The Cult of the Fox

For more than five centuries the shamanistic fox cult has attracted large portions of the Chinese population and appealed to a wide range of social classes. Deemed illicit by imperial rulers and clerics and officially banned by republican and communist leaders, the fox cult has managed to survive and flourish in individual homes and community shrines throughout northern China. In this new work, the first to examine the fox cult as a vibrant popular religion, Xiaofei Kang explores the manifold meanings of the fox spirit in Chinese society. Kang describes various cult practices, activities of worship, and the exorcising of fox spirits to reveal how the Chinese people constructed their cultural and social values outside the gaze of offical power and morality.

Xiaofei Kang is an assistant professor of history at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

Miki Morita:
This book serves as valuable material for all readers interested in East Asian religion, history, and culture.

Chun-Fang Yu:
I am certain that others will benefit from reading it as much as I have.

Philip Clart:
Kang has indeed given us a superb study of the fox cult in premodern China.

Gerald Vinten:
The Cult of the Fox is bound to be the definitive work on the subject.