Masters of Psalmody (Bimo)

Scriptural Shamanism in Southwestern China
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41483-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 15, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

Reihe: Religion in Chinese Societies

In Masters of Psalmody (bimo) Aurélie Névot analyses the religious, political and theoretical issues of a scriptural shamanism observed in southwestern China among the Yi-Sani. Her focus is on blood sacrifices and chants based on a secret and labile writing handled only by ritualists called bimo.

Through ethnographic data, the author presents the still little known bimo metaphysics and unravels the complexity of the local text-based ritual system in which the continuity of each bimo lineage relies on the transmission of manuscripts whose writing relates to lineage blood. While illuminating the usages of this shamanistic tradition that is characterized by scriptural variability between patrilineages, Aurélie Névot highlights the radical changes it is undergoing by becoming a Chinese state tradition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Névot, Aurélie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Heilige & Traditionelle Texte, Mythologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Kult, Riten, Feiertage, Zeremonien, Gebete

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Illustrations and Tables

Notes to the Reader

Introduction

1 Countercurrent Writing: Myths and Blood Lineages in Question

Introduction: Yi-centrism versus Han-centrism

1 A Direction of Writing Contrary to Chinese Writing

2 Writing as a Mirrored Avatar and/or as an Expression of a Distinction of Identity?

3 “The Language of the Eyes”

4 Apparent Anarchy, Lineage Lability

Conclusion: a Lineage Shamanistic Tradition

2 The Textual Chants of Bimo: Voicing the Written Space

Introduction: Graphical Melodies

1 To Meow, to Screech like a Falcon, to Quack like a Wild Duck, to Utter the Chant of the Snake/Dead

2 To Write Then to Psalmodize: Becoming Bimo

3 Invisible Characters, Voice in Completion, Subtle Speech

4 Writing as a Psalmodic Chimera

5 The Written Reflexivity of Bimo Speech

Conclusion: the Acoustic Life of Bimo Writing

3 The Physicality of Bimo Books: the Manuscript as a Psalmodic Mask

Introduction: Manuscript as a Persona

1 The Space of the Book

2 A Canvas of Writing-Blood

3 Mountain-book, Hillside-pages

4 Facing “Two Cheeks”

Conclusion: the Feminine of Writing

4 The Bimo’s Bookish Journey: to Walk through Chanted Lines of Writing

Introduction: Bimo Transhumances and Shamanistic Spatialities

1 To Ride, to Walk on Four Hands, to Whirl, to Flow

2 Parallelisms

3 A Concatenation of Textual Chant

Conclusion: the Writing, Visible, as Access to the Vocalized Invisible Space

5 Bimo Ritual, nyi: Sacrificial Transsubstantiality

Introduction: Blood Sacrifices

1 Setting Up the Ritual Framework

2 “To Build the Center”

3 To Become a mo (Sacrificial Animal)

4 “The Sacrifici

Über Autor(innen)

Aurélie Névot, HDR (2017), EHESS (Paris), Ph. D (2003), Paris-Nanterre University, is researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) - Research Center on Modern and Contemporary China. She has published monographs and articles on Yi-Sani and China.