Jerome Yuchien's Ph.D Thesis
Chapter Eight: The Links among the Stone, Tree, and Land Deities (part III)
Since 1912 when the imperial system was terminated, the official worship of the "She" has been in abeyance. However, in the rural villages as late as 1948, the "She" altars could still be found and some and certain forms of governing boards were still elected annually which took care not merely of the annual sacrifices but also of scavenging the economically valuable waste materials of the neighbourhood. This task was usually farmed out to a collector, but the administrators used the income from the waste for neighbourhood welfare work (Yang 1961:99).
According to some field researches of Guangdong Province, while the gathering for the worship of the "She" had long been discontinued, local neighbourhoods in many southern towns were still called "She" and the shrines of the Land God were still called "She" until the 1920's (Yang 1961:99; Ling Shun-sheng 1964:41; Feuchtwang 1977:591, 1992:65). By the same token, in many places, the Land God is also called the "She" God (Werner 1977:414).
3, Sacrificial Dates of the Ancient Altar:
Paying homage to the "She" has been a practice among the Chinese people for several thousand years. Shennong, a legendary hero who is said to be the inventor of the plough and the first Chinese agriculturist, is recorded to have gone with his people every year in the eleventh month to worship "She" (Werner 1977:415).
In the Shang Dynasty, the character "She" was used to mean "a year," probably because the sacrifice to it was a yearly event at that time (Chow Tse-tsung 1978:63).
In the Zhouli, an important Chinese classic, it is recorded that "sacrificial services were performed at the Zhoushe in appropriate seasons of the year". In another place, it is also said that "Sacrifice was made to the Mashe in autumn" (qtd. in Ling Shun-sheng 1964:38f).
Before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, two State ceremonies were performed annually for the "She", the one in spring, and the other one in autumn. On other occasions, such as a triumphal return from a battle, solar eclipse, big hunting party, and so forth, rites were also performed for the "She" (Hodous 1929:60; Ling Shun-sheng 1958:49). These rites, indicative of the deep veneration for agriculture ingrained in the people, were performed in the Capital by the Emperor in person, and in the provinces by the local magistrates (Bredon & Mitrophanom 1927:129; Feuchtwang 1977:595).
On the dates of the rites, all who were engaged in worshipping the same "She" performed sacrificial rites together. Those with official authority read the imperial edict and encouraged villagers to help the poor and respect age and so on. (cf. Hsiao Kung-chuan 1960:277; Yang 1961:98; Feuchtwang 1992:65).
4, Structures of the "She" Cult:
As far as the primitive form of the "She" is concerned, the famous Chinese classic Huai'nanzi says: "In the sacrificial rites under the rule of King Youyu, the 'She' was made with earth; under the reign of Xiahou, the 'She' was planted with the pine tree; the stone 'She' was used by the Yin people; and the 'She' of Zhou was planted with the chestnut tree" (qtd. in Ling Shun- sheng 1964:40).(note.10) There is also an account in the Shangshu: "only the pine tree was to be planted at the site of the grand 'She', the cypress at the site of east 'She'; the catalpa at north 'She'" (qtd. in Ling Shun-sheng 1964:41).
Furthermore, in the Shuowen, we find the same statement that the "She" altar had a tree (qtd. in Eberhard 1970:23). The Chapter of Minggui, Vol. 8 of Mozi states: "In the former times of Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou, upon the founding of his empire, each sage monarch would establish his ancestral temple in the main altar (tan) of state and select a dense wood to be the 'She'" (Ling Shun-sheng 1964:41).
From the above passages, we know that the "She" structures of the four Dynasties, Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou, were different from one another, and that the location where the cult was worshipped in ancient times was marked either with the raising of an earth mound, the erection of a stone, the planting of a tree or the selection of a wood or grove. In view of this, the primitive "She" structures may be at least divided into four types, that is, the earth "She", stone "She", tree "She", and forest "She" (cf. Granet 1930:239; Wright 1977:39).
(1) Earth "She" - The place where sacrifices were made to "She" in the ancient times was sometimes called "shan" or "tan" and both of them were made of earth. The former was made by making level and sweeping clean a piece of ground and the latter by raising a pile of earth above the ground. We can also find the descriptions of the earth "She" in Ho Xiu's commentary on the Gongyang Zhuan and Cai Yun's Tuduan (cf. Ling Shun-sheng 1964:40).
(2) Stone "She" - It appears that in certain regions and certain times the "She" was made not of earth but of stone (Granet 1930:239). The stone "She" may imply either the "She" altar or a upright tablet which was made of stone. Ling Shun- sheng suspects the ancient stone "She" altar of being just a stone Zhu - tablet or a stone pillar or a block of stone, about a foot thick and five feet high, which functioned as an image and possibly represented the ancestral god (1958:49).
Moreover, even though Wang Mingming (1995:49) does not mention by what material the representation of the local territorial patron (shi zhu) of the tan of Huian County was made, by the name "shi zhu (stone host)" I suspect that it was made of stone.
(3) Tree "She" - References to trees on the altar of the earth god are very common in ancient literature. This appears to have been a widespread practice common throughout ancient Chinese society (Eberhard 1970:23). According to the Chinese classics cited above, the planting of trees at the "She" altars was mandatory in ancient times (Ling Shun-sheng 1964:41). For further evidence, the following is extracted from Shangshu: "Only the pine tree was to be planted at the site of the Dashe (the Grand 'She'); the cypress at the site of the Dongshe (the East 'She'); the catalpa at the Beishe (the North 'She')" (cf. Ling Shun-sheng 1964:41).
(4) Forest "She" - The Forest "She" differs from the Tree "She" in that the latter was represented either by a tree specially planted or by a natural-grown tree and the former was represented by a natural-grown forest (cf. Granet 1930:239). The term "Sanglin" ("the mulberry forest") in the passage quoted from the Chapter Minggei of Mozi, which I mention above, can give us a confirmation (cf. Karlgren 1930:19).
