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觋 designates a male shaman or sorcerer, the counterpart to the female shaman 巫. It is a phono-semantic compound: the left component 巫 (shamanism) provides the semantic category, while the right component 见 (to see) suggests the pronunciation and also evokes the idea of spiritual vision. The traditional form is 覡, with the unsimplified 見. This connection to seeing reflects the clairvoyant abilities expected of male religious specialists in historical China.
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