User:Madalibi/The Boxers
The Boxers, first known as the "Yihequan" or Boxers United in Righteousness (sometimes translated as Fists or Righteous Harmony), and from October 1899 onward as the "Yihetuan" or Militia United in Righteousness, were...
Features: rituals of invulnerability , mass spirit possession, centered on boxing grounds or altars established in temples, composed of young men (young peasants, agricultural workers, boatmen out of work, drifters), practiced martial arts.
| Madalibi/The Boxers | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 義和拳 / 義和團 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 义和拳/义和团 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Fists / Militia United in Righteousness | ||||||||
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Name and translation[edit]
Yihequan / Yihetuan. Create redirects at: Fists of Righteous Harmony, Fists United in Righteousness, Boxers United in Righteousness, Militia United in Righteousness, Militia of Righteous Harmony, Righteous Harmony Fists, Righteous and Harmonious Band, Righteous Harmony Boxing, Righteous Fists of Harmony, Righteous and Harmonious Fists...
Chinese writers hostile to the Boxers have called them "boxer (or boxing) bandits" (quanfei 拳匪).[1] Others have opted for the more neutral "Boxers (or Militia) United in Righteousness", which the Boxers themselves used.[1]
"Boxers"[edit]
The term quan (or ch'üan 拳; literally "fist") is also found in the name of many styles of Chinese martial arts, such as Taijiquan, Wudangquan, or Nanquan.
Yihe[edit]
"Righteous and Harmonious Fists" (Hsu 1980, p. 117) was once the conventional translation. [2] Joseph Esherick
Explanations of the name at Esherick 1987: 154-5, 377n63; Cohen 1997: 16-17, 22-3.
Yihe as "United in Righteousness"
- Esherick 1987, pp. 154-5
- Cohen 1997, p. 16
- Preston 2000, p. 22: "Boxers United in Righteousness"
- Harrington 2001, p. 12: "Boxers United in Righteousness"
- Bickers 2007, p. xxv, note 2: "militia united in righteousness"
- Silbey 2012, p. 35: "Militia United in Righteousness", "Boxers United in Righteousness" (though he also gives "Righteous Fists of Harmony")
George Steiger's China and the Occident: The Origin and Development of the Boxer Movement (1927), which historian Joseph Esherick considers "the first serious scholarly work" on the Boxers in English, called the group the "Righteous and Harmonious Band". The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study (1963), by Victor Purcell, had "Righteous Harmony Boxers", whereas Chester Tan opted for "Righteous Harmony Fists" in The Boxer Catastrophe (1971).[3]
The name "Yihequan" is first documented in 1774 in the aftermath of Wang Lun's failed rebellion (1774) inspired by the popular religious teachings of the White Lotus.[4] That year, government investigation discovered a man from En County (恩縣) in northwest Shandong – just north of the areas where Wang Lun had been active – who had taught pupils in a group he called "White Lotus" and "Yihequan".[4] In 1778, a man accused of ties to Yihequan he explained that he had first heard of that martial arts group around 1768 in Guan County, one of the regions where the Boxers would emerge from in 1898.[4] Because of the name Yihequan, because the 1774 uprising was grounded in martial arts and White Lotus teachings, and because Wang Lun's followers claimed immunity from weapons, historians long postulated that the Boxers emerged from White Lotus sects in northwest Shandong.[4]
The name "Boxers" by which Westerners referred to the uprising.
Origins[edit]
Big Swords Society[edit]
The Big Swords Society flourished in southwestern Shandong (mostly Caozhou prefecture), at the confines of the three provinces of Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu.
The group was founded and led by Liu Shiduan (劉士端), from Shan county in Caozhou. Liu had learned martial arts from a man surnamed Zhao in the 1880s.[5] Zhao transmitted to him a technique called the "Armor of the Golden Bell" (jinzhongzhao 金鐘罩), a form of kung fu or "hard" qigong breathing exercise which, it was claimed, could protect adepts against blades and bullets as if a large bell was covering their body.[6] The Golden Bell was Probably in the early 1890s, Liu started teaching it to his own disciples. The Golden Bell would become the Big Swords' most important ritual of invulnerability.
The Big Swords originally aimed to protect property from the rampant banditry that plagued the area. Their role became more important after the local Qing forces left the area in 1894 to participate in the Sino–Japanese War. The Society's members – landlords, peasants who owned some land, and tenants – had to buy their own weapons, mostly spears and swords.
Unlike the later Boxers, this technique of invulnerability did not come from possession by gods.[7]
The Boxers of Guan County[edit]
Spirit Boxers[edit]
Expansionist phase[edit]
Actions during the Boxer Uprising[edit]
Depictions[edit]
Assessments[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ a b Cohen 1997, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, p. 16.
- ^ Esherick 1987, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, p. 154. See for instance, Hsu 1980, "Late Ch'ing foreign relations, 1866–1905", p. 117.
- ^ Esherick 1987, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, p. 377, note 63. See Steiger 1927, p. 134; Tan 1971, p. 36; and Purcell 1963, p. 163.
- ^ a b c d Naquin 1981, Shantung Rebellion, pp. 191–2, note 129. Cite error: The named reference "Naquin 191" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Esherick 1987, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising, pp. 106–7.
- ^ Esherick 1987, p. 55; Cohen 1997, pp. 17–19.
- ^ Esherick 1987, pp. 55–56.
Works cited[edit]
- Bickers, Robert (2007). "Introduction". The Boxers, China, and the World. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. xi–xxviii. ISBN 978-0-7425-5394-1.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|editors=ignored (|editor=suggested) (help) ISBN 978-0-7425-5395-8 (paperback). - Cohen, Paul (1997). History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10650-5. ISBN 0-231-10651-3 (paperback).
- Elliott, Jane E. (2002). Some Did It for Civilisation, Some Did It for Their Country: A Revised View of the Boxer War. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. ISBN 962-201-973-0. ISBN 962-996-066-4 (paperback).
- Esherick, Joseph W. (1987). The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06459-3.
- Harrington, Peter (2001). Peking 1900: The Boxer Rebellion. Illustrated by Alan & Michael Perry. Oxford and New York: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84176-181-7.
- Hsu, Immanuel C. Y. (1980). "Late Ch'ing foreign relations, 1866–1905". The Cambridge History of China, Volume 11, Late Ch'ing 1800–1911, Part 2. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. pp. 70–141. ISBN 0-521-22029-7.
- Naquin, Susan (1981). Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02638-2.
- Preston, Diana (2000). The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900. New York: Berkley. ISBN 0-425-18084-0.
- Purcell, Victor (1963). The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Silbey, David J. (2012). The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0-8090-9477-6.
- Steiger, George (1927). China and the Occident: The Origin and Development of the Boxer Movement. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Tan, Chester (1971). The Boxer Catastrophe. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-3930-0575-2.
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