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Paper short abstract

This paper focuses on the world of storytelling of the shamanic practitioners among the Han Chinese in northeast China, exploring the agencies of the multidimensional nature and animal spirits in the belief narratives of historicization and mythologization.

Paper long abstract

Historicization in Chinese folk religions is a common process where the sanctified past lends authority to the present. In shamanic beliefs, historicization and mythologization are often intermingled and even identical to each other, as the historical and supernatural significations together form the sacred past, which derives the capacity of order and maintenance to the shamanic ritual practitioners. Nevertheless, the natural environment and landscapes, whether actual or imagined, are tightly embedded in the storytelling world of the northeast Chinese shamanic beliefs, serving as markers of locality and sites of the narrative of historicization and mythologization. The natural environment and landscapes depicted in these narratives are residing on several dimensions at the same time, embodying geographical sites, shamanic tradition, and cultural vernacularity.

This paper focuses on the belief narratives of the shamanic practitioners among the Han Chinese in northeast China. They worship animal spirits such as foxes, Siberian weasels, and snakes, channeling between spirits and human beings for the sake of divination and healing. In their storytelling world, nature is not only a prominent occasion where animal spirits act and interact but also very often constitutes entangled agencies mutually with the spirits. By exploring the agencies of nature in the belief narratives of historicization and mythologization, we can better understand the shaman’s perception of reality and imagination, past and present, and belief and disbelief.