When questioned as to why the divine objects are preferably left open to the sky, informants told Berkovits and others (1969:75) that it was to demonstrate the power of the objects to withstand exposure to wind, rain, or sun.(note.18) However, as we have mentioned above, the "She" altars should be set in the open air in order to get the fructifying forces of heaven. It is, more likely that the divine stones and trees are preferably left open to the sky due to the influence of the "She" Cult. (note.19)

Thirdly, among the six dolmens included in my field sample, three are used for the worship of the Land God,(note.20) two are worshipped as the stone Good Brothers,(note.21) and one is treated as the Stone God. (note.22)

According to Ling Shun-sheng, many of the ancient stone-made "She" altars were just dolmens. Therefore, the dolmens found by me are probably surviving examples of the ancient stone-made "She" altars. However, the dolmens described above as well as those found in western Europe are usually constructed from huge stones (cf. Edsman 1987:49; Mohen 1989:54). The dolmens found in Taiwan are always tiny ones. Why are the sizes are so different? The answer might be that in the ancient times, when the dolmen served as the tablet of the "She", the dolmen was reduced to become portable in order to let the chief carry it in his baggage when he set forth to war (Ling Shun-sheng 1959b:45). The dolmens we found in Taiwan are possibly the reduced ones. This explanation also verifies that they are surviving examples of the ancient stone-made "She" altars.

Fourthly, in field work, I encountered two shrines of the Land God which had architecture different from those of Hollo villages. The architecture of the shrines in Hollo villages looks like palaces (Cohen 1987:292). However, both the shrines of the tree Land God of ?-suan Street (#T11; see figure 76) and the tree Land God of the East Gate (#T12; see figure 77) look like traditional Chinese tombs in which ancestors are buried. This phenomenon drives me to the question whether there is any connection between the Land God and Ancestor Worship.

Day (1974:103) observes that in many parts of the Chinese world the corpses of ancestors deposited on the family ground near the dwelling area were considered to be equal to the Land God. Thus, the relations between ancestors and the Land God are close. From the custom of announcing the death of any individual in the community over which he presides to the Land God, much as a death in the family is ceremoniously announced to the ancestors, Bredon & Mitrophanom (1927:456) also notice that there should be a link between ancestors and the Land God. Anyway, from the paleographic studies of Karlgren reviewed above, it is clear that Ancestor Cult and the Cult of the Land God are the twins as both are offshoots of the fertility cult (cf. Fitzgerald 1961:48).

V. Conclusion:

From the above analyses, we find that because the "She" Cult was institutionally supported and thus powerful, many cults of the divine stones and trees were influenced by it. Under the influence that the "She" altars should be set in the open air in order to get the fructifying forces of heaven, most divine stones and trees in Taiwan are preferred to be left open to the sky. Perhaps since the dolmens were reduced in size to allow the chiefs to carry them when they set forth to war, the dolmens in Taiwan are constructed with tiny stones instead of huge ones. From the paleographic studies, we realise that both the "She" Cult and Ancestor Worship are offshoots of the ancient Chinese fertility cult. Thus, we found that some shrines of the Land God look like the tombs of ancestors. The reason that the dates of the birthday festival for the Land God are so unified is because they are partly linked to the two sacrificial dates of the "She".(note.23)

It is obvious that the modern stone and tree worship is closely connected with the "She" Cult. No wonder Wang Xiaolian (qtd. in Wang Jing 1992:71) attributes the origin of this worship to the "She" Cult. It is, however, still difficult to decide whether the modern stone and tree worship are surviving examples of the "She" Cult or not, since at the time when the first surviving books were written, the middle Zhou period, the 5th century, BCE., the cult was already very old, and had undergone modifications which had almost obscured their primitive meaning (Fitzgerald 1961:47; cf. Overmyer 1987:281).

Nonetheless, the worship of stones and trees is a world-wide phenomenon and many people cannot refrain from worshipping a stone and tree of a slightly unusual colour or shape, without knowing why they do this (Franz 1990 (1964):209). The classical Chinese example is the eccentric artist Mifu who encountered a big stone, regarded it as divine, bowed down with respect, and called it "the Elder Brother Stone" (see also Chapter Two). In Chapter Five, we also observe that in modern Taiwan, many people still cannot refrain from deifying stones without any obvious reason. Psychologically speaking, it is innate in human nature and we cannot rule out this possibility of a primaeval origin of the worship.

Concerning the origin of the "She" Cult, Ling Shun-sheng, in the earlier sections of this chapter, maintains that it had been in existence from the very beginning of Chinese history. Unfortunately, these evidences he offers are rather meager, because the persons he mentioned, such as Emperor Yu, King Youyu, and Emperor Shennong, are all mytho-historical rulers. It is unlikely that we could decide whether they really existed in the world or not. Therefore, my hypothesis is that before the feudal state was considered as a territorial entity, the cults of the stone, tree, phallus, and land had been in existence in the ancient Chinese world. They were either regarded as deities themselves or as possessed by certain supernatural beings such as mythical heroes, divine animals, or natural forces etc. Additionally, the divine stones could be worshipped with the forms of menhir, dolmen, or others.

When the system of the Chinese feudal states was established, these cults were taken to be theistic symbols of their states. Therefore, the "She" altars could be constructed with stone, tree, and/or earth. But because the cults were too widespread to be fully incorporated into the states, every locality had their own local "She" altar. Moreover, common people had their own cults of these natural objects which were not standardised by the officially fostered "She" Cult. In the first century BCE., when the Cult of the "Fude Zhengshen (Orthodox Spirit of Good Merit; the Land God)" was introduced, many local "She" gods were identified with the Land God because serve a similar function. With this hypothesis, both the phenomena that the cult of the Land God is identified with the "She" Cult and the fact that the cults of Stone and Tree Gods, though left wild, are influenced by the "She" Cult, simultaneously become more explainable.