Engendering mediumship: When youths performed the rain dances in Han dynasty China

Abstract

Sumary: Historically, mediumship has provided significant social and religious opportunities for women in China, allowing them to have roles beyond those traditional ones at court and in the inner chambers as daughters, mothers, wives, concubines, servants and singing girls. Women performed as rain dancers in the great rituals to summon or to end the rain and also acted as healers, exorcists, diviners and counselors, among other things. However, religious ideas that developed and became popular during the Han dynasty (206-220 C.E.) placed restrictions on gender roles, introducing hierarchies of importance and power in which women as yin were often perceived to be inferior to men who were yang. As this paper explains, the engendering of mediumship enabled youths gradually to replace women in the rain dances and at court.