The religion of the Buyi: beliefs that impregnate all the aspects of his lives

The Buyi as many other primitive peoples, which do not have way of knowing the mechanisms of the nature, but which see that, according to his will it can provide a few pleasant lives to them or turn his existence into a hell, think that everything what exists in the nature it has his soul: the sun, the moon, the wind, the rain, the grounds, the forests, etc. They have a special religious respect all fish and dragon since they think that his ancestors had a consanguinity relation with them.
They produce also cult to the chiefs of every clan.

His sacred writing is called "Mojing", in them there are registered the singings that must be realized in each of the religious ceremonies of the Buyi, the longest of them is the one that is sung after the death of a person.

Those who usually direct the ceremonies of the Buyi are the priests called "Bumo". These shamans generally have not left the basic production activities, and when they do not have to realize religious activities, devote themselves to their own cultivation.
One of the religious ceremonies more important is the call: "to extract the souls of the dead persons of the purgatory". It is of such a magnitude that they go so far as to take part up to 10.000 persons, reaching a duration in some occasions of seven days and seven nights. Other minor ceremonies, like the realized ones in honor of several deities, as that of the water, that of the fire, or that of the village, do not assemble so many people, but they demand the participation of all the males of the village, which sometimes 100 persons overcome.

In addition to these Bumo that direct the most important religious ceremonies, between the Buyi and there is another type of religious specialists. There are the calls Yaya, or women shamans. These especially realize divination ceremonies, as well as expulsion of the spirits. Often only they discover his powers after enduring an illness, when they feel qualified to distinguish the presence of the demons around.

The different activities of his life, like the affectionate and matrimonial relations, the medicine, and his legal system, everything is impregnated with a deep religious character. This way his singings, dances, art and literature. Everything must be understood like a declaration of his religious beliefs.

There is curious the religious concept that they have of the adultery. Since for the Buyi, if a woman and a man support relations out of his marriage, and a child is born, they do not leave that it survives. And also they think that after his death, the mother will turn into a type of bogey named Duyang. This bogey can cause inconveniences to the people, and even illnesses. To expel him complicated ceremonies are realized.

The arrival of the Chinese culture to the grounds of the Buyi, especially from the XVIth century, with his new religions as the Buddhism and the Taoism, they could not make a people indifferent with so much interest in the religion. But although in some villages temples exist in honor of the goddess Guanyin, and there are the people who uses the methods taoístas to foresee, the true thing is that these foreign religions, they have not drawn with depth into the soul of the Buyi.

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