Qiang folk religion is the indigenous religion of the majority of the

Qiang people The Qiang people ( Qiangic: ''Rrmea''; ) are an ethnic group in China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the People's Republic of China, with a population of approximately 310,000 in 2000. They live mainly in a ...

, an ethnic group of

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

( China) tightly related to the

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

and the

Tibetans The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans liv ...

.
Chapter 1.3.6 "Religion"
It is

pantheistic Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...

, involving the worship of a variety of gods of nature and of human affairs, including Qiang progenitors. White stones are worshipped as it is believed they can be invested with the power of some gods through rituals. They believe in an overarching

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

, called ''Mubyasei'' ("God of Heaven"), which is connected to the Chinese concept of ''

Tian ''Tiān'' () is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their supreme god as '' Shàngdì'' (, "Lor ...

'' and clearly identified by the Qiang with the Taoist-originated Jade Emperor.See excerpts
Religious ceremonies and rituals are directed by priests called ''duāngōng'' in Chinese. They are

shamans Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritu ...

who acquire their position through years of training with a teacher. ''Duāngōng'' are the custodians of Qiang theology, history and mythology. They also administer the coming of age ceremony for 18-year-old boys, called the "sitting on top of the mountain", which involves the boy's entire family going to mountain tops to sacrifice a sheep or cow, and to plant three cypress trees. Two of the most important religious holidays are the Qiang New Year, falling on the 24th day of the sixth month of the

lunar calendar A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases ( synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, t ...

(though now it is fixed on October 1st), and the Mountain Sacrifice Festival, held between the second and the sixth month of the lunar calendar. The former festival is to give sacrifice to the God of Heaven, while the latter is dedicated to the god of mountains.

Notes

References

{{religion in China Qiang people Religion in Sichuan Chinese folk religion in Asia

See also

Notes

References