Telling Stories

Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-90-04-14844-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 71, 382 Seiten, Format (B × H): 166 mm x 245 mm, Gewicht: 839 g

Reihe: Sinica Leidensia

This book analyzes the role of oral stories in Chinese witch-hunts. Successive chapters deal with the implications of Chinese versions of the Little Red Riding Hood story; the use of parts of the adult human body, children and foetuses, to draw out their life-force; attacks by mysterious creatures, causing open wounds, suffocation, the loss of hair and the like; the presence of a Drought Demon in the corpses of recently deceased women; and finally the emperor forcibly recruiting unmarried women for his harem. Of interest to historians and anthropologists working on oral traditions, folklore and witch-hunts (also from a comparative perspective), but also to those working on anti-Christian movements and the intersection of popular fears and political history in China.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ter Haar, Barend

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Volkskunde: Sitten, Traditionen, Mythen, Legenden
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Barend J. ter Haar, Doctorate (1990) in the Humanities, Leiden University, is Professor of Chinese History at Leiden. He published on Chinese temple cults, lay religious movements, violence, minorities, including The Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads: Creating an Identity (Brill, 1998).