Introduction: Lost Manchurian Shamans

This is a documentary film about the Manchurian area in the northeast of China. Filmed over a period of seven years, it focuses on the present condition and transmission of the endangered culture of the Manchurian tribes, including their language and shamanist beliefs.

The Manchurian people founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled the largest region of China in its history from the beginning of the 17th century through the 20th century. Shamanism, based on the worship of nature, was the spirit and soul of the Manchurian tribal peoples. It connected the earthly world with the world beyond, through religious ceremonies and rites that breathed spirit into the lives of the people and their communities and helped them maintain a balance of order and peace.

In modern China, following the suppression of saman (Manchurian for “shaman”) culture during the Cultural Revolution, it seemed that shamanism had been mostly driven out. In most villages, amidst the confusion accompanying the Revolution, most of the ritual implements used in the saman ceremonies had been destroyed. After the Cultural Revolution, in just a few villages it became possible to resume the practices. However, in the course of just one generation saman culture had fallen into a critical state. The Manchurian population is currently about ten million, but it is said that there are only about twenty people who can still speak the Manchurian language.

Today we stand at the crossroads in a difficult age, questioning our direction for the future. 

This film can be seen as a wake-up call that may help us consider how we might pass on the unique cultures of the world to future generations.

This film, while conveying a feeling of sadness as we consider the loss of ethnic cultures, also shows the determined struggles of people to preserve their endangered traditions and culture. This condition shares points in common with the efforts of other people today who are struggling amidst the forces of control in modern society. Drawing from the light and shadows of the Manchurian saman world, it may also provide us with a sense of the original landscape of the human soul that is being lost in our modern industrial and information-based society.

This may be the world’s first film that shows the traditions of Manchurian rituals and language.

It poetically depicts the precious saman rituals and sacred songs, recounted in the Manchurian language, and the realities of living in the tough natural environment in which these people have created their distinct imagination.