Text-Mining and Digital Humanities Analysis of “Eye-Opening” Consecration Ritual of Contemporary Yanling Daoist Altar of Tainan

Abstract

This article uses Digital Humanities methods and technologies, Text mining and GIS (geographic information system) to explore the ritual texts of the Deity “Eye-Opening” Consecration Ritual of Daoist Wu Zhengxian at the Yanling Daoist Altar in Tainan. The author uses the Python data extraction technology to extract the information of deities, temples, and believers contained in the consecration ritual texts, and then uses GIS time-space analysis and social network analysis to examine the rituals of the Yanling Daoist altar. The article demonstrates the visualization of the spatial distribution of the consecration rituals of the Yanling Daoist Altar. In addition, it also illustrates the network relationship between the deities and the ritual locations, mostly temples. This article aims to show how the use of digital humanities technologies and tools can assist humanities research. The proper use of information technology can quickly and massively process patterned documents (such as Daoist ritual texts), extract key data content, and then use GIS spatial and network analysis to explore the spatial significance and network relationship behind the ritual texts. The author tries to make use of the “distant reading” of digital humanities and proposes new research questions for future studies combined with the “close reading” of traditional research approaches.

Keywords

• digital humanities
• text-mining
• information visualization
• gis (geographic information system)
• social network analysis