The Research Of Manchu Shamanism Worship Songs

Shamanism is considered as a worldwide primitive religious belief. It was generated longago, which was around in matriarchal society and early stages of the New Stone Age. It couldbe regarded as the origin of human cultural society. During the vicissitudes of human cultureover the past thousands of years, shamanism has remained part of the original appearance, andthis point will play a very crucial role to the study of hominid social cultures.Shamanism was originated from Sushen people who were lived about three thousandyears ago. During three thousand year from the Jurchen people to Nurhachi reunite NvzhenPeople and found Jin Dynasty by Nurhachi, Shamanism had always been acted as the majorbelief by the Manchu people, so the believing Shamanism by the Manchu people shared aprofound history. Currently, many scholars held the view that the origin of Shamanism is inChina’s northeast regions. As one of the major ethnic group in China’s northeast region, theManchu people have believed in Shamanism for thousands of years. We can get acquire of theoriginal features of the Manchu people through studying Shamanism. By reaching theworship music of Shamanism, we may get a clear picture of Manchu’s cultural growth, whichwill show the essence of Manchu culture.This paper is analyzing the Manchu’s worship music. In the history of Shamanismworship, music was used as a major tool, and most worship words are expressed by “Singing”.Shaman Music carried a lot of important historical information which indicated hominids’habit, art and culture and regional culture.This paper will analyze Shaman worship songs from three parts which are introduction,argument and conclusion.Introduction: mainly introduce origin of the research, purpose, method, and status inhome and abroad.Argument:Chapter One: Summary of Shamanism and Shamanchu. Shamanism history and thedevelopment of Shamanchu are showed. Shamanism culture is a universal culturalphenomenon existed in human society, its establish history has almost covered all time ofhuman development. The mark of Shamanism is existed in all ethnic groups all around theworld, and it is a kind of folk belief based on the respect on totems and witchcraft.Shamanism in Manchu could be traced back to Sushen people who lived three thousand yearsago, and Manchu people remained believing in Shamanism during their development.Although thousands of years have gone, some of the Manchu people still believe in Shamanism. By showing the historical materials, this chapter will analyze the developmentprocess, and laying a foundation for the whole paper.Chapter Two: Music pattern of Manchu Shamanism worship songs. The focus is on theanalyzing of the musical scale, tone, meter, tempo, and trap drum’s rhythm, aiming atdiscover the features and general rules existed in Manchu Shamanism worship music.Chapter Three: Article features of Manchu Shamanism worship music. There are someimprovisational elements in the singing of Shamanism worship music, but still not off thebasic rules. Manchu Shamanism worship music is of diverse techniques of expression, such asthe grace note and the diversity of singing ways, etc.Chapter Four: Lingual features of Manchu Shamanism worship music. With thedevelopment and society changes, the language of Shamanism worship music has witnessedtremendous changes, from the beginning of Manchu language to Manchu language plusesmandarin Chinese to singing by mandarin Chinese. Although there were some changes inlanguages, the essence did not change. These changes just gave a very good showing ofManchu Shamanism’s bioenergy from another perspective, no matter how history changes, itcan survive by its specific features and develop with the history and keep growing doggedly.Conclusion: the meaning of theory research in this paper is that, by studying theShamanism worship songs in China’s northeast region, we will fully review the origin ofShaman music and development thread in a stereo angle. Shaman worship songs are ofhistory, reality and future. To study the Shaman worship songs’ history is also the study onthe whole process of beginning of the songs, the development and fading, so it has a profoundhistorical meaning. The researcher will survey Shaman music culture in the whole prehistory,which will give the conclusion stronger interpretation power in scholar aspect; the reality ofShaman worship songs indicates that the researcher will study the remained Shaman worshipsongs in macro and micro, theoretical and practical, specific and comprehensive manner. Thehistory feature is not only the fulcrum of the study of reality but also the bridge for futurestudy; the future feature of Shaman worship songs are the potential influences of the Shamanmusic culture to the future society, and the rebound possibility of the Shaman song culture insome certain period of time among specific region and group, and the effects it caused to thedevelopment of human society.