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Cold Food, Fire and Ancestral Production: Mid-spring Celebrations in Central China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2010

Göran Aijmer
Göran Aijmer*
Affiliation:
University of Gothenburg
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Abstract

This article seeks to explain the traditional celebration of Cold Food and some other springtime customs in the mid-Yangzi basin in central China. In these rituals the ancestors and their influence in the production of new rice were highlighted while, at the same time, social reproduction through women was temporarily suspended. Female generative energy was not allowed to compete with the creative force of the ancestors in the fields. Cold Food is seen as a trope on seasonal agricultural tasks. The myth of moral constancy, which accompanied the festival, was on another deeper level an iconic exploration of the preparation of the agricultural fields. Death was seen to propel life, ancestral energy being transferred to the living through rice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 319 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2010

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References

1 I wish to thank Robert Parkin for comments as well as the two anonymous readers of JRAS. The content of this article, nonetheless, remains my own responsibility.

2 I have discussed the prospects for a symbological analysis elsewhere: Aijmer, Göran, “The symbological project”, Cultural Dynamics 13 (2001), pp. 66–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Double cropping of rice seems to have been rare in traditional times, and to the extent that it existed it was a late introduction by officials in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See Perkins, Dwight H., Agricultural Development in China, 1368–1969 (Edinburgh, 1969), p. 47Google Scholar. I have discussed elsewhere some distortive effects of double cropping on cultural semantics; see “Ancestors in the spring: the Qingming festival in central China”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 19 (1979), pp. 78–80.

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9 Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, pp. 21–34.

10 In Chinese cosmography the wu xing are the Five Agents, or five cosmic forces that both generate one another and destroy one another in two different but related cycles.

11 Aijmer, “Ancestors in the spring”.

12 Jing Chu sui shi ji 荊 楚 歲 時 記 (Records of the Seasons in Jing and Chu). Compiled by Zong Lin 宗 懍, Liang dynasty. With commentary by Du Gongzhan 杜 公 瞻, Sui dynasty, in Hubei yunxin yi shu 湖 北 允 心 遺 書 (Documents on Traditional Morals in Hubei).

13 Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, pp. 41–43.

14 Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, p. 100.

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18 Wuling xian zhi, 卷 7, p. 2a.

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21 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1120, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

22 Aijmer, New Year Celebrations, p. 66.

23 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 38, 40–41, 92.

24 Aijmer, New Year Celebrations, pp. 31, 49, 66, 90.

25 Bodde, Derk, Festivals in Classical China: New Year and Other Annual Observations during the Han Dynasty 206 B.C.–A.D. 220 (Princeton, 1975), pp. 290–291, 294–302Google Scholar.

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28 Bloch, Maurice, Ritual, History and Power: Selected Papers in Anthropology (London, 1989), Chapter 8Google Scholar.

29 Aijmer, “A structural approach”; “Ancestors in the spring”; “Chongyang”; New Year Celebrations.

30 Aijmer, “Chongyang”.

31 Marriages in central China – as in China at large – were always exogamous and in principle the line of distinction between the parties was a difference in family names.

32 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1193, 風 俗 考 p. 2b.

33 See Eberhard, Wolfram, Lokalkulturen im alten China. Erster Teil, Die Lokalkulturen des Nordens und Westens, T'oung Pao, Supplément au vol. xxvii (Leiden, 1942), pp. 295–302Google Scholar, for a comprehensive but somewhat confused discussion of sheep in Chinese cultural history. His approach is founded on a strong belief in the Kulturkreislehre launched by Fritz Gräbner, Wilhelm Koppers, Wilhelm Schmidt and others.

34 Yiyang xian zhi 益 陽 縣 志 (Chronicle of the Magistracy of Yiyang), preface: Zhao Peizhe 趙 裴 哲 (1874), 卷 2, p. 9b.

35 Aijmer, “Ancestors in the spring”; New Year Celebrations.

36 Eberhard, Wolfram, Chinese Festivals (London and New York, 1958), pp. 118–119Google Scholar.

37 See Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, pp. 96–99.

38 Eberhard, Lokalkulturen, pp. 36–51; Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, p. 96; Holzman, Donald, “The Cold Food festival in early medieval China”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46 (1986), p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See Aijmer, Göran, “The cultural nature of ritual and myth”, in Aijmer, G. (ed.), Symbolic Textures: Studies in Cultural Meaning (Göteborg, 1987)Google Scholar.

40 Bredon and Mitrophanow, The Moon Year, p. 97.

41 Eberhard, Chinese Festivals, p.119; Turban, Das Ching-Ch'u sui-shih chi, p. 96; Holzman, “Cold Food”, p. 78.

42 Eberhard, Wolfram, trans. Eberhard, Alide, The Local Cultures of South and East China (Leiden, 1968) p. 321Google Scholar; Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 97–106. “Recalling the soul” was a ritual performed for a dying person.

43 In a way, the emissary's attempts to lure Jie out from his hiding (sort of death) and back into mundane life are reminiscent of the calling back of Qu Yuan's soul.

44 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival.

45 See Aijmer, “The symbological project”. The procedure suggested is reminiscent of what Lakoff labels “prototype semantics”; Lakoff, George, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Tell Us about the Nature of Thought (Chicago and London, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Johnston, Lion and Dragon, p. 164.

47 Cho-yun, Hsu, Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy (206 B.C.–A.D. 220), edited by Dull, Jack (Seattle and London, 1980), p. 121Google Scholar.

48 Hsu Cho-yun, Han Agriculture, pp. 121–122, 301–302.

49 For instance, Werner, Edward T. C., A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (New York, 1961 [1932]), p. 571Google Scholar.

50 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, II, 清 明 39, p. 9b.

51 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1120, 風 俗 考 p. 4b; Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival, pp. 77, 83, 116.

52 Jing Chu sui shi ji, p. 9a.

53 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1142, 風 俗 考 2a; Aijmer, New Year Celebrations, pp. 93–101.

54 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1142, 風 俗 考 1b-2a; Aijmer, New Year Celebrations, pp. 109–116.

55 Changde fu zhi 常 德 府 志 (Chronicle of the Prefecture of Changde), author: Ying Xianlie 應 先 烈, (edition: Tong Kan Ben 佟 刊 本, 1813), 卷 13, p. 4a.

56 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1193, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

57 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1193, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

58 E. Berhard, Lokalkulturen, p.37; The Local Cultures, pp. 423–424, 431.

59 Groot, J. J. M. de, The Religious System of China: Its Ancient Forms, Evolution, History and Present Aspect, Manners, Customs and Social Institutions Connected therewith Vol. VI (Leiden, 1910), pp. 205–206, 967–968Google Scholar.

60 Aijmer, The Dragon Boat Festival.

61 In certain regions (as in Yuanjiang 沅 江, Changsha) the She Day in the second moon of the year was already associated with visits to the graves of the dead. Yuanjiang xian zhi 沅 江 縣 志 (Chronicle of the Magistracy of Yuanjiang), Authored by Luo Kong 鵅 孔 (1807–19), 卷 18, 風 俗 p. 2b. According to the Records of the Seasons this was the day for sweeping the graves.

62 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1223, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

63 Baling xian zhi 巴 陵 縣 志 (Chronicle of the Magistracy of Baling), compiled by Wu Minshu 吳 敏 樹 (1872)) 卷 11, p. 6a.

64 Si is the sixth of the twelve cosmic ‘branches’ and is associated with the snake, the sixth of the twelve symbolic animals. There are further associations with time and the compass, but whether such cosmological classifications are relevant here remains very uncertain.

65 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1166, 風 俗 考 pp. 4ab.

66 Jing Chu sui shi ji, p. 9a.

67 Changde fu zhi, 卷 13, p. 4a.

68 Taoyuan xian zhi 桃 源 縣 志 (Chronicle of the Magistracy of Taoyuan), authored by Fang Kun 方 坤 and Tan Zhen 譚 震 (N.p. 1821), 卷 3, p. 8b.

69 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1193, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

70 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1142, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

71 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1166, 風 俗 考 p. 4b.

72 For the historical background of lustration rituals see Bodde, Festivals in Classical China, pp. 273–288. See also Eberhard, The Local Cultures, pp. 33–43.

73 Aijmer, “Chongyang”.

74 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1204, 山 川 考 p. 2a.

75 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1142, 風 俗 考 p. 2a.

76 Possibly Sheng di should be read as the name of a particular deity, perhaps the Jade Emperor.

77 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1223, 祠 廟 p. 8a.

78 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1166, 風 俗 考 pp. 4ab.

79 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1166, 風 俗 考 p. 4b.

80 Gu jin tu shu ji cheng, VI, 1130, 風 俗 考 p. 1b.

81 Yiyang xian zhi, 卷 2, p. 9b.

82 Aijmer, “Chongyang”.

83 Jing Chu sui shi ji, p. 10b.

84 For some general notes on frogs see Werner, A Dictionary, pp. 84–85; also Eberhard, The Local Cultures, pp. 202–209.

85 A prominent protagonist of this “historical method” is Holzman: “It seems to me that we can only repeat what the Chinese texts tell us. . ..” Holzman, “Cold Food”, p. 74.

86 A similar process of reconstruction of ancestors went on at New Year in Soochow; Göran Aijmer, ‘A Family Reunion: The Anthropology of Life, Death and New Year in Soochow’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Series 3) 15 (2005), pp. 199–218. In a wider perspective it is interesting to think about how Chinese ideas about incompleteness in death might link to a widespread motif in Southeast Asia; see, for instance, Platenkamp, Jos D.M., ‘Des personnes incomplètes aux sociétés accomplies’, L'Homme 174 (2005), pp. 125–160CrossRefGoogle Scholar.