本文是一篇关于中国祖先崇拜的民俗志。作者选择了安徽省黄山市徽州区呈坎镇呈坎村的祭祖为个案，运用田野作业与“标志性文化统领式”的民俗志写作以及文献研究等方法，对中国徽州村落的祖先崇拜观念与祭祖仪式以及相关的祭祀活动进行了研究。徽州是一个古老的地域概念，一般认为黟、祁门、婺源、休宁、歙、绩溪六个县为徽州。秦代在徽州地域置黟、歙二县以后，汉晋以来直至唐宋迁到徽州的大宗族不断增加而发展了宗族文化，明清时代到达既善经商、又爱读书入仕的徽商文化的顶峰。由于特殊的地理环境与发达的徽州商业文化，徽州成为安徽境内颇具特色的民俗文化区域。徽州影响到了九华山的佛教与齐云山的道教以及程朱理学，还有民间信仰等，其中徽州宗族特别重视朱子家礼。呈坎村旧时属于旧歙县十四都的一个山村，现属于安徽省黄山市徽州区呈坎镇。呈坎村，自罗氏始祖唐末来到呈坎村定居起，已有一千多年的历史，有前罗、后罗两个同姓宗族，但他们走着不同的路。前罗大多经商发财回乡回报桑梓，后罗则多爱读书入仕。从宋代墓祭以寺院管理为主要形式，到明清建造家庙、祠堂，期间宗族祭祖的空间与时间，尤其是祭祀对象，都发生了变化。1949年以后，经过土地改革与成立人民公社等历史变革，生产和分配不再以家庭和宗族为单位，各个家庭的祭祖活动也都萎缩以至中断了。村落的祠堂遭到破坏，保留至今的祠堂也仅有旅游的功能。后来村民再恢复祭祖活动，虽然祭祖仪式淡化而简化，但仍然保留了七月半和除夕祭祖的风俗，清明上坟扫墓也越来越受到重视。徽州村落最大的特点是村民认为奉祀祖先的祠堂比寺庙重要，这和其他村落有很大差别。“文化大革命”以前，呈坎村有过寺庙与道观，但它们的宗教性质对村民影响不大。村民的集体活动以及精神上的支柱都源于祖先的教训与祠堂。通过在呈坎村与徽州其他村落长达半年的田野作业，作者发现，同传统的祖先崇拜相比，当前呈坎村的祖先崇拜表现出如下特征：第一，从参与者的角度来看，传统的宗族集体参与的祭祀仪式逐渐转变为以家庭为中心的个体化仪式；第二，从祭祖空间来看，传统的祠堂祭祖也转变成家庭祭祖，更大的变化是清明上坟比家庭祭祖更受重视；第三，从仪式程序上看，传统的较为复杂和繁琐的祭祖仪式渐趋简化；第四，从恢复祭祖的原因上看，传统上主要是出于义务而举行的祭祀仪式在当前逐渐转化为以出于感情与敬畏而举行的祭祀仪式。因此祭祀对象的限制被打破了。总之，祭祀祖先的原因与必要性可以说有三种：一是，为了祖先在死后世界里安息与在生活上无困难而供养死者；二是，子孙相信祖先灵魂存在及其超人的能力，因此向祖先祝告能达成子孙的心愿，反之不受到祭祀的祖先可能会给自己带来麻烦；三，最重要的是，为了祭祖者本人。人们都会死，死后的世界是未知的世界，因此要教孩子祭祖，以便自己死后安排举行祭祀仪式。这个习俗代代传承，保证人人死后都会受到后人祭祀成为祖先，如此才不会变成野鬼流浪而得以在阴间安息。

This article is about the ethnography on China's ancestor worship. The author took the ancestor worship in the Chengkan Village of Chengkan Town, Huizhou District, Huangshan City, Anhui Province as a case. With the help of field study, "Representative Culture-Oriented" writing style of folk recordings, literature research and other methods, the author made a study on the concepts, rituals and related sacrifice activities of ancestor worship in Chinese Huizhou villages.Huizhou is an ancient region concept, generally speaking it is composed of 6 counties which are Yi, Qimen, Wuyuan, Xiuning, She, and Jixi. After The 2 counties of Yi and She were set in Huizhou area in Qin Dynasty, clan culture has developed since the continuously increase of large clans immigrated to this region from Han and Jin to Tang and Song Dynasties. The clan culture reached the summit of Huizhou commercial culture which are not only good at doing business, but also love reading and being an official in Ming & Qing Dynasty. As a result of the special geographical environment and the developed Huizhou commercial culture, Huizhou becomes a quite unique folk culture region in Anhui Province. Huizhou affected on the Jiuhua Mountain's Buddhism, Qiyun Mountain 's Taoism, Chen and Zhu's Neo-Confucianism, folk beliefs and so on. The clans of Huizhou payed special attention to Chu Hsi’s family rites. The Chengkan Village was a mountain village belonged to the 14 Du of the old She County in the old times, presently belongs to the Chengkan Town, Huizhou District, Huangshan City in Anhui Province. The village had more than 1000 years history since the first ancestor of Luo’s Family settled down here. The Luo’s Family divided into 2 same surname clans which are pre-Luo and post-Luo. But the 2 clans are different, generations of pre-Luo mostly returns to home village to repay the native place after doing business and getting rich, generations of post-Luo love reading and being an official.In Song Dynasty, the temple management was the main form of tomb side sacrifice. In Ming and Qing Dynasties, family temples and ancestral halls were constructed. During this period, space and time of the clan's ancestor worship, especially the sacrificial offering object, had changed. Since 1949, through land reform and the establishment of communes and other historical changes, production and distribution were no longer took the family and clan as units, each family worship activities were shrinking and even interrupted. The village ancestral halls was destructed, retention ones only retained the function of tourism. Later the villagers restored their ancestral worship activities, although the memorial ceremony diluted and simplified, but the custom of ancestor worship on semi-July and Chinese New Year's Eve still retained, tomb-visiting and tomb-sweeping on Qingming Festival were also been taking more and more seriously.The villagers of Huizhou villages thought that the ancestral halls to offer sacrifices ancestors were more important than the temples. This major characteristic was very different from other villages. Before the “Cultural Revolution”, there were Buddhist and Taoist temples in the village, but the nature of their religion had little effect on the villagers. The villagers' collective activities as well as the spiritual pillars were derived from the ancestor's lesson and the ancestral halls.After six months of field work in the Chengkan Village and other villages in Huizhou, the author found that compared with traditional ancestor worship, the current ancestor worship of Chengkan village showed the following characteristics:Firstly, from the participant's point of view, the collective participation of the traditional clan ritual gradually transform into family-centered individual ceremony. Secondly, looking from the sacrificial offering space, the traditional sacrificial offering in ancestral temple also has turned into the family sacrificial offering, a bigger change is that tomb-visiting on Qingming Festival was also been taking more seriously than family sacrificial offering. Thirdly, speaking to the ceremony procedure, the complex and tedious tradition Ancestor-worship ceremony tends to be simplified. Fourthly, when it comes to the reason of restoring the ancestor worship activities, traditional Ancestor-worship ceremony which mainly stems from the obligation gradually transform into the ceremony which stems from the emotion and reverence. Therefore the limitation of sacrificial offering object is broken.In summary, the reasons and necessity of offer sacrifices to ancestors are as follows:Firstly, support the deceased so that the ancestors rest in peace and trouble-free in life in the world after death. Secondly, the descendants believed in the existence and powerful ability of ancestor’s soul, therefore wishes to the ancestor can achieve descendants' wish, otherwise ancestors receive no sacrificial offering possibly will bring their own problems. Thirdly, the most important thing is the persons who offering sacrifices to ancestors themselves. Everyone will die and the world after death is unknown. They want to teach their children how to offer sacrifices to ancestors so that the children can learn how to arrange the Ancestor-worship ceremony after their deaths. This custom inherited generation by generation which ensures that after death everybody can become the ancestor by receiving the sacrificial offering hold by their later generations and that the deceased can rest in the nether world. Instead of becoming wild ghosts to roam about.