![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
During the Republican era and the PRC, both regimes labeled religious practices outside official institutionalized religions as “superstition” (mixin). In the early PRC, the CCP labeled superstitious activities with mass participation as “mass superstitious incidents.” This article examines a mass superstitious incident in Chongqing in 1953 in which more than fifty thousand people participated. In this case, local residents, especially local merchants, advertised an old woman as a Living Guanyin Bodhisattva with supernatural disease-curing powers to expand their economic interests. The incident was also a result of poor healthcare infrastructure management. Key organizers in the incident were severely punished, in part because they were scapegoats for the problems of the new national policy of State Monopoly for Grain Purchase. The incident also had a strong contagion effect that led to various similar “superstitious incidents” in the vicinity that were eventually suppressed under the name “huidaomen.”
Acknowledgements
An earlier draft of this article was presented at the 2017 UC San Diego – East China Normal University Graduate Student Conference and the Fourteenth Graduate Seminar on China at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The author is grateful to all conference participants. The Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Predissertation-Summer Travel Grants and the Stanford East Asia Library Travel Grants supported my research in China and the U.S. My thanks also go to the reviewers and editors for insightful suggestions and comments.
Notes on Contributor
Yupeng Jiao is a PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of California, San Diego. His research is mainly about Chinese popular religion, religion and modernity, and rural society in modern China. He is currently completing his dissertation on huidaomen organizations and rural governance in China from 1919 to 1959.
Correspondence to: Yupeng Jiao, Department of History, University of California, San Diego. Email: [email protected].
Notes
1 Yongchuan is now a district in southwest Chongqing, 74 km from downtown Chongqing. Meirendian is located on the Chengyu Highway which connects Chongqing and Chengdu.
2 The Guanyin Bodhisattva, originally the male Indian Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, transformed into a female deity in Chinese religion representing the “Goddess of Mercy.” The Guanyin Bodhisattva was one of the most popular deities and was widely worshiped in Buddhism and popular religion. See Chun-fang Yu, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
3 See Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the politics of Chinese Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
4 My use of “superstition” in this paper simply follows CCP’s political rhetoric. The word “superstition” does not reflect any personal judgement on these activities.
5 Steve Smith is one of the very few historians who has systematically studied superstition in the early PRC. See Steve Smith, “Local Cadres Confront the Supernatural: The Politics of Holy Water (Shenshui) in the PRC, 1949–1966,” The China Quarterly 188 (December 2006): 999–1022; Steve Smith, “Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts: The Politics of ‘Superstitious’ Rumors in the People’s Republic of China, 1961–1965,” The American Historical Review, April (2006): 405–27.
6 Huidaomen is relatively a new subject for scholars. Prasenjit Duara uses the term “redemptive societies” highlighting these organizations’ individual salvation and world salvation agendas. David Palmer traces huidaomen back to the White Lotus tradition in late imperial China and connects huidaomen with the discourse of suppressing heretical sects and evil cults. Steve Smith uses the term “redemptive religious societies.” Duara, Palmer, and Smith’s definitions all emphasize the religious dimension of huidaomen, especially the redemptive agenda and eschatology in these organizations. But the CCP’s targets in the early Anti-Huidaomen campaigns during the late 1940s and early 1950s included many more actors than those in the religious realm. This can be seen clearly from the Public Security Bureau’s internal documents and published historical sources such as the county gazetteers. In CCP’s early campaigns against huidaomen, broadly speaking, the term included secret societies, redemptive societies, local self-defense groups, charity organizations, and almost all voluntary associations. In a narrow sense, huidaomen mainly referred to redemptive societies such as the Unity Sect (Yiguandao) and the Sect of Former Heaven (Xiantiandao). During the 1950s, there were several waves of Anti-Huidaomen Campaigns. The CCP’s main target in these campaigns gradually narrowed down to heretical religious associations, and possibly became the prelude of anti-evil cults (xiejiao) campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s. Huidaomen was essentially a political label, similar to the use of “White Lotus” in late imperial China as B.J. ter Haar points out. See B.J. ter Haar, The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History (Leiden: Brill, 1992); Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003); David Palmer, “Heretical Doctrines, Reactionary Secret Societies, Evil Cults: Labeling Heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century China,” in Chinese Religiosity: Affliction of Modernity and State Formation, edited by Maifair Mei-hui Yang (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008): 113–34; and Steve Smith, “Redemptive Religious Societies and the Communist State, 1949 to the 1980s,” in Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism, edited by Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015): 340–64.
7 The Way of Returning to the Root was one of the most widespread redemptive societies in the Chongqing area.
8 Yongchuan District Archives (hereafter YCDA), File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Huoguanyin saodong shijian baogao” (Report on the Living Guanyin Disturbance), July 15, 1953.
9 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Zhuyao fenzi cailiao” (Materials of the Main Participants), 1953.
10 “The Eternal Mother Guanyin Bodhisattva” was possibly the combination of the Guanyin Bodhisattva and the Eternal Venerable Mother (wusheng laomu). The latter was widely worshiped in many redemptive societies in China, including the many that were labeled as “White Lotus” in late imperial time. Such an identity might have attracted many huidaomen participants to worship Tang. YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Huoguanyin saodong shijian baogao” (Report on the Living Guanyin Disturbance), July 15, 1953.
11 The Gowned Brothers (Paoge or Gelaohui) was one of the biggest secret societies in the Sichuan area. The local powerful people in Sichuan often had close connections with the Gowned Brothers before the PRC. See Di Wang, Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: The Story of a Secret Brotherhood in Rural China, 1939–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018).
12 The currency in circulation in 1952 and 1953 was the first series of RMB. 10,000 of the first series RMB is worth 1 in the following series of RMB. The purchasing price of major food grains of rural China in 1953 was 732 RMB per jin. RMB three million roughly equals 4,000 jins of grain in 1953. See Tong-eng Wang, Economic Policies and Price Stability in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980): 24.
13 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Saodong qunzhong mobing shijian baogao” (Report on Disorderly Mass Healing Incident), July 27, 1953.
14 The government canceled over eight hundred people’s membership in 1950. Yang Hanqing was one of them. Yongchuan wenshi ziliao dishierji [Yongchuan Historical and Literary Sources, Issue 12] (Chongqing: Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Chongqing Yongchuanshi weiyuanhui, 1996): 151.
15 Chongqing wenshi ziliao disiji [Chongqing Historical and Literary Sources, Issue 4] (Chongqing: Chongqing renmin chubanshe, 2000): 111.
16 Candy was a luxury in the early PRC.
17 There is little information about what the Sect of Charity exactly was. It is possibly referring to the Chinese Society of Morality and Charity (Zhonghua daode cishanhui) established in 1947 by the Unity Sect (Yiguandao) as a disguise after the KMT government banned the Unity Sect in 1945. The Unity Sect was the single most important target of CCP’s Anti-Huidaomen Campaign in the early PRC. Zhongguo huidaomen shiliao jicheng [Collection of Historical Sources on Chinese Huidaomen] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehuikexue chubanshe, 2004), vol. I: 3.
18 None of the reports mentions that Tang was involved in making money from the people. The July 27 report points out specifically that Tang had never asked people for a donation. If it was true that Tang received no donation from the visitors, it might have further enhanced Tang’s charisma as the Living Guanyin.
19 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Saodong qunzhong mobing shijian baogao” (Report on Disorderly Mass Healing Incident), July 27, 1953.
20 Chongqing wenshi ziliao disiji, 113.
21 Ibid.
22 Author’s interview with local residents in Meirendian, July 22, 2017. Elders in their eighties were teenagers at the time of the Living Guanyin Incident. The only thing that every elder could recall vividly today is that the Chengyu Highway was full of people in 1953 and the local market had never been as busy as it was in 1953. One of Tang’s grandsons is in his seventies is still living in Meirendian, but his health is not good and he could hardly hear or speak.
23 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Dafosi shenshui shijian baogao” (Report on the Grand Buddha Temple Holy Water Incident), 1953.
24 Database for the History of Contemporary Chinese Political Movements, 1949–. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (hereafter CCPM). “Zhengwuyuan guanyu huafen nongcun jieji chengfen de jueding” (The State Council’s Decision on Classifying Rural Class Composition), August 4, 1950.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 CCPM. “Zhonggong Chongqing shiwei guanyu shijiaoqu tudigaige zongjiebaogao” (The CCP Chongqing Municipal Committee’s Summary Report on Land Reform in Suburban Chongqing), May 21, 1951.
28 Ibid.
29 Smith, “Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts: The Politics of ‘Superstitious’ Rumors in the People’s Republic of China, 1961–1965”, 414.
30 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 14–5.
31 None of the reports makes any connection between superstition and natural disasters. The relationship between the drought and the Living Guanyin Incident is simply the author’s speculation. Yongchuan Xianzhi [Yongchuan County Gazetteer] (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1997): 129.
32 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
33 Mariam Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague: Chairman Mao’s Campaign to Deworm China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), 68.
34 Using the same Tong-eng Wang’s formula, the RMB 1,500 registration fee roughly equals the value of 2 jins of grain.
35 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
36 Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague: Chairman Mao’s Campaign to Deworm China, 70.
37 Yongchuan wenshi ziliao dishisiji [Yongchuan Historical and Literary Sources, Issue 14] (Chongqing: Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Chongqing Yongchuanshi weiyuanhui, 1998), 158.
38 Gross, Farewell to the God of Plague: Chairman Mao’s Campaign to Deworm China, 70–1.
39 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
40 Yongchuan wenshi ziliao dishisanji [Yongchuan Historical and Literary Sources, Issue 13] (Chongqing: Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Chongqing Yongchuanshi weiyuanhui, 1997): 197.
41 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
42 Ibid.
43 Chongqing wenshi ziliao disiji, 114.
44 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Huoguanyin saodong shijian baogao” (Report on the Living Guanyin Disturbance), July 15, 1953.
45 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Zhuyao fenzi cailiao” (Materials of the Main Participants), 1953.
46 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
47 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Huoguanyin sanri anbao” (Report on Three Days during the Living Guanyin Disturbance), July 21, 1953.
48 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Saodong qunzhong mobing shijian baogao” (Report on Disorderly Mass Healing Incident), July 27, 1953.
49 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Huoguanyin saodong shijian baogao” (Report on the Living Guanyin Disturbance), July 15, 1953.
50 Tang’s husband’s behavior further confirms that Tang received no donations.
51 There is no evidence suggesting that the death of the patients was directly related to Tang.
52 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-159, “Shenpo mobing shijian de baogao – xianwei yijian yu jiantao” (Report on Witch Doctor Healing Incident with Suggestion and Self-Criticism from the CCP Yongchuan County Committee), August 21, 1953.
53 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-155, “Yongchuan xianwei guanyu qiuliang shougou he shuishou gongzuo de baogao” (CCP Yongchuan County Committee’s Report on Fall Grain Purchasing and Taxation), October 17, 1953.
55 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-155, “Xianwei genju woxian qingkuang guanyu guanche zhongyang shougou jihua gongying jueyi de chubu yijian” (CCP Yongchuan County Committee’s Preliminary Suggestion on Implementing Central Government’s Decision of State Monopoly for Grain Purchasing based on Current Situation in Our County), November 5, 1953.
56 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-155, “Xianwei guanyu zhixing zhongyang jihua shougou, jihua gongying jueyi de chubu yijian” (CCP Yongchuan County Committee’s Preliminary Suggestion on Executing Central Government’s Planned Purchasing and Planned Supply), November 13, 1953.
57 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-155, “Zhonggong yongchuan xianwei guanyu Guanche shengwei kuodahuiyi jingshen de qingkuang baogao” (CCP Yongchuan County Committee’s Report on Implementing the Spirit of the Provincial Party Committee’s Enlarged Meeting), November 16, 1953.
58 No document explains why Mrs. He was also executed with Tang. During the late phases of the incident, Mrs. He was Tang’s assistant and directly participated in healing people. It is possibly why she received the same punishment.
59 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-165, “Yongchuan xianwei renminzhengfy gonganju baogao gongshendahui qingkuang jianbao” (The Public Security Bureau of People’s Government of Yongchuan’s Brief Report on the Situation of the Public Trial), December 2, 1953.
60 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-155, “Xianwei guanyu dangqian gongzuo de jianbao” (CCP Yongchuan County Committee’s Brief Report on Current Situation), December 2, 1953.
61 Julia Strauss, “Paternalist Terror: The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and Regime Consolidation in the People’s Republic of China, 1950–1953,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 1 (2002): 84.
62 Shao Yong, Zhongguo huidaomen [Huidaomen in China] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1997): 452.
63 See Chang-tai Hung, “The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign and Mass Mobilization in the Early People’s Republic of China,” The China Quarterly 202 (2010): 400–20.
64 CCPM, “Liushaoqi zhi huabeiju de xin” (Liushaoqi’s Letter to the North China Bureau), October 19, 1950.
65 CCPM, “Pengzhen tongzhi zai dierci quanguo gongan huiyi shangde jianghua” (Comrade Peng Zhen’s Speech during the Second National Public Security Conference), October 21, 1950.
66 CCPM, “Zhonggong zhongyang pizhuan zhongyang gonganbu guanyu quanguo gongan huiyi de baogao” (The CCP Central Committee’s Approval of Central Ministry of Public Security’s “Report on the National Public Security Conference”), October 28, 1950.
67 CCPM, “Zhonghua renmin gongheguo chengzhi fangeming tiaoli” (Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Punishing Counterrevolutionaries), February 9, 1951.
68 CCPM, “Xinan tudigaige weiyuanhui guanyu xinanqu sanqi tudigaige yundong zhongde jige tedian he jingyan” (Southwest Land Reform Committee’s Report Concerning A Few Features and Experiences in the Third Round of Land Reform in the Southwest Region), March 1951.
69 CCPM, “Xinan gonganbu guanyu chengshi zhenya fangeming de zhishi” (Southwest Ministry of Public Security’s Instruction on Suppressing Counterrevolutionaries in the Urban Area), April 1951.
70 CCPM, “Shenzhong chuli qunzhongxing mixin shijian” (Be Cautious on Handling Mass Superstitious Activities), Xuanchuan tongxun (Propaganda and Communication), Issue 17, May 15, 1953.
71 CCPM, “Xuanchuan gongzuozhe zhuyi” (All Propagandists Pay Attention), Xuanchuan tongxun (Propaganda and Communication), Issue 19, May 31, 1953.
72 Smith, “Local Cadres Confront the Supernatural: The Politics of Holy Water (Shenshui) in the PRC, 1949–1966,” 1000.
73 Ibid., 1012.
74 Zhongguo huidaomen shiliao jicheng, vol. 2, 928.
75 Yongchuan Xianzhi, 570.
76 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-165, “Yongchuanxian renminzhengfu gonganju zhenfan disanjieduan gongzuo zongjie baogao” (The Public Security Bureau of Yongchuan People’s Government’s Summary Report on the Third Stage of Anti-Counterrevolutionary Campaign), May 20, 1953.
77 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-165, “Yongchuanxian renmin zhengfu gonganju guanyu jigeyuelai de diren huodong qingkuang huibao” (The Public Security Bureau of Yongchuan People’s Government’s Report on the Enemies’ Activities in Recent Months), August 2, 1953.
78 See Hung, “The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign and Mass Mobilization in the Early People’s Republic of China.”
79 YCDA, File no. 1-1-1953-165, “Yongchuan xianwei renminzhengfy gonganju baogao gongshendahui qingkuang jianbao” (The Public Security Bureau of People’s Government of Yongchuan’s Brief Report on the Situation of the Public Trial), December 2, 1953.
80 Secondary sources published in the 1990s, however, emphasize Tang’s identity as a huidaomen participant. Volume 10 of the Yongchuan Historical and Literary Sources published in 1994 includes an article titled A Summary of Suppressing Counterrevolutionary Huidaomen in Yongchuan. In this article, the author categorized the Living Guanyin incident as a counterrevolutionary incident deliberately led by huidaomen element Tang Zhengming. In the Yongchuan County gazetteer published in 1997, the Living Guanyin incident is specifically placed under the category of “Counterrevolutionary Huidaomen”. It goes even further claiming that Tang called herself an “empress”, which is frequently added to huidaomen leaders in various political movements. See Luo Duncai, “A Brief Introduction on the Anti-Huidaomen Campaign in the County of Yongchuan (Yongchuanxian qudi fandong huidaomen gaikuang),” in Yongchuan wenshi ziliao dishiji, 76; Yongchuan xianzhi, 696. On huidaomen leaders’ restoring imperial order, see David Ownby, “Imperial Fantasies: The Chinese Communists and Peasant Rebellions,” Society for Comparative Study of Society and History (2001): 65–91; and Smith, “Redemptive Religious Societies and the Communist State, 1949 to the 1980s.”
81 Smith, “Local Cadres Confront the Supernatural: The Politics of Holy Water (Shenshui) in the PRC, 1949–1966,” 1008.
82 In Chinese popular culture, the Guanyin Bodhisattva lives in the South Sea.
83 Jiangjin District Archives (hereafter JJDA), File no. 1-1-110, “Jiangjinxian shisanqu jinzixiang ercun saodong shijian zongjie baogao” (A Summary Report on Disturbances in No. 2 Village, Jinzi Town, District 13 of Jiangjin County), August 1953.
84 Ibid.; and JJDA, File no. 1-1-110, “Zhonggong jiangjin xianwei jiangjinxian sigeyuelai guanyu fasheng qiushenqiyu yu qushenyaoshenshui qunzhongxing saodong shijian de zonghe baogao” (CCP Jiangjin County Committee’s Comprehensive Report on ‘Praying to God for Rain’ and ‘Holy Medicine Holy Water’ Mass Superstitious Disturbances Took Place in the Past Four Months in Jiangjin), August 26, 1953.
85 Jiangjin District Archives (hereafter JJDA), File no. 1-1-110, “Jiangjinxian shisanqu jinzixiang ercun saodong shijian zongjie baogao” (A Summary Report on Disturbances in No. 2 Village, Jinzi Town, District 13 of Jiangjin County), August 1953.
86 JJDA, File no. 1-1-110, “Zhonggong jiangjin xianwei jiangjinxian sigeyuelai guanyu fasheng qiushenqiyu yu qushenyaoshenshui qunzhongxing saodong shijian de zonghe baogao” (CCP Jiangjin County Committee’s Comprehensive Report on ‘Praying to God for Rain’ and ‘Holy Medicine Holy Water’ Mass Superstitious Disturbances Took Place in the Past Four Months in Jiangjin), August 26, 1953.
87 I am not suggesting that the Living Guanyin incident is resistance against the new state, but the rural community is united under certain shared moral values. Scott’s use of everyday forms of resistance is largely built on his understanding of rural society as a traditional moral community. See James Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); and Richard Madsen, Morality and Power in A Chinese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).