Temple's Mazu Sculpture Given Exquisite Paper Crown|配天宮媽祖戴"紙帽" 做工細緻顯威儀

Chiayi's Peitien Temple is a historical site and an evergreen Chinese perfume plant there that was almost a hundred years old withered and died last year. Temple officials turned the tree into a sculpture of goddess Mazu and gave her a golden crown made of paper. The work is exquisite and looks like it's made of real gold. Let's take a look.


Mazu's golden crown is a work of art with a dragon and phoenix and suspended pearls. This type of headgear is only worn by deity sculptures and many are made of metal. The crown worn by Mazu at Chiayi's Peitien Temple, however, is made of paper.

If something goes wrong, the entire thing has to be scrapped. These were all scrapped because the measurements were slightly off. Every time, we had to start over. As I said earlier, the two sides have to fit.

Paper artists can only produce five to six such crowns a year and this crown took over two months to make. The temple decided a paper crown was appropriate because the sculpture was made from a withered tree.

It was sculpted from the (old) evergreen Chinese perfume plant and its deity hat was made from paper. Most devotees probably assume the hat is made of gold, but it's actually made from paper. A paper hat is lighter and causes less damage to Mazu's wooden head.

Few people can tell the crown is paper. Peitien Temple is a historical site and temple officials hope the crown can help preserve folk culture for future generations.



媽祖神像的帽子金光熠熠，不只雕出細緻的龍鳳，還垂著高貴的珍珠，這種神像戴的帽子叫做平天冠，有許多是用金屬打造，但嘉義配天宮的媽祖這頂，其實是紙帽。

製帽師 葉永析表示：「如果不行就全部要打掉，像這些其實就是都打掉的，因為尺寸有稍微偏差，我們就要重做，主要就是像剛才說的，它兩邊該避的要避得開。」

用紙雕出這麼多細節，一頂就要耗時2個月才能完成，一名紙藝師，一年只能完成5到6頂。而配天宮選用紙帽子，主要就是因為這尊神像，也是用廟裡枯死後的老樹製成。

嘉義配天宮董事長 黃清田表示：「它是(老)四季蘭雕刻的，而且它的帽子，它的神帽是用紙來做，一般信眾看到這頂帽子，大概都以為是金帽，其實它是用紙來做，減輕它的重量，也比較不會傷到，我們媽祖頭部木質的部分。」

民眾雖然乍看無法分辨神像的差別，不過配天宮本身也是古蹟，廟方如此講究，就是希望民俗文化持續傳承。