Telling Stories
Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History
Published on 30. November 2005
Book
Hardback
392 pages
978-90-04-14844-4 (ISBN)
Description
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.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 166 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
839 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-14844-4 (9789004148444)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Software
12/2005
Brill
Unfortunately, price unknown
Available (delivery time upon request)
Person
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).