Contemporary Northeast Chinese Shamanism in the Interaction Between Public Heritage and Private Belief

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3577797
AutoresXiaoshuang Liu (0000-0002-8829-7245, Inner Mongolia Normal University, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume16
Fascículo6
Páginas706
Data de publicação2025-05-30
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16060706
OpenAlexW4410951577
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas11

Since China's accession to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004, private shamanism, centered around the sacred belief of "connecting heaven and earth", has for the first time been incorporated into the national heritage management system with legal legitimacy, becoming regulated public heritage on the condition of avoiding religious attributes. Through fieldwork and historical analysis, this paper examines the interaction between public heritage and private belief in contemporary Northeast Chinese shamanism. The research reveals the mutual influence between the public and private domains of shamanic ritual practices, with a new synthesis or symbiotic relationship emerging across these domains, which is manifested in two main aspects: first, the "generation of the public from the private", exemplified by the emergence of the public heritage associated with shamanism, and second, the "promotion of the private by the public", where the sacred private belief expands its existential space with the assistance of newly recognized public heritage. This bidirectional interaction model challenges the conventional notion that "heritagization leads to the decline of faith", offering a novel interpretive framework for understanding the contemporary transformation of ritual systems

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Belief system · Ethnology · Geography · Shamanism · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Psychology · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies