A Study Of Manchu Shamanism In The Qing Dynasty

Manchu shamanism has been an important subject in the area of Shamonology. And it's the Qing dynasty which was a more special and important period for the development of Manchu Shamanism. However, the previous research always focuses on the ethnology and anthropology, while the historical research was very few. More attention is paid only to the remaining states of Shamanism. There's still not a systematic study on the Manchu shamanism of Qing dynasty. On the basis of using multi-disciplinary theories and methods comprehensively, this article, starting from a historical perspective, will explore the evolution of Manchu shamanism of the Qing dynasty, making a conclusion of its evolutionary law. Furthermore, it also analyzed the influence of shamanism upon the Manchu groups, as well as the whole society of Qing dynasty. Though these, a real situation of the Manchu shamanism during the Qing dynasty will be vividly pictured. I assume that this research will have some ground-breaking significance both for the area of Shamonology and the history of the Qing dynasty.This article is composed of four chapters.Chapter one is about the original situation of Manchu shamanism and its historical evolution, which aims to analyze the historical background of the Manchu shamanism of the Qing dynasty. Basing on the theory of "Four Elements in Religion", the original states of Manchu shamanism were deconstructed from four aspects- concept, emotional experiences, activities, organization and clergy. As well, a complete system of the Manchu shamanism was constructed in order to provide a comparative basis for later study. Furthermore, according to Engels's theory about the development of religion, the evolution process of Manchu shamanism was studied by divided into two stages as clan-tribal and national-state. And every period was analyzed one by one, such as Su Shen, Yi Lou. Wu Ji. Mo He, Nv Zhen, and the Nv Zhen-Manchuria during pre-entry. Finally, the law of the evolution process was concluded as a theoretical foundation for later research.Chapter two is about the shamanism in Qing court. Although this orientation has been widely studied, more materials had been searched in this article into get a deeper implication. When cleaning out the forming process of Qing court shamanism, more attention is paid to the relationship between Shamanism and the political situation. On the content of shamanism, it analyzed the scope, shaman, the gods, the activities, the rites and the prayer words in Qing court shamanism. At the same time, after comparing to the original form and civil form, it revealed that the standardization and traditional had paralleled in court shamanism, and the shamanism had embarked on the path of decline. Finally, the influence of Shamanism upon court life has been discussed from political life, economic life and cultural life, from which the significant position of Shamanism in the court life has been obviously demonstrated.Chapter three is about the Manchu civil Shamanism during the Qing dynasty. This subject is a very weak part in the past research, and also a difficult point lied in this article. In order to perspective the nature of civil Shamanism, we give up the works of describing the phenomena, but analyze directly the two major problems which are the differentiation of every form and every district. Also the reason has been analyzed. Then the trend of decline has been revealed. And we explored the root causes to decline and found that it's an inevitable result of social development. In addition, the influence has been explored that shamanism had made upon the Manchu civil life in this section. On the one hand, the reason has been studied why shamanism last so long in Manchu groups. On the other hand, the important position and influence of shamanism in the Manchu people's economic life and culture life has been interpreted.Chapter four is about the relationship between Manchu shamanism and society of the Qing dynasty. Research on this point, this article will try to break the national boundaries to study the influence of shamanism in a more open space. The relationship involving is surely intricate, and this article chose three relations- Shamanism with the national identity of the Manchus during Qing dynasty, shamanism with other religions and shamanism with folk beliefs in Northeast. Among them, shamanism had not only take the initiative to influence, but also been affected by others. From the discussion, interactive relationship will be shown, which will enrich the whole cognition and evaluation of the influence and situation of Manchu Shamanism during the Qing dynasty.