Soul Calling Eggs

April 13th 2023
Photo
Region
Southwest China
Researcher
Formats
Archive of the future
Disciplines
Anthropology
Spirituality
Themes
Worldviews

We found some eggs neatly and oddly stacked on the roadside when we walked to a resettlement site near the Nu River

Later, one of our local friends told us that we should stay away from these eggs if we see them, because they are part of soul calling witchcraft. This type of witchcraft is used to call the soul of someone who died there.

In southwest China, many ethnic groups use eggs for soul calling rituals and sometimes use egg divination to treat diseases.

It is difficult to determine to which ethnic group this ritual belongs because this region is an area where several ethnic groups live together. Ethnic groups such as the Lisu, Lhaovo, Bai and Han, etc. gather on different mountains and are, meanwhile, closely related to each other.