A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.]

by Wolfram Eberhard

The bronze vessels of later times often bear long inscriptions, but those of the Shang period have only very brief texts. On the other hand, they are ornamented with pictures, as yet largely unintelligible, of countless deities, especially in the shape of animals or birds—pictures that demand interpretation. The principal form on these bronzes is that of the so-called T'ao-t'ieh, a hybrid with the head of a water-buffalo and tiger's teeth.

The Shang period had a religion with many nature deities, especially deities of fertility. There was no systematized pantheon, different deities being revered in each locality, often under the most varied names. These various deities were, however, similar in character, and later it occurred often that many of them were combined

by the priests into a single god. The composite deities thus formed were officially worshipped. Their primeval forms lived on, however, especially in the villages, many centuries longer than the Shang dynasty. The sacrifices associated with them became popular festivals, and so these gods or their successors were saved from oblivion; some of them have lived on in popular religion to the present day. The supreme god of the official worship was called Shang Ti; he was a god of vegetation who guided all growth and birth and was later conceived as a forefather of the races of mankind. The earth was represented as a mother goddess, who bore the plants and animals procreated by Shang Ti. In some parts of the Shang realm the two were conceived as a married couple who later were parted by one of their children. The husband went to heaven, and the rain is the male seed that creates life on earth. In other regions it was supposed that in the beginning of the world there was a world-egg, out of which a primeval god came, whose body was represented by the earth: his hair formed the plants, and his limbs the mountains and valleys. Every considerable mountain was also itself a god and, similarly, the river god, the thunder god, cloud, lightning, and wind gods, and many others were worshipped.

In order to promote the fertility of the earth, it was believed that sacrifices must be offered to the gods. Consequently, in the Shang realm and the regions surrounding it there were many sorts of human sacrifices; often the victims were prisoners of war. One gains the impression that many wars were conducted not as wars of conquest but only for the purpose of capturing prisoners, although the area under Shang control gradually increased towards the west and the south-east, a fact demonstrating the interest in conquest. In some regions men lurked in the spring for people from other villages; they slew them, sacrificed them to the earth, and distributed portions of the flesh of the sacrifice to the various owners of fields, who buried them. At a later time all human sacrifices were prohibited, but we have reports down to the eleventh century A.D., and even later, that such sacrifices were offered secretly in certain regions of central China. In other regions a great boat festival was held in the spring, to which many crews came crowded in long narrow boats. At least one of the boats had to capsize; the people who were thus drowned were a sacrifice to the deities of fertility. This festival has maintained its fundamental character to this day, in spite of various changes. The same is true of other festivals, customs, and conceptions, vestiges of which are contained at least in folklore.

In addition to the nature deities which were implored to give fertility, to send rain, or to prevent floods and storms, the Shang

also worshipped deceased rulers and even dead ministers as a kind of intermediaries between man and the highest deity, Shang Ti. This practice may be regarded as the forerunner of "ancestral worship" which became so typical of later China.

3 Transition to feudalism

At the head of the Shang state was a king, posthumously called a "Ti", the same word as in the name of the supreme god. We have found on bones the names of all the rulers of this dynasty and even some of their pre-dynastic ancestors. These names can be brought into agreement with lists of rulers found in the ancient Chinese literature. The ruler seems to have been a high priest, too; and around him were many other priests. We know some of them now so well from the inscriptions that their biographies could be written. The king seems to have had some kind of bureaucracy. There were "ch'en", officials who served the ruler personally, as well as scribes and military officials. The basic army organization was in units of one hundred men which were combined as "right", "left" and "central" units into an army of 300 men. But it seems that the central power did not extend very far. In the more distant parts of the realm were more or less independent lords, who recognized the ruler only as their supreme lord and religious leader. We may describe this as an early, loose form of the feudal system, although the main element of real feudalism was still absent. The main obligations of these lords were to send tributes of grain, to participate with their soldiers in the wars, to send tortoise shells to the capital to be used there for oracles, and to send occasionally cattle and horses. There were some thirty such dependent states. Although we do not know much about the general population, we know that the rulers had a patrilinear system of inheritance. After the death of the ruler his brothers followed him on the throne, the older brothers first. After the death of all brothers, the sons of older or younger brothers became rulers. No preference was shown to the son of the oldest brother, and no preference between sons of main or of secondary wives is recognizable. Thus, the Shang patrilinear system was much less extreme than the later system. Moreover, the deceased wives of the rulers played a great role in the cult, another element which later disappeared. From these facts and from the general structure of Shang religion it has been concluded that there was a strong matrilinear strain in Shang culture. Although this cannot be proved, it seems quite plausible because we know of matrilinear societies in the South of China at later times.

About the middle of the Shang period there occurred interesting changes, probably under the influence of nomad peoples from the north-west.