Chinese shamanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Chinese shamanism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinese shamanism, alternatively called

Wuism (Chinese: ; pinyin: w jio;
literally: "wu religion, shamanism, witchcraft";
alternatively w x zngjio), refers to
the shamanic religious tradition of China.[1] Its
features are especially connected to the ancient
Neolithic cultures such as the Hongshan
culture.[2] Chinese shamanic traditions are
intrinsic to Chinese folk religion, an overarching
term for all the indigenous religions of China.
Wu masters remain important in contemporary
Chinese culture.

Seal script

Great Seal
script

Bronzeware
script

Ideograms of wu in different ancient

Chinese scripts.

Various ritual traditions are rooted in original Chinese shamanism: contemporary

Chinese ritual masters are sometimes identified as wu by outsiders,[3] though most
orders don't self-identify as such. Also Taoism has some of its origins from Chinese
shamanism:[4][5] it developed around the pursuit of long life (shou /), or the status
of a xian (, "mountain man", "holy man").[6]

Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Meaning of wu
Shang period
Zhou period
See also
References
Bibliography
External links

Meaning of wu
The Chinese word wu "shaman, wizard", indicating a man who can mediate with the
powers generating things (the etymological meaning of "spirit", "god", or nomen
agentis, virtus, energeia), was first recorded during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1046
BCE), when a wu could be either sex. During the late Zhou dynasty (1045-256 BCE) wu
was used to specify "female shaman; sorceress" as opposed to xi "male shaman;
sorcerer" (which first appears in the 4th century BCE Guoyu). Other sex-differentiated
shaman names include nanwu for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nwu
, wun , wupo , and wuyu for "female shaman; sorceress; witch".
The word tongji (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym
of wu. The Chinese tradition distinguishes native wu from "Siberian shaman": saman
or saman ; and from Indian Shramana "wandering monk; ascetic": shamen ,
sangmen , or sangmen .

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Berthold Laufer (1917:370) proposed an etymological relation between Mongolian bg

"shaman", Turkish bg "shaman", Chinese bu, wu (shaman), buk, puk (to divine),
and Tibetan aba (pronounced ba, sorcerer). Coblin (1986:107) puts forward a
Sino-Tibetan root *mja "magician; sorcerer" for Chinese wu < mju < *mjag
"magician; shaman" and Written Tibetan 'ba'-po "sorcerer" and 'ba'-mo "sorcereress"
(of the Bn religion). Further connections are to the bu-mo priests of Zhuang
Shigongism and the bi-mo priests of Bimoism, the Yi indigenous faith. Also Korean mu
(of Muism) is cognate to Chinese wu .
Schuessler lists some etymologies: wu could be cognate with wu "to dance"; wu
could also be cognate with mu "mother" since wu, as opposed to xi , were typically
female; wu could be a loanword from Iranian *maghu or *magu "magi; magician",
meaning an "able one; specialist in ritual". Mair (1990) provides archaeological and
linguistic evidence that Chinese wu < *myag "shaman; witch, wizard; magician" was
a loanword from Old Persian *magu "magician; magi". Mair connects the nearly
identical Chinese Bronze script for wu and Western heraldic cross potent , an ancient
symbol of a magus or magician, which etymologically descend from the same
Indo-European root.

Shang period
The Chinese religion from the Shang dynasty onwards developed around ancestral
worship.[7] The main gods from this period are not forces of nature in the
Indo-European way, but deified virtuous men.[8] The ancestors of the emperors were
called di (), and the greatest of them was called Shangdi (, "the Highest
Lord").[9] He is identified with the dragon (Kui ), symbol of the universal power
(qi).[10]
Cosmic powers dominate nature: the Sun, the Moon, stars, winds and clouds were
considered informed by divine energies.[11] The earth god is She () or Tu ().[12]
The Shang period had two methods to enter in contact with divine ancestors: the first is
the numinous-mystical wu () practice, involving dances and trances; and the second
is the method of the oracle bones, a rational way.[13]

Zhou period
The Zhou dynasty, succeeding the Shang, was more rooted in an agricultural
worldview.[14] They opposed the ancestor-gods of the Shang, and gods of nature
became dominant.[15] The utmost power in this period was named Tian (, "the Great
One").[16] With Di (, "earth") he forms the whole cosmos in a complementary
duality.[17]

See also
Chinese folk religion
Chinese ritual mastery traditions
Nuo rituals
Taoism

References
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1. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43. Further: Cf. Werner Eichhorn, Die Religionen Chinas, 1973, pp.
55-70.
2. Nelson, Matson, Roberts, Rock, Stencel. 2006.
3. Nadeau, 2012. p. 140
4. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
5. Waldau, Patton. 2009. p. 280
6. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
7. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
8. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
9. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
10. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
11. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
12. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
13. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
14. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
15. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
16. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.
17. Libbrecht, 2007. p. 43.

Bibliography
Ulrich Libbrecht. Within the Four Seas...: Introduction to Comparative Philosophy.
Peeters Publishers, 2007. ISBN 9042918128
Sarah M. Nelson, Rachel A. Matson, Rachel M. Roberts, Chris Rock, Robert E.
Stencel. Archaeoastronomical Evidence for Wuism at the Hongshan Site of
Niuheliang. 2006.
Randall L. Nadeau. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions. John
Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Paul Waldau, Kimberley Patton. A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion,
Science, and Ethics. Columbia University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780231136433
Arthur Waley, The Nine Songs: a Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. London,
1955. [1] (https://archive.org/stream/ninesongsstudyof00quyu
/ninesongsstudyof00quyu_djvu.txt)
Further
Coblin, W. South. 1986. A Sinologist's Handlist of Sino-Tibetan Lexical
Comparisons. 1986. Steyler Verlag.
Laufer, Berthold. 1917. "Origin of the Word Shaman", American Anthropologist
19.3: 361-371.
Mair, Victor H. 1990. "Old Sinitic *Myag, Old Persian Magu and English Magician,
Early China 15: 2747.
Schuessler, Axel. 2007. An Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. University of
Hawaii Press.

External links
Hong Zhang, Constantine Hriskos. Contemporary Chinese Shamanism: The
Reinvention of Tradition (http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/culturalsurvival-quarterly/china/contemporary-chinese-shamanismthe-reinventiontraditi). On: Shamanisms and Survival issue 27.2 (Summer 2003).
Max Dashu. Xi Wangmu, the shamanic great goddess of China
(http://www.suppressedhistories.net/goddess/xiwangmu.html).

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