Telling Stories ― Witchcraft And Scapegoating in Chinese History

Haar (Chinese history, Leiden U.) explores disturbing stories that local people in traditional China told each and on which they acted, often with far-reaching consequences. He focuses on a few of the folktales and urban legends that have in common some kind of creature that was responsible for certain kinds of violent and disruptive behavior that directly threatened the lives of people or the continuity of families and communities. In the early 1500's, he says, the agents in the stories were fearsome demons or barbarians living physically outside or on the margins of Chinese society, but over the centuries, real human begins living in marginal positions within society were named, and became scapegoats, and often were killed by mobs or executed with the assistance of the state. Curiously in the modern context, one of the archetypes snatched organs. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Barend J. ter Haar, Doctorate (1990) in the Humanities, Leiden University, is Professor of Chinese History at Leiden. He published on Chinese temple cults, lay religious movements, violence, minorities, including The Ritual and Mythology of the Chinese Triads: Creating an Identity (Brill, 1998).