Study On Song's Folk Witchcrafts

This dissertation covers Song folk witchcrafts. The Song mentioned here has twofold significations: time and region, which means the territory the Northern Song and the Southern Song controlled. The folk mentioned here deals with nongovernmental witching activities different from those the imperial court sponsored. In terms of witchcraft itself, there was the witch, and the witch had various magic instruments, as well as magic symbols and incantations. This dissertation consists of seven chapters: firstly, an introduction to studies concerned and secondly, folk witch in the Song dynasties and thirdly, magic symbols and incantations they used. The folk witchcrafts covered fields such as agriculture, reproduction, ghost exorcizing, architecture and so on, then there saw different kinds of witchcrafts. Judging from the moral values we have, the Song folk witchcrafts can be divided into good willed ones and evil willed ones, and in chapters 4 and 5, the Song folk witchcrafts will be discussed respectively in these two parts. Being not isolated cultural phenomenon, the Song folk witchcrafts had close mutual connections with the Song politics and society, and they had influences on each other, which will be discussed in chapters 6 and 7. This dissertation is a dynastic study of folk witchcrafts, and so a multisided comparison has been used among the Han and other Chinese nationalities so that we can describe and expose general characteristics of the Song folk witchcrafts from different views.