, and the shape of the local collective agricultural economy was very much related to this.

The first chapter of this paper outlines the natural and social environment of the Huotong Mountains in five areas: topography, environment and ecology, people and livelihoods, forest production and transport, and faith traditions. The natural environment of high mountains and dense forests and the dependence on mountain and forest livelihoods made it inevitable that people and monkeys would live together frequently, and the excellent waterways of the Huotong River brought about a developed commercial trade, making the local belief in the monkey god both a god of protection for the farming community and a god of wealth for the commercial trade. The long-standing Taoist tradition as a cave of blessings has largely protected and perpetuated the good ecological environment of the area, especially as the tradition of medicinal food and gathering agriculture has made possible a diversity of plant resources, which is the fundamental reason why monkeys can co-exist with people in the area. The belief in white apes was present in the Buddhist classics from an early date, well before the novels of Journey to the West. We can argue that there was already a local belief in a monkey god or 'monkey with spirit' long before the story of Journey to the West appeared, and this is an important reason why this paper emphasises the need to understand the belief in the Great Sage outside the context of Journey to the West. In order to understand the current state of human-monkey relations, the whole social and cultural structure must be analysed as a whole.

The second chapter of this paper focuses on local beliefs in the Great Sage. The belief in the Monkey God in the Huotong River valley is dominated by the belief in the Great Sage of Qi Tian. The local beliefs in the Great Sage are diverse and rich in connotation, and can be grouped into two systems depending on their core functions: the Great Sage as a village protection deity and the Great Sage as a deity possessed by a medium. Of these, the Great Sage as a medium-possessed deity has strong commercial attributes, associated with strong uncertainty and risk-taking in the form of the commodity economy, money (especially ill-gotten gains), gambling, and smuggling. However, no matter what kind of Great Sage they are, they always appear as monkeys and always bear the characteristics of monkey behaviour. This means that in order to explore the inner logic of the belief in the Great Sage, one must also go back to the monkey as a real being and start by thinking about the human-monkey relationship in reality.

Chapter 3 compares the human-monkey relationship in reality. Through a combination of historical documentary excavation and fieldwork, we find that the local human-monkey relationship has shown different characteristics in different historical periods, but these different characteristics have not died out with changes in the environment, and we can see their shadows in the present-day human-monkey relationship. In general, monkeys are both teachers and adversaries of humans. The mountain people's expression of the current human-monkey relationship can be summed up by the phrase "monkeys cannot be fought, nor can they be fought". Monkeys are a major problem for the locals as destroyers of farmland, but their sacredness and their close relationship with the Great Sage have led the locals to dismiss the feasibility of 'beating monkeys'. The inability to fight does not mean that the locals are helpless against monkey attacks, and collective farming is an important strategy for them to share the risk and reduce household losses.

In the conclusion, the paper points out that, firstly, the belief in the Great Sage is rooted in the relationship between humans and monkeys, and the complex relationship between humans and monkeys has given rise to the richness of the belief in the Great Sage. Secondly, the diverse livelihoods of the local people are an important reason for the shift in the belief in the Great Sage from a village protective deity to a medium-possessed deity. Most importantly, the relationship between humans and monkeys in the area is symbiotic, with humans adapting to monkeys and monkeys adapting to humans.

The relationship between humans and monkeys is also the relationship between humans and animals, and between humans and nature, which is at the heart of the culture of the Cave of Bliss. As mentioned several times in this article, to understand the local belief in the Great Sage and the human-monkey relationship, one must go back to the whole natural cultural environment. The concepts and practices we see today are all born out of this holistic structure, and these concepts and practices are the most important part of our living heritage. So for today's heritage conservation and ecological research, how to break down the artificial barriers between natural, tangible and intangible heritage, how to avoid stripping 'people' from the ecological environment, and how to face up to the place of people in ecological civilisation, perhaps the Cave of Fortune has given us the answer.