Chinese Ritual and Politics

157 Pages·2007·4.54 MB·English

by  Emily Martin Ahern

Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology
General Editor: Jack Goody
34
CHINESE RITUAL AND POLITICS
The God of Walls and Moats judging a wrongdoer
Chinese ritual and politics
EMILY MARTIN AHERN
Professor of Anthropology
The Johns Hopkins University
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge
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© Cambridge University Press 1981
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1981
This digitally printed version 2007
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-521-23690-4 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-04090-7 paperback
Contents
List of figures page vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Part I: Interpersonal Communication 7
1 Interpersonal versus non-interpersonal transaction 9
2 Written bureaucratic communication 16
3 Etiquette and control 31
Part II: Codes 43
4 Divination 45
5 Open and closed practices 64
Part III: Politics 75
6 Ritual and political authorities 77
7 Ritual as a learning game 92
Conclusions and further questions 109
Notes 111
Bibliography 120
Character list 129
Index 137

Figures
The God of Walls and Moats judging a wrongdoer frontispiece
(Couchoud 1928, fig. 23)
1 and 2 A god and a magistrate carried in procession page 3
(Gray 1878:1, facing 148, facing 372)
3 and 4 Two charms, with translations into ordinary 25
writing along the right-hand side (Dore
1965-7: III, facing 296, facing 297)
5 Interpretation of the way pue fall (Doolittle 48
1966:11,108)
6 Shaking out a chiam in front of the image of a god 48
(Doolittle 1966: II, 109)
7 and 8 Two kinds of divination (Gray 1878: II, facing 2, 52
facing 6)
9 Spirit writing in the I-kuan Tao sect (li Shih-yii 90
1948, facing 1)
VII

Acknowledgements
The bulk of this study was written in 1976—7 while I held a Fellowship for
Independent Study and Research from the National Endowment for the Humani-
ties. I am grateful for this support. I am also grateful to the faculty of the School
of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London, who made their
facilities available to me, especially Woody Watson and Sarah Allan, who
extended warm hospitality and smoothed bureaucratic procedures.
A number of people have read and commented on portions of the manu-
script at earlier stages, and I thank each of them: Maurice Bloch, Scott Guggen-
heim, Stevan Harrell, Beatriz Lavandera, Edmund Leach, Sidney Mintz, Richard
Price, Sally Price, Stanley Tambiah,and Arthur Wolf. Special thanks go to Harold
Scheffler for his detailed and encouraging criticisms and to Dennis Ahern for his
painstaking commentary on the manuscript and insightful suggestions about its
reorganization. Thanks also go to Paul Chen, Sue Naquin, and Howard Nelson
for helping me track down various sources and materials. In addition I have had
the benefit of comments during seminars at the Johns Hopkins University, the
School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics and
Political Science, Cambridge University, the University of Gothenberg, Columbia
University and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York.
My fieldwork in Taiwan was supported during 1975 by a Fulbright Hayes
Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, a Social Science Research Council grant,
and a National Institute of Mental Health Small Grant. I again thank the people
of San-hsia for their patience in answering my questions, Liu Hsiu-yuan, my
assistant, for her skill in analyzing Chinese society, and Wang Ch'un-hua for her
help in gathering some important documentary materials.
Finally I thank Judy Salter for looking after my daughter in London, Barbara
Curtin, Esther Graber, Kelly Heckrotte, and Karen Pekala for typing the manu-
script, and Su-lien Hu for doing the calligraphy for the Character list.
IX