Kev Dab Qhuas

Kev Dab Qhuas, the way of spirit worship, is the traditional religion of the Hmong, or Miao, of southwestern China. It is animistic, built on reverence for unseen spirits called dab.

In the oral epics of the Qiandong Miao, Mother Butterfly is the ancestral mother: born inside a sacred maple, she laid twelve eggs, from which came the first man, Jang Vang, and the Thunder God. Shamans are chosen by the spirits, not by inheritance, and ride a spirit horse, represented by the shaman's bench, into the spirit world to diagnose and heal.

A household altar to the spirit of good fortune receives rice, chicken and joss paper. Under Ming and Qing rule Miao risings were put down, among them the rising of 1735 against forced assimilation, which ended in 1738.