Is Shaman a Han tradition? Is it a Hmong tradition? Options

[jeff732]

Just back from vacation and find my thread close =

one, chu kingdom was known for its practice of shamanism, which was strictly 'un-chinese-like'. none of the other proper 'chinese' kingdoms at this time did so. since hmong people practice one of the oldest forms of shamanism in china, the connection is there.

I have to say that the answer may be more complicated than most people may think. Han culture is pretty unique considering its geological location - it is surrounded by Shamanic people. Han culture inherits Zhou and Shang, so is it possible Shamanism is part of them in their very early stage?

The core of Shang culture is its worship of Tian and dead Shang kings. As the character of Tian indicates, Tian 天 is the ultimate, human looking god. As the descendent of this ultimate god, the living Shang king rules his kingdom. In other words, a Shang king is a semi god king. Quite similar to Moses of Jews. This is the correct meaning of Tianzi, or 天子．The Japanese introduced the 'Son of heaven' as its English translation, and that misinterprets Tian.

According to Shang culture, a Shang king dies and becomes an assistant of Tian, or Angel if you will. These angels protect Shang royal families and their kingdom.

Zhou people took over Shang heritage and changed the interpretation. In Zhou's version, all the ancestors of all of us, will protect their descendents. That is a great innovation toward a universal belief. Ancestor worship therefore becomes a Chinese tradition, and not just Shang tradition or Zhou tradition. And this worship differentiates itself from any other traditions all over the world.

In Chinese civilization, Heaven is never a big part of their belief. If they did, there should be a lot of descriptions of the heaven and what are there, etc. No.

And they don't worship Sky.

They worship Tian at Tiantan 天坛, but very few know that Tian is a god. Tiantan is simply (mis-) translated as the Temple of Heaven.

Again, this is not mainstream, text book history. You either agree with me, or don't agree with me.

Although Shamanism is popular in Northeastern Asia, including Manchu, Turkic, Mongol, Korea, Hmong, (and Maya in South America), Shamanism doesn't seem to exist in present-day Han culture. How can this be possible? I mean, geologically, this is the region that Shaman prevails, right?

Is it possible that Shamanism existed only in the very early stage of Shang culture, or maybe Xia culture? Shamanism is aboriginal proto-religion, but obviously not everybody gets it. Europeans don't. So maybe Han people simply didn't get it?

The First Emperor of China burnt a lot of archives that were deemed to be politically incorrect. And Confucius himself is praised for his no-comment attitude toward ghosts and super natural powers (子不语怪力乱神). What exactly were those that Confucius declined to comment on? What were lost in the burning are probably lost forever, leaving us guessing around.

However, King Wen of Zhou, who lived as an ambassador and hostage to Shang, recorded Shang rituals in a book called Yi Jing, or the Book of Changes. This book appears to be very Shamanish, or Shamanic, if not Shamanistic.

The oracle bones from Zhou are very Shamanic too.

I tend to think that Chinese culture, as descendent of Shang and Zhou, had Shamanish in its far origin and dropped its forms and practices in its very early stage. Or maybe I should say, Chinese culture shared the same origin with other (more developed) versions of Shamanism, but went a different way in its early stage.

A good guess is, Shang was shamanic in nature. Zhou changed it's trajectory. And after that, China had gone a different way.

This post has been edited by jeff732: Aug 4 2011, 09:43 PM

[datianboy]

like i say about cultures that practice/or believe in shamanism, it doesn't die... it evolves with the changing time.
Anyone who knows about shamanism or who is born into a shamanic culture will tell you that shamanism is not a religion like Christianity or buddhism.
it exists in a culture despite being marginalized by Christianity, buddhism or so... just like how many Korean are no longer practicing shamanism, but it still exists in the soul of Korean as the ancestors' practice.
looks at Lao people, though buddhism has been a big part of Lao culture for centuries or thousands of of years.. who knows, the belief of animism is still deep in the lao culture and people. there are Tai shaman in Laos, but usually common among Tai minority ethnics.
look at the Lakota indians, though ancestral rituals were banned, rituals were lost due to boarding school and assimilation....... in the end, some children of Lakota descents continue to have vision quest or spiritual journey......

like in the hmong culture, you can be a christian, but when you are chosen to be a shaman... you will experience strange visions and you will realized that the truth is planted deep within your soul... shamanism is a part of the hmong people soul... it doesn't die. What else can the ancestors communicate with the hmong? a shamanism is the messenger, who is instructed by the ancestors as well as who is responsible to balance the world between yin and yang.

it flows with the time, as things change, the spirit world changes and shamanism (the practice of shaman) changes along with it.
it is not a religion, but a spiritual practice... it doesn't have followers, it doesn't have a founder, though each shamanic culture does explain why shaman was put on earth, because the ancestors and spirits need a shaman to be the medium between the world of life and death.. a shaman can communicate with the other worlds.

hmong people do have the same concept of yin and yang. in the hmong language, the spirit world is known as yeng and the human world is known as ya. of course, the notion of the spirit world and human world has been known by the ancient long before it was even recorded in religious text. the hmong ancestors, the spirits, dragons and all "DA" in the Hmong culture "Da" means the great being/the unseen live in the world of Yeng while "Neej" or human live in the Ya world.

i don't think han people practice shamanism because in china, especially in yunnan and other parts of china where hmong live near han people or han people live near hmong, some han people often consult a hmong shaman to perform healing/blessing or prophecy reading. like i say, if your people once practice shamanism, it will never die.. the only time shamanism die is when the whole culture or people die.

even hmong families who generations before were christians..... their descendants along the way are still chosen to be shaman. you can't escape being chosen from the higher being.

like what you wrote above (天), the sky god is known as "Ntuj" or Tun(Ntoo) in the Hmong culture. in the hmong culture, hau muaj av sau muaj ntuj. it means "below has dirt, above has heaven" basically means "sky god is above." you are a living being who lives below sky god. the eye of god is looking down at you.

the pillar of the hmong culture
- respect for the parents
- pay respect to the ancestors/elders
- love brothers and sisters
- free of debts

in order to live freely in the world of Yeng (yin), travel without obtacles, being able to reborn as human... one must follows the hmong pillar in order to be considered as human (ua neeg = to be human) or if not, then (ua tsiaj = to be beast-like/animal)

sorry for going off topic and i'm afraid the moderator will send this thread to chinese chat for their inputs. lol

This post has been edited by datianboy: Aug 4 2011, 06:07 PM

[jeff732]

Manchus or Koreans have only some left over shaman practices.

Tibetans merged Shamanism into Buddhism and formed Tibetan Buddhism, with unique practices that seem to be from Shaman.

Ancestor worship of Han is difficult to position too. Is it a religion, or non-religion. The Vatican spent a few hundred years debating on that. The debate still goes on, while this tradition is fading in China. It may be interesting to find out how the same Vatican people think about Shamanism.

People may argue taht ancestor worship doesn't involve a creator. However, Buddhism has no creator either, but Buddhism is regarded as a full blown religion. Taoism has no creator either.

I find your yeng and ya very interesting. Yin and Yang appear to be quite indigenous in Chinese culture. Yin is a word for the shade side of a hill, and Yang is the sunshine side of a hill. What about your Yeng and Ya?

[datianboy]

Yeng is a girl name... but it actually refers to "spirit world."
Ya is a boy name.... it refers to "human world."

The founder of Buddhism is Buddha.

Tibetan buddhism persecuted and banned Bon Tibetan. Tibetan shamanic practicioners were called Bon Tibetans. You can still see shamanic elements in Tibetan culture today. It didn't die.. it is incorporated.

In term of Han shamans, I have not seen one or heard of Chinese practicing shamanism at all.

Hmong shamanism is still very strong in the hmong communities especially in asia, but increasingly conversion to Christianity is changing it. From only 30 yrs in america, 1/3 of Hmong Americans are already Christians and many have already forgotten their native practices. that's how sad it is.

[AsiaticGlory]

Shamanism was the original Asian religion. Altaic nomads worship Tengri. The Chinese word "Tian" was believed to be derived from a proto-Central Asian language. I think the worship of the Sky Father came from the Mongolians.

[xaithoj]

taoism and cunfucianism, the pillars of chinese belief, may contain some mysticism, but are in essence just principles to be followed. in short, taoism explains the balance of the universe (which includes some mysticism and the ancestors) and confucianism explains how a person can improve himself and so improve the balance of the universe. you can compare it to the principles of christianity and the morals that most christians try to live by (we'll touch back on this later). the emphasis is on the person; who, through understanding of the universe (which, in the case of the chinese, include mysticism and dead ancestors), makes informed choices that positively affect it. even though chinese try to go deeper into the mysticism of the universe, they only seek understanding; which is the complete opposite of shamanism.

shamanism teaches about these mystical forces in the universe, but takes it one step further. they actually INTERACT directly with them and even try to EFFECT them for certain outcomes, whereas the chinese only try to understand them. if the chinese beliefs/principles are comparable to christianity, then shamanism is comparable to santeria. santeria takes catholicism and the knowledge it gives them of the christian universal order of things, but takes it one step further and tries to communicate directly with the saints and angels...and some even say the demons.

imo, this is the reason why the han chinese were able to advance so much as a civilization, because the emphasis was on practical understanding and improvement, which directly translates to better government, administration, communication, infrastructure, progress...etc. shamanism, on the other hand, is kind of a 'cure-all' so why have a need for practicality or improvement when issues can be 'solved' by being taken 'directly' to the powerful mystical forces in the universe?

[jeff732]

Shamanism was the original Asian religion. Altaic nomads worship Tengri. The Chinese word "Tian" was believed to be derived from a proto-Central Asian language. I think the worship of the Sky Father came from the Mongolians.

This is an interesting idea. However, it is hard to believe that a basic vocabulary such as Tian can be derived from another language. What did they use before Tengri was introduced into their vocabulary? And Mongol was only formed about one thousand years ago, and they simply don't have much recorded history when we are talking about a time line much older than that.

Mongols recognize a Sky Father. This seems to be very non-mystic. We all have seen some native proto religions. A Sky doesn't fit into those proto religions. I guess their Sky Father is some residual memory of some ancient bloody powerful super natural figure

I wouldn't be surprised that the peoples that lived in northeastern Asia shared the same heritage in language and tradition if we trace back to 10000 years ago. Obviously, American Indians carried much more common heritage over to the Americas when they crossed the Bering Sea, than anyone of us can think of. I tend to believe that the oldest vocabularies are actually shared across all these people, and only words derived after that point of time became diversified.

I want to give you a couple of (debatable) examples. Cancun is a famous Mexican tourist site on Yucatan peninsula, and it is a name in Mayan, where 'Can' means gold, and Cun means snake. In Cantonese, GOLD is pronounced as Can. In Korean, it is pronounced as Kim, as in the name of North Korean dictator. Chichin Itza is another famous Mayan ruin and Chi means 'by', or 'close to', and 'Chin' means water well. They sound like 骑井　to me. This unfortunate nation doesn't even have an English - Mayan dictionary.

This post has been edited by jeff732: Aug 5 2011, 09:07 AM

[jeff732]

taoism and cunfucianism, the pillars of chinese belief, may contain some mysticism, but are in essence just principles to be followed. in short, taoism explains the balance of the universe (which includes some mysticism and the ancestors) and confucianism explains how a person can improve himself and so improve the balance of the universe.

It is possible that Taoism grew from a Shamanic background. Yi Jing is an archive much older than Taoism, and it contains basic elements of Taoism, and appears to be very Shamanish, see the following book

http://www.amazon.com/I-Ching-Shamanic-Ora...e/dp/1855384167

The following picture shows two pottery figures that seem to be female Shamans, and the potteries are dated to Zhou dynasty.



The Chinese character for Shaman is Wu, which is a very old vocabulary taht goes back to Shang dynasty, and it evolved from Oracle bone scripts



The following is lacquer painting dated to late Zhou dynasty that depicts a Shaman ritual



Again, Yi Jing says of hexagram 58, “Dui is marshy-fertile, a youngest daughter, a shaman.” [Schafer 1951: 155]

Taoism as most people understand it is just the surface. Taoism has its roots in older shamanist forms, and Older shamanist form is called ‘Shenjiao’ and it is still practiced today particularly in more local and especially rural communities whereas mainstream Taoism is practiced in more urban with more populist settings. Many Shenjiao rites and customs are still presided by women, particularly elder women in the community who are popularly known as exorcists and mediums. There is one custom for example called ‘beating the demon’ where an effigy of a demon is made and the old shaman would beat it with a stick or her shoe to drive it away.

Wu, as Chinese Shaman, faded as Confucius didn't want to endorse. It is probably fair to say, the advance of technology gradually removed the Wu elements from Chinese culture. Or maybe it only hides it underneath.


You guys may be surprised that there is a big debate going on in China at the time we speak. A group of people try to wipe out Chinese Herbal Medicine as a legal medical practice. They claim that it is Shamanic in nature.

This post has been edited by jeff732: Aug 5 2011, 09:12 AM

[AsiaticGlory]

This is an interesting idea. However, it is hard to believe that a basic vocabulary such as Tian can be derived from another language. What did they use before Tengri was introduced into their vocabulary? And Mongol was only formed about one thousand years ago, and they simply don't have much recorded history when we are talking about a time line much older than that.

Mongols recognize a Sky Father. This seems to be very non-mystic. We all have seen some native proto religions. A Sky doesn't fit into those proto religions. I guess their Sky Father is some residual memory of some ancient bloody powerful super natural figure

I wouldn't be surprised that the peoples that lived in northeastern Asia shared the same heritage in language and tradition if we trace back to 10000 years ago. Obviously, American Indians carried much more common heritage over to the Americas when they crossed the Bering Sea, than anyone of us can think of. I tend to believe that the oldest vocabularies are actually shared across all these people, and only words derived after that point of time became diversified.

I want to give you a couple of (debatable) examples. Cancun is a famous Mexican tourist site on Yucatan peninsula, and it is a name in Mayan, where 'Can' means gold, and Cun means snake. In Cantonese, GOLD is pronounced as Can. In Korean, it is pronounced as Kim, as in the name of North Korean dictator. Chichin Itza is another famous Mayan ruin and Chi means 'by', or 'close to', and 'Chin' means water well. They sound like 骑井　to me. This unfortunate nation doesn't even have an English - Mayan dictionary.

By "Mongolian," I should have said Altaic nomad. I think the "Mongol" identity came into existence when Genghis Khan united the tribes.

I think there is a lot of different words for "Tengri" like Tanri, Tengeri, Tangara, Tengiri, etc.

I am not really sure if Chinese Shamanism is the same as Altaic Shamanism though.

If you want more information on Altaic culture, I suggest you talk to this person:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showuser=217340

East Asians, Altaic nomads, and Native Americans had a common ancestor so I wouldn't be surprised if there are similarities in language. But of course, it doesn't mean we are all the same since the groups moved to different regions.

This post has been edited by AsiaticGlory: Aug 5 2011, 05:26 PM

[mythicalhealer]

Just back from vacation and find my thread close =



I have to say that the answer may be more complicated than most people may think. Han culture is pretty unique considering its geological location - it is surrounded by Shamanic people. Han culture inherits Zhou and Shang, so is it possible Shamanism is part of them in their very early stage?

The core of Shang culture is its worship of Tian and dead Shang kings. As the character of Tian indicates, Tian 天 is the ultimate, human looking god. As the descendent of this ultimate god, the living Shang king rules his kingdom. In other words, a Shang king is a semi god king. Quite similar to Moses of Jews. This is the correct meaning of Tianzi, or 天子．The Japanese introduced the 'Son of heaven' as its English translation, and that misinterprets Tian.

According to Shang culture, a Shang king dies and becomes an assistant of Tian, or Angel if you will. These angels protect Shang royal families and their kingdom.

Zhou people took over Shang heritage and changed the interpretation. In Zhou's version, all the ancestors of all of us, will protect their descendents. That is a great innovation toward a universal belief. Ancestor worship therefore becomes a Chinese tradition, and not just Shang tradition or Zhou tradition. And this worship differentiates itself from any other traditions all over the world.

In Chinese civilization, Heaven is never a big part of their belief. If they did, there should be a lot of descriptions of the heaven and what are there, etc. No.

And they don't worship Sky.

They worship Tian at Tiantan 天坛, but very few know that Tian is a god. Tiantan is simply (mis-) translated as the Temple of Heaven.

Again, this is not mainstream, text book history. You either agree with me, or don't agree with me.

Although Shamanism is popular in Northeastern Asia, including Manchu, Turkic, Mongol, Korea, Hmong, (and Maya in South America), Shamanism doesn't seem to exist in present-day Han culture. How can this be possible? I mean, geologically, this is the region that Shaman prevails, right?

Is it possible that Shamanism existed only in the very early stage of Shang culture, or maybe Xia culture? Shamanism is aboriginal proto-religion, but obviously not everybody gets it. Europeans don't. So maybe Han people simply didn't get it?

The First Emperor of China burnt a lot of archives that were deemed to be politically incorrect. And Confucius himself is praised for his no-comment attitude toward ghosts and super natural powers (子不语怪力乱神). What exactly were those that Confucius declined to comment on? What were lost in the burning are probably lost forever, leaving us guessing around.

However, King Wen of Zhou, who lived as an ambassador and hostage to Shang, recorded Shang rituals in a book called Yi Jing, or the Book of Changes. This book appears to be very Shamanish, or Shamanic, if not Shamanistic.

The oracle bones from Zhou are very Shamanic too.

I tend to think that Chinese culture, as descendent of Shang and Zhou, had Shamanish in its far origin and dropped its forms and practices in its very early stage. Or maybe I should say, Chinese culture shared the same origin with other (more developed) versions of Shamanism, but went a different way in its early stage.

A good guess is, Shang was shamanic in nature. Zhou changed it's trajectory. And after that, China had gone a different way.

Thanks for you post....gives some insight. I feel that shamanism was done away with in the Han region because the emperor probably did limit the beliefs and practices of the people within his region and thus, much of China. People were afraid as were Confucist to expand on this area in order to please the emperor or, to keep his life. The history books do not mention much about shamanism, but as you said....some practices do resemble. I have Chinese friends who know people who are Chinese shamans. This is more true of the Chinese minorities in China. The bigger cities are not as likely to practice shamanistic methods. The Chinese pray to their ancestors for protection and good fortune, but it doesn't mean they do not believe in God. God just didn't play as close a role to home as the ancestral gods did. The ancestral gods are more likely to feast upon the offerings of the family and to oblige. God is called upon only when the ancesters have failed.