Unsolved:List of wu shamans

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Wu (Chinese: 巫; pinyin: wū; Wade–Giles: wu; literally: 'shaman') shaman are spirit mediums who have practiced divination, prayer, sacrifice, rainmaking, and healing in Chinese traditions dating back over 3,000 years. Various wu shaman are known from thousands of years of Chinese folk religion, mythology, and poetry. Individually and collectively they form an important part of the world's cultural heritage.

Word wu

Chinese Seal script for wu 巫 "shaman"
Main page: Unsolved:Wu (shaman)

The Chinese 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. 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 Waley (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." The word "shaman" is often pluralized as "shamans", especially in old school sources, but may also be formed into a plural without morphological change, as just "shaman". The -man ending is distinct from the English word "man", referring to a human being, although some speakers may treat it as such.

Li Sao shaman list

In the Li Sao, two individual shaman are specified.

  • Ling Fen (靈氛)
  • Wu Xian (巫咸)
(Hawkes:45, note 9)

This Wu Xian may or may not be the same as the (one or more) historical person(s) named Wu Xian. Hawkes suggests an equation of the word ling in the Chu dialect with the word wu.(46 and 84)

Shanhaijing 6 list

In some cases, the individual wu shaman are known from sources, such as the Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Seas). The name of some individual shaman includes "Wu" (巫) in the normal position of the family surname, for example, in the case of the following list, where the 6 are depicted together reviving a corpse, with Wu Peng holding the Herb of Immortality.(Hawkes:45 and 230-231):

  • Wu Yang (巫陽, "Shaman Bright")
  • Wu Peng (巫彭)
  • Wu Di (巫抵)
  • Wu Li (巫履) [Tang reconstruction *Lǐ, Hanyu Pinyin Lǚ]
  • Wu Fan (巫凡)
  • Wu Xiang (巫相)

Wu Peng and Wu Yang and others are also known from the Chu Ci poetry anthology. Wu Yang is the major speaker in Zhao Hun (also known as, Summons for the Soul).

Shanhaijing 10 list

The Lingshan 10 are:

  • Wu Xian (巫咸)
  • Wu Ji (巫即)
  • Wu Fen (or Ban) (巫肦)
  • Wu Peng (巫彭)
  • Wu Gu (巫姑)
  • Wu Zhen (巫真)
  • Wu Li (巫禮)
  • Wu Di (巫抵)
  • Wu Xie (巫謝)
  • Wu Luo (巫羅)

Historical and legendary shaman by dynasty

Shang

Qin

  • Xu Fu

See also

  • Chu Ci
  • Han Wudi
  • Jiu Ge
  • Miko
  • Qu Yuan
  • Shamanism in the Qing dynasty
  • Xu Fu (sorcerer-shaman to the Qin Dynasty court)
  • Yu the Great

References

  • Allan, Sarah. 1991. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China. State University of New York Press.
  • Birrell, Anne, tr. 2000. The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Penguin.
  • Bodde, Derk. 1961. "Myths of ancient China," in Mythologies of the Ancient World, ed. Samuel N. Kramer, Doubleday, pp. 367–408.
  • Boileau, Gilles, 2002. "Wu and Shaman", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65:2:350-378.
  • Carr, Michael. 1992. "Shamanic Heng 恆 'Constancy'", Review of Liberal Arts 人文研究, 83:93-159.
  • Chang, K.C. 1983. Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Harvard University Press.
  • Chen Mengjia 陳夢家. 1936 "Shangdai de shenhua yu wushu 商代的神話與巫術 [Myths and Magic of the Shang Dynasty]", Yanjing xuebao 燕京學報 20:485-576. (in Chinese)
  • Coblin, W. South. 1986. A Sinologist's Handlist of Sino-Tibetan Lexical Comparisons. 1986. Steyler Verlag.
  • Eliade, Mircea. 1964. Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, tr. by Willard R. Trask. Princeton University Press.
  • Erickson, Susan N. 1994. "'Twirling Their Long Sleeves, They Dance Again and Again...': Jade Plaque Sleeve Dancers of the Western Han Dynasty", Ars Orientalis 24:39-63.
  • von Falkenhausen, Lothar. 1995. "Reflections of the Political Role of Spirit Mediums in Early China" The Wu Officials in the Zhou Li," Early China 20:279-300.
  • Groot, Jan Jakob Maria. 1892-1910. The Religious System of China: Its Ancient Forms, Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions Connected Therewith. 6 volumes. Brill Publishers.
  • Hawkes, David, translation, introduction, and notes (2011 [1985]). Qu Yuan et al., The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets. London: Penguin Books. ISBN:978-0-14-044375-2
  • Hopkins, L. C.1920. "The Shaman or Wu 巫: A Study in Graphic Camouflage", The New China Review) 2.5:423-39.
  • Hopkins, L. C. 1945. "The Shaman or Chinese Wu: His Inspired Dancing and Versatile Character," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3:3-16.
  • Jensen, Lionel. 1995. "Wise Man of the Wilds: Fatherlessness, Fertility, and the Mythic Exemplar, Kongzi", Early China 20:407-438.
  • Kagan, Richard C., ed. 1980. "The Chinese Approach to Shamanism", Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 12.4:3-135.
  • Karlgren, Bernhard. 1923. Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese. Paul Geunther. Dover reprint.
  • Keightley, David. 1998. "Shamanism, Death, and the Ancestors: Religious Mediation in Neolithic and Shang China (ca. 5000-1000 B.C.)," Asiatische Studien 52:821-824.
  • Laufer, Berthold. 1917. "Origin of the Word Shaman", American Anthropologist 19.3: 361-371.
  • Loewe, Michael. 1970. "The Case of Witchcraft in 91 B.C.: its Historical Setting and Effect on Han Dynastic History", Asia Major 15.2:159-196.
  • Mainfort, Donald. 2004. "The physician-shaman: early origins of traditional Chinese medicine", Skeptic 11.1:36-39.
  • Mair, Victor H. 1990. "Old Sinitic *Myag, Old Persian Maguš and English Magician,” Early China 15: 27–47.
  • Needham, Joseph and Wang Ling. 1954. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.
  • Noll, Richard and Kun Shi. 2004. " Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu) The Last Shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China", Journal of Korean Religions 6:135-162.
  • Paper, Jordan D. 1995. The Spirits Are Drunk: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion. State University of New York Press.
  • Paper, Jordan. 1999. Gods, Ghosts, & Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village. 3rd ed. UCSD Department of Anthropology.
  • Schafer, Edward H. 1951. "Ritual Exposure in Ancient China", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14:130-184.
  • Schafer, Edward H. 1973. The Divine Woman: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in T'ang Literature. University of California Press.
  • Schiffeler, John Wm. 1976. "The Origin of Chinese Folk Medicine", Asian Folklore Studies 35.1: 17-35.
  • Schuessler, Axel. 2007. An Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. University of Hawaii Press.
  • Shi Kun. 1993. "Shamanistic studies in China: A preliminary survey of the last decade", Shaman: An International Journal for Shamanistic Research 1.1:47-57.
  • Shima Kunio 島邦男. 1971. Inkyo bokuji sōorui 殷墟卜辞綜類 [Concordance of Oracle Writings from the Ruins of Yin], 2nd rev. ed. Hoyu.
  • Unschuld, Paul U. 1985. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press.
  • Waley, Arthur. 1933. "The Book of Changes", Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 5:121-142.
  • Waley, Arthur, tr. 1938. The Analects of Confucius. Allen and Unwin.
  • Waley, Arthur, tr. 1955. The Nine Songs. Allen and Unwin.

External links




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