Shamanism was the dominant religion of the Jurchen people of northeast Asia and of their descendants, the Manchu people. As early as the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), the Jurchens conducted shamanic ceremonies at shrines called tangse. There were two kinds of shamans: those who entered in a trance and let themselves be possessed by the spirits, and those who conducted regular sacrifices to heaven, to a clan's ancestors, or to the clan's protective spirits.
When Nurhaci (1559–1626), the chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens, who was originally a vassal to the Ming dynasty,Denis C. Twitchett, John K. Fairbank, The Cambridge History of China, Volume 9: "The Ch'ing Empire to 1800", Part 1, p. 29 unified other Jurchen tribes under his own rule and established the Later Jin dynasty in the early 17th century, he imposed the protective spirits of his clan, the Aisin Gioro, upon other clans, and often destroyed their shrines. As early as the 1590s, he placed shamanism at the center of his state's ritual, sacrificing to heaven before engaging in military campaigns. His son and successor Hong Taiji (1592–1643), who renamed the Jurchens "Manchu" and officially proclaimed the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in 1636, further put shamanistic practices in the service of the state, notably by forbidding others to erect new tangse (shrines) for ritual purposes. In the 1620s and 1630s, the Qing ruler conducted shamanic sacrifices at the tangse of Mukden, the Qing capital. In 1644, as soon as the Qing seized Beijing to begin their conquest of China proper, they named it their new capital and erected an official shamanic shrine there. In the Beijing tangse and in the women's quarters of the Forbidden City, Qing emperors and professional shamans (usually women) conducted shamanic ceremonies until the abdication of the dynasty in 1912.
Until at least the eighteenth century, shamanism was at the core of Manchu spiritual life and differentiated Manchus from Han people even as Manchu Bannermen garrisoned in various cities in China proper were adopting many aspects of the Han lifestyle. In 1747 the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1796) commissioned the publication of a "Shamanic Code" to revive and regulate shamanic practices, which he feared were becoming lost. He had it distributed to Bannermen to guide their practice, but we know very little about the effect of this policy. Mongols and Han were forbidden to attend shamanic ceremonies. Partly because of their secret aspect, these rituals attracted the curiosity of Beijing dwellers and visitors to the Qing capital. Even after the "Shamanic Code" was translated into Chinese and published in the 1780s, outsiders had little understanding of these practices.
During his fieldwork among the Tungusic populations of "Manchuria" in the 1910s, Russian anthropologist S. M. Shirokogoroff found enough surviving practices to build a theory of shamanism that shaped later theoretical debates about shamanism. Since the late 1980s, however, these theories have been criticized for neglecting the relation between shamanism and the state. Historians are now arguing that shamanistic practices in northeast Asia were intimately tied to the establishment of states, an analysis that fits the Qing case very well.
Historical origins to 1644 Shamanism is the religion most typical of Tungusic peoples of Northeast Asia. The word "shaman" itself (saman in the Manchu language) appears in every Tunguso-Manchurian language and seems to be of Tungusic origins. (every Tunguso-Manchurian language); (general description). The most common religion among the Manchus was shamanism, which they and their ancestors the Jurchens practiced long before the Qing dynasty expanded into China proper..
Early Jurchen shamanism
The Manchu name for a shamanic shrine or altar to the spirits is tangse.. Because its Chinese equivalent tangzi () means "hall", it may seem that tangse was derived from Chinese, but only around 1660 did tangse start to be translated as tangzi., note 13. Before that, it was rendered into Chinese as yemiao (), or "visitation temple". The term tangse may have originated in the portable "god boxes" (also "tangse") in which the Jurchens placed god figurines when they were still mobile hunters. Once Jurchen bands started to settle into palisaded villages (their typical kind of settlement), their tangse became permanent fixtures of the village.
Each clan—mukūn, a village or association of villages who claimed to share common ancestors—had its sacred protective spirits (enduri). ("enduri" as sacred spirits; dead ancestors); ("mukūn"; protective spirits). The shaman (often a woman) was in charge of placating spirits and dead ancestors and of contacting them to seek a good hunt or harvest, quick healing, success in battle, and other such favors.. The point of contact between the community and the spirits was the "spirit pole" (Manchu: šomo; ).. Shamans played a crucial role in these early Jurchen communities, as the authority of the clan headman often depended on the assent of the shaman..
There were two kinds of Jurchen shamanistic rituals, corresponding to two kinds of shamans. ("the Jurchen had two kinds of shamans"; ("in discussions of Manchu shamanism it is common to speak of two types of ritual"). The most common was "domestic ritual": ritual-based sacrifices to Heaven and to the clan's ancestors conducted by hereditary shamans from that clan., pp. 236 ("domestic" ritual; "liturgically based sacrifices to heaven and to the ancestors") and 237 (most common); ("hereditary shamans who specialized in performing rites for their own clan"). "Primitive ritual", on the other hand, was performed by people who had undergone a "shamanic illness", which was seen as a sign that they had been chosen by the spirits. ("primitive ritual"); ("shamanic illness"). Entering into a trance, these "transformational" shamans let themselves be possessed by various animal spirits and sought the help of these spirits for purposes like healing or exorcism. ("transformational shamanism"; possession by animal spirits; specific purposes); (also "transformational shamans"). Elliott and Rawski both borrow the term "transformational" from . These shamans set up an altar in their own houses and received a different kind of training than hereditary shamans..
Manchu shamans typically wore an apron, a feathered cap denoting their ability to fly to the spirit world, and a belt with dangling bells, and carried a knife, two wooden sticks with bells affixed to the top, and a drum they used during ceremonies.. These attributes could still be observed among shamans from Manchuria and Mongolia in the early twentieth century., note 18.
Shamanism after the rise of Nurhaci Jurchen shamanic practices were transformed by the rise of the Later Jin founder Nurhaci (1559–1626). As he started to unify the Jurchen tribes, Nurhaci destroyed the tangse of the defeated tribes and replaced their protective deities with the magpie, the totemic animal of his own clan, the Aisin Gioro. (destruction of other tribes' shrines); (magpie). Tribes that voluntarily joined Nurhaci were allowed to keep their own gods. This absorption of other clans' shamanic rituals into those of Nurhaci's clan started a process of "state codification of religion" that continued into the eighteenth century., pp. 202 (eighteenth century) and 203 ("The first steps toward state codification of religion were taken, and the process would accelerate under succeeding emperors").
In another transformation that "mirrored the process of political centralization" in Nurhaci's state, the traditional Jurchen belief in multiple heavens was replaced by one Heaven, called "Abka", led by a universal sky god called Abka Enduri ("Sky God" or "God of Heaven"), also referred to as Abka Han ("Sky Khan" or "Khan of Heaven") and Abka Ama ("Sky Father"). This new shamanic Heaven became the object of a state cult similar to that of the Jurchen rulers' cult of Heaven in the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) and to Genghis Khan's worship of Tengri in the thirteenth century.. This state sacrifice became an early counterpart to the worship of Heaven by the Han people.. From as early as the 1590s, Nurhaci appealed to Heaven as, "the arbiter of right and wrong". He worshipped Heaven at a shamanic shrine in 1593 before leaving for a campaign against the Yehe, a Jurchen tribe that belonged to the rival Hūlun confederacy. Qing annals also report that when Nurhaci announced his Seven Great Grievances against the Ming dynasty in April 1618, he conducted a shamanic ceremony during which he burned an oath to Heaven written on a piece of yellow paper.. This ceremony was deliberately omitted from the later Chinese translation of this event by the Qing court..
Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643), who renamed the Jurchens "Manchus" in 1635, forbade commoners and officials from erecting shamanic shrines for ritual purposes, making the tangse "the monopoly of the ruler". He also banned shamans from treating illness, albeit with little success. The Old Manchu Archives, a chronicle documenting Manchu history from 1607 to 1636, show that state rituals were held at the tangse of the Qing capital Mukden in the 1620s and 1630s., note 11. Just before commanding Banner troops into China proper in early 1644, Prince Dorgon (1612–1650), who was then regent to the newly enthroned Shunzhi Emperor (r. 1643–1661), led the other Manchu princes in worshipping Heaven at the Mukden tangse.
Shamans could also be used for personal purposes, as when Nurhaci's eldest son Cuyen supposedly tried to bewitch the entire Aisin Gioro lineage with the help of shamans in 1612..
State shamanism after 1644
The Beijing tangse
In 1644, just a few months after the Qing seized the city of Beijing from the peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng who had pushed the last emperor of the Ming dynasty to suicide, the Manchus constructed a new tangse in the city, modeled on the tangse of the former Qing capital Mukden. ("work on building a tangzi ... began almost immediately after the Manchu troops occupied the capital"); (this "special sanctuary" for shamanic rites was constructed "in the autumn of 1644"); , note 13 (modeled on "the Shenyang tangse"). Elliott, however, gives the date of construction as 1653. This "Manchu shamanist sanctuary", an octagonal building whose shape was specific to the Aisin Gioro clan, was located outside the Imperial City to the southeast, but still within the Inner City occupied by Bannermen, making it convenient for imperial visits. (location, "Manchu shamanist sanctuary"); , p. 237 ("smallish octagonal building") and p. 466, note 13; , note 29 (shape specific to the Aisin Gioro). There, the emperor made offerings to Heaven and various other deities, including the horse spirit and the Manchu progenitor.. Ethnic Han and Mongol peoples were strictly forbidden from entering this ritual area. ("ritual areas closed to Chinese"); ("the presence of Han or Mongol officials was forbidden").
The Qing state's main shamanistic ritual was performed at the tangse by the emperor on the first day of the New Year. (date of the ceremony, emperor's attendance). In the Shunzhi (1644–1661), Kangxi (1662–1722), and Yongzheng (1723–1735) eras, this ceremony was the emperor's first activity on the first day of the New Year, but sometime during the Qianlong era (1736–1796) it fell to the second rank after private sacrifices to the Aisin Gioro ancestors.. Even with this somewhat diminished importance, these shamanic rites continued to the end of the dynasty.