Chinese Spirit Mediumship in Urban Malaysia

R. Lee Continuity and change in Chinese pump mediumship in urban Malaysia In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 142 (1986), no: 2/3, Leiden, 198-214 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl RAYMOND L. M. LEE CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN Chinese SPIRIT MEDIUMSHIP IN URBAN MALAYSIA The spirit medium occupies an neat position in customary Chinese religion. As an try out between the spiritual and the mundane world, he not provided provides serve in healing and divination still as advantageously as performs vital roles at temple and spirit festivals. The muniment of Chinese spirit mediumship can be traced to the Shang Dynasty of the second millennium B.C., where priest-shamans (wu) were accorded luxuriously official standing in the imperial courts, until their blood in the late Chou period in the leash hundred B.C.1 However, spirit mediumship did not become obsolete but go along to be practised at the popular level (Yang 1967: 1 06, 303). a few(prenominal)er reports of spirit mediumship in modern chinaware live appeared in print, except for the detailed observations of De Groot (1964) made in the southern provinces in the late nineteenth century.

Since then, most anthropologists have studied Chinese spirit mediumship in various Chinese communities, particularly in Taiwan (Jordan 1972, Seaman 1978, Kleinman 1980) and Hong Kong (Potter 1974). Spirit mediumship is likewise practised in various Chinese communities in southeast Asia, but few ethnographies have been published. One such idealistic ethnography, by Elliott (1955), focuses on Chinese spirit mediumship in Singapore.2 A comparable information on the Ma laysian Peninsula has yet to be accomplished! . In this essay, I wish to fill some of this blank shell by describing the practices of Chinese spirit mediums and their organization in present-day(a) urban Malaysia.3 Chinese Folk Religion in Malaysia It is essential to describe presently Chinese folk religious practices in Malaysia in pronounce to understand the role of the Chinese spirit medium....If you want to set down a full essay, decree it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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