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On the basis of first-hand materials gathered through decades of field research and fleshed out with the author's insightful religious, cultural, and historical observations extending back to the Qing dynasty, ancient archaeological discoveries, and the legacy of Siberian peoples, this two-volume ethnological study investigates shamanic rituals, myths, and lore in northern China and explores the common ideology underlying the origins of the region's cultures.

Drawing from numerous oral myths, ancient documents, and archaeological findings, this first volume discusses the spiritual world of northern shamanism and investigates the various rituals, including ancestor worship, fertility, nature deities, blood sacrifice and rites, the worshiping of nature, and shrines. The book illuminates how these rituals and worships, animism, and ideas of the soul are imbedded in and interweave with the indigenous environment, culture, and history of the clans and people of northern China.

The book will be of great value to scholars of religion and to both anthropologists and ethnologists in the fields of shamanism studies, Northeast Asian folklore, and Manchu studies.