Shamanism-Religion, Culture, Both or Neither: A Case Study of a Pensioner Song and Dance Group among the Chinese Sibe

The story this study is based on begins in 2012, in the Seventh Village of Qapqal Sibe Autonomous County in today s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China. The protagonists are the members of a Sibe shaman song and dance group, mainly comprised of elderly farmers. The formation of the group was encouraged by Sibe intellectuals in the village, who drew their motivation from China s intangible cultural heritage program. In today s China, this program has an impact on all levels of social life, determining how Chinese people are supposed look upon their cultural heritage. The process, however, is accompanied by numerous conflicts, raising a great many questions regarding the conversion of religious traditions, once considered to be "superstitions," into "heritage," as clearly shown by the story of the shaman song and dance group made up of pensioners. Formulating and answering these questions require an examination of how heritage construction is intertwined with both secularization and desecularization processes. This study focuses on this complex phenomenon.