**2. Miao Spiritual Practice**

Miao spiritual practices are comprised of animism, ancestor worship, and characteristics common to shamanic practice. "The belief in this unity of nature, spirits and human being makes them very dependent, emotionally and psychologically, on their land. It also points to an internal mechanism of a defensive landscape and a symbolic boundary that resists the outsiders' interference" (Wang 2011, p. 122).

Animal sacrifices and other forms of propitiation are central to these practices. Ritual experts known as badai are the Miao tradition keepers. Badai are formally trained in ritual performance, chants, animal sacrifice, and the making of scared objects. The badai engage in various practices, among them healing, exorcism, thanksgiving, and life-cycle rituals. Their spiritual role is complemented by the xianniang, who use trance and serve as spirit mediums. The third type of Miao spiritual practitioner works surreptitiously and sorcerer-like, using so-called *gu* sorcery in which they control others through harm inflected by poisons gleaned from insects (Schein 2000, pp. 53–54).

Each village has a Badai, often more than one, serving their community's spiritual and ritual needs. The position adheres to traditional practice but is shaped to the abilities and personality of the individual badai. In addition to their spiritual role, many badai are also herbalists, fortunetellers, and healers. Being a badai is a calling transferred from father to son. On rare occasions, those not of a lineage line may become badai if they show a spiritual inclination and are taken on as a student by a master badai. The training is extensive and can take many years without guaranteeing an apprentice becoming accepted as a master.

The term badai encapsulates their role: "ba" means father and master, "dai" means the offspring, meaning they are the ones the pass the culture on with a sacred charge.

To keep alive and develop the invisible aspect of the Miao culture, ritual, and society is the duty of the badai. The Miao developed rituals for all functions: physical, political, artistic, mythological, literature and poetry, ritual, social organization, and relationships. Anything and everything to heal and balance their community and carry out the ancestors' original culture. Badai culture is the encyclopedia of the Miao people (S. Shi 2016).

Badai are male. However, there are rare instances of women, the daughters of a master badai, becoming badai. Female badai are also *xianniang* (spirit mediums) 仙 娘 and are also referred to as *zimei* 紫 梅; they are aligned, but separate, in the spiritual practice of the badai. Most commonly, xianniang are female; unlike the badai, their primary cultural function is to enter a state of trance and access a parallel spiritual reality, often channeling family ancestors to enable a dialogue with their living descendants. Male mediums are generally known as xianshi 仙 師. (Katz 2022, p. 15) and serve a similar role and relationship with badai.<sup>3</sup> In their role, they confer with ancestors to identify the source of sickness in the

family or the spirits<sup>4</sup> that haunt, guide, or protect the family. The xianniang is consulted by the badai for the setting of ritual dates. "The xianniang is the female energy and the badai the male, serving as a yin-yang for the balance and well-being of the community. The Badai is the male energy" (S. Shi 2016).

But unlike the zimei, who can include women, the badui spirit officials must be male. Their title and authority are inherited through male filial lineage (father to son, or father-in-law to son-in-law). As spirit officials, they have a superior status compared to zimei practitioners. During rituals, the badui actually controls his familiar spirits and is not possessed by them. Moreover, the badui beat drums and wear red gowns during the performance. Therefore, I conclude that the badui spirit officials are shamans, in contrast to the zimei mediums. Spirits may reveal their will and speak to worshippers through the zimei, who have been selected for communicating with spirits for humans. During rituals, the zimei are possessed by spirits, and they function as mediators between yangjian, the living world and yinjian, the spiritual world (H. Wu 2010, p. 34).

All the badai I interviewed adamantly denied entering a state of trance, an ability that is central and classically defines the shaman's function worldwide. The relationship of the badai to their community is comparable to that of a classically defined shaman in every function except the use of trance to communicate and mediate the material and spiritual worlds. The badai is unique and best described as a spirit mediator or officiator of forms. Rather than entering a state of trance to access the spirit realm, the badai and all their actions, settings, and props serve to unlock what can be described as a code. The badai is the master of forms, and it is when enacting a sequence of performative codes that they open, access, and communicate with the spirit realm. Their rituals are best understood as dramatic narratives, theatrically expressed, that reference, reiterate, and reaffirm the Miao worldview which is held and revealed by way of ritual forms and actions. In this way, ritual serves as a reiteration and reaffirmation of material and spirit world interaction and order.

In January 2016, I interviewed Shi Shougui, a badai master and descendent of thirtytwo generations of badai and master in three different schools of badai practice. A man in his 60s, he is, unlike most badai, literate and educated. In addition to being a recognized and sought-after practitioner, the indefatigable Shi has devoted his life to archiving badai culture and Miao history. He is the author of several books, and we met in his self-financed museum and library in the village of Dadongchong Village, Dongmaku Township, where he explained how the badai evolved with the needs of the Miao people. The badai can trace its origins and influences from ancient Tibetan and Chinese shamanism, which serves as the "Root, spirit, energy and inheritance of the Miao people" (S. Shi 2016).

The badai draw upon many traditions and apply a wide variety of time-tested and culturally codified tools—actions, gestures, movements, dance, music, settings, ritual and narrative sequences, divination, song, chant, objects, and animal sacrifice—to open pathways to the spirit world. Their elaborate system of hand gestures, for instance, is used to "open" passageways to a parallel world and to call up and communicate with the gods and spirits (S. Shi 2016).

The Miao zhuiniu has a close correspondence with the ritual practices of other cultures from Southeast China.

[ ... ] in both the structure of the ritual sequence and in terms of how the buffalo is handled, are particularly significant. [ ... ] The rite is preceded by various preparations and begins with the invocation and invitation of the deities and ancestral spirits. Then follows the sacrifice of the buffalo, and the division of the buffalo body into a number of portions, often corresponding to the number of either tutelary deities of the locality or of ancestral spirits. Finally, there is a feast in which the entire community, however constituted, takes part (Holm 2003, p. 214).

The badai I have interviewed over the years uniformly agree that the mastery of ritual forms enables them to communicate with the spirits. They see their role as functional and pragmatic, addressing spiritual needs through the material world.

From the very beginning of the world, we need the badai as a medium between the spirits, gods and human beings to communicate and help us when gods have problems with people or do something harmful to the people. You need the badai to heal the problems. If human beings do something wrong with the environment, the natural world, they need the badai to ask the gods to help. They hold the tradition and are responsible for learning everything from their teachers. They have the responsibility to do everything, to memorize everything. Only after they have memorized all the rituals, the songs of their master and teacher, are they permitted to practice rituals independently (Tian 2018b).

My fieldwork with various indigenous groups—the Yup'ik and Athabaskan of Alaska, the !Xuu and Khwe Bushmen of the Kalahari and the Sakha of Siberia, among others— suggests that the deep structure of badai culture is Cosmo-centric. For the Miao, the world is animistic, conscious, and dynamic, with

All things having souls [ ... ] natural phenomena and ancestors were given supernatural power [ ... ] natural phenomenon include ancestors, forefathers, five-grain ghosts, mountain, river, stone, tree, wind and thunder ghosts (Li Wu 2017, pp. 80–81).

The initiate becomes a practicing badai after extensive training and passing through a series of skill and ability tests. Once the initiate is deemed ready, master badai conduct an examination; if satisfied, the initiate is presented to the village and recognized as a legitimate practitioner. The process of training and certifying a new badai can vary widely, and in addition to recognition by the presiding badai master, the village must accept the initiate. The announcement of a new badai is considered a blessing for the village. Badai Wu Xiankun from the village Niuyan explains:

My close master was my grandfather, who taught me skills, singing different songs, reciting in different languages and sacred poems and fighting. Not physical fighting, fighting ghosts and evil. This is what you learn from your close master. There must be four different masters to receive and teach you. These four masters taught me special skills, hand gestures, ritual props and sacred objects, making ritual decorations, Nuo masks, and different ceremonies. These masters were not from my school. During the training, I had to prove I was a good person, and people asked for help, that I could help them, be equal and generous, and do no evil. When my close master said I was qualified and ready, I had to be approved by all the villagers and went to each house asking for approval. There were examinations and demonstrations on a special day, and I showed myself in public at the market. This special day is called Qianjie, the day I prove to all the villagers to be authentically a real master. That is a special ceremony for a would-be Badai to become a real badai, and there must be five masters to approve and decide (Z. Wu 2015).
