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Wu (shaman)
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Wu (shaman)
Wu (Chinese: 巫; pinyin: wū; Wade–Giles: wu) is a Chinese term translating to "shaman" or "sorcerer", originally the practitioners of Chinese shamanism or "Wuism" (巫教 wū jiào).
The glyph ancestral to modern 巫 is first recorded in bronze script, where it could refer to shamans or sorcerers of either sex. Modern Mandarin wu (Cantonese mouh) continues a Middle Chinese mju or mjo. The Old Chinese reconstruction is uncertain, given as *mywo or as *myag, the presence of a final velar -g or -ɣ in Old Chinese being uncertain.
By the late Zhou dynasty (4th to 3rd centuries BCE), wu referred mostly to female shamans or "sorceresses", while male sorcerers were named xi 覡 "male shaman; sorcerer", first attested in the Guoyu or Discourses of the States (4th century BCE). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch".
Wu is used in compounds like wugu 巫蠱 "sorcery; cast harmful spells", wushen 巫神 or shenwu 神巫 (with shen "spirit; god") "wizard; sorcerer", and wuxian 巫仙 (with xian "immortal; alchemist") "immortal shaman".
The word tongji 童乩 (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym of wu. Chinese uses phonetic transliteration to distinguish native wu from "Siberian shaman": saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻. "Shaman" is occasionally written with Chinese Buddhist transcriptions of Shramana "wandering monk; ascetic": shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.
Joseph Needham suggests "shaman" was transliterated xianmen 羨門 in the name of Zou Yan's disciple Xianmen Gao 羨門高 (or Zigao 子高). He quotes the Shiji that Emperor Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BCE), "wandered about on the shore of the eastern sea, and offered sacrifices to the famous mountains and the great rivers and the eight Spirits; and searched for xian "immortals", [xianmen], and the like." Needham compares two later Chinese terms for "shaman": shanman 珊蛮, which described the Jurchen leader Wanyan Xiyin, and sizhu 司祝, which was used for imperial Manchu shamans during the Qing dynasty.
Shaman is the common English translation of Chinese wu, but some scholars maintain that the Siberian shaman and Chinese wu were historically and culturally different shamanic traditions. Arthur Waley defines wu as "spirit-intermediary" and says, "Indeed the functions of the Chinese wu were so like those of Siberian and Tunguz shamans that it is convenient (as has indeed been done by Far Eastern and European writers) to use shaman as a translation of wu. In contrast, Schiffeler describes the "untranslatableness" of wu, and prefers using the romanization "wu instead of its contemporary English counterparts, "witches," "warlocks," or "shamans"," which have misleading connotations. Taking wu to mean "female shaman", Edward H. Schafer translates it as "shamaness" and "shamanka". The transliteration-translation "wu shaman" or "wu-shaman" implies "Chinese" specifically and "shamanism" generally. Wu, concludes von Falkenhausen, "may be rendered as "shaman" or, perhaps, less controversially as "spirit medium"." Paper criticizes "the majority of scholars" who use one word shaman to translate many Chinese terms (wu 巫, xi 覡, yi 毉, xian 仙, and zhu 祝), and writes, "The general tendency to refer to all ecstatic religious functionaries as shamans blurs functional differences."
The character 巫 wu besides the meanings of "spirit medium, shaman, witch doctor" (etc.) also has served as a toponym: Wushan 巫山 (near Chongqing in Sichuan Province), Wuxi 巫溪 "Wu Stream", Wuxia 巫峽 "Wu Gorge".
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Wu (shaman)
Wu (Chinese: 巫; pinyin: wū; Wade–Giles: wu) is a Chinese term translating to "shaman" or "sorcerer", originally the practitioners of Chinese shamanism or "Wuism" (巫教 wū jiào).
The glyph ancestral to modern 巫 is first recorded in bronze script, where it could refer to shamans or sorcerers of either sex. Modern Mandarin wu (Cantonese mouh) continues a Middle Chinese mju or mjo. The Old Chinese reconstruction is uncertain, given as *mywo or as *myag, the presence of a final velar -g or -ɣ in Old Chinese being uncertain.
By the late Zhou dynasty (4th to 3rd centuries BCE), wu referred mostly to female shamans or "sorceresses", while male sorcerers were named xi 覡 "male shaman; sorcerer", first attested in the Guoyu or Discourses of the States (4th century BCE). Other sex-differentiated shaman names include nanwu 男巫 for "male shaman; sorcerer; wizard"; and nüwu 女巫, wunü 巫女, wupo 巫婆, and wuyu 巫嫗 for "female shaman; sorceress; witch".
Wu is used in compounds like wugu 巫蠱 "sorcery; cast harmful spells", wushen 巫神 or shenwu 神巫 (with shen "spirit; god") "wizard; sorcerer", and wuxian 巫仙 (with xian "immortal; alchemist") "immortal shaman".
The word tongji 童乩 (lit. "youth diviner") "shaman; spirit-medium" is a near-synonym of wu. Chinese uses phonetic transliteration to distinguish native wu from "Siberian shaman": saman 薩滿 or saman 薩蠻. "Shaman" is occasionally written with Chinese Buddhist transcriptions of Shramana "wandering monk; ascetic": shamen 沙門, sangmen 桑門, or sangmen 喪門.
Joseph Needham suggests "shaman" was transliterated xianmen 羨門 in the name of Zou Yan's disciple Xianmen Gao 羨門高 (or Zigao 子高). He quotes the Shiji that Emperor Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BCE), "wandered about on the shore of the eastern sea, and offered sacrifices to the famous mountains and the great rivers and the eight Spirits; and searched for xian "immortals", [xianmen], and the like." Needham compares two later Chinese terms for "shaman": shanman 珊蛮, which described the Jurchen leader Wanyan Xiyin, and sizhu 司祝, which was used for imperial Manchu shamans during the Qing dynasty.
Shaman is the common English translation of Chinese wu, but some scholars maintain that the Siberian shaman and Chinese wu were historically and culturally different shamanic traditions. Arthur Waley defines wu as "spirit-intermediary" and says, "Indeed the functions of the Chinese wu were so like those of Siberian and Tunguz shamans that it is convenient (as has indeed been done by Far Eastern and European writers) to use shaman as a translation of wu. In contrast, Schiffeler describes the "untranslatableness" of wu, and prefers using the romanization "wu instead of its contemporary English counterparts, "witches," "warlocks," or "shamans"," which have misleading connotations. Taking wu to mean "female shaman", Edward H. Schafer translates it as "shamaness" and "shamanka". The transliteration-translation "wu shaman" or "wu-shaman" implies "Chinese" specifically and "shamanism" generally. Wu, concludes von Falkenhausen, "may be rendered as "shaman" or, perhaps, less controversially as "spirit medium"." Paper criticizes "the majority of scholars" who use one word shaman to translate many Chinese terms (wu 巫, xi 覡, yi 毉, xian 仙, and zhu 祝), and writes, "The general tendency to refer to all ecstatic religious functionaries as shamans blurs functional differences."
The character 巫 wu besides the meanings of "spirit medium, shaman, witch doctor" (etc.) also has served as a toponym: Wushan 巫山 (near Chongqing in Sichuan Province), Wuxi 巫溪 "Wu Stream", Wuxia 巫峽 "Wu Gorge".