Northeast China folk religion
Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects: Confucian churches and sects: Northeast China folk religion[note 1] is the variety of Chinese folk religion of northeast China, characterised by distinctive cults original to Hebei and Shandong, transplanted and adapted by the Han Chinese settlers of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang (the three provinces comprising Northeast China) since the Qing dynasty.
[12] The study of northeast China's folk religion owes much to the scholarly enterprise that the Japanese conducted on the subject during the period of Manchukuo (1932–1945) that they established after they occupied Manchuria.
[14] Ōmachi Tokuzo (1909–1970), a pupil of Yanagita Kunio (the founder of academic ethnography in Japan), conducted field research on local religion in Manchuria through the war years.
[15] He later acted as the head of the Society for the Study of Manchurian Customs, producing an impressive body of research on local religion in Manchuria and north China.
[16] Ōmachi identified the rural village, each with a Tudishen shrine, as the fundamental unit of northeast China's local religion and of the religious character of the Han Chinese race.
There are many of these in Manchuria, as well ... [The artifacts] develop from the same agrarian culture and philosophy as Japanese Shinto (kannagara no michi) ... Modern [Chinese] matron temples have these elements, as well.
[22] For example, under the suggestions of Ogasawara Shozo [ja] that the Mongols "need(ed) a new religion, specifically a new god" they promoted the worship of Genghis Khan that continues today in northern China.
[36] Moreover, while northeastern shamans are usually independent from formal religious institutions, southern medium specialists often collaborate with Taoist priests.
[40] In northeast China terminology for religious places and groups may follow the common Chinese model, with miao (庙) defining any "sacred precinct" dedicated to a god.
[43] Since Chinese Buddhism and professional Taoism were never well developed in northeast China, the religious life of the region has been heavily influenced by networks of folk salvationist sects and Confucian churches, characterised by a congregational structure and a scriptural core.
[45] The Yiguandao (一貫道 "Consistent Way") had a strong presence in the area,[45] but were especially the Guiyidao (皈依道 "Way of the Return to the One") and the Shanrendao (善人道 "Way of the Virtuous Man", which social body was known as the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue) to have millions of followers in Manchuria alone.
During the period of Manchukuo also many Japanese new religions, or independent Shinto sects, proselytised in Manchuria establishing hundreds of congregations.
