Fox practices in China

In looking at Chinese fox practices separate from the mainstream religious systems, there is a definite problem. Even in the early records, the account is often already linked to a Daoist categorisation, and this makes it difficult to determine the pre-orthodox religious beliefs and folk practices of the Chinese people. I will discuss this problem in greater detail in the next chapter, as I discuss the relationship between ancient Chinese fox practices and Chinese orthodox religion. For now it is enough to say that we can gleam some information by taking into account the individual practices and beliefs themselves, and comparing them to Japanese and other shamanistic practices, and to Chinese orthodox religion, particularly Daoism. Of the following information, some may have links to Daoist systems, but even from this we can make some assumptions about the early fox beliefs of the Chinese people.

There are few resources regarding Chinese fox beliefs that neither use folktales as their reference (a problem that will be discussed later in the chapter) nor look at the situation from a non-Daoist perspective. The latter seems particularly unavoidable. Li Wei-Tsu provides the best example of rural fox practices in his The Cult of the Four Sacred Animals, where he has looked at living examples of fox practices in villages in the Beijing area in the 1940's. We can see a Daoist influence in some of Li's evidence, and he makes no distinction between Daoist and non-Daoist systems, but it is nonetheless clear from the evidence which beliefs and practices do and do not stem from Daoism, based on their individual characteristics.

Much of Li's evidence sheds light on the relationship between folk practices and mainstream religion in China, such as the worship of animal deities housed in Daoist altars, and the very Daoist notion of the animals' system of spiritual betterment. This will be dealt with in the next chapter. Here I will discuss other practices such as sorcery and possession, which bear more in common with ancient shamanistic practices than orthodox religion.

The Cult of the Four Sacred Animals, as Li calls it, was evidently a rural phenomenon where the people exalted four animals - the fox, the weasel, the hedgehog and the snake - as deities and worshipped them. In some areas, there was a fifth animal, which varies according to region. Of the animals, the fox was regarded as the highest in rank, as its magical powers were believed to be greater than those of the other three animals.

The worship of the four animals bears certain similarities to the worship of Inari and other Japanese fox beliefs. The animals, in their sacred form, were addressed as cai shen ye, God of Wealth, and in this role were worshipped by farmers, as they were believed to bring prosperity to the farmer and his family. Although the fox was not considered as effective in this regard as the hedgehog or the snake, we can certainly see the practices resemblances to the Japanese belief in the fox as the spirit of rice, and its later associations with Inari, the god of rice and prosperity.

A major part of these folk practices was the role of the xiang tou, a term that loosely translates to magician. The xiang tou bears much similarity to the kitsune-mochi, the fox-owning families of Japan (see below). The xiang tou never become magicians by choice, but rather, the animal takes possession of him involuntarily. Like other forms of spirit possession, the xiang tou shows behaviour such as fainting and talking nonsense, and the spirit may use the xiang tou as a vessel to communicate through. Unlike similar practices in Japan, the xiang tou did not use the animal's powers for ill intent, but rather used it in order to cure illness, exorcise demons, and for divination purposes. Rather than compelling the animal to his own personal will, the xiang tou was the servant of the animal spirit.

Within the same tradition there was a lesser relationship with the animal spirit, known as bao jia tan. In this, the person was not expected to become the servant of the animal, but was compelled to worship the animal, in return for the animal spirit's protection of the family. In other words, there was no possession involved here.

These practices show a belief in foxes quite different from the general Chinese view of foxes, showing that even in China, the fox had a dualistic nature to some degree. Matsumae Takeshi offers a more morally ambiguous description of a similar Chinese practice. According to Matsumae, there were female sorcerers known as dao nai nai. This was an exclusively female role, but like the xiang tou and the kitsune-tsukai, it involved employing the fox’s powers for magical uses such as clairvoyance and the healing of illness. However, like the Japanese sorcerers, there were many tales of the dao nai nai having the fox spirit possess someone and causing them to be ill, then being employed by the family to cure the illness , presumably for monetary gain.

It is unknown how popular these practices actually were, but based on general knowledge and reports of the practices, they do not seem to have been as widespread as their Japanese counterparts.

Fox practices in Japan

Fox possession and fox sorcery seem to have been the most prolific of Japanese folk practices relating to the fox. There is evidence to suggest that foxes were worshipped as part of Japanese folk religion, but outside of the Inari connection and the afore-mentioned folktales, it is for these practices that the fox is best known. These practices took three major forms: possession by a fox, known as kitsune-tsuki; employment of a fox, or fox sorcery, known as kitsune-tsukai; and possession of a fox by an entire family line, known as kitsune-mochi .

These practices were seen as almost entirely negative in nature, unlike the Inari foxes, and also unlike the Chinese xiang tou practices to which they otherwise bear a rather close resemblance. There is one practice, known as takusen (??) or oracle, which was a kind of voluntary possession by a fox for purposes of divination. This alone among Japanese folk practices involving foxes seems to have been more or less benevolent in nature.

Of the more negative beliefs, the first, kitsune-tsuki, is perhaps the oldest of these beliefs, as the belief in possession itself dates back to the earliest known times, and is a major part of shamanistic practices. Practices whereby a person may be possessed by a spirit and used as the spirit's mouthpiece can be found among the shamanistic tribes of Siberia and Mongolia.

The earliest accounts of possession in Japan occur in the Kojiki and Nihongi, but these were possession by gods, not foxes. However, as the popularity of the fox grew in Japan, the belief of the fox as a spirit that could possess people grew accordingly. The belief in possession by foxes can be found throughout Japanese and Chinese folktales. There have been, however, many true-life accounts of fox possession throughout Japanese history, even into the late 20th century. Whereas possession by the gods (and indeed the practice of possession in shamanistic cultures) was generally viewed as a good thing, the possession by a fox was seen as bad, as evidenced by the many methods of fox exorcism that existed.

The second category of people could often perform fox exorcism, but if this was the case, their motives for doing so were somewhat questionable. Kitsune-tsukai were lone sorcerers that employed the powers of a fox (or, less commonly, a snake) in order to gain power or wealth, or to harm their enemies. These sorcerers often started out as legitimate religious figures; for example yamabushi (mountain priests) or exorcists that became corrupted. By use of their powers, they would settle other peoples' hatreds, for a price. More cunningly, they would sometimes cure people of fox possession, failing to mention that it was them that had set the fox to possess the victim in the first place.

The third category, kitsune-mochi, is a more recent development, which seems to have only existed in the past few centuries, but clearly we can see aspects of the other two categories contributing to its development. It also holds much in common with the Xiang Tou practices of China.

Kitsune-mochi were similar to the kitsune-tsukai in that they were able to use the powers of a fox to gain wealth and revenge. The difference was, in the case of the kitsune-mochi, the fox and its powers was possessed by the entire family and, furthermore, it was believed to be both contagious and hereditary in the female line. The fox families were stigmatised, and few wanted dealings with them. It was believed that any kind of business dealings, visits to the house, money-borrowing, or anything else that brought one in close contact with these families was to risk aquiring the stigma. Needless to say, marrying one's daughter off to one of these families was also avoided.

In the Edo period, strict punishments would often be dealt out to these families. For example, the family might be banished from the fief. In one instance in 1747, the house of a fox family was burned down in addition to banishment.

Accounts of kitsune-mochi appear as late as the 1950's. While extreme punishments such as the above example were a thing of the past, families in certain areas continued to be ostracised against. This gives an idea of just how strong fox beliefs were in certain areas of Japan.

The dualism of the fox

The development of the fox seems to have taken two opposite paths in Japan and China. In China, many folk practices treat the fox as a benevolent, divine animal, though it seems to have been seen as a creature of evil within the realm of folktales and literature. The use of Daoist magic as a part of fox exorcism would also seem to suggest it had negative connotations in this area as well. Conversely, the fox in Japan, while of a more ambiguous nature in the folklore, is treated as a demonic being in folk practices, while at the same time enjoying an elevated status as the envoy of Inari, and indeed, in many cases, as Inari itself. The reasons for this, I believe, may lie with the resepective religions of the two cultures, which I will now examine in the next chapter.