The Changes of Chinese Oroqen Shaman Culture in the Context of Social Transformation

Abstract

With the settlement under the mountains, the Chinese Oroqen has started comprehensive interaction with other ethnic groups, and gradually adapted to the wider society. During this process, the shaman culture, which has accompanied the Oroqen’s daily life and social development for a long time, has changed accordingly. Through looking at the changes of shaman culture, the self-adjustment process of Oroqen people in the transition from traditional to modern society can be better understood. It is also an important entry point to understand the social and cultural transformation and community consciousness of Oroqen people, which helps to understand their cultural self-confidence and identity consciousness. Grounded in ethnographic observations, especially “the last shaman” Guan Kouni’s life story, this paper traces the shaman culture and its social significance in the traditional society for Oroqen people. With the help of the research paradigm of “embedding–disembedding–re-embedding”, the article compares the reshaping of the identity of Oroqen shamans under the combined effect of various socio-historical events since the settlement, smoothing out the changing process in the Oroqen shaman culture, and discussing the transformation of the social function of Oroqen shaman. This article offers a more comprehensive picture of the cultural changes of Oroqen shaman since the settlement under the mountains, in order to clarify the role and functions played by Oroqen shamans at contemporary society and provide a reference case for understanding the significant transformation of the original functions and status of the traditional elites of ethnic minorities in the theoretical sense. The study explores motivations for the deepening of cultural consciousness among ethnic groups in the context of modernity.