Chapter Four: Several Reformed Shamans

Abstract

Fifty-five-year-old Guo Suiyun of Hengshan xian is a shaman who has already reformed. According to his personal account: At one time my whole family — father, mother, brothers and sisters, nine mouths in all— had just five shang of sandy land. Every year in April a big wind would come up and the green sprouts would be blown away. Our home was a hovel, and we had nothing to eat the whole day but thin congee with a few wild, bitter herbs and grain husks. Sometimes we couldn't even get this kind of fare to eat and had to go without. When I was thirteen, I still had no pants to wear. The whole family, with the exception of mother and my three sisters, did odd jobs for the landlord on a regular basis. In 1929 especially, northern Shaanxi suffered a great famine, and I don't know how many people starved to death! People stripped the area of all its herbs and roots, tree bark and tree leaves, and even ate up all the meal they could make by pounding the bones of dead animals and people which they gathered. Everybody in my family was so hungry that their bones stuck out like kindling. All we could do was flee to the Yanan-Ansai area to beg for food to eat. Later, units of the Kuomintang's 86th Division, moving from Ningtiaoliang to Hengshan, commandeered Kuo Huada's mules and wanted me to go along with the animals. On the road they were annoyed at my slow going and bloodied my nose and mouth. Now, when I speak of this period in history I am still grieved to the point of tears.