A soul-calling ritual for a dead child.
The universal fear of'paper mannikins as sorcerer's agents is surely associated with the common use of paper figures (of servants, horses, houses, tools, and other useful items) in funeral rites. De Groot relates that in Amoy, representations of human figures were used to inflict harm on one's enemies by sorcery,
mostly very roughly made of' two bamboo splinters fastened together crosswise, on one side of which is pasted some paper supposed to represent a human body. They are not larger than a hand, and those of men are distinguished from those of women by two shreds of paper, said to be boots. They are called "t'oe sin" [Mandarin: t'i-shen], "substitutes or surrogates of it person," and may he had, for a cash or so a piece in every shop where paper articles are made and sold for sacrifice to the dead and the gods, for they are also burnt as slaves for the (lead in the other world.21
From mannikins used for transmittal to the shadow world for the good of the dead, to mannikins used as a conduit for magical evil toward the enemies they represent, to mannikins that may be used by others to harm oneself: evidently these connections were readily made. The use of "parts of the body and clothing" of the intended victim was another way of transmitting harm by biodynamic sorcery.25 Biodynamic powers could also be acquired by the symbolic use of parts of human bodies: "The instrument of the sorcerer is a human soul, or some portion of it, obtained by appropriating certain parts of the body of a living person, but especially such organs as are deemed to be more especially impregnated with his mental or vital power. An image is then provided for his soul to settle in, and the latter totally subdued by the sorcerer to his will by charms and spells."26
Hair and the Evil Arts
As we observed in the sorcery prohibitions of the criminal code, biodynamic sorcery may have evoked both the Confucian horror of bodily mutilation and the culturally deeper horror of cannibalism. In any event, soulstealers' use of human hairs to extract soul-force and then transmit this force to paper cutouts of men and horses were magical practices well rooted in the popular mind. The same acts (extracting soul-force and using it to enhance one's power) were attributed to the masons of Te-ch'ing.
A properly trained sorcerer could use a victim's hair as a medium for extracting his soul even when the victiim was a stranger-as was indeed the case with most of the soulstealing we encounter in 1768. There was no need to know such personal facts as the victim's name or his birth-signs. A Ming Dynasty novel relates the story of a certain monk who was born from an egg, and whose birth-signs down to the day and hour were therefore uncertain. An aspiring sorcerer hoped to use this "egg-monk" as the unwitting victim of a soulstealing experiment. His master assured him that, with his technique, it was not necessary to know the monk's birth-signs. "If you lack his birth-signs, you just need to get a piece of his underwear, along with some of his hair or fingernails," and recite over them the necessary spells.27 If such items would do the trick, then perhaps even the victim's name might be dispensed with. A sorcerer of one's own community-a kinsman or neighbor-who knew one's name or birth-signs could inflict harm without the intermediacy of a personal object. This is what was attempted by peasant Shen Shih-liang (of Chapter i), who wrote the names of his detested nephews upon paper slips for mason Wu to pound atop bridge pilings, and by the murderous Taoist of Ch'ang-chih, who enchanted his victim by discovering her birth-signs. But the outsider, the stranger-sorcerer, had to do his dirty work without such intimate knowledge. Here was the point of hair- and lapel-clipping: it placed one at the mercy of complete strangers. The notion that a sorcerer could enchant the inanimate ejecta or clothing of an unknown victim was the natural complement of a fear of strangers.
That hair has magical power is believed in many cultures. I suggested, in Chapter 3, some reasons why the Manchu tonsure may have been so stubbornly resisted by Chinese in the wake of the conquest. Here the same question arises in the context of sorcery: what was the connection among hair, power, and death? Edmund Leach's suggestion that people subconsciously associate the hair with genitalia seems to me over-specific, given the range of ethnographic evidence on the subject.18 I prefer the more general formula that he attributes to "older anthropologists" such as Frazer, to the effect that "ritual hair symbolizes some kind of metaphysical abstraction-fertility, soul-stuff, personal power."`"' Evidence from Punjabi culture shows that hair is used as an implement in sorcery precisely because it absorbs and stores fertility: a barren woman may clip hair from the head of a first-born child to cause him to be reborn in her own womb. The long, matted hair of a holy man (sadhu) is particularly prized because it has stored up so much fertility power (from the prolonged sexual abstinence of its wearer).i0 The power of hair to absorb and store spiritual power is certainly visible in Chinese evidence. In Cantonese funerals, hair seems to be an absorber of fertility-laden spiritual essences: married daughters and daughters-inlaw of the deceased "are expected to rub their unbound hair against the coffin just prior to its removal from the village." James L. Watson believes that this intentional absorption of death pollution is thought to enhance fertility and lineage continuity, almost as if the soul of the deceased were reentering the lineage through the women's hair." The soulstealing affair continually calls attention to the importance of hair in the lives of monks, and not only in the tonsure ceremony where they lose it. One reason monks were so often found carrying hair was that tonsure-masters commonly kept some hair of their disciples (those they had shaven and whose monastic education they were responsible for). But apparently not only intergenerational ties were served by this retention of hair. Monks were known to exchange such hair with one another along the road in order to "link destinies" (chieh-yuan), perhaps to broaden the variety (and hence the potency?) of soul-force one was carrying and thereby reinforce one's links to the whole sangha or body of monks.32
Sorcery Prophylaxis
The soulstealing crisis of 1 768 was marked by the frantic efforts of ordinary people to counter the baleful effects of sorcery, whether by lynching suspected sorcerers or by employing magical remedies. Magic could quash magic, as shown by the doughty Hupei literatus who smote demons with The Classic of Changes. Indeed, premodern China (and today's China to an extent we do not know) was an arena in which supernatural harm and supernatural remedies were arrayed in grim and deadly battle. Mankind was, in de Groot's words, "engaged every day in a restless defensive and offensive war" against malevolent spirits.~° In this war there were, of course, professionals: the ritual specialists who conducted exorcisms and funerals and prescribed the geomantic alignment of buildings. The foot soldiers, however, were laymen. They relied upon a vast written and unwritten armory of spells, charms, and behavioral formulae for warding off evil.:''
The use of charms and amulets to "ward off evil" (pi-hsieh) was universal. Much of this protective activity was directed at vengeful ghosts (kuei), which proceeded from the yang aspect of the soul: spirits of the dead that had not been ritually cared for. In the same manner, there were remedies against magical evil inflicted by sorcery. Because the masons of Te-ch'ing were objects of a common popular suspicion of builders, let me illustrate charm remedies by referring to builders' hexes. According to the missionary folklorist N. B. Dennys, writing from Canton: "There is a well-known legend amongst the Cantonese of a builder having a grudge against a woman whose kitchen he was called upon to repair . . . The repairs were duly completed, but somehow or other the woman could never visit the kitchen without feeling ill. Convinced that witchcraft was at the bottom of it, she had the wall pulled down, and sure enough there was discovered in a hollow left for the purpose `a clay figure in a posture of sickness.' "15
Why did people associate builders with sorcery? The Chinese believe that the ritual condition of buildings influences the worldly fortunes of their inhabitants. It is only natural, then, that builders had special responsibilities for practicing "good" magic when putting up structures. The timing, layout, and ritual order of construction were deemed esse
ntial to keeping evil influences out of the completed building. Of course, anyone capable of "good" magic is also capable of "bad." A carpentry manual popular in Ch'ing times, the Lu-panching, accordingly contains not only rules for proper ritual construction but also baleful charms for builders to hide atop rafters or under floors. Quite evenhandedly, it also includes charms to be used against such evil builders."' Here are some examples of carpenters' baleful magic:
A drawing of a broken tile inscribed with "Ice melts" [the rest of the expression is "tiles scatter"-implying collapse or dissolution]. Appended is a charm: "A piece of broken tile, a jagged edge, hidden in joint of roof-beam, husband die and wife remarry, sons move away, servants flee, none will care for the estate." (To be hidden in a joint of the main roof-beam.)
A drawing of an ox-bone. The charm: "In center of room hide ox-bone, life-long toil, life's end death but no coffin, sons and grandsons will shoulder heavy burdens." (Bury under center of' room.)
A drawing of a knife among coils of hair. The charm: "A sword worn in the hair. Sons and grandsons will leave and become monks. Having sons who found no families, perpetual misery. Widow and widower, orphaned and childless, do not forgive each other." (Bury under threshold.)
But the reader is also offered powerful magic for defending the household against builder-sorcerers:
When building a house, various kinds of carpenters, masons, and plasterers will plot to poison, curse, and harm the owner. On the day when the roof-beam is raised, offer a sacrifice of the three types of animal, laid out on a horizontal trestle, to all the gods. 't'hen recite the following secret charm of Master Lu fan [patron saint of carpenters]: "Evil artisans, do you not know that poisons and curses will rebound upon yourselves, and bring no harm to the owner "Then recite seven times: "Let the artisan [responsible for the sorcery] meet misfortune." [Then say,] "I have received the proclamation of the Supreme Ruler [the jade Emperor] ordering that I shall suffer no harm from others, and that all will redound to my good fortune: an urgent decree." Burn copy of charm in private place, especially where no pregnant woman can see you. Mix ashes with blood of black and yellow dog, then dissolve in wine. On day main roof-beam is raised, serve to builders (three cups to boss). He who is plotting sorcery will himself receive the harm. (Copy in vermilion ink and paste atop roofbeam.)
Such visions of offensive and defensive magic display the anxieties that affected most common people all the time: premature death, ritually faulty burial, loss of children, lack of proper ritual care after death. Although these anxieties center on building-sorcery, they really reflect a view of the world in which human fortunes are generally vulnerable to supernatural vandalism. In the unending confrontation between gods (shen) and ghosts (kuei), human life needs the protection of whatever arts (fa or shu) can be mobilized, either from ritual specialists or from laymen's lore."
Suspicions of the Clergy
In the campaign against soulstealing, Buddhist monks and the occasional "Taoist priest were the prime suspects from the very beginning. Why was Hungli so quick to believe in these monkish master-sorcerers and to turn the energies of the state against them? And why was the common man so quick to pounce on the nearest monk whenever fears of sorcery crossed his mind?
Official Treatment of the Clergy
The commoner's daily battle against evil spirits was mirrored, at the very top of society, by the concerns of the imperial state. Even as it prohibited sorcery, the state was itself constantly dealing with the spirit world. On every level of officialdom, from the imperial palace to the dustiest county yamen, agents of the state were intermediaries between man and spirits. Their role marks them, in a sense, as priests: communicating with the gods on behalf of mankind to ensure the proper ordering of worldly events, primarily good conditions for agriculture and peace for the realm. At the top, the emperor himself presided over solemn annual sacrifices to Heaven and Earth. At the bottom, the county magistrate (a little emperor in his own realm) regarded the City God (ch'eng-huang, a magistrate of the spirit world), as an essential coadjutor in governing.
Although the common man was barred from celebrating the imperial and bureaucratic cults, he did share some of their theology. Formal worship of Heaven was a monopoly of the monarch, but the common people were already inclined to believe in Heaven's power in human affairs. Because everyone's fate was governed by heavenly forces (the succession of the "five actions," wu-Iasing, and the interplay of the cosmological powers of yin and yang), people easily accepted the connection of imperial Heaven-worship with human felicity. And because the fate of the individual soul after death was thought to depend on a judgment of merit by the City God, commoners considered that worship of that deity by local officials was performed on behalf of the community as a whole."' If the state were to sustain these popular beliefs in its own spiritual role, it had to watch carefully for potential competitors.
The state's inclusive claim to be the rightful manager of man's relations with spirits led to elaborate procedures for regulating the organized Buddhist and Taoist clergy. There was, of course, something a bit absurd about the state's rules regarding the clergy. The majority of ritual specialists were not "enrolled," in any formal sense, under organizations that could be held to account for their activities. The priests of the popular religion, who headed an eclectic, deeply rooted system of community practices, were not even full-time clerics, in the sense that we might expect from a Western context. For the state to forbid ambiguous status, insist on clear-cut demonstration of master-disciple relationships, and require registration of all religious practioners were ludicrous presumptions in view of the actual practice of Chinese religion. Marginality (as the state would define it) was built into the social status of most ritual specialists. To fasten upon them regulations such as those I shall summarize here would have erased popular religion itself, which of course the state (in those days) would have found an impossible task. This simple fact gives discussions of "state control of religion" an unreal and fantastic aspect.3°
Nevertheless, the attempt was made. We have to regard it as an indication of state attitudes, rather than as a "system" that actually functioned in anything like the way it was intended to. According to the rules, all temples and monasteries, along with their clergy, had to be registered and licensed. It was illegal to build a temple without formal approval of' the Board of Rites. In the same spirit, the state had for centuries required Buddhist monks and Taoist priests to obtain certificates of ordination (tu-tieh).41) Why was the late imperial state so concerned to register and control ritual specialists? When the ninth-century T'ang empire confiscated vast monastic properties and returned tens of thousands of monks to lay life, the reason was partly economic: a man's withdrawal to a monastery removed him from the liabilities of taxes and labor service and so deprived the state of revenue. Yet this purpose was irrelevant in the late empires, when labor-service obligations had been commuted to money payments and assessed along with the land tax, in effect replacing corvee by paid labor. A review of the Ch'ing efforts to control the clergy suggests other purposes.
Although licensing and registration of monks and priests had been practiced by the preceding Ming Dynasty, it was not until 1674 that the Manchu throne issued its first general instructions on state governance of the clergy. In Peking, offices were established for the supervision of Buddhists and Taoists, each to be staffed by sixteen monks or priests, members apparently to be initially selected by the Board of Rites, but to be replaced by co-optation from among the capital clergy. The members of these supervisory bodies were to be reported to the Board of Civil Office (h-pu).`" A parallel system was decreed for the provinces: offices staffed by selected monks and priests were established in prefectures, departments, and counties.42 They reported up the regular chain of bureaucratic command.
The supervisory offices were to regulate the deportment of monks, priests, and nuns, to ensure that they honored their vows by proper discipline. Beyond this, however, was the all-important licensi
ng. Here the point was not so much to maintain the purity of the clergy themselves as to insure against unreliable laymen representing themselves as clerics. The Throne feared that "riffraff and ruffians" would falsely assume clerical habit and claim to be invoking the spirits of (religious) patriarchs (tsu-ship) through divination. Such powers to communicate with spirits and foretell the future would generate "heterodox doctrines" and "wild talk" that could attract ignorant people to become their followers and form illegal sects. By heterodox doctrines and wild talk, the Throne meant not only pretensions to magical powers by sect leaders but also prognostications about the fate of the existing political order. Imperial decrees on this subject show special sensitivity to religious activities in Peking, the seat of dynastic power. Temples and monasteries in the capital were forbidden to "establish sects and hold assemblies where men and women mix together" (a hallmark of popular religion-and further evidence, to the imperial mind, of moral degeneracy). Nor were they allowed to "erect platforms to perform operas and collect money, sacrifice to the gods, or carry them in procession." "
Emperor Hungli himself was particularly irritated by ambiguity of status, which led him to try to extend the regulations on the organized clergy (those in major monasteries or temples) to the vast majority of ritual specialists in lay communities. His first major pronouncement on the clergy concerned persons who might be called secular clergyactually the majority of ritual specialists: those who lived permanently outside monasteries and temples, owned property, and even married. Such men played it vital role in communities by serving in funerals and exorcisms, and otherwise filling people's needs for ritual services. They were subject neither to monastic discipline nor to state control. After denouncing the decayed state of clerical morals and learning, Hungli ordered that these secular practitioners be forced either to live in monasteries or temples, or else return to lay life. Their property, save for a bare subsistence allowance, was to be confiscated and given to the poor. When it appeared that the decree was causing panic among clergy in general and provoking disorder in the provinces, Hungli protested that he had never meant to harm those who hewed to clerical discipline. The problem, rather, was public order. These secular personnel "steal the name of clergy but lack their discipline. They even engage in depraved and illicit activities. They are hard to investigate and control." The reason he was requiring that they obtain ordination certificates "was so that riffraff would not be able to hide in their midst and disgrace Buddhism and Taoism." The newly enthroned monarch was evidently surprised by the reaction to his harsh measures. He now recoiled from the confiscation order: "Finally, how can Our Dynasty's relief of the poor depend on the seizure of such petty properties?" The decree was rescinded. But, burdening the monarch's mind, there remained the irksome existence of a mass of ritual specialists who were not under any kind of state supervision.44
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