On Wuism in China
The wu, from the earliest records available to us from the Shang Dynasty through to the imperial writings, have been associated with a wide sphere of activities that include divination, sorcery, exorcism, rainmaking, medicine and, in its most denigrated and denounced form, what we might call ‘witchcraft’ in the West . It is often claimed on social media and in marketing schemes that the wu are the forefathers of Chinese medicine, even to the point of earning Chinese medicine the title of ‘shamanic medicine’. But can it be substantiated that the wu were the initiators of the impetus that finally lead to the founding of what is known today as Chinese medicine?
-from ‘The Role of the Wu-Physicians in the Making of Chinese Medicine’ in Legacy of Chinese Shamanism: The Wu and their Successors (Purple Cloud Press forthcoming)
Image: Siberian Yup’ik Shaman
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