鄞山寺建寺初期十九世紀初葉的【八卦文鐵香爐】，風格與當代台灣寺廟時尚香爐有別，而與中國早期香爐近似，但卻在復古中有所失誤，以及在寺中使用一百五十多年殘破後，雖遭棄置，其形象卻又經複製、改正及再使用。其伴隨著少數邊緣的，自稱為「我汀眾」的族群，在與其它大主流族群的移民競爭與信仰寺廟的競建中，存在至今。其與該廟同時代楹聯中罕見的「宋代」強調並存，以祭祀由北宋禪僧成神的遠在閩西特定信仰的定光古佛。其如何與在地時尚識別？與其它時空的形象傳統趨同？其為何樣的移民族群所使用？此族群在其他移民族群中的處境又如何？其如何被用？其遠溯，其失誤，正反映了小眾移民族群在建廟初期對原鄉寺廟用物的模糊記憶的捕捉與再造嗎？其近日的再複製及改正，正對過去的歷史記憶的再保存嗎？此香爐正涉及「物」與「人」的關係等複雜議題，本文將其放在奉獻者信仰對象、寺廟相關文物、奉獻群的地緣現象、社經地位、以及該寺廟所代表的台灣民間寺廟競建等時空情境等，加以審視，以試圖探索其所涉及的物質文化與族群識別關係的可能性與限度。

The ritual paraphernalia of the Yin-shan Temple includes an iron three-legged incense burner. This tripod dates to the temple’s early founding in the first part of the nineteenth century. Its style is distinct from that of incense burners found in Taiwanese temples of the same period, and while it bears some relation to the archaistic style of early Chinese censers, it is not a completely faithful reproduction. It was also damaged and discarded after a hundred and fifty years of use. Nevertheless, its form was subsequently reproduced, rectified, and used again. Accompanying the members of a small, peripheral community, who identified themselves as the people of Ting-chou (a prefecture in western Fukien), it survived the competitive temple building and other conflicts that characterized the relationship between this community and other, more powerful immigrant communities. The censer existed alongside the rare emphasis on the Sung dynasty found in paired inscriptions of the same period mounted on pillars in the temple, and was used in rites dedicated to a Northern Sung monk recognized as the incarnation of the Dīpamkara Buddha, whose cult was centered in the distant region of western Fukien. How was it distinguished from other local styles in Taiwan? To what extent did it follow long-standing traditions in western Fukien? What sort of immigrant community used it? What was the relative position of this immigrant group vis-à-vis other immigrant groups? How was it used? Does its archaism and discrepancies reflect this minor immigrant community’s attempt, when first constructing their temple, to capture and reproduce a vague memory of the incense burners used in the temples of their homeland? Does its recent reproduction and rectification represent the repetition of a previous attempt to preserve a record of the past? By exploring these and other questions, the present essay explores the possibilities and limits of the relating material cultural to communal identification.

八卦文; 鄞山寺; 族群識別; 物質文化

Eight trigrams décor; Yin-shan Temple; communal identification; material culture