Heilongjiang Downstream Tungusic Group Shamanistic Beliefs

Hezhen has a long history, whose ancestors, Sushen, Yilou, Wuji, Mohe and Jurchen lives and multiplies in the Heilongjiang river basin from legendary era. The Russians call Hezhen living in the north of Heilongjiang and the east of the Ussuri River "GuoErTe people", and the Soviet Union called them "Nannais". However, Hezhen has been used in the history of China.From the late19th century, there existed differences and was even quietly different gradually in the faith, the culture and other aspects between Hezhen and Nannais. Therefore, it is very realistic that this thesis conducts an in-depth comparative study of these questions, to figure out the future development path better of Hezhen and Nannais, to understand differences and similarities of religious belief between them deeply in favor of their communication, and to contribute to reveal the law of social development of aboriginal inhabitants in the Heilongjiang river basin, which belongs to the category of a big problem of small ethnic groups.Based on the above introduction, this thesis conducts the study of the belief for Shamanism in Hezhen and Nannais from three aspects:In the first part, the author elaborates the significance of the topic, domestic and international research trends and research methods. At present, scholars at home and abroad focus on the research of Hezhen and Nannais. However, the research of scholars in China focus more on region history, regional ethnic history, ethnic difference history, ethnic relation history and ethnography, lack of comprehensive and multidisciplinary comparative studies. Moreover, studies on Hezhen and Nannais are almost restricted to our territory, involving less about Nannais abroad.The author summarizes the domestic and foreign research results in the past and utilizes research theories and methods of history, religious studies, cultural anthropology and ethnology to conduct a comprehensive comparative study of the belief for Shamanism and their cultural characteristics of Hezhen and Nannais. Especially according to my own advantage, the author translated and used a large amount of Russian literature to do this research beyond the level that precious research just referred to Chinese material and ignored the Russian literature.The second part introduces the geographical and historical overview of the Heilongjiang river basin and illustrates the formation and development of Manchu-Tungus language family, Hezhen and Nannais.Manchu-Tungus ethnics have a wealth of material and spiritual culture. As a member of Manchu-Tungus language family, between Hezhen, Nannais and other nations, there exist clear similarities in material culture including the diet, dress, building, transportation, production and life style as well as in spiritual culture including religious belief, literature and art, and more or less cultural differences due to the limitation of geographical distribution and natural environmental conditions. The belief for Shamanism discussed in this thesis is the common spiritual culture of these ethnics, in which some manifestation and connotation is also distinctive.The third part focuses on the comparative study of the belief for Shamanism between Hezhen and Nannais from several aspects such as understandings of Gods, soul and Shaman culture as well as the feature of the belief for Shamanism, and elaborates differences and similarities in the belief for Shamanism, especially differences of the concept of soul and religion, the development process, the level of development and so on with the analysis of the reason.