Demon Hordes and Burning Boats

Paul R. Katz is a Assistant Professor in the Institute of History at National Central University in Taiwan.

• List of Maps, List of Tables, and IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsPeriods of Chinese HistoryPrinciples of CitationAbbreviations Introduction 1. Chekiang 2. Epidemics and Responses to Them 3. The Hagiography of Marshal Wen 4. The Spread of Marshal Wen's Cult 5. The Festival of Marshal Wen ConclusionAppendix A. The Festival In WenchowAppendix B. The Festival In HangchowBibliography Index

"I found it absolutely fascinating. The material is extremely compelling, partly because the sources are unusual and partly because the cult of King Wen turns out to be far more important than it has been given credit for."Specialists and casual readers alike have long known that a important feature of traditional religion involves control of disease and epidemics. Specialist have also known that disease-related cults existed along the Southeast Chinese coastal areas, often linked to the syllable 'wen.' This is the first book to address this directly. Growing interest in the role of disease in history and in the anthropology of medicine adds to the timeliness of the topic. The beginning of the book throws the issue of disease into high relief and shows that religious reactions to epidemics will necessarily be an important issue, one which we have tended to overlook because fear of epidemics is peripheral in contemporary Chinese religion. Katz then draws on evidence confirming the importance of fear of epidemics in Chinese religion, highlights some of the confusing ambiguities that have bedeviled the study of this, and then clearly lays out the historical materials that document the growth of plague god cults in late imperial China." — David K. Jordan, University of California, San Diego