Wu (shaman)
Encyclopedia
Wu are spirit mediums who have practiced divination, prayer, sacrifice, rainmaking, and healing in Chinese traditions dating back over 3,000 years.
word wu 巫 "spirit medium; shaman; shamaness; sorcerer; doctor; proper names" 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 覡 "male shaman; sorcerer" (which first appears in the 4th century BCE Guoyu
). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch".
Wu is used in compounds like wugu
巫蠱 "sorcery; cast harmful spells", wushen 巫神 or shenwu 神巫 (with shen
"spirit; god") "wizard; sorcerer", and wuxian 巫仙 (with xian
"immortal; alchemist") "immortal shaman".
The word tongji 童乩 (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym of wu. Chinese uses phonetic transliteration
to distinguish native wu from "Siberian shaman": saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻. "Shaman" is occasionally written with Chinese Buddhist transcriptions of Shramana
"wandering monk; ascetic": shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.
Joseph Needham
(1954:134) suggests "shaman" was transliterated xianmen 羨門 in the name of Zou Yan
's disciple Xianmen Gao 羨門高 (or Zigao 子高). He quotes the Shiji that Emperor Qin Shi Huang
(r. 221-210 BCE), "wandered about on the shore of the eastern sea, and offered sacrifices to the famous mountains and the great rivers and the eight Spirits; and searched for [xian
"immortals"] and [xianmen] and the like." Needham (1954:134) compares two later Chinese terms for "shaman": shanman 珊蛮, which described the Jurchen leader Wanyan Xiyin
, and sizhu 司祝, which was used for imperial Manchu
shamans during the Qing Dynasty
.
(1955:9) defines wu as "spirit-intermediary" and says, "Indeed the functions of the Chinese wu were so like those of Siberian and Tunguz shamans that it is convenient (as has indeed been done by Far Eastern and European writers) to use shaman as a translation of wu. In contrast, Schiffeler (1976:20) describes the "untranslatableness" of wu, and prefers using the romanization "wu instead of its contemporary English counterparts, "witches," "warlocks," or "shamans"," which have misleading connotations. Taking wu to mean "female shaman", Edward H. Schafer
translates it as (1951:153) "shamaness" and (1980:11) "shamanka". The transliteration-translation "wu shaman" or "wu-shaman" (Unschuld 1985:344) implies "Chinese" specifically and "shamanism" generally. Wu, concludes Falkenhausen (1995:280), "may be rendered as "shaman" or, perhaps, less controversially as "spirit medium"." Paper (1995:85) criticizes "the majority of scholars" who use one word shaman to translate many Chinese terms (wu 巫, xi 覡, yi 毉, xian 仙, and zhu 祝), and writes, "The general tendency to refer to all ecstatic religious functionaries as shamans blurs functional differences."
descends from (ca. 6th century CE) Middle Chinese
and (ca. 6th century BCE) Old Chinese
. Compare these Middle and Old Chinese reconstructions of wu 巫: myu < *mywo (Bernhard Karlgren
), mjuo < *mjwaɣ (Zhou Fagao), *mjag (Li Fanggui
), mju < *ma (Axel Schuessler), and *myag (Victor H. Mair
) . Linguists disagree whether wu had an Old Chinese velar final -g or -ɣ. This 巫 is pronounced mouh in Cantonese
, mu in Korean
, and fu or miko
in Japanese
.
巫 for wu combines the graphic radicals
gong 工 "work" and ren 人 "person" doubled (cf. cong 从). This 巫 character developed from Seal script
characters that depicted dancing shamans, which descend from Bronzeware script
and Oracle bone script
characters that resembled a cross with potent
s.
The first Chinese dictionary
of characters, the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi
defines wu as zhu 祝 "sacrifice; prayer master; invoker; priest" (祝也 女能以舞降神者也 象从工 两人舞形, tr. Hopkins 1920:432) and analyzes the Seal graph, "An Invoker. A woman who can serve the Invisible, and by posturing bring down the spirits. Depicts a person with two sleeves posturing." This Seal graph for wu is interpreted as showing "the 工 work of two dancing figures set to each other – a shamanistic dance" (Karlgren 1923:363) or "two human figures facing some central object (possibly a pole, or in a tent-like enclosure?)" (Schafer 1951:153).
This dictionary also includes a variant Great Seal script (called a guwen
"ancient script") that elaborates wu 巫. Hopkins (1920:433) analyzes this guwen graph as gong 廾 "two hands held upward" at the bottom (like shi 筮's Seal graph) and two "mouths" with the "sleeves" on the sides; or (1920:424) "jade" because the Shuowen defines ling 靈 "spiritual; divine" as synonymous with wu and depicting (巫以玉事神, tr. Hopkins 1920:424), "an inspired shaman serving the Spirits with jade."
Schafer (1951:154) compares the Shang Dynasty oracle graphs for wu and nong 弄 "play with; cause" (written with 玉 "jade" over 廾 "two hands") that shows "hands (of a shaman?) elevating a piece of jade (the rain-compelling mineral) inside an enclosure, possibly a tent. The Seal and modern form 巫 may well derive from this original, the hands becoming two figures, a convergence towards the dancer-type graph."
Tu Baikui 塗白奎 (quoted by Boileau 2002:354) believes the wu oracle character "was composed of two pieces of jade and originally designated a tool of divination." Citing Li Xiaoding 李孝定 that gong 工 originally pictured a "carpenter's square", Allan (1991:77) argues that oracle inscriptions used wu 巫 interchangeably with fang 方 "square; side; place" for sacrifices to the sifang 四方 "four directions".
This 巫 component is semantically significant in several characters:
dictionary (1989 1:412) lists five meanings of wu 巫, translatable as:
The former two "shaman" and "doctor" wu meanings are discussed below in detail. The latter three "proper name
" meanings of apply to mountains, places, and people. Wushan 巫山 "Wu Mountain" is located near Chongqing
in Sichuan
Province. In Chinese, it is known through the four-character idiom Wushanyunyu 巫山雲雨 (with "clouds and rain") "lovers' rendezvous; coitus" (see Rain Clouds over Wushan
). In English, Wu Mountain is known as the archeological site where Wushan Man
"taxon of Homo erectus
" was discovered. Two nearby place names are Wushanxian 巫山县 Wushan County, Chongqing and Wuxia 巫峽 Wu Gorge
, which is in the Yangtze River
's Three Gorges region. The Chinese surname
Wu goes back to the Shang Dynasty (e.g., legendary Wu Xian
巫咸), but is comparatively uncommon today (e.g., Wu Qixian 巫啟賢 "Eric Moo
"). Wuma 巫馬 (lit. "shaman horse") is both a Chinese compound surname
(e.g., the Confucian disciple Wuma Shi/Qi 巫馬施/期) and a name for "horse shaman; equine veterinarian" (e.g., the Zhouli official).
hypothetically connect the etymology
of Chinese wu "spirit medium; shaman" not only with Sino-Tibetan languages, but also with Mongolic
, Austronesian
, Mon–Khmer, Turkic
, and Indo-Iranian
language groups.
Berthold Laufer
(1917:370) proposed a relation between Mongolian
bügä "shaman", Turkish
bögü "shaman", "Chinese bu, wu (shaman), buk, puk (to divine), and Tibetan
aba ".
Coblin (1986:107) puts forward a Sino-Tibetan root **mjaɣ "magician; sorcerer" for Chinese wu < mju < *mjag 巫 "magician; shaman" and Written Tibetan
'ba'-po "sorcerer" and 'ba'-mo "sorcereress" (of the Bön religion).
Schuessler (2007:516) notes Chinese xian < sjän < *sen 仙 "transcendent; immortal; alchemist" was probably borrowed as Written Tibetan gšen "shaman" and Thai
mɔɔ < Proto-Tai *hmɔ "doctor; sorcerer". In addition, the Mon–Khmer and Proto-Western-Austronesian *səmaŋ "shaman" may also be connected with wu. Schuessler lists four proposed etymologies.
First, wu could be the same word as wu 誣 "to deceive" (Karlgren 1923:363). Schuessler notes a Written Tibetan semantic parallel between "magical power" and "deceive": sprul-ba "to juggle, make phantoms; miraculous power" cognate with pʰrul "magical deception".
Second, wu could be cognate with wu 舞 "to dance". Based on analysis of ancient characters, Hopkins (1920, 1945) proposed that wu 巫 "shaman", wu 無 "not have; without", and wu 舞 "dance", "can all be traced back to one primitive figure of a man displaying by the gestures of his arms and legs the thaumaturgic powers of his inspired personality" (1945:5). Many Western Han Dynasty tombs contained jade plaques or pottery images showing "long-sleeved dancers" performing at funerals, who Erickson (1994:52-54) identifies as shamans, citing the Shuowen jiezi that early wu characters depicted a dancer's sleeves.
Third, wu could also be cognate with mu 母 "mother" since wu, as opposed to xi 覡, were typically female. Edward Schafer associates wu shamanism with fertility rituals.
Jensen (1995:421) cites the Japanese sinologist Shirakawa Shizuka 白川静's hypothesis that the mother of Confucius
was a wu.
Fourth, wu could be a loanword from Iranian
*maghu or *maguš "magi; magician", meaning an "able one; specialist in ritual". Mair (1990) provides archaeological and linguistic evidence that Chinese wu < *myag 巫 "shaman; witch, wizard; magician" was a loanword
from Old Persian *maguš "magician; magi
".
In 1980, archeologists working on a Zhou dynastic palace complex in Fufeng County
of Shaanxi
Province discovered two western-featured heads carved from mollusk shell (dated to early 8th century BCE, Mair 1990:29).
Mair connects the nearly identical Chinese Bronze script for wu 巫 (above) and Western heraldic cross potent
☩, an ancient symbol of a magi or magician, which etymologically descend from the same Indo-European root.
The inscriptions about this living wu, which is later identified as "shaman", reveal six characteristics:
Based on this ancient but limited Shang-era oracular record, it is unclear how or whether the Wu spirit, sacrifice, person, and place were related.
A single text can describe many roles for wu-shamans. For instance, the Guoyu idealizes their origins in a Golden Age
. It contains a story about King Chao of Chu
(r. 515-489 BCE) reading in the Shujing that the sage ruler Shun "commissioned Chong and Li to cut the communication between heaven and earth". He asks his minister to explain and is told.
caused disease and sickness is well documented in many cultures, including ancient China. The early practitioners of Chinese medicine
historically changed from wu 巫 "spirit-mediums; shamans" who used divination, exorcism, and prayer to yi 毉 or 醫 "doctors; physicians" who used herbal medicine, moxibustion
, and acupuncture
.
As mentioned above, wu 巫 "shaman" was depicted in the ancient 毉 variant character for yi 醫 "healer; doctor". This archaic yi 毉, writes Carr (1992:117), "ideographically depicted a shaman-doctor in the act of exorcistical healing with (矢 'arrows' in) a 医 'quiver', a 殳 'hand holding a lance', and a wu 巫 'shaman'." Unschuld believes this 毉 character depicts the type of wu practitioner described in the Liji.
Replacing the exorcistical 巫 "shaman" in 毉 with medicinal 酒 "wine" in yi 醫 "healer; doctor" signified, writes Schiffeler (1976:27), "the practice of medicine was not any longer confined to the incantations of the wu, but that it had been taken over (from an official standpoint) by the "priest-physicians," who administered elixirs or wines as treatments for their patients."
Wu and yi are compounded in the word wuyi 巫醫 "shaman-doctor; shamans and doctors", translated "exorcising physician" (De Groot 1910), "sorcerer-physician" (Schiffeler 1976), or "physician-shaman" (Mainfort 2004). Confucius quotes a "Southern Saying" that a good wuyi must have heng 恆 "constancy; ancient tradition; continuation; perseverance; regularity; proper name (e.g., Yijing Hexagram 32)". The (ca. 5th century BCE) Lunyu "Confucian Analects" and the (ca. 1st century BCE) Liji "Record of Rites" give different versions of the Southern Saying.
First, the Lunyu quotes Confucius to mention the saying and refer to the Heng Hexagram:
Confucius refers to a Yijing line interpretation of the Heng "Duration" Hexagram (tr. Wilhelm 1967:127-9): "Nine in the third place means: He who does not give duration to his character meets with disgrace." In Waley's earlier article about the Yijing, he translated "If you do not stabilize your "virtue," Disgrace will overtake you", and quoted the Lunyu.
Second, the Liji quotes Confucius to elaborate upon the Southern Saying.
This Liji version makes five changes from the Lunyu (Carr 1992:121-122). (1) It writes bushi 卜筮 "diviner" instead of wuyi 巫醫 "shaman-doctor", compounding bu "divine by bone or shell, scapulimancy
or plastromancy" and shi (also with "shaman") "divine by milfoil stalks, cleromancy
or sortilege". (2) Instead of quoting Confucius to remark "well said!"; he describes the southern proverb as "probably a saying handed down from antiquity" and rhetorically questions the efficacy of divination. (3) The Liji correctly quotes the Shijing (195, tr. Karlgren 1950:142) criticizing royal diviners: "Our tortoises are (satiated =) weary, they do not tell us the (proper) plans." (4) It quotes the "Charge to Yue" 說命 (traditionally attributed to Shang king Wu Ding
) differently from the fabricated Guwen "Old Texts
" Shujing "Classic of History" chapter with this name.
(5) It cites an additional Yijing Hexagram 32 line (tr. Wilhelm 1967:129) that gender determines the auspiciousness of heng. "Six in the fifth place means: Giving duration to one's character through perseverance. This is good fortune for a woman, misfortune for a man."
The mytho-geography Shanhaijing "Classic of Mountains and Seas" associates wu-shamans with medicinal herbs.
"Shaman Whole" translates Wu Xian
巫咸 below.
Boileau contrasts Siberian and Chinese shamanic medicines.
, wu-shamans would perform the yu 雩 "sacrificial rain dance ceremony". If that failed, both wu and wang 尪 "cripple; lame person; emaciated person" engaged in "ritual exposure" (Schafer 1951) rainmaking
techniques based upon homeopathic or sympathetic magic
. As Unschuld (1985:33-34) explains, "Shamans had to carry out an exhausting dance within a ring of fire until, sweating profusely, the falling drops of perspirations produced the desired rain." These wu and wang procedures were called pu 曝/暴 "expose to open air/sun", fen 焚 "burn; set on fire", and pulu 暴露 "reveal; lay bare; expose to open air/sun".
For the year 639 BCE, the Chunqiu records, "In summer, there was a great drought" in Lu, and the Zuozhuan notes a discussion about fen wu wang 焚巫尪:
The duke followed this advice, and subsequently "scarcity was not very great".
The Liji uses the words puwang 暴尪 and puwu 暴巫 to describe a similar rainmaking ritual during the reign (407-375 BCE) of Duke Mu 穆公 of Lu.
Commentators interpret the wu as a female shaman and the wang as a male cripple.
De Groot connects the Zuozhuan and Liji stories about ritually burning wu.
or dream interpretation
was one type of divination performed by wu 巫. The Zuozhuan records two stories about wu interpreting the guilty dreams of murderers.
First, in 581 BCE the lord of Jin, who had slain two officers from the Zhao 趙 family, had a nightmare about their ancestral spirit, and called upon an unnamed wu "shaman" from Sangtian 桑田 and a yi "doctor" named Huan 緩 from Qin
.
Commentators have attempted to explain why the wu merely interpreted the duke's dream but did not perform a healing ritual or exorcism, and why the duke waited until the prediction had failed before ordering the execution. Boileau (2002:368) suggests the wu was executed in presumed responsibility for the Zhao ancestral spirit's attack.
Second, in 552 BCE a wu named Gao 皋 both appears in and divines about a dream of Zhongxing Xianzi. After conspiring in the murder of Duke Li of Jin, Zhongxing dreams that the duke's spirit gets revenge.
Boileau questions:
According to these two stories, wu were feared and considered dangerous. This attitude is also evident in a Zhuangzi story about the shenwu 神巫 "spirit/god
shaman" Jixian 季咸 from Zheng
.
"As soothsayers." writes de Groot (1910 6:1195), "the wu in ancient China no doubt held a place of great importance."
Chen Mengjia
wrote a seminal article (1936) that proposed Shang kings were wu-shamans.
Chen's shaman-king hypothesis was supported by Kwang-chih Chang
who cited the Guoyu story about Shao Hao severing heaven-earth communication (above).
Some modern scholars disagree. For instance, Boileau (2002:350) calls Chen's hypothesis "somewhat antiquated being based more on an a priori approach than on history" and says,
The Shujing "Classic of History" lists Wu Xian
巫咸 and Wu Xian 巫賢 as capable administrators of the Shang royal household. The Duke of Zhou
tells Prince Shao
召 that:
According to Boileau,
Wu-shamans participated in court scandals and dynastic rivalries under Emperor Wu of Han
(r. 141-87 BCE), particularly regarding the crime of wugu 巫蠱 (with gu
"venom-based poison") "sorcery; casting harmful spells". In 130 BCE, Empress Chen Jiao
was convicted of using shamans from Yue to conduct wugu magic. She "was dismissed from her position and a total of 300 persons who were involved in the case were executed" (tr. Loewe 1970:169), their heads were cut off and exposed on stakes. In 91 BCE, an attempted coup against crown prince Liu Ju
involved accusations of practicing wugu, and subsequently "no less than nine long months of bloody terrorism, ending in a tremendous slaughter, cost some tens of thousands their lives!" (tr. Groot 1910 5:836).
Ever since Emperor Wu of Han established Confucianism as the state religion, the ruling classes have shown increasing prejudice against shamanism (de Groot 1910:1233-42, Waley 1955:11-12). Some modern writers view the traditional Confucianist disdain for female shamans as sexism
. Schafer wrote:
Accepting the tradition that Chinese shamans were women (i.e., wu 巫 "shamaness" as opposed to xi 覡 "shaman"), Kagan believes:
In addition, Unschuld (1980:125-128) refers to a "Confucian medicine" based upon systematic correspondences and the idea that illnesses are caused by excesses (rather than demons).
The Zhouli provides detailed information about the roles of wu-shamans. It lists (Falkenhausen 1995:282), "Spirit Mediums as officials on the payroll of the Zhou Ministry of Rites (Liguan 禮官, or Ministry of Spring, Chun guan 春官)." This text differentiates three offices: the Siwu 司巫 "Manager/Director of Shamans", Nanwu 男巫 "Male Shamans", and Nüwu 女巫 "Female Shamans".
The managerial Siwu, who was of Shi 士 "Gentleman; Yoeman" feudal rank, yet was not a wu, supervised "the many wu".
The Nanwu and Nüwu have different shamanic specializations, especially regarding inauspicious events like sickness, death, and natural disaster.
Von Falkenhausen concludes:
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The ancient Chinese traditions of wu-shamans continue in the contemporary cultures of China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Popular practices include clairvoyance, fortune telling, exorcism, invocation, and prayer.
Scholars have studied many aspects of modern wu. De Groot (1910 6:1243-1268) provided descriptions and pictures of hereditary shamans in Fujian
, called saigong (pinyin shigong) 師公. Paper (1999) analyzed tongji mediumistic activities in the Taiwanese village of Bao'an 保安. Noll (2004) documented Chuonnasuan (1927–2000), the last shaman of the Oroqen
in northeast China.
Paper summarizes the present-day shaman's religious significance.
The word wu
The ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
word wu 巫 "spirit medium; shaman; shamaness; sorcerer; doctor; proper names" was first recorded during the Shang Dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
(ca. 1600-1046 BCE), when a wu could be either sex. During the late Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...
(1045-256 BCE) wu was used to specify "female shaman; sorceress" as opposed to xi 覡 "male shaman; sorcerer" (which first appears in the 4th century BCE Guoyu
Guoyu (book)
The Discourses of the States or Guoyu is a classical Chinese history book that collected the historical records of numerous states from Western Zhou to 453 BC. Its author is unknown, but it is sometimes attributed to Zuo Qiuming, a contemporary of Confucius...
). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch".
Wu is used in compounds like wugu
Gu (poison)
Gu or jincan was a venom-based poison associated with cultures of south China, particularly Nanyue. The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures into a closed utensil, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single...
巫蠱 "sorcery; cast harmful spells", wushen 巫神 or shenwu 神巫 (with shen
Shen (Chinese religion)
Shen is a keyword in Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, and Traditional Chinese Medicine.-Pronunciation:Shén is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". Reconstructions of shén in Middle Chinese Shen is a...
"spirit; god") "wizard; sorcerer", and wuxian 巫仙 (with xian
Xian (Taoism)
Xian is a Chinese word for an enlightened person, translatable in English as:*"spiritually immortal; transcendent; super-human; celestial being"...
"immortal; alchemist") "immortal shaman".
The word tongji 童乩 (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym of wu. Chinese uses phonetic transliteration
Transliteration into Chinese characters
In Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì or yìmíng . While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters....
to distinguish native wu from "Siberian shaman": saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻. "Shaman" is occasionally written with Chinese Buddhist transcriptions of Shramana
Shramana
A shramana is a wandering monk in certain ascetic traditions of ancient India including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvikism. Famous śramaṇas include Mahavira and Gautama Buddha....
"wandering monk; ascetic": shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.
Joseph Needham
Joseph Needham
Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, CH, FRS, FBA , also known as Li Yuese , was a British scientist, historian and sinologist known for his scientific research and writing on the history of Chinese science. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1941, and as a fellow of the British...
(1954:134) suggests "shaman" was transliterated xianmen 羨門 in the name of Zou Yan
Zou Yan
Zou Yan was the representative thinker of the Yin and Yang during the Hundred Schools of Thought era in Chinese philosophy. Zou Yan was a noted scholar of the Jixia Academy in the state of Qi...
's disciple Xianmen Gao 羨門高 (or Zigao 子高). He quotes the Shiji that Emperor Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang , personal name Ying Zheng , was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC...
(r. 221-210 BCE), "wandered about on the shore of the eastern sea, and offered sacrifices to the famous mountains and the great rivers and the eight Spirits; and searched for [xian
Xian (Taoism)
Xian is a Chinese word for an enlightened person, translatable in English as:*"spiritually immortal; transcendent; super-human; celestial being"...
"immortals"] and [xianmen] and the like." Needham (1954:134) compares two later Chinese terms for "shaman": shanman 珊蛮, which described the Jurchen leader Wanyan Xiyin
Wanyan Xiyin
Wanyan Xiyin was a trusted advisor of the Jurchen chieftain, Wanyan Aguda . Described by modern writers as the "Chief Shaman" of the pre-Jin Jurchen state, he became deeply interested in Chinese culture, and isparticularly known as the creator of the first writing system for the Jurchen...
, and sizhu 司祝, which was used for imperial Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
shamans during the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
.
Translations
Shaman is the common English translation of Chinese wu, but some scholars (de Groot 1910, Mair 1990:35) maintain that the Siberian shaman and Chinese wu were historically and culturally different shamanic traditions. Arthur WaleyArthur Waley
Arthur David Waley CH, CBE was an English orientalist and sinologist.-Life:Waley was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, as Arthur David Schloss, son of the economist David Frederick Schloss...
(1955:9) defines wu as "spirit-intermediary" and says, "Indeed the functions of the Chinese wu were so like those of Siberian and Tunguz shamans that it is convenient (as has indeed been done by Far Eastern and European writers) to use shaman as a translation of wu. In contrast, Schiffeler (1976:20) describes the "untranslatableness" of wu, and prefers using the romanization "wu instead of its contemporary English counterparts, "witches," "warlocks," or "shamans"," which have misleading connotations. Taking wu to mean "female shaman", Edward H. Schafer
Edward H. Schafer
Edward Hetzel Schafer, was a leading historian of Tang Dynasty China. He wrote ground-breaking works such as The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics and The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South. Schafer wrote his Ph.D...
translates it as (1951:153) "shamaness" and (1980:11) "shamanka". The transliteration-translation "wu shaman" or "wu-shaman" (Unschuld 1985:344) implies "Chinese" specifically and "shamanism" generally. Wu, concludes Falkenhausen (1995:280), "may be rendered as "shaman" or, perhaps, less controversially as "spirit medium"." Paper (1995:85) criticizes "the majority of scholars" who use one word shaman to translate many Chinese terms (wu 巫, xi 覡, yi 毉, xian 仙, and zhu 祝), and writes, "The general tendency to refer to all ecstatic religious functionaries as shamans blurs functional differences."
Pronunciations
The Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 巫 is wu, which phonologicallyHistorical Chinese phonology
Historical Chinese phonology deals with reconstructing the sounds of Chinese from the past. As Chinese is written with logographic characters, not alphabetic or syllabary, the methods employed in Historical Chinese phonology differ considerably from those employed in, for example, Indo-European...
descends from (ca. 6th century CE) Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
and (ca. 6th century BCE) Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
. Compare these Middle and Old Chinese reconstructions of wu 巫: myu < *mywo (Bernhard Karlgren
Bernhard Karlgren
Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods...
), mjuo < *mjwaɣ (Zhou Fagao), *mjag (Li Fanggui
Li Fanggui
Li Fang-Kuei was a Chinese linguist. He resided in the United States after 1938.-Biography:Li was one of the first Chinese to study linguistics outside China. Originally a student of medicine, he switched to linguistics when he went to the United States in 1924. He gained a BA in linguistics at...
), mju < *ma (Axel Schuessler), and *myag (Victor H. Mair
Victor H. Mair
Victor Henry Mair is a Philologist specializing in Sinitic and Indo-European languages, and holds the position of Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States...
) . Linguists disagree whether wu had an Old Chinese velar final -g or -ɣ. This 巫 is pronounced mouh in Cantonese
Standard Cantonese
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese....
, mu in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, and fu or miko
Miko
is a Japanese term that anciently meant a "female shaman, spirit medium" who conveyed oracles from kami , and currently means a "shrine maiden; virgin consecrated to a deity" who serves at Shinto shrines.-Word:...
in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
.
Characters
The contemporary Chinese characterChinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
巫 for wu combines the graphic radicals
Radical (Chinese character)
A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
gong 工 "work" and ren 人 "person" doubled (cf. cong 从). This 巫 character developed from Seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
characters that depicted dancing shamans, which descend from Bronzeware script
Bronzeware script
Chinese Bronze inscriptions are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese bronze artifacts such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shāng dynasty to the Zhōu dynasty and even later...
and Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...
characters that resembled a cross with potent
Potent
Potent may refer to:*Vair#Potent for the heraldic fur*Warren Potent for the Australian Olympic medalist in shootingSee also:*Potency...
s.
The first Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...
of characters, the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...
defines wu as zhu 祝 "sacrifice; prayer master; invoker; priest" (祝也 女能以舞降神者也 象从工 两人舞形, tr. Hopkins 1920:432) and analyzes the Seal graph, "An Invoker. A woman who can serve the Invisible, and by posturing bring down the spirits. Depicts a person with two sleeves posturing." This Seal graph for wu is interpreted as showing "the 工 work of two dancing figures set to each other – a shamanistic dance" (Karlgren 1923:363) or "two human figures facing some central object (possibly a pole, or in a tent-like enclosure?)" (Schafer 1951:153).
This dictionary also includes a variant Great Seal script (called a guwen
Guwen
Gǔwén literally means ancient Chinese script. Historically the term has been used in several different ways.The first usage, which is common, is as a reference to the most ancient forms of Chinese writing, namely the writing of the Shāng and early Zhōu dynasties, such as found on oracle bones,...
"ancient script") that elaborates wu 巫. Hopkins (1920:433) analyzes this guwen graph as gong 廾 "two hands held upward" at the bottom (like shi 筮's Seal graph) and two "mouths" with the "sleeves" on the sides; or (1920:424) "jade" because the Shuowen defines ling 靈 "spiritual; divine" as synonymous with wu and depicting (巫以玉事神, tr. Hopkins 1920:424), "an inspired shaman serving the Spirits with jade."
Schafer (1951:154) compares the Shang Dynasty oracle graphs for wu and nong 弄 "play with; cause" (written with 玉 "jade" over 廾 "two hands") that shows "hands (of a shaman?) elevating a piece of jade (the rain-compelling mineral) inside an enclosure, possibly a tent. The Seal and modern form 巫 may well derive from this original, the hands becoming two figures, a convergence towards the dancer-type graph."
Tu Baikui 塗白奎 (quoted by Boileau 2002:354) believes the wu oracle character "was composed of two pieces of jade and originally designated a tool of divination." Citing Li Xiaoding 李孝定 that gong 工 originally pictured a "carpenter's square", Allan (1991:77) argues that oracle inscriptions used wu 巫 interchangeably with fang 方 "square; side; place" for sacrifices to the sifang 四方 "four directions".
This 巫 component is semantically significant in several characters:
- wu 誣 (with the "speech radical" 言) "deceive; slander; falsely accuse"
- shi 筮 (with the "bamboo radical" 竹) "Achillea millefolium (used for divination)"
- xi 覡 (with the "vision radical" 見) "male shaman; male sorcerer"
- ling 靈 (with the "cloud radical" 雨 and three 口 "mouths" or "raindrops") "spirit; divine; clever"
- yi 毉 "doctor", which is an old "shaman" variant characterVariant Chinese characterVariant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting...
for yi 醫 (with the "wine radical" 酉)
Meanings
The comprehensive Hanyu Da ZidianHanyu Da Zidian
The Hanyu Da Zidian is one of the best available reference works on Chinese characters. A group of more than 400 editors and lexicographers began compilation in 1979, and it was published in eight volumes from 1986 to 1989. A separate volume of essays documents the lexicographical complexities...
dictionary (1989 1:412) lists five meanings of wu 巫, translatable as:
- "sprit mediumMediumshipMediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
; shaman; witchWitchcraftWitchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
; wizard" - "witch doctorWitch doctorA witch doctor originally referred to a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. It is currently used to refer to healers in some third world regions, who use traditional healing rather than contemporary medicine...
; medicine manMedicine man"Medicine man" or "Medicine woman" are English terms used to describe traditional healers and spiritual leaders among Native American and other indigenous or aboriginal peoples...
" - "mountain name"
- "place name"
- "surnameWu (surname)Wu is the Pinyin transliteration of the Chinese surname 吳 , 吴 , which is the tenth most common surname in Mainland China. Several other, less common Chinese surnames with different pronunciations are also transliterated into English as "Wu": 武, 伍, 仵, 烏, 鄔 and 巫...
"
The former two "shaman" and "doctor" wu meanings are discussed below in detail. The latter three "proper name
Proper name
"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"...
" meanings of apply to mountains, places, and people. Wushan 巫山 "Wu Mountain" is located near Chongqing
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...
in Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
Province. In Chinese, it is known through the four-character idiom Wushanyunyu 巫山雲雨 (with "clouds and rain") "lovers' rendezvous; coitus" (see Rain Clouds over Wushan
Rain Clouds over Wushan
Rain Clouds over Wushan is a 1995 Chinese film directed by Zhang Ming and written by Zhu Wen. The film follows the lives of two lonely people living in Wushan on the banks of the Yangtze River during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.The satirical portrayal of rural life is considered part...
). In English, Wu Mountain is known as the archeological site where Wushan Man
Wushan Man
Wushan Man is a controversial taxon. Originally considered a subspecies of Homo erectus, it is now thought by one of the scientists, Russell Ciochon, that first described it to be based upon fossilized fragments of an extinct non-hominin ape...
"taxon of Homo erectus
Homo erectus
Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
" was discovered. Two nearby place names are Wushanxian 巫山县 Wushan County, Chongqing and Wuxia 巫峽 Wu Gorge
Wu Gorge
Wu Gorge , sometimes called Great Gorge , is the second gorge of the Three Gorges system on the Yangtze River, People's Republic of China. Formed by the Wu River, it stretches from Wushan to Guandukou, and is located downstream of Qutang Gorge and upstream of Xiling Gorge...
, which is in the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...
's Three Gorges region. The Chinese surname
Chinese surname
Chinese family names have been historically used by Han Chinese and Sinicized Chinese ethnic groups in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and among overseas Chinese communities. In ancient times two types of surnames, family names and clan names , existed.The colloquial expressions laobaixing...
Wu goes back to the Shang Dynasty (e.g., legendary Wu Xian
Wu Xian (astronomer)
Wu Xian was a Chinese astronomer who supposedly lived in the Shang Dynasty of China. He is considered as one of the main ancient Chinese astronomers alongside more historical figures such as Gan De and Shi Shen, the latter two of whom lived during the Warring States...
巫咸), but is comparatively uncommon today (e.g., Wu Qixian 巫啟賢 "Eric Moo
Eric Moo
Eric Moo Kai-yin is a Malaysian Chinese award-winning singer-songwriter and record producer.-Biography:Moo's mother died when he was 8 and he was raised by his older sister. He was educated at Seh Chuan High School and The Chinese High School in Singapore. He became a permanent resident of...
"). Wuma 巫馬 (lit. "shaman horse") is both a Chinese compound surname
Chinese compound surname
A Chinese compound surname is a Chinese surname using more than one character. Many of these surnames derive from noble and official titles, professions, place names and other areas, to serve for a purpose. Some are originally non-Han, while others were created by joining two one-character family...
(e.g., the Confucian disciple Wuma Shi/Qi 巫馬施/期) and a name for "horse shaman; equine veterinarian" (e.g., the Zhouli official).
Etymologies
Historical linguistsHistorical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...
hypothetically connect the etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
of Chinese wu "spirit medium; shaman" not only with Sino-Tibetan languages, but also with Mongolic
Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongolian residents of Inner...
, Austronesian
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
, Mon–Khmer, Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, and Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
language groups.
Berthold Laufer
Berthold Laufer
Berthold Laufer was a German-American anthropologist and orientalist.Laufer was born in Cologne to a Jewish family. He attended the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium from 1884-1893. He continued his studies in Berlin and completed his doctorate degree at the University of Leipzig in 1897...
(1917:370) proposed a relation between Mongolian
Mongolian language
The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...
bügä "shaman", Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
bögü "shaman", "Chinese bu, wu (shaman), buk, puk (to divine), and Tibetan
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
aba ".
Coblin (1986:107) puts forward a Sino-Tibetan root **mjaɣ "magician; sorcerer" for Chinese wu < mju < *mjag 巫 "magician; shaman" and Written Tibetan
Tibetan script
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
'ba'-po "sorcerer" and 'ba'-mo "sorcereress" (of the Bön religion).
Schuessler (2007:516) notes Chinese xian < sjän < *sen 仙 "transcendent; immortal; alchemist" was probably borrowed as Written Tibetan gšen "shaman" and Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
mɔɔ < Proto-Tai *hmɔ "doctor; sorcerer". In addition, the Mon–Khmer and Proto-Western-Austronesian *səmaŋ "shaman" may also be connected with wu. Schuessler lists four proposed etymologies.
First, wu could be the same word as wu 誣 "to deceive" (Karlgren 1923:363). Schuessler notes a Written Tibetan semantic parallel between "magical power" and "deceive": sprul-ba "to juggle, make phantoms; miraculous power" cognate with pʰrul "magical deception".
Second, wu could be cognate with wu 舞 "to dance". Based on analysis of ancient characters, Hopkins (1920, 1945) proposed that wu 巫 "shaman", wu 無 "not have; without", and wu 舞 "dance", "can all be traced back to one primitive figure of a man displaying by the gestures of his arms and legs the thaumaturgic powers of his inspired personality" (1945:5). Many Western Han Dynasty tombs contained jade plaques or pottery images showing "long-sleeved dancers" performing at funerals, who Erickson (1994:52-54) identifies as shamans, citing the Shuowen jiezi that early wu characters depicted a dancer's sleeves.
Third, wu could also be cognate with mu 母 "mother" since wu, as opposed to xi 覡, were typically female. Edward Schafer associates wu shamanism with fertility rituals.
Linguistic facts reveal the intimate relationships between the word wu (*myu) "shamanka" and such words as "mother", "dance", "fertility", "egg", and "receptacle". The ancient shamanka, then, was closely related to the fecund mother, to the fertile soil, to the receptive earth. The textual evidence supports these philological associations. In Shang and Chou times, shamankas were regularly employed in the interests of human and natural fertility, above all in bringing rain to parched farmlands – a responsibility they shared with ancient kings. They were musicians and dancers and oracles. (1973:10)
Jensen (1995:421) cites the Japanese sinologist Shirakawa Shizuka 白川静's hypothesis that the mother of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
was a wu.
Fourth, wu could be a loanword from Iranian
Iranian languages
The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....
*maghu or *maguš "magi; magician", meaning an "able one; specialist in ritual". Mair (1990) provides archaeological and linguistic evidence that Chinese wu < *myag 巫 "shaman; witch, wizard; magician" was a loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
from Old Persian *maguš "magician; magi
Magi
Magi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...
".
In 1980, archeologists working on a Zhou dynastic palace complex in Fufeng County
Fufeng County
Fufeng County is a county in Baoji, Shaanxi Province of China. It is 110 kilometers away from Xi'an, and 95 kilometers away from Baoji.It has a land area of 751 square kilometers, and a population of 460,000.Famen Temple is located in the county....
of Shaanxi
Shaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...
Province discovered two western-featured heads carved from mollusk shell (dated to early 8th century BCE, Mair 1990:29).
The recent discovery at an early Chou site of two figurines with unmistakably Caucasoid or Europoid feature is startling prima facie evidence of East-West interaction during the first half of the first millennium Before the Current Era. It is especially interesting that one of the figurines bears on the top of his head the clearly incised graph ☩ which identifies him as a wu (< *myag) (1990:27).
Mair connects the nearly identical Chinese Bronze script for wu 巫 (above) and Western heraldic cross potent
Cross potent
A cross potent, also known as a crutch cross, is a form of heraldic cross with crossbars or "crutches" at the four ends. In German, it is known as a Krückenkreuz or a Kruckenkreuz...
☩, an ancient symbol of a magi or magician, which etymologically descend from the same Indo-European root.
Early records of wu
The oldest written records of wu are Shang Dynasty oracle inscriptions and Zhou Dynasty classical texts. Boileau notes the disparity of these sources.Concerning the historical origin of the wu, we may ask: were they a remnant of an earlier stage of the development of archaic Chinese civilization? The present state of the documentation does not allow such a conclusion for two reasons: first, the most abundant data about the wu are to be found in Eastern Zhou texts; and, second, these texts have little in common with the data originating directly from the Shang civilization; possible ancestors of the Eastern Zhou wu are the cripples and the females burned in sacrifice to bring about rain. They are mentioned in the oracular inscriptions but there is no mention of the Shang character wu. Moreover, because of the scarcity of information, many of the activities of the Zhou wu cannot be traced back to the Shang period. Consequently, trying to correlate Zhou data with Neolithic cultures appears very difficult. (2002:376)
Wu in Shang oracular inscriptions
Shima's (1971:418) concordance of oracle inscriptions lists 58 occurrences of the character wu: 32 in repeated compounds (most commonly 巫帝 "wu spirit/sacrifice" and 氐巫 "bring the wu) and 26 in miscellaneous contexts. Boileau (2002:354-5) differentiates four meanings of these oracular wu:- "a spirit, wu of the north or east, to which sacrifices are offered"
- "a sacrifice, possibly linked to controlling the wind or meteorology"
- "an equivalent for shi 筮, a form of divination using achilea"
- "a living human being, possibly the name of a person, tribe, place, or territory"
The inscriptions about this living wu, which is later identified as "shaman", reveal six characteristics:
- whether the wu is a man or a woman is not known;
- it could be either the name for a function or the name of a people (or an individual) coming from a definite territory or nation;
- the wu seems to have been in charge of some divinations, (in one instance, divination is linked to a sacrifice of appeasement);
- the wu is seen as offering a sacrifice of appeasement but the inscription and the fact that this kind of sacrifice was offered by other persons (the king included) suggests that the wu was not the person of choice to conduct all the sacrifices of appeasement;
- there is only one inscription where a direct link between the king and the wu appears. Nevertheless, the nature of the link is not known, because the status of the wu does not appear clearly;
- he follows (being brought, presumably, to Shang territory or court) the orders of other people; he is perhaps offered to the Shang as a tribute. (Boileau 2002:355)
Based on this ancient but limited Shang-era oracular record, it is unclear how or whether the Wu spirit, sacrifice, person, and place were related.
Wu in Zhou received texts
Chinese wu 巫 "shaman" occurs over 300 times in the Chinese classics, which generally date from the late Zhou and early Han periods (6th-1st centuries BCE). The following examples are categorized by the common specializations of wu-shamans:men and women possessed by spirits or gods, and consequently acting as seers and soothsayers, exorcists and physicians; invokers or conjurers bringing down gods at sacrifices, and performing other sacerdotal functions, occasionally indulging also in imprecation, and in sorcery with the help of spirits. (De Groot 1910 6:1212)
A single text can describe many roles for wu-shamans. For instance, the Guoyu idealizes their origins in a Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
. It contains a story about King Chao of Chu
Chu (state)
The State of Chu was a Zhou Dynasty vassal state in present-day central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States Period . Its ruling house had the surname Nai , and clan name Yan , later evolved to surname Mi , and clan name Xiong...
(r. 515-489 BCE) reading in the Shujing that the sage ruler Shun "commissioned Chong and Li to cut the communication between heaven and earth". He asks his minister to explain and is told.
Anciently, men and spirits did not intermingle. At that time there were certain persons who were so perspicacious, single-minded, and reverential that their understanding enabled them to make meaningful collation of what lies above and below, and their insight to illumine what is distant and profound. Therefore the spirits would descend upon them. The possessors of such powers were, if men, called [xi] (shamans), and, if women, wu (shamanesses). It is they who supervised the positions of the spirits at the ceremonies, sacrificed to them, and otherwise handled religious matters. As a consequence, the spheres of the divine and the profane were kept distinct. The spirits sent down blessings on the people, and accepted from them their offerings. There were no natural calamities.
In the degenerate time of[ ShaohaoShaohaoShaohao , also known as Shao Hao, Jin Tian or Xuanxiao, was a Chinese emperor in 2600 BC. According to some traditions , he was, in some versions, one of the Five Emperors....
(traditionally put at the twenty-sixth century BC.), men and spirits became intermingled, with each household indiscriminately performing for itself the religious observances which had hitherto been conducted by the shamans. As a consequence, men lost their reverence for the spirits, the spirits violated the rules of men, and natural calamities arose. Hence the successor of [Shaohao],[ ZhuanxuZhuanxuZhuanxu , also known as Gaoyang is a mythological monarch of ancient China.A grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu led the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Shandong, where intermarriages with the Dongyi clan enlarged and augmented their tribal influences...
, charged [Chong], Governor of the South, to handle the affairs of heaven in order to determine the proper place of the spirits, and Li, Governor of Fire, to handle the affairs of Earth, in order to determine the proper place of men. And such is what is meant by cutting the communication between Heaven and Earth. (tr. Bodde 1961:390-391)
Wu-shamans as healers
The belief that demonic possessionDemonic possession
Demonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
caused disease and sickness is well documented in many cultures, including ancient China. The early practitioners of Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...
historically changed from wu 巫 "spirit-mediums; shamans" who used divination, exorcism, and prayer to yi 毉 or 醫 "doctors; physicians" who used herbal medicine, moxibustion
Moxibustion
Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy using moxa, or mugwort herb. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia. Suppliers usually age the mugwort and grind it up to a fluff; practitioners burn the fluff or...
, and acupuncture
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....
.
As mentioned above, wu 巫 "shaman" was depicted in the ancient 毉 variant character for yi 醫 "healer; doctor". This archaic yi 毉, writes Carr (1992:117), "ideographically depicted a shaman-doctor in the act of exorcistical healing with (矢 'arrows' in) a 医 'quiver', a 殳 'hand holding a lance', and a wu 巫 'shaman'." Unschuld believes this 毉 character depicts the type of wu practitioner described in the Liji.
Several times a year, and also during certain special occasions, such as the funeral of a prince, hordes of exorcists would race shrieking through the city streets, enter the courtyards and homes, thrusting their spears into the air, in an attempt to expel the evil creatures. Prisoners were dismembered outside all gates to the city, to serve both as a deterrent to the demons and as an indication of their fate should they be captured. (1985:37)
Replacing the exorcistical 巫 "shaman" in 毉 with medicinal 酒 "wine" in yi 醫 "healer; doctor" signified, writes Schiffeler (1976:27), "the practice of medicine was not any longer confined to the incantations of the wu, but that it had been taken over (from an official standpoint) by the "priest-physicians," who administered elixirs or wines as treatments for their patients."
First, the Lunyu quotes Confucius to mention the saying and refer to the Heng Hexagram:
The Master said, The men of the south have a saying, Without stability a man will not even make a good shaman or witch-doctor. Well said! Of the maxim; if you do not stabilize an act of te 德, you will get evil by it (instead of good), the Master said, They (i.e. soothsayers) do not simply read the omens. (13/22, tr. Waley 1938:77)
Confucius refers to a Yijing line interpretation of the Heng "Duration" Hexagram (tr. Wilhelm 1967:127-9): "Nine in the third place means: He who does not give duration to his character meets with disgrace." In Waley's earlier article about the Yijing, he translated "If you do not stabilize your "virtue," Disgrace will overtake you", and quoted the Lunyu.
"The people of the south have a saying, 'It takes heng to make even a soothsayer or medicine-man.' It's quite true. 'If you do not stabilize your virtue, disgrace will overtake you'." Confucius adds 不占而已矣, which has completely baffled his interpreters. Surely the meaning is 'It is not enough merely to get an omen,' one must also heng 'stabilize it'. And if such a rule applies even to inferior arts like those of the diviner and medicine-man, Confucius asks, how much the more does it apply to the seeker after [de] in the moral sense? Surely he too must 'make constant' his initial striving! (1933:136-137)
Second, the Liji quotes Confucius to elaborate upon the Southern Saying.
The Master said, 'The people of the south have a saying that "A man without constancy cannot be a diviner either with the tortoise-shell or the stalks." This was probably a saying handed down from antiquity. If such a man cannot know the tortoise-shell and stalks, how much less can he know other men? It is said in the Book of Poetry (II, v, ode 1, 3) "Our tortoise-shells are wearied out, And will not tell us anything about the plans." The Charge to [Yue] says ([Shujing], IV, VIII, sect. 2, 5, 11), "Dignities should not be conferred on men of evil practices. (If they be), how can the people set themselves to correct their ways? If this be sought merely by sacrifices, it will be disrespectful (to the spirits). When affairs come to be troublesome, there ensues disorder; when the spirits are served so, difficulties ensue." 'It is said in the [Yijing], "When one does not continuously maintain his virtue, some will impute it to him as a disgrace; (in the position indicated in the Hexagram.) 'When one does maintain his virtue continuously (in the other position indicated), this will be fortunate in a wife, but in a husband evil'." (55, tr. Legge 1885 2:363-364)
This Liji version makes five changes from the Lunyu (Carr 1992:121-122). (1) It writes bushi 卜筮 "diviner" instead of wuyi 巫醫 "shaman-doctor", compounding bu "divine by bone or shell, scapulimancy
Scapulimancy
Scapulimancy is the practice of divination by use of scapulae...
or plastromancy" and shi (also with "shaman") "divine by milfoil stalks, cleromancy
Cleromancy
Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortition, casting of lots, or casting bones or stones, in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but are sometimes believed to reveal the will of God, or other supernatural entities.-In...
or sortilege". (2) Instead of quoting Confucius to remark "well said!"; he describes the southern proverb as "probably a saying handed down from antiquity" and rhetorically questions the efficacy of divination. (3) The Liji correctly quotes the Shijing (195, tr. Karlgren 1950:142) criticizing royal diviners: "Our tortoises are (satiated =) weary, they do not tell us the (proper) plans." (4) It quotes the "Charge to Yue" 說命 (traditionally attributed to Shang king Wu Ding
Wu Ding
Wu Ding was a Shang Dynasty King of China.His is the first historically verifiable name in the history of Chinese dynasties...
) differently from the fabricated Guwen "Old Texts
Old Texts
In Chinese philology, the Old Texts refer to some versions of the Five Classics discovered during the Han Dynasty, written in archaic characters and supposedly produced before the burning of the books, as opposed to the Modern Texts or New Texts in the new orthography.The last half of the 2nd...
" Shujing "Classic of History" chapter with this name.
Dignities may not be conferred on man of evil practices, but only on men of worth. Anxious thought about what will be good should precede your movements. Your movements also should have respect to the time for them. … Officiousness in sacrifices is called irreverence; ceremonies when burdensome lead to disorder. To serve the spirits in this way is difficult. (17, tr. Legge 1865:256-8)
(5) It cites an additional Yijing Hexagram 32 line (tr. Wilhelm 1967:129) that gender determines the auspiciousness of heng. "Six in the fifth place means: Giving duration to one's character through perseverance. This is good fortune for a woman, misfortune for a man."
The mytho-geography Shanhaijing "Classic of Mountains and Seas" associates wu-shamans with medicinal herbs.
East of the Openbright there are Shaman Robust, Shaman Pushaway, Shaman Sunny, Shaman Shoe, Shaman Every, and Shaman Aide. They are all on each side of the corpse of Notch Flaw and they hold the neverdie drug to ward off decay. (tr. Birrell 2000:141)
There is Mount Divinepower. This is where Shaman Whole, Shaman Reach, Shaman Share, Shaman Robust, Shaman Motherinlaw, Shaman Real, Shaman Rite, Shaman Pushaway, ShamanTakeleave, and Shaman Birdnet ascend to the sky and come down from Mount Divinepower. This is where the hundred drugs are to be found. (tr. Birrell 2000:174)
"Shaman Whole" translates Wu Xian
Wu Xian (astronomer)
Wu Xian was a Chinese astronomer who supposedly lived in the Shang Dynasty of China. He is considered as one of the main ancient Chinese astronomers alongside more historical figures such as Gan De and Shi Shen, the latter two of whom lived during the Warring States...
巫咸 below.
Boileau contrasts Siberian and Chinese shamanic medicines.
Concerning healing, a comparison of the wu and the Siberian shaman shows a big difference: in Siberia, the shaman is also in charge of cures and healing, but he does this by identifying the spirit responsible for the disease and negotiates the proper way to appease him (or her), for example by offering a sacrifice or food on a regular basis. In archaic China, this role is performed through sacrifice: exorcism by the wu does not seem to result in a sacrifice but is aimed purely and simply at expelling the evil spirit. (2002:361)
Wu-shamans as rainmakers
Wu anciently served as intermediaries with nature spirits believed to control rainfall and flooding. During a droughtDrought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
, wu-shamans would perform the yu 雩 "sacrificial rain dance ceremony". If that failed, both wu and wang 尪 "cripple; lame person; emaciated person" engaged in "ritual exposure" (Schafer 1951) rainmaking
Rainmaking
Rainmaking refers to the act of attempting to artificially induce or increase precipitation, usually to stave off drought.In the US, rainmaking was attempted by traveling showmen. It was practiced in the old west but may have reached a peak during the dust bowl drought of the American West and...
techniques based upon homeopathic or sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...
. As Unschuld (1985:33-34) explains, "Shamans had to carry out an exhausting dance within a ring of fire until, sweating profusely, the falling drops of perspirations produced the desired rain." These wu and wang procedures were called pu 曝/暴 "expose to open air/sun", fen 焚 "burn; set on fire", and pulu 暴露 "reveal; lay bare; expose to open air/sun".
For the year 639 BCE, the Chunqiu records, "In summer, there was a great drought" in Lu, and the Zuozhuan notes a discussion about fen wu wang 焚巫尪:
The duke (Xi) wanted to burn a wu and a cripple at the stake. Zang Wenzhong said: this is no preparation for the drought. Repair the city walls, limit your food, be economic in your consumption, be parsimonious and advise (people) to share (the food), this is what must be done. What use would be wu and cripple? If Heaven wanted to have them killed, why were they born at all? If they (the cripple and the wu) could produce drought, burning them would augment very much (the disaster). (tr. Boileau 2002:363, cf. Legge 1872:180)
The duke followed this advice, and subsequently "scarcity was not very great".
The Liji uses the words puwang 暴尪 and puwu 暴巫 to describe a similar rainmaking ritual during the reign (407-375 BCE) of Duke Mu 穆公 of Lu.
There was a drought during the year. Duke Mu called on Xianzi and asked him about the reason for this. He said: 'Heaven has not (given us) rain in a long time. I want to expose to the sun a cripple and what about that?' (Xianzi) said: 'Heaven has not (given us) rain in a long time but to expose to the sun the crippled son of somebody, that would be cruel. No, this cannot be allowed.' (the duke said): 'Well, then I want to expose to the sun a wu and what about that?' (Xianzi) answered: 'Heaven has not (given us) rain in a long time but to put one's hope on an ignorant woman and offer her to pray (for rain), no, this is too far (from reason).' (tr. Boileau 2002:364, cf. Legge 1885 1:201)
Commentators interpret the wu as a female shaman and the wang as a male cripple.
De Groot connects the Zuozhuan and Liji stories about ritually burning wu.
These two narratives evidently are different readings of one, and may both be inventions; nevertheless they have their value as sketches of ancient idea and custom. Those 'infirm or unsound' wang were non-descript individuals, evidently placed somewhat on a line with the wu; perhaps they were queer hags or beldams, deformed beings, idiotic or crazy, or nervously affected to a very high degree, whose strange demeanour was ascribed to possession. (1910 6:1194)
Wu-shamans as oneiromancers
OneiromancyOneiromancy
Oneiromancy is a form of divination based upon dreams; it is a system of dream interpretation that uses dreams to predict the future.-Ancient Egyptian:...
or dream interpretation
Dream interpretation
Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many ancient societies, such as those of Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by people with certain powers...
was one type of divination performed by wu 巫. The Zuozhuan records two stories about wu interpreting the guilty dreams of murderers.
First, in 581 BCE the lord of Jin, who had slain two officers from the Zhao 趙 family, had a nightmare about their ancestral spirit, and called upon an unnamed wu "shaman" from Sangtian 桑田 and a yi "doctor" named Huan 緩 from Qin
Qin (state)
The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...
.
The marquis of [Jin] saw in a dream a great demon with disheveled hair reaching to the ground, which beat its breast, and leaped up, saying: "You have slain my descendants unrighteously, and I have presented my request to the High God in consequence." It then broke the great gate (of the palace), advanced to the gate of the State chamber, and entered. The duke was afraid and went into a side-chamber, the door of which it also broke. The duke then awoke, and called the witch of [Sangtian], who told him everything which he had dreamt. "What will be the issue?" asked the duke. "You will not taste the new wheat," she replied.
After this, the duke became very ill, and asked the services of a physician from [Qin], the earl of which sent the physician [Huan] to do what he could for him. Before he came, the duke dreamt that his disease turned into two boys, who said, "That is a skilful physician; it is to be feared he will hurt us; how shall we get out of his way?" Then one of them said: "If we take our place above the heart and below the throat, what can he do to us?" When the physician arrived, he said, "Nothing can be done for this disease. Its seat is above the heart and below the throat. If I assail it (with medicine), it will be of no use; if I attempt to puncture it, it cannot be reached. Nothing can be done for it." The duke said, "He is a skilful physician", gave him large gifts, and send him back to [Qin].
In the sixth month, on the day [bingwu], the marquis wished to taste the new wheat, and made the superintendent of his fields present some. While the baker was getting it ready, [the marquis] called the witch of [Sangtian], showed her the wheat and put her to death. As the marquis was about to taste the wheat, he felt it necessary to go to the privy, into which he fell, and so died. One of the servants that waited on him had dreamt in the morning that he carried the marquis on his back up to heaven. The same at mid-day carried him on his back out from the privy, and was afterwards buried alive with him. (tr. Legge 1872:374, note "witch" translates wu)
Commentators have attempted to explain why the wu merely interpreted the duke's dream but did not perform a healing ritual or exorcism, and why the duke waited until the prediction had failed before ordering the execution. Boileau (2002:368) suggests the wu was executed in presumed responsibility for the Zhao ancestral spirit's attack.
Second, in 552 BCE a wu named Gao 皋 both appears in and divines about a dream of Zhongxing Xianzi. After conspiring in the murder of Duke Li of Jin, Zhongxing dreams that the duke's spirit gets revenge.
In autumn, the marquis of [Jin] invaded our northern border. [Zhongxing Xianzi] prepared to invade [Qi]. (Just then), he dreamt that he was maintaining a suit with duke [Li], in which the case was going against him, when the duke struck him with a [geDagger-axeThe dagger-axe is a type of weapon that was in use from Shang dynasty until at least Han dynasty China. It consists of a dagger-shaped blade made of jade , bronze, or later iron, mounted by the tang of the dagger to a perpendicular wooden shaft with a spear point...
] on his head, which fell down before him. He took his head up, put it on his shoulders, and ran off, when he saw the wizard [Gao] of [Gengyang]. A day or two after, it happened that he did see this [Gao] on the road, and told him his dream, and the wizard, who had had the same dream, said to him: "Your death is to happen about this time; but if you have business in the east, you will there be successful [first]". Xianzi accepted this interpretation. (tr. Legge 1872:478, note "wizard" translates wu)
Boileau questions:
why wasn't the wu asked by Zhongxin to expel the spirit of the duke? Perhaps because the spirit went through him to curse the officer. Could it be that the wu was involved (his involvement is extremely strong in this affair) in a kind of deal, or is it simply that the wu was aware of two different matters concerning the officer, only one connected to the dream? (2002:369)
According to these two stories, wu were feared and considered dangerous. This attitude is also evident in a Zhuangzi story about the shenwu 神巫 "spirit/god
Shen (Chinese religion)
Shen is a keyword in Chinese philosophy, Chinese religion, and Traditional Chinese Medicine.-Pronunciation:Shén is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "spirit; god, deity; spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". Reconstructions of shén in Middle Chinese Shen is a...
shaman" Jixian 季咸 from Zheng
Zheng (state)
Zheng （) was a vassal state in China during the Zhou Dynasty located in the centre of ancient China in modern day Henan Province on the North China Plain about east of the royal capital at Luoyang. It was the most powerful of the vassal states at the beginning of the Eastern Zhou...
.
In [Zheng], there was a shaman of the gods named [Jixian]. He could tell whether men would live or die, survive or perish, be fortunate or unfortunate, live a long time or die young, and he would predict the year, month, week, and day as though he were a god himself. When the people of [Zheng] saw him, they all ran out of his way. (tr. Watson 1968:95)
"As soothsayers." writes de Groot (1910 6:1195), "the wu in ancient China no doubt held a place of great importance."
Wu-shamans as officials
Sinological controversies have arisen over the political importance of wu 巫 in ancient China. Some scholars (e.g., Eliade 1964 and Chang 1983) believe Chinese wu used "techniques of ecstasy" like shamans elsewhere; others (e.g., Keightley 1983) believe wu were "ritual bureaucrats" or "moral metaphysicians" who did not engage in shamanistic practices.Chen Mengjia
Chen Mengjia
Chen Mengjia was a Chinese scholar and archaeologist. At the height of his career Chen was Professor of Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was married to Chinese poet and translator Zhao Luorui...
wrote a seminal article (1936) that proposed Shang kings were wu-shamans.
In the oracle bone inscriptions are often encountered inscriptions stating that the king divined or that the king inquired in connections with wind- or rain-storms, rituals, conquests, or hunts. There are also statements that "the king made the prognostication that …," pertaining to weather, the border regions, or misfortunes and diseases; the only prognosticator ever recorded in the oracle bone inscriptions was the king ... There are, in addition, inscriptions describing the king dancing to pray for rain and the king prognosticating about a dream. All of these were activities of both king and shaman, which means in effect that the king was a shaman. (1936:535, tr. Chang 1983:46-47)
Chen's shaman-king hypothesis was supported by Kwang-chih Chang
Kwang-chih Chang
Kwang-chih Chang , aka K.C. Chang, was a Chinese/Taiwanese archaeologist and sinologist. He was a professor of archaeology at Harvard University, a Vice-President of the Academia Sinica and a curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He helped to bring modern, western methods of...
who cited the Guoyu story about Shao Hao severing heaven-earth communication (above).
This myth is the most important textual reference to shamanism in ancient China, and it provides the crucial clue to understanding the central role of shamanism in ancient Chinese politics. Heaven is where all the wisdom of human affairs lies. … Access to that wisdom was, of course, requisite for political authority. In the past, everybody had had that access through the shamans. Since heaven had been severed from earth, only those who controlled that access had the wisdom – hence the authority – to rule. Shamans, therefore, were a crucial part of every state court; in fact, scholars of ancient China agree that the king himself was actually head shaman. (1983:45)
Some modern scholars disagree. For instance, Boileau (2002:350) calls Chen's hypothesis "somewhat antiquated being based more on an a priori approach than on history" and says,
In the case of the relationship between wu and wang [king], Chen Mengjia did not pay sufficient attention to what the king was able to do as a king, that is to say, to the parts of the king's activities in which the wu was not involved, for example, political leadership as such, or warfare. The process of recognition must also be taken into account: it is probable that the wu was chosen or acknowledged as such according to different criteria to those adopted for the king. Chen's concept of the king as the head wu was influenced by Frazer's theories about the origin of political power: for Frazer the king was originally a powerful sorcerer. (2002:351)
The Shujing "Classic of History" lists Wu Xian
Wu Xian (astronomer)
Wu Xian was a Chinese astronomer who supposedly lived in the Shang Dynasty of China. He is considered as one of the main ancient Chinese astronomers alongside more historical figures such as Gan De and Shi Shen, the latter two of whom lived during the Warring States...
巫咸 and Wu Xian 巫賢 as capable administrators of the Shang royal household. The Duke of Zhou
Duke of Zhou
The Duke of Zhou played a major role in consolidating the newly-founded Zhou Dynasty . He was the brother of King Wu of Zhou, the first king of the ancient Chinese Zhou Dynasty...
tells Prince Shao
Shao
Shao 邵 is a common Chinese family name. It's the 86th most populous family name in China. Corresponds to last name "So" in Korean; "Thiệu" or "Thiều" in Vietnamese; and Siu/Chow/Sho in other Chinese romanisations...
召 that:
I have heard that of ancient time, when King Tang had received the favoring decree, he had with him Yi Yin, making his virtue like that of great Heaven. Tai JiaTai JiaTai Jia was the son of Tai Ding and a Shang Dynasty King of China.In the Records of the Grand Historian he was listed by Sima Qian as the fourth Shang king, succeeding his uncles Wai Bing and Zhong Ren...
, again, had Bao Heng. Tai WuTai WuTai Wu Tai Wu Tai Wu (Chinese: 太戊, born Zi Mi (Chinese: 子密) or Zi Zhou (Chinese: 子伷), was a Shang Dynasty King of China.In the Records of the Grand Historian he was listed by Sima Qian as the ninth Shang king, succeeding his brother Yong Ji (Chinese: 太庚). He was enthroned with Bo (Chinese: 亳) as...
had Yi Zhi and Chen Hu, through whom his virtue was made to affect God; he had also [巫咸] Wu Xian, who regulated the royal house; Zu YiZu YiZu Yi Zu Yi Zu Yi (Chinese: 祖乙, born Zi Teng (Chinese: 子滕), was a Shang Dynasty King of China.In the Records of the Grand Historian he was listed by Sima Qian as the thirteenth Shang king, succeeding his Father He Dan Jia (Chinese: 河亶甲). He was enthroned in the year of Jisi (Chinese: 己巳) with Xiang...
had [巫賢] Wu Xian. Wu DingWu DingWu Ding was a Shang Dynasty King of China.His is the first historically verifiable name in the history of Chinese dynasties...
had Gan Pan. These ministers carried out their principles and effected their arrangements, preserving and regulating the empire of [Shang], so that, while its ceremonies lasted, those sovereigns, though deceased, were assessors to Heaven, while it extended over many years. (tr. Legge 1865:206, n.b., names standardized to pinyin)
According to Boileau,
In some texts, Wu Xian senior is described as being in charge of the divination using [shi 筮] achilea. He was apparently made a high god in the kingdom of QinQin (state)The State of Qin was a Chinese feudal state that existed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of Chinese history...
秦 during the Warring States period. The Tang subcommentary interprets the character wu of Wu Xian father and son as being a cognomenCognomenThe cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...
, the name of the clan from which the two Xian came. It is possible that in fact the text referred to two Shang ministers, father and son, coming from the same eponymous territory wu. Perhaps, later, the name (wu 巫) of these two ministers has been confused with the character wu (巫) as employed in other received texts. (2002:358)
Wu-shamans participated in court scandals and dynastic rivalries under Emperor Wu of Han
Emperor Wu of Han
Emperor Wu of Han , , personal name Liu Che , was the seventh emperor of the Han Dynasty of China, ruling from 141 BC to 87 BC. Emperor Wu is best remembered for the vast territorial expansion that occurred under his reign, as well as the strong and centralized Confucian state he organized...
(r. 141-87 BCE), particularly regarding the crime of wugu 巫蠱 (with gu
Gu (poison)
Gu or jincan was a venom-based poison associated with cultures of south China, particularly Nanyue. The traditional preparation of gu poison involved sealing several venomous creatures into a closed utensil, where they devoured one another and allegedly concentrated their toxins into a single...
"venom-based poison") "sorcery; casting harmful spells". In 130 BCE, Empress Chen Jiao
Empress Chen Jiao
Empress Chen Jiao was an empress during Han Dynasty. She was the first wife of Emperor Wu of Han, but was deposed in 130 BC. Her father was Chen Wu , the Marquess of Tangyi. Her mother was Emperor Wu's aunt Princess Liu Piao , making her and her husband cousins...
was convicted of using shamans from Yue to conduct wugu magic. She "was dismissed from her position and a total of 300 persons who were involved in the case were executed" (tr. Loewe 1970:169), their heads were cut off and exposed on stakes. In 91 BCE, an attempted coup against crown prince Liu Ju
Liu Ju
Liu Ju , formally Crown Prince Li was crown prince during the reign of his father, Emperor Wu of Han, during China's Han Dynasty...
involved accusations of practicing wugu, and subsequently "no less than nine long months of bloody terrorism, ending in a tremendous slaughter, cost some tens of thousands their lives!" (tr. Groot 1910 5:836).
Ever since Emperor Wu of Han established Confucianism as the state religion, the ruling classes have shown increasing prejudice against shamanism (de Groot 1910:1233-42, Waley 1955:11-12). Some modern writers view the traditional Confucianist disdain for female shamans as sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
. Schafer wrote:
In the opinion of the writer, the Chou ruling class was particularly hostile to women in government, and regarded the ancient fertility rites as impure. This anti-female tendency was even more marked in the state of Lu, where Confucius approved of the official rain-ceremony in which men alone participated. There was, within ancient China, a heterogeneity of culture areas, with female shamans favored in some, males in others. The" licentiousness" of the ceremonies of such a state as Cheng (doubtless preserving the ancient Shang traditions and customs) was a byword among Confucian moralists. Confucius' state seems on the other hand to have taken the" respectable" attitude that the sexes should not mingle in the dance, and that men were the legitimate performers of the fertility rites. The general practice of the later Chou period, or at least the semi-idealized picture given of the rites of that time in such books as the Chou li, apparently prescribed a division of magical functions between men and women. The former generally play the role of exorcists, the latter of petitioners. This is probably related to the metaphysical belief that women, embodying the principle yin, were akin to the spirits, whereas men, exemplifying the element yang, were naturally hostile to them. (1951:158)
Accepting the tradition that Chinese shamans were women (i.e., wu 巫 "shamaness" as opposed to xi 覡 "shaman"), Kagan believes:
One of the main themes in Chinese history is the unsuccessful attempt by the male Confucian orthodoxy to strip women of their public and sacred powers and to limit them to a role of service ... Confucianists reasserted daily their claim to power and authority through the promotion of the phallic ancestor cult which denied women religious representation and excluded them from the governmental examination system which was the path to office, prestige, and status. (1980:3-4)
In addition, Unschuld (1980:125-128) refers to a "Confucian medicine" based upon systematic correspondences and the idea that illnesses are caused by excesses (rather than demons).
The Zhouli provides detailed information about the roles of wu-shamans. It lists (Falkenhausen 1995:282), "Spirit Mediums as officials on the payroll of the Zhou Ministry of Rites (Liguan 禮官, or Ministry of Spring, Chun guan 春官)." This text differentiates three offices: the Siwu 司巫 "Manager/Director of Shamans", Nanwu 男巫 "Male Shamans", and Nüwu 女巫 "Female Shamans".
The managerial Siwu, who was of Shi 士 "Gentleman; Yoeman" feudal rank, yet was not a wu, supervised "the many wu".
The Managers of the Spirit Mediums are in charge of the policies and orders issued to the many Spirit Mediums. When the country suffers a great drought, they lead the Spirit Mediums in dancing the rain-making ritual (yu 雩). When the country suffers a great calamity, they lead the Spirit Mediums in enacting the long-standing practices of Spirit Mediums (wuheng 巫恆). At official sacrifices, they [handle] the ancestral tablets in their receptacles, the cloth on which the spirits walk, and the box containing the reeds [for presenting the sacrificial foodstuffs]. In all official sacrificial services, they guard the place where the offerings are buried. In all funerary services, they are in charge of the rituals by which the Spirit Mediums make [the spirits] descend (jiang 降). (tr. von Falkenhausen 1995:285, cf. de Groot 1910 6:1189-1190)
The Nanwu and Nüwu have different shamanic specializations, especially regarding inauspicious events like sickness, death, and natural disaster.
The Male Spirit Mediums are in charge of the si 祀 and yan 衍 Sacrifices to the Deities of the Mountains and Rivers. They receive the honorific titles [of the deities], which they proclaim into the [four] directions, holding reeds. In the winter, in the great temple hall, they offer [or: shoot arrows] without a fixed direction and without counting the number. In the spring, they make proclamations and issue bans so as to remove sickness and disease. When the king offers condolence, they together with the invocators precede him.
The Female Mediums are in charge of anointing and ablutions at the exorcisms that are held at regular times throughout the year. When there is a drought or scorching heat, they dance in the rain-making ritual (yu). When the queen offers condolence, they together with the invocators precede her. In all great calamities of the state, they pray, singing and wailing. (26, tr. von Falkenhausen 1995:290, cf. de Groot 1910 6:1189)
Von Falkenhausen concludes:
If we are to generalize from the above enumeration, we find that the Spirit Mediums' principal functions are tied up with averting evil and pollution. They are especially active under circumstances of inauspiciousness and distress. In case of droughts and calamities, they directly address the supernatural powers of Heaven and Earth. Moreover, they are experts in dealing with frightful, dangerous ghosts (the ghosts of the defunct at the time of the funeral, the evil spirits at the exorcism, and the spirits of disease) and harmful substances (unburied dead bodies during visits of condolence and all manner of impure things at the lustration festival). (1995:293)
Modern wu
Scholars have studied many aspects of modern wu. De Groot (1910 6:1243-1268) provided descriptions and pictures of hereditary shamans in Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
, called saigong (pinyin shigong) 師公. Paper (1999) analyzed tongji mediumistic activities in the Taiwanese village of Bao'an 保安. Noll (2004) documented Chuonnasuan (1927–2000), the last shaman of the Oroqen
Oroqen
The Oroqen people are an ethnic group in northern China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. According to the 2000 Census, 44.54% live in Inner Mongolia and 51.52% along the Heilongjiang River in the province of Heilongjiang...
in northeast China.
Paper summarizes the present-day shaman's religious significance.
Mediums, frequently associated with local temples … are ubiquitous aspects of popular Chinese religion. They are (or at least were into the mid-twentieth century) common from far north in Manchuria to the extreme south of Hainan and Guangtung, and from the eastern island of Taiwan to Tibet in China's far west. (1995:117-8)
External links
- 巫, Unihan Database
- 巫, Chinese Etymology
- Shamanism in China bibliography, Barend ter Haar
- Yijing Prediction and Wu (Shamanism), Zhongxian Wu
- Theological and Pastoral Reflections on the Practice of Shamanism …, Olivier Lardinois
- "Divination as a Form of Political Authority in Early China", Wu Keying
- 薩蠻工作室, Shaman Center, Academia SinicaAcademia SinicaThe Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
Institute of History and Philology - Jade Pendant in the Form of a Female Dancer 475-221 BCE, Freer Gallery of ArtFreer Gallery of ArtThe Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...
- Archaic Chinese Sacrificial Practices in the Light of Generative Anthropology, Herbert Plutschow