Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

turn aside knives and bullets in battle. These “Ghost Shirts” were based on
a traditional Plains model, the war shirt, which, like the ghost shirt, was
painted with magical symbols designed to protect the wearer.
Anthropologist James C. Scott’s observations regarding magic in millenarian
movements are illuminating. He considers a belief in invulnerability
engendered by magical means to be a standard feature of most millenarian
movements. In the case of millenarian movements, both the oppressors
and the power that supports their regime are to be negated by supernatural
intervention. In one form or another, many indigenous martial arts claim to
invest practitioners with supernormal powers, including resistance to injury
or even invulnerability. Therefore, in certain cases not only is there a general
divine mantle of protection created through the use of ritual practice or talismans,
but also the resistance incorporates indigenous esoteric martial systems
into its arsenal. Unlike the doctrines accompanying the movement that
may be new revelations, esoteric militarism turns a traditional fighting art—
with all its traditional powers—to new goals.
Perhaps the most widely known example of the use of esoteric martial
arts in resisting political domination is found in the Boxer Rebellion. Rising
during the Chinese Qing monarchy, the Boxers responded to attempts to colonize
China from without and to modernize the nation from within at the
close of the nineteenth century. In about 1898, members of a secret society of
martial artists called Yi He Tuan (Righteous Harmonious Fist) arose against
modernization and foreign influence. The Yi He Tuan (or I Ho) Boxers
claimed that their rites rendered them impervious to bullets. With the invulnerability
promised by their esoteric tradition and the blessings of Empress
Dowager Ci Xi, they began a campaign of terrorism by attacking Christian
missionaries, destroying symbols of foreign influence (e.g., telegraph lines),
and ultimately storming the Legation Quarter in Beijing in June of 1900. Susan
Naquin, in her analysis of the White Lotus sects of nineteenth-century
China, reports similar claims of invulnerability to various weapons in these
and related sects that combined esotericism with boxing.
Similarly, during the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia, esoteric indigenous
martial traditions played a role. According to contemporary
sources, in Java the secrets of the system of Southeast Asian combat called
pentjak or pencak silat have been guarded largely because of the role
played by groups of silat adepts in the fight for independence from the
Dutch in the wake of World War II. At least some of these secrets entail the
ways of developing tenaga dalam, a form of mystical energy utilized in various
styles of silat. Like the power of the Ghost Shirt and that engendered
by the Boxers’ exercises, tenaga dalam is said to turn aside bullets. According
to some sources, the origins of silat should be traced to the variety
of Islamic mysticism called Sufism. Clearly, the extraordinary powers be-
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