The Boxer Rebellion

[bawang]

its a common misconception was the boxer peasants were ignorant of westerners, but many of them were coolies in colonial islands or the americas. if u ponder on this then the boxer rebellion becomes perfectly understandable

[lkfmdc]

In all seriousness, they may not have been ignorant of westerners., but they were ignorant in terms of education.. a lot of them were young peasants who were drawn in by the so called "martial arts' but which were really superstitious rituals just used as marketing gimmicks for recruitment...

The event is so significant because, like the Taiping, it draws in so much of the important trends
- increasing decentralization
- increasing peasant discontent
- increasing militarization in the local areas
- the growth of millennial sectarians and secret societies
- increasing western impact upon Chinese everyday society

[bawang]

we are talking about people who witnessed california mountain men making human jerky out of corpses of chinese miners, penuses cut off and fed to dogs, gang raped, forced to eat rats to survive, etc etc.

then they go back to their hometown hoping to get away from all that, see a giant shiny church in the middle of the village and hear about missionaries banging harems of women and molesting kids, its the perfect storm

accounts of boxers were filled with people going into psychotic rages, mental breakdowns, PTSD flashbacks when they saw western people or buildings, etc

PLUS missionaries nosing around in hardcore hui areas with extremist teachings, tons of hui scholars who went on pilgrimage in the 1850s and learned from the one and only wahab himself

[GeneChing]

we all know that portal is under Gene's desk in his office

If I did have a portal under my desk, it wouldn't deliver white demons. It would bring me something else entirely.

[Kellen Bassette]

If I did have a portal under my desk, it wouldn't deliver white demons.

Don't lie Gene. We know better.

[GeneChing]

There's a horrid pun to be made here, but I'll restrain myself. That would be an awful way to end the year.

[lkfmdc]

There's a horrid pun to be made here, but I'll restrain myself. That would be an awful way to end the year.

what about flying purple people eaters ?

[ghostexorcist]

The book The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (1988) discusses the Golden Bell technique. This is just one section:

The Early History of The Armor of the Golden Bell

Though there is mention of a "Big Sword Society" in northern Anhui in 1735, we know nothing about the nature of this group, and our attention must turn to the formal name of the society which reemerged in the 1890s: "the Armor of the Golden Bell." The Armor of the Golden Bell existed at least since the late eighteenth century as a martial arts technique for achieving invulnerability. Several of its practitioners became associated with sectarian activities around the time of the Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813. There were the usual charms written on red paper, which were burned and swallowed, and spells some of which appealed for the assistance of a patriarch (zu-shi). But it seems clear that the Armor of the Golden Bell was a technique and not any sort of organization, and those who learned this technique, like other boxers whom we have examined earlier, had only tenuous connections to the sects.

A typical example was Zhang Luo-jiao from Ganji in Guan county, Shandong, whom we met in chapter 2. Zhang, like his father and younger brother, was a Daoist priest, and had learned boxing and certain healing methods from an in-law in 1782. Then in 1793, a teacher from Henan taught him the Armor of the Golden Bell and gave him two charms. "From the time he learned the methods (fa) of the Armor of the Golden Bell, he boxed and taught disciples for profit." His association with the Eight Trigrams sect came only later, in 1800, when he learned the "True Emptiness spell" (zhen-kong zhou-yu) from a Li trigram sectarian from the same Eighteen Villages area of Guan county. But Zhang claimed to have left the sect when his teacher kept coming to collect donations, and though a second-generation student of his was involved in the 1813 conspiracy, I have seen no evidence contradicting Zhang's claim that he had broken with the sect and was not involved in the rebellion.

It would seem, then, that one hundred years before our era the Armor of the Golden Bell was an established boxing technique on the north China plain, and as the name implies particularly associated with invulnerability rituals, though at this time only against knives and swords. That practitioners of this technique got involved with sectarians (and thus appeared on the historical record) is without doubt. But the relationship seems to have been individual and often ephemeral. What of the Armor of the Golden Bell of the 1890s?

Li Bing-heng did call the Armor of the Golden Bell a "heterodox sect," and a wide range of informants from southwest Shandong have identified the Big Sword Society to oral historians as associated with the Kan trigram. Historians in the P.R.C. remain divided on the relationship of the Big Swords to the sects some arguing that the society's origins were clearly with the White Lotus sects; others that it was only a group of martial artists. A definitive conclusion is probably impossible at this time, but other appearances of the Armor of the Golden Bell in north China during this decade are instructive. In the Northeast, a captured teacher claimed to have learned the technique from a traveling Daoist priest some years before, and confessed to making money by teaching people to "evade weapons and the kalpa." The mention of the "kalpa" links this group quite clearly to the millennial tradition of the White Lotus, but it is a linkage that never appeared among the Shandong groups. One is led to believe, therefore, that some prior connection to the White Lotus did exist, and that the connection was reflected in the belief systems of some groups still active in the late nineteenth century. But in Shandong, the evidence suggests that the link had grown quite tenuous. No longer do we see any of the key elements of White Lotus ritual: worship of the Eternal Mother, preparation for the kalpa, or belief in the coming of the Buddha Maitreya. To the extent that these were the defining features of the White Lotus sect, the Big Swords did not belong. Their function and concern were essentially military and their "heterodox" rituals were all for the purpose of achieving invulnerability. If in the mid-Qing, such invulnerability was particularly attractive to those preparing for the millennium (or for a rebellion), by the late Qing, bandits armed with firearms were so common that invulnerability rituals now became important to those seeking only to defend their homes and communities (pp. 96-98)

[mawali]

Literacy was always low in these areas of contention with the common folk so it was easy to meme names of past "kungfu" peasant rebellion with its false magic Buddhist/Daoist mix of mumbo jumbo and tricks associated with circus "miracles' (it still works today with kingfu today so don't be surprised) that it was the magic that allowed these groups to prosper as opposed to some objective organized social movement. The people tried but often failed until Mao came into existence. Mao brought the real social community activism that is often downplayed in present US Society and is often seen as a threat to the present social order!

[bawang]

magic mumbo jumbo is an essential and inseparatable part of folk kung fu. folk taoism IS magic. post republic era kung fu was sanitized with magic and superstitious rituals and beliefs removed.

[Kellen Bassette]

magic mumbo jumbo is an essential and inseparatable part of folk kung fu.

This is true for all ancient, Asian martial arts. Possibly all other ancient martial arts as well.

[bawang]

This is true for all ancient, Asian martial arts. Possibly all other ancient martial arts as well.

no just folk kung fu. any type of magic talk was punished by beheading in ming dynasty army. hui also didnt do the magic stuff

secular non magic kung fu like taizu changquan and bajiquan did exist but the fact is most popular kung fu styles today came from qing dynasty explosion of new styles that are filled with fantastical myths and magical beliefs


just for painful reminder, northern hongquan was core of boxer rebellion.

shaolin temple 8 step linked boxing is 100% classic boxer rebellion era kung fu.

[lkfmdc]

any type of magic talk was punished by beheading in chinese army.

Yes, see for example General Qi

hui also didnt do the magic stuff

As Muslims, it was strictly forbidden

secular non magic kung fu like taizu changquan and bajiquan did exist but the fact is most popular kung fu styles today came from qing dynasty explosion of new styles that are filled with fantastical myths and magical beliefs

Most of what we have today is linked to secret society bullcrap and it's bad marketing

[Kellen Bassette]

no just folk kung fu. any type of magic talk was punished by beheading in chinese army. hui also didnt do the magic stuff

secular non magic kung fu like taizu changquan and bajiquan did exist but the fact is most popular kung fu styles today came from qing dynasty explosion of new styles that are filled with fantastical myths and magical beliefs

Magic and ritual was practiced through all classes and walks of life and a great many ancient militaries.
How many times, in how many cultures, has magic been banned under punishment of death, but never died out?

[Kellen Bassette]

As Muslims, it was strictly forbidden

Yet Muslims have a huge mystic tradition. Jews were banned from practicing magic, but have one of the most well known magic traditions.
Christians were banned from practicing magic, Christian magic traditions are well known.