Earth, air, water, all things teem with beings that are malevolent and constantly active.

In time of disaster, famine, epidemic the universe seems as overcrowded with them as stagnant water seems to be when the solar microscope throw its contents into apparition upon the screen.

It is absolutely necessary to propitiate these spirits by magic rites and incantations.
Among the tribes of the northern part of the Chinese Empire and the Ainos of Japan this Shamanism exists as something like an organized cultus.

Indeed, it would be hard to find any part of Chinese Asia from Korea to Annam or from Tibet to Formosa, not dominated by this belief in the power and presence of minor spirits.

The Ainos of Yezo may be called Shamanists or Animists; that is, their minds are cramped and confused by their belief in a multitude of inferior spirits whom they worship and propitiate by rites and incantations through their medicine-man or sorcerer.