The Origins of the Boxer Uprising by Joseph W. Esherick

Author:Joseph W. Esherick
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-02-11T03:38:00+00:00

What was most striking about Spirit Boxer ritual was its simplicity. The members would bow to the southeast-apparently in the direction of Peach Flower Mountain (Tao-hua Shan) in Feicheng, where there were six caves filled with a variety of gods from the popular pantheon. There would be some chanting of simple spells; charms were written on paper, burned, and the ash then drunk with water; and in some cases incense was burned. But there is no record of any initiation fee or regular dues as in the case of the Big Sword Society of the southwest, with which the Spirit Boxers were often equated. In fact, in many respects, the Spirit Boxers appear as poor cousins of the Big Sword Society. We cited above (chapter 4) reports that the poorest villagers could not afford the Big Sword Society's regular charge for ritual incense. By contrast, the Spirit Boxers often did away with incense burning altogether.48

The most distinctive feature of Spirit Boxer ritual was spiritpossession. Whether the aim was invulnerability (which seems to have been added later when they began contesting Christian power) or healing (more important in the early stages), possession by gods was the means: the Spirit Boxers "did good deeds and cured sickness; they were possessed and cured sickness." 49 The missionaries, who first took note of the Spirit Boxers late in 1898, were unequivocal about the importance of the ritual of possession. After tracing the origins of the northwest Shandong boxers to the Guan county and Caozhou antiChristian militants, Henry Porter noted the change as the boxing practices spread to the Chiping area: "At that time there was added a new element which has caused the rapid spreading of the assemblies. The emissaries who went about to stir up the interest of people pretended to be possessed of a demon." Elsewhere, Porter compared the Spirit Boxers to the German Turners, saying that they "add a kind of spiritism to their gymnastics. They suppose that their trainer is a medicine [man]. The fellows, mostly young men, practice under him and fancy themselves under the influence of a spirit. In this condition they pretend that nothing can harm or injure them." 5o

In southeast Zhili, to which the Spirit Boxers (then known as the Boxers United in Righteousness) had spread by 1899, one of their most inveterate foes was the Wuqiao magistrate Lao Nai-xuan-whose theory of the White Lotus origins of the society we have noted above. Lao was equally convinced that the possession ritual was at the heart of the Spirit Boxer danger. In an official proclamation, Lao warned:

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