Building the Divine-Human Relationships and Social Relationships via Flour Offerings in Contemporary China

This study examines how handmade wheat flour offerings (miangong ) contribute to divine-human and social relations in the rural community in contemporary China.Based on fieldwork conducted in Henan Province, this study argues that the mechanism of miangong offerings is that providers invest time, effort and creativity in devotion to enhance the symbolic value of miangong, which has a lower monetary value.In terms of divine-human relationships, the artistic miangong not only reduce the financial burden of offering preparation, but also contribute to the enrichment of offerings to the deity through the visualisation of mythical and architectural objects.In the local community, the function of miangong is related to the coping mechanism in the face of the trauma from the past, a symbol of local identity in the present, and cultural capital for future development.