Shamanic and Mythic Cultures of Ethnic Peoples in Northern China II

Shamanic Divination, Myths, and Idols

Fu Yuguang, Liang Yanjun, Wu Chunxiao, Liang Yanjun, Wu Chunxiao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367654139
• eBook ISBN: 9781000295597
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

On the basis of first-hand materials gathered through decades of field research and fleshed out with the author's insightful religious, cultural, and historical observations extending back to the Qing dynasty, ancient archaeological discoveries, and the legacy of Siberian peoples, this two-volume ethnological study investigates shamanic rituals, myths, and lore in northern China and explores the common ideology underlying the origins of the region's cultures.

This second volume focuses on northern shamanic divination, spirit idols, and folklore covering the myths of the Manchu-Tungus, Manchu creation shrine tales, and individual tribal myths. This mythic heritage helps identify shared patterns of thought among the ethnic peoples of northern China; points to cultural integration with Buddhist, Daoist, and Han Chinese cultures; and shows their understand of the natural world, the creation of humankind, social life, and history and their interactions with their surroundings. In this regard, shamanic spirituality in northern China is characterized by functionality and practicality in daily life situations, in contrast to the received wisdom that defines shamanic praxis as a pure supernatural spirit journey.

The book will be of great value to scholars of religion and to both anthropologists and ethnologists in the fields of shamanism studies, Northeast Asian folklore, and Manchu studies.

1
Northern shamanic divination

Among the ancient religious activities performed by ethnic peoples, divination was common, significant, and profoundly influential. After doing extensive research on Hezhe divination, Ling Chunsheng (凌 纯声) wrote detailed accounts of the characteristics and methods of bone divination among the Hezhe and their neigh-bouring peoples; and in Shamanism in History and Today, Turkish scholar Abdülkadir Inan gave a systematic introduction to bone divination among some Turkic groups who believe in shamanism. There are also scattered records and accounts in other scholarly works. However, I find that these works actually have a limited understanding of shamanic divination, not to mention their lack of attention to the characteristics of northern divination practices. Formed on the basis of my years of research, this book aims to call attention to specific aspects of these practices.

1.1 Divination as sacred activity

Divination activities include foretelling future events, predicting the unknown, and transmitting oracles. People practised the earliest forms divination out of concerns for security and a need for survival. These forms reflect simple primitive materialist views, but they were not meaningless or deceitful activities. When primitive humans were faced with their tough natural environment, survival was their first priority, and divination reflects their attempt to adapt to nature and interpret natural forces. Although it is quite often blind and fortuitous, divination serves practical purposes, and original divination, as a manifestation of human beings’ preliminary understanding of adaptation to certain phenomena and laws of nature, was the first genuine attempt at understanding their lives and insuring reliable production results. In primitive society, members of the tribe came to understand natural phenomena and changes under the guidance of a knowledgeable tribal member.

Belief in the human ability to foretell the unknown has long been passed down in shamanist cultures through various methods performed by knowledgeable clan shamans. Early people believed that everything has a spirit or soul and that not only human beings but all things should be treated as active entities with a life force, variously called consciousness or soul. They believed, moreover, that nonhuman beings have special powers to survive and defensive skills to prepare for the future that are far superior to those of human beings. As intermediaries between human beings and deities, shamans regularly fulfil their clan obligations and perform worship activities for the clan or an individual by turning to easily available mystic paraphernalia to ask for good fortune and the successful outcome of future events. The famous Manchu scholar Wu Jixian (吴 纪贤) said in his Collection of Local Sacrifical Rituals (Xiangsi bihui lu) from around 1923 that people in Heilongjiang were fond of divination and that shamans there served their purpose by divining with bones, horns, teeth, claws, blades of grass, wood slabs, river pebbles, mountain stones, the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, and so on. In Supplement to Ancient Customs of Aihui (Aihui zufeng yishi), Fu Xilu (富希 陆) writes the following, in greater detail:

Divination is a common practice among shamans of Manchu clans. Those who are incompetent in divination cannot become famous. Clans divine many times a year on important occasions, such as childbirth, farming, hunting, fighting, making a journey, selecting a building site, dividing a household, choosing a date for worship, curing illness, seeking a harmonious marriage, holding a funeral, overwhelming an enemy troop or bandits, asking for good fortune and seeking survival. Among northern ethnic groups, the Manchu have ranked first in both piety and expenditure in practices of divination. Besides Manchu shamans, their counterparts among the Oroqen, Solon (Ewenki subgroup) and Daur living near Aihui (along the Heilongjing River) also have believed in divination with great sincerity. The bead pendants on a shaman’s sacred headdress, objects such as the eagle mirror on a shaman’s shoulder and wooden spirit idols can all be taken down at any time, set in a certain direction, and smeared with blood for use in divination.

(Fu Xilu 1930a)

I have seen Oroqen divine with roe bones, roe veins, deer horns, boar tusks, and tiger teeth. In doing so, the shamans of northern peoples strictly obey their clan rules. When divining in their clan, they are allowed to pray only for their own clanspeople, but they can be invited by other clans to perform divination as well. Traditionally, those who possess extraordinary divining powers may travel hundreds of kilometres to divine for people of other clans, and they usually should not decline such an invitation. Divination results among the Daur and Oroqen can appear to be precise, and people believe this is because their divination tools are one-hundred-year-old sacred bones that have thus acquired divining power. A Daur shaman surnamed Wu living in Kunhe (坤河) Village to the north of Wujiazi (五家子), Jilin Province, reportedly worshipped a red ginseng root in the shape of a beauty with four limbs, and its unique appearance made him believe that it had efficacious mystical power to provide predictable results of weal and woe. So people of the Hurmojin area all went to worship it.

According to Records of Fuca Clan Rituals (Fucha hala lixu tiaoshen lu), sha-mans of that clan in Heilongjiang regularly use a hama (knife) for divination:

The hama is a shamanic divination tool which has been passed down for generations, but if people know nothing about its use, this means that their ancestors have not imparted its use to them. When divining, shamans have to hold the sacred hama in their hands transversely while chanting and shaking the knife loop as they pray and make predictions to the rhythm of the loop.

Years ago, I learned the divinatory use of the hama from the senior shaman of the Zhao (赵) family in Jilin Province. For generations, his family had kept the hama above the west kang (炕, heatable raised bed platform) and used it for divination in the night beideng ritual with all the lights out. When there is an ill omen, the knife loop would make sounds, and the whole clan was convinced without the slightest doubt of the divination results. From this, we see that the use of the hama as a divination tool was also a common practice in Jilin. Yang Shichang (杨世昌), the deceased Manchu master shaman of Jiutai in Jilin, would perform divinations with it on a peaceful night, and master shaman Guan Yunzhang (关云章) likewise used it for divination as he burnt incense, shook the knife loop, and chanted prayers.

According to Ritual Records of the Wu Clan (Wushi wosheku jipu),

Divination must be performed by the shaman of one’s own clan. On the occasions of key village events, such as holding rites to worship the gods, teaching new shamans, settling disputes within the clan, and selecting sites for tombs etc., people had to set before the shrine nine sacred mirrors, nine white conch shells, nine pig talus bones, and nine Mangni [Manni] spirit idols made of deer hide. They would then burn incense, worship and kowtow. Subsequently, the shaman and the master of the house performed divination, and when there were definite omens, they decided what corresponding measures to take.

Northern peoples have commonly used clams, tana (Manchu pearls), bronze mirrors, and bones for divination. The Manchu Shi clan of Jiutai have used mirrors and pearl grains; the Li clan of Ning’an (宁安) in Heilongjiang the shaking of brass bells; and the He clan of Hunchun, Jilin Province, the hama and wild boar tusks. Many clans have used boar tusks, ivory fossils of ancient mammoths, unearthed ancient remains, eave tiles, human skull bones, ancient arrows, copper coins, spirit idols, and the relics of deceased shamans as divination tools, believing that there are helpful spirits within these objects that can help predict and exorcise evil spirits.

Although some scholars believe that divination is neither prominent nor important in shamanism, the foregoing cases lead us to conclude that northern sha-manic activities in China have strong ties with divination. Predicting future events is indeed an important shamanic practice, and a perceived need for predicting things guides every divine activity in northern shamanism. Divination has its ideological foundation in the belief that everything has a soul, and this ideology can be found reflected in all facets of life. The deities worshipped are commonly determined by divination. For example, the Daur had not worshipped the god Dabarken before they moved to the Hailar area of Inner Mongolia from Butha. After they had moved there, someone went to the local Yimin River to bathe, only to find a birch container with various items inside. After divination, it was fished out of the water and worshipped, and it became an important deified object in some areas of the clan.

The authority of a shaman to perform rites of worship is also determined by divination. The most important external way to test whether someone is a qualified shaman is to see whether they have the ability to let their souls leave their bodies and roam about as floating souls and whether they have an ability to draw deities into their bodies and be possessed and directed by them to perform sacred activities. Whether they are truly possessed by deities or not is determined in part by their trance state. As Eliade wrote, “In primitive times as well as modern times, we can often see that some people publicly acknowledge that they can communicate with spirits, commanding them or commanded by them” (Eliade 1974). Before a shaman attempts any supernatural task, however, people have to ensure through divination whether a god or spirit is truly possessing the shaman. Sometimes when shamans speak and act as if commanded by the spirits, one cannot tell if a god or spirit has truly visited them. Some people assume that we can know this by observing the shaman’s eyes, whether they are shut or not, but this is a quite superficial observation. Possession needs to be confirmed through such divining methods as patterns of the tinkling sounds of the bird wings on the shaman’s ritual headdress and costume, the different sounds of their bronze mirrors and waist bells, or hints from the Big Dipper. All such signs can point to the identity of a visiting deity that is actually possessing the shaman, and the senior clan shaman has the responsibility to interpret such signs correctly. There are also highly respected zaili (shaman assistants) in every clan who are specialized in observing and interpreting the signs.

Divination is an indispensable step in appointing new shamans. Initiates not only must go through special ordeals but also must have the validity of their shamanic identity confirmed. Among the Oroqen, Ewenki, Manchu, Hezhe, and other northern peoples, anyone who suddenly goes berserk, running about or manifesting great fear of water or fire, can generally be considered as possessed by the spirit of a deceased shaman and acceptable for selection as a new shaman. They are believed to have clean blood, a good mind and heart, and pure white bones. If the person continues to make a disturbance for several days, clan shamans perform divination and require that they perform certain feats in a state of trance, such as padaoshan (爬刀山, climbing a knife ladder), paohuochi (跑火池, running barefoot over burning coals), qianbingku (潜冰窟, diving through holes in the ice of the river), panfeishushao (攀 飞树梢, climbing or flying to a treetop), yuejianqian (越 涧堑, skipping across a ditch), fighting with a dangerous animal (bear, tiger, or wild boar), swallowing fire or a knife, or performing some other paranormal feat. If the initiate possesses such supernatural abilities that common people do not have, they can be appointed as new clan shaman. Xibe shamans have to drink goat’s blood and climb a ladder of dozens of sharp scythe blades unharmed and barefoot. They are then revered as a shaman certified by the gods.

There are numerous methods of divination for different occasions. The results of divination have brewed in shamans an innate conviction of its validity, which has served as a vital source of mental strength over thousands of years that cannot be disregarded. Due to social changes and the succession of new shamans, however, the formalities in divination procedures have gradually become simplified or faded out of practice in some ethnic groups, and some matters for divination have gradually been discarded, so that what remains may sometimes be only symbolic gestures.

The history of divination can be traced back in ancient Chinese historical works, mainly from the Central Plains of China – the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which formed the cradle of Chinese civilization. According to the 9th-century BCE Book of Changes (Yi jing), the Book of Documents (Shu jing), Records of the Grand Historian (Shi jJi) from around 94 BCE, and other ancient documents, divination dates back to the times of the mythic ruler and cultural hero of the 2nd-millennium BCE Fuxi (伏羲), who is credited, along with his sister Nǚwa (女 娲), with the creation of the human race and the invention of hunting, fishing, and cooking. An inscription on the stone tablet of the tomb of Yu (禹) the Great, the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty (perhaps 2100– 1600 BCE) reads, “Fuxi accidentally discovered sacred yarrow plants and used yarrow stalks to divine his tactics.” The 3rd-century CE Critique of Records of the Grand Historian (Gushikao) says, “Fu Xi created divination practice with stalks and [the legendary shaman] Wu Xian (巫咸) excelled in divination practice in the Shang dynasty” (1600–1100 BCE). The 2nd-century BCE Rites of Zhou (Zhou li) describes divination in the Zhou dynasty (1100–476 BCE): “Divination operates like this: the sovereign observes the signs, senior officials read the colors, historiographers read the ink, divination officials observe the cracks.” These statements suggest that divination existed in the times of the mythical Fu Xi, when it was already fairly sophisticated. They suggest, too, that in early times, especially those of the Shang (Yin) and Zhou dynasties, divination relied mainly on oracles such as are recorded in the Book of Changes. In ancient divination, the wholeness of an object or lack of it indicated good or bad fortune; colours indicated virtuousness or villainy; shades of ink predicted size, large or small; and the patterns of cracks showed whether changes would be subtle or drastic.

On the basis of the numerous oracle bone inscriptions that have been unearthed, we can see that the oracles of those early dynasties were written on turtle shells. The 2nd-century CE Han dynasty Interpretation of Characters (Shuowen jiezi) records that “People singe a fragment of a turtle shell and observe and interpret the resulting cracks as omens.” Book of Rites (Li ji) says, “Turtle shells were used for divination and yarrow stalks were used for augury.” According to Book of Documents (Shujing), “When we divine for official affairs, we must determine what we hope for and then turn to the turtle for divination.” From accounts in Rites of Zhou and Records of the Grand Historian, we learn that divination oracles were sorted out and polished by scholars, diviners, and divination officials. More fully, the latter work says the following:

When soothsayers divined, they had to obey the laws of nature, track the changes of the four seasons, follow the rules of benevolence and righteousness, and interpret the yarrow stalks. Only in this way could they read the omens, divine and interpret natural phenomena and the outcome of events. When ancient monarchs established their states, they used turtle shells and yarrow stalks for divination. They then took upon themselves to govern the state as the agent of heaven and selected an auspicious day to inaugurate the capital. When commoners gave birth, they divined in advance and decided accordingly whether they should raise the baby or not. Fu Xi devised the eight trigrams;¹ and King Wen o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the English edition
• Introduction
• 1 Northern shamanic divination
• 2 The northern mythic heritage
• 3 The Manchu creation myth “War in Heaven”
• 4 Tribal myths and ancestor worship
• 5 Spirit idols
• 6 The northern shaman
• Bibliography
• Index