Meishan scroll paintings and ancestor worship of the Flat Land Yao people in Gongcheng Yao Autonomous District, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the Flat Land Yao (Pingdi Yao,平地瑶) people’s ancestor worship reflected in the Meishan scroll paintings which were discovered in Shuibin village, Guanyin township, Gongcheng Yao Autonomous District, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China in 1984. The Yao people believed that Meishan was not only their ancestral habitation located in ancient central Hunan, but also the pure land for the ancestors’ souls. For the long migration duration and the unfavourable preservation environment, the existing number of Meishan scroll paintings of Flat Land Yao is small, and the two sets of scrolls in Gongcheng Yao Autonomous District are rare art works in the series. The dress style, decoration, generation names of the ancestors, and the skills of the painters reflected that the Flat Land Yao people had absorbed the culture of the surrounding nationalities, especially the Han culture. Confucianism also had an important influence on the Flat Land Yao.