Where can I find systematic information about Miao Miao sorcery?

In the thousands of years of Miao history and culture, perhaps the most people have heard is "compulsion", as if the myth of the legend, so that people can not explain clearly.

Remote areas of the Miao settlement, if the child's mouth accidentally got a blood blister, the mother will be in a panic while looking for a needle to puncture the blood blisters, while angrily scolded: "with the compulsion, with the compulsion. I already know who put the parasites in my head. If she doesn't take it back quickly, I won't spare her!" If you eat fish inadvertently, fish bones stuck in the throat, the mother will tell the child to swallow a few mouthfuls of rice without chewing, the fish spikes in the head. Then the child was told to go to the gate and read the name of a certain person (who was considered to have compulsion), shouting: "So-and-so's family has compulsion, she put the cup on me, I know, she did not quickly take it back, I'm not forgiving her: someday I'm going to lift the dung to pour on the door of her house, picking the stone to smash the roof of her house, so that everyone knows that her family has a compulsion to have a child to marry can not be married to, have a woman married to not go miles! " Shouting is full of anger and hatred. It is said that through this way of shouting Zhai, "put compulsion" people hear, heart afraid, will automatically "compulsion" back.

Compulsion in the Miao region commonly known as "grass ghosts", which is said to be attached to the woman, endangering others. Those women who are said to have compulsion are called "grass ghost women". Some Miao scholars believe that almost the whole Miao people believe in parasites, but the severity varies from place to place. They believe that in addition to some of the sudden onset of the above, some of the more difficult to treat long-term cough, hemoptysis, green and black and emaciation, etc., as well as visceral discomfort, intestinal sounding abdominal distension, loss of appetite and other symptoms of chronic diseases, are with the compulsion. Belonging to the sudden onset, the way available to shout cottage let the so-called compulsion to put the compulsion of their own back on the good; belonging to the chronic patients, we must ask the sorcerer for the law "drive away the poison". This kind of fearful compulsion, not the patent of the Miao people. Compulsion has long been widely circulated in the Jiangnan region of ancient China. Initially, the compulsion is born in the vessel of the worm, and later, after the corruption of grain moths and other objects deterioration of the worm is also known as compulsion. Ancient people believed that parasites had mysterious and unpredictable nature and great toxicity, so they were also called poisonous parasites, which could enter the human body through food and drink to cause diseases. The patient is like being bewitched by ghosts and confused. Most of the parasites mentioned by the pre-Qin people referred to naturally occurring mysterious poisonous insects. The long-term superstition of poisonous parasites in turn developed the concept and practice of creating parasites to harm people. According to scholars, during the Warring States period, people in the Central Plains already used and taught the method of creating parasites to harm people.

Legendary methods of creating poisonous parasites, generally a variety of poisonous insects such as snakes and scorpions, lucid scorpions, etc. into the same artifacts, so that they eat each other, killing, and finally the only remaining surviving poisonous insects is the compulsion. There are many kinds of parasites, the more influential ones are snake parasites, dog parasites, cat ghost parasites, scorpion parasites, toad parasites, insect parasites, flying parasites and so on. Although the compulsion on the surface is a tangible thing, but since ancient times, the compulsion is considered to be able to fly swimming, change, luminous, like ghosts and monsters come and go without a trace of the mysterious things. Creator of parasites can use spells to remote-controlled parasites to the object of the spell to bring a variety of diseases or even kill them. For poisonous parasites to cause disease spells, the ancients were convinced, Song Renzong in the Qingli eight years (1048 years) was issued to introduce the method of treatment of parasites of the Qingli good treatment of the book, even the "diseases and Hou theory", "Qianjin Fang", "Materia Medica Compendium" and other books of medical care have been in the parasites in the detailed analysis of the symptoms and treatment of the medical prescription.

In the Miao conceptual world, compulsion has snake compulsion, frog compulsion, ant compulsion, caterpillar compulsion, sparrow compulsion, turtle compulsion and other categories. Compulsions in the compulsion of the people who have more reproduction, can not find food, we must have compulsion to the person himself (compulsion master) attack, ask for food, compulsion master difficult, will be compulsion put out to endanger others. When releasing the parasites, the owner of the parasites says in his mind, "Go to someone to find food, don't pester me!" The parasites will automatically go to that person. Or, dozens of meters away, a finger secretly flick, the compulsion will fly to that person. Some people even say that if the compulsion has a crush on someone, i.e., if it falls in love with someone, it will tell its owner to release the compulsion to that person. Otherwise, the compulsion will want its owner's life. So the person with the compulsion had to release. Miao folk on the circulation of such a story of compulsion: once upon a time there was a mother with a cup, the cup looked at her son, of course, as a mother does not want her son. However, the cup engaged her very fiercely, there is no way, she agreed to put compulsion to harm her son. When the mother was talking to the cup, her daughter-in-law heard her outside. The daughter-in-law rushed to the edge of the village, waited for her husband to come back from mowing the lawn, told him about this, and said that the bowl of eggs that her mother had fried and left for him must not be eaten when she returned. After saying this, the daughter-in-law went home first and boiled a large pot of boiling water. When the son came home a while later, his mother took the bowl of eggs and asked him to eat them. His daughter-in-law said, "The eggs are cold, wait until they are warmed up before you eat them. Said the lid off the pot, the bowl of scrambled eggs into the boiling pot of water to go, cover the lid and tightly pressed, only to hear something in the pot in the struggle and swing. After a while there was no movement, uncovered the pot to see, only to see the scalding is a large snake.

These so-called ways of releasing parasites are of course nonsense. As for the compulsion in the end what is like, in addition to generations of claims, no one has seen, of course, is even more false things.

While it is a fiction, some Miao women are y victimized by this concept. It is believed that "compulsion" is only available to women, and can only be attached to women and passed on to the next generation of women, but not to men. For example, if a young man "traveled" and met a girl with "compulsion" who was in love with him and married her without the consent of his parents, then their next generation, all of whom were women, would have to inherit the compulsion from their mothers and pass it on from generation to generation. In the Chinese text, the compulsion is not limited to women, why do the Miao think that only women have compulsion? This is related to the social and cultural traditions of the Han and Miao. In the witchcraft beliefs of the Han, there is only a distinction between good and evil, and there is no gender opposition. In the Miao and other southern ethnic minorities, in the matriarchy was replaced by patriarchy in the process of the formation of the cultural heritage of gender confrontation to be much stronger, this confrontation is manifested in witchcraft beliefs, that is, occupying the position of the orthodox male sorcerer has become a party to maintain social order. And in the matriarchal society used to dominate the witch has become the destroyer of the order, was framed as the inheritor of black witchcraft. All the natural and man-made disasters that could not be explained or avoided by male shamans were put on the heads of witches. Thus, the absurd conclusion that women have parasites was reasoned out.

Because the release of parasites was regarded as a serious criminal activity of murdering people for their money, it has always been classified as a target of severe crackdown in history. In the Han Laws, there is a provision that "those who dare to bewitch people and those who teach them to do so shall be abandoned to the market"; and the laws of the Tang and Song dynasties, as well as those of the Ming and Qing dynasties, classify the use of poisonous parasites as one of the ten most heinous crimes, punishable by the death penalty. The government's punishment of the so-called parasites is extremely cruel. Ming Kwong Lu said, the Zhuang region of the "mine officials" Tiduo submarine captured the parasitic women, will be buried in the ground, only exposed the head outside, and then in the head of the parasitic women poured wax juice burned on fire. In the Miao area, the women who were falsely accused of having parasites, although they would not all be in fear of their lives, the falsely accused would be discredited, discriminated against, and caused great mental suffering, and even died of injustice. Those who were considered to have parasites suffered discrimination and humiliation, and even their friends and relatives were afraid to communicate with them. Regardless of who is sick, as long as the sorcerer said in the compulsion, then there is a patient family will be pointing at the Samuel cursing, cursing who, people do not know, and cursed by their own understanding, like the beginning of this article shouting Zhai. Compassionate family also had to swallow their anger, because a defense, is tantamount to publicize their own homes have the so-called compulsion, so they have to suffer such humiliation for nothing.

The Miao people are located in remote areas, the old medical backwardness, many diseases can not be effectively treated. In the old days, medicine was backward, and many diseases were not effectively treated, so they were often blamed on parasites. During the Republic of China period, there was a Han Chinese in western Hunan, who had been an officer in the army and had power and influence. He got a strange disease of abdominal distension, whenever the distension, seems to feel something in the abdomen in the swim, because of several doctors invited medical skill is not high, the medicine is ineffective, will be blamed on the neighbor Miao women cast compulsion. After a number of sorcerers still no improvement, the Han official in a fit of rage to the neighboring Miao woman tied up and hung up, all kinds of insults, tortured, almost tortured to death. The Miao woman's husband was afraid of the Han official's power, dare not say anything, can only stand by and watch. Later, after more than a year, the introduction, the Han official invited a highly skilled doctor to diagnose and treat, the doctor looked after, said it was some kind of bulging disease, and not what compulsion. Sure enough, after a dose of medicine, the disease was cured. The poor Miao woman was wronged for no reason and almost died. After the doctor's confirmation, the Miao woman to restore the reputation of innocence. The doctor said, "I don't know how many of those Miao women have been wronged in their lives, but I don't know how many of them have been wronged in their lives!

In the Hmong region, the name of the cup of women scolding or venting personal wrath to retaliate, will cause disputes. Miao "talk about compulsion color change", especially in the marriage of the most taboo. Sons and daughters to open the marriage, both parents have to secretly each other to carry out a rigorous review (commonly known as "clear needle and thread"), to see their families and relatives clean or not, that is, there is no compulsion. If the other party is found to have the suspicion of unclean, on the pretext of politely rejected, thus resulting in a number of tragedies on the marriage. Some young women, suspected of having parasites, could only marry defective or poor men; some young women even committed suicide for this reason. Because of the fear of having compulsion with the family marriage, resulting in some Hmong areas basically a single line of open relatives, in their own relatives among each other, resulting in blood relatives more and more close, the quality of people more and more low.

In view of the serious harm done to the Miao society by the bad customs of compulsion, many Miao scholars feel that the superstition of compulsion has come to the point that it must be eradicated, and they call for a change of customs and the elimination of bad customs. With the popularization of scientific and cultural knowledge in the Miao region, the improvement of medical standards, the influence of superstitious compulsion in the Miao region will become smaller and smaller.