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China In The Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L Thorp
China In The Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L Thorp
China in the Early Bronze Age
Encounters with Asia Victor H. Mair, Series Editor Encounters with Asia is an interdisciplinary series dedicated to the exploration of all the major regions and cultures of this vast continent. Its timeframe extends from the prehistoric to the contemporary; its geographic scope ranges from the Urals and the Caucasus to the Pacific. A particular focus of the series is the Silk Road in all of its ramifications: religion, art, music, medicine, science, trade, and so forth. Among the disciplines represented in this series are history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. The series aims particularly to clarify the complex interrelationships among various peoples within Asia, and also with societies beyond Asia.
China in the Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L. Thorp PENN University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia
Publication of this volume was assisted by a subvention from the Center for East Asian Studies of the University of Pennsylvania Copyright © 2006 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thorp, Robert L., 1946- China in the early bronze age: Shang civilization / Robert L. Thorp. p. cm.-(Encounters with Asia) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-3910-2 ISBN-I0: 0-8122-3910-5 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. China-History-Shang dynasty, 1766-1122 B.C. I. Title. II. Series DS744.2.T46 2005 931 '.02-dc22 2005042426
In Memoriam: Kwang-chih Chang (193 1-200 1)
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Contents List of Illustrations A Note on Documentation Preface Introduction Geographical Setting: Macroregions Cultural Setting: The Longshan Age 1. Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Erlitou Culture The Erlitou Site The Material World: Bronze andJade Contemporary Cultures and Interaction The Search for the Xia 2. Foundations of the Bronze Age: The Erligang Culture A Network of Sites Technologies of Power and Prestige IX XVII XIX 1 1 7 21 25 36 49 57 62 62 78
viii Contents Erligang Society: Material Evidence 99 Erligang and the Regions 106 3. The Shang Kings at Anyang 117 Exploration of Yinxu 120 "Great Settlement Shang" 126 Elite Crafts 153 4. Shang Cult: Divination and Sacrifice 172 Oracle-Bone Divination 172 Ritual Spaces and Sacrifice Ritual 185 Bronze Ritual Vessels 191 Inscriptions and Social Relations 208 5. The Late Shang World 214 The View from Yinxu 215 Exchange Relations: Resources and Products 237 Cause and Effect: Debts to Shang 244 Mterword: The Invention of Chinese Civilization 264 Suggested Reading 267 Notes 275 Index 283 Acknowledgments 291
Illustrations Maps 1 China: macroregions 2 Distribution, Longshan Age sites 3 Chang's "Chinese Interaction Sphere" 4 Cultures contemporary with Erlitou 5 Erligang period sites 6 Late Shang sites near Anyang 7 Sites contemporary with Anyang Figures P.l "Three Sovereigns" rubbing from Wu family shrines 0.1 K. C. Chang at Shangqiu 0.2 Walls at Shijiahe, Tianmen 0.3 Walls at Taosi site, Xiangfen 0.4 Settlement distribution near Chengziyai 1.1 Erlitou site 5 9 13 49 63 118 215 XXVI 11 16 18 19 22
x Illustrations 1.2 Courtyards at Erlitou 1.3 Tombs at Erlitou 1.4 Erlitou Culture sites, Vi-Luo drainage 1.5 Longshan Age walled sites 1.6 Erlitou Culture pottery 1.7 Bronze bell, Erlitou 1.8 Bronze plaques, Erlitou 1.9 Bronze blades, Erlitou 1.10 Bronze jue vessel, Erlitou 1.11 Bronze jia vessel, Erlitou 1.12 Bronze he tripod, Erlitou 1.13 Jade yueaxe, Erlitou 1.14 Xindian walled site, Chifeng 1.15 Jades, Erlitou and Shijiahe 1.16 Metal artifacts, Siba sites 1.17 Jue and gui, Dadianzi, Chifeng 1.18 Painted pottery designs, Dadianzi 2.1 Erligang period walls, Zhengzhou 2.2 Plan of Erligang period wall, Yanshi 2.3 Cross-section of Zhengzhou wall 2.4 Peasants pounding earth, Qian County 2.5 Plan ofwest gate no. 2, Yanshi wall 29 33 35 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 47 48 51 53 55 56 58 65 68 69 71 72
2.6 Erligang period walled sites 2.7 Houses at Taixi site, Gaocheng 2.8 House, Mengzhuang, Zhecheng 2.9 Restoration of foundation 15, Zhengzhou 2.10 Plan and restoration of halls, Panlongcheng 2.11 Bronze architectural fitting, Xiaoshuangqiao 2.12 Fangding, Duling, Zhengzhou 2.13 Muslim food products factory pit, Zhengzhou 2.14 You from factory pit 2.15 Nanshuncheng road site, Zhengzhou 2.16 Nanshuncheng road assemblage 2.17 Erligang period mining, Tongling 2.18 Ceramic molds, Nanguanwai, Zhengzhou 2.19 Bivalve mold for ge dagger-axe 2.20 Mold set for jia 2.21 Burials, Taixi 2.22 Plan of Lijiazui grave 2, Panlongcheng 2.23 Artifact scatter, Dayangzhou, Xin'gan 2.24 Dayangzhou fangding 2.25 Dayangzhou yan (xian) 2.26 Dayangzhou li 2.27 Dayangzhou fangyou Illustrations xi 74 77 77 80 82 84 87 88 89 90 91 93 95 96 97 103 105 109 111 112 113 114
xii Illustrations 2.28 Dayangzhou bronze head 3.1 "Second generation" archaeologists 3.2 Aerial view, Huan River and Yinxu 3.3 Palace zone, Xiaotun North 3.4 Royal tombs, Xibeigang 3.5 Huan-bei Shang wall site 3.6 Plan of palace J-l, Huan-bei site 3.7 Sites along Huan River 3.8 D Group foundations, Xiaotun East 3.9 Carvings from foundations 10 and 11, Xiaotun North 3.10 Casting shop with mold assembly, Miaopu North 3.11 Fragments of decorated molds, Miaopu North 3.12 Plan of tomb 1550, Xibeigang 3.13 Grave clusters and inscriptions, West Zones 3.14 Ceramic seriation from Yinxu burials 3.15 Hard white pottery vessel 3.16 Ivory goblets, tomb 5, Anyang 3.17 Stone chime, Anyang 3.18 Marble animals, tomb 1001, Xibeigang 3.19 Inscription onjade ge, tomb 18, Xiaotun North 3.20 Bing with ancestor dedications, Hougang tomb 3 3.21 Jade menagerie, tomb 5 115 124 127 128 130 132 133 134 139 140 141 143 148 151 154 156 158 159 160 162 163 164
3.22 Jade and stone figures, tomb 5 3.23 Jade phoenix, Shijiahe Culture, tomb 5 3.24 Bronze yue, tomb 5 3.25 Weapons 3.26 Chariot pit (M40), Meiyuanzhuang 4.1 Hollows on scapulas and plastrons 4.2 Scapula and rubbing, Locus West 4.3 Plastron, Huayuanzhuang East 4.4 Display inscription (Bingbian 247) 4.5 Offering hall, tomb 5, Locus North 4.6 Sacrificial tracts, Locus North 4.7 Sacrificial pit, Hougang 4.8 Si Qiao Mu fanghu, tomb 5 4.9 Ya zhijiao, tomb 160, Guojiazhuang 4.10 Fangdingvessels 4.11 Bowls (gui, yu), tomb 5 4.12 Jia vessels, tomb 5 4.13 Square-section vessels, tomb 160, Guojiazhuang 4.14 Fu Hao fangzun, tomb 5 4.15 YM232 assemblage 4.16 Mask motifs, tomb 5 4.17 Band decoration, tomb 172, Miaopu North Illustrations xiii 166 167 168 169 170 174 175 177 178 186 188 190 193 196 197 199 200 202 203 205 206 207
xiv Illustrations 4.18 Wu Fu Yi he and inscription 4.19 Inscriptions, tomb 1713, West Zones 4.20 Shu Si Zi ding inscription, Hougang 5.1 Late Shang clan emblems 5.2 Late Shang clan emblems, Ya Chou 5.3 Tomb, Taiqing Gong, Luyi 5.4 Plan ofM1, Lingshi 5.5 "Bing" emblems, Lingshi M1 5.6 Bronze vessels, Lingshi M1 5.7 Baton, Lingshi M1 5.8 Northern Zone weapons and regalia 5.9 Anyang nao bells, West Zones M699 5.10 Rubbing of giant nao bell, Shiguzhai 5.11 Plan ofwalls, Sanxingdui, Guanghan 5.12 Bronze zun vessel, Sanxingdui pit 2 5.13 Stoneware zun, Zhengzhou 5.14 Stoneware zun, Xin'gan 5.15 Bronze drum, Chongyang 5.16 Courtyard, Fengchu Village, Qishan 5.17 Excavation of pit 2, Sanxingdui 5.18 Bronze heads, pits 1 and 2 209 211 212 219 220 221 224 225 226 227 229 231 232 235 236 240 241 243 247 250 253
5.19 Bronze masks, pit 2 5.20 Bronze standing figure, pit 2 5.21 "Animal mask," pit 2 5.22 Female figure with offering vessel, pit 2 5.23 Nine-branch tree, pit 2 5.24 Unknown object, pit 2 5.25 Site plan, Huangzhong andJinsha, Chengdu 5.26 Gold sun disk 5.27 Bronze standing figure 5.28 Stone kneeling figure Tables 0.1 Longshan Age Walled Sites 1.1 Sandai (Three Dynasties) Chronology 2.1 Archaeological Cultures and Periods 2.2 Erligang Period Walled Sites 3.1 Yinxu Periodization 3.2 Xibeigang Tombs and Shang Reigns 4.1 Census, Excavated Bronze Vessels 4.2 Attributed Burials, Yinxu 5.1 Contents, Sanxingdui Pits Illustrations xv 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 15 24 64 64 125 147 195 210 251
xvi Illustrations Box Features 1 What Are "Cultural Relics"? 2 The Institute ofArchaeology 3 Mythic Narratives 4 K.C.Chang 5 The Three Dynasties Chronology Project 6 Regional Survey and Erlitou 7 Myths of the Xia 8 Hangtu: Building with Pounded Earth 9 Royal Rites at Zhengzhou? 10 Myths of the Shang 11 Anyang Archaeologists 12 The Anyang Work Team 13 The Huan-bei Wall 14 Tomb 5 and Lady Hao 15 H. G. Creel: Excavating at Anyang 16 David N. Keightley: Divination as Process 17 Max Loehr and His "Five Styles" 18 The Lords of Bing 19 NaoBells of Hunan 20 Myths of the Zhou xix XXI xxv 11 23 34 59 70 86 100 118 123 131 136 145 180 192 223 231 245
A Note on Documentation The text is furnished with notes that credit Chinese-language sources. Books are cited by author, title (in Chinese romanization only) and date; unless otherwise noted, all publications were produced in Beijing. Journals are cited by abbreviation (KG, KJ, KX, ~ WZC for Kaogu, Kaoguxue jikan, Kaogu xuebao, Wenwu, Wenwu Ziliao Congkan respectively), with year and issue number. Authorship is indicated when individuals are named; institutional (collective, group) authorship is not listed. English-language sources will be found in the Suggested Reading sec- tion, by chapter.
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Preface For anyone interested in ancient China, the last three decades have been a proverbial golden age. This era began in 1972, even before the chaos of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (wenhua da geming) had sub- sided. Two actions taken by the government introduced the world to contemporary Chinese archaeology. First, the three nationaljournals of archaeology and "cultural relics" work (Box 1) resumed publication after a hiatus since 1966. Month by month in 1972 reports and photographs of extraordinary discoveries appeared. Although archaeologists had
xx Preface
Preface xxi been sent down to May 7th cadre schools and even pig farms, as with the staff of the Institute ofArchaeology (Box 2), significant strides had been made. And at about the same time, some of these discoveries-from Ne- olithic pots to Han burial shrouds and Yuan blue-and-white porcelain- became the signature objects for ambitious exhibitions sent to Europe o 2 cha oogy
xxii Preface andJapan, and eventually also Canada and the United States ("the Chi- nese Exhibition"). This initiative was designed to counter negative news generated by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and to make the case that the People's Republic (PRC) was a responsible member of the world community, one that respects its cultural heritage. Contemporary politics mixed with archaeology and history. Issues of Kaogu (Archaeology) and Wenwu (Cultural Relics) were, to be sure, prefaced by the requisite "Sayings of Chairman Mao" on their fly leaf, as an imprimatur that certified political orthodoxy. Excavation reports as well as other articles, moreover, were punctuated by bold type quoting Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, as well as Mao, as a kind of Marxist commentary on their contents. Some articles were even writ- ten by the workers of a factory or soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) who had been inspired when taking part in a salvage exca- vation. Some issues were overwhelmed by articles on the latest political campaign-for example, "Criticize Confucius and Lin Biao" in the late 1970s, but even so there was space for reporting a new Han tomb or Neolithic cemetery. Month by month and year after year this dance played out. Gradually the political icing disappeared from the archaeo- logical cake. Within the Ministry of Culture and Cultural Relics Bureau, ideologues criticized the presentation of their traveling exhibition in Great Britain, where it was called "The Genius of China." The catalog featured a text by an English art historian, William Watson, who made references to such in- appropriate subjects as dynastic periods and the quality of objects. When the exhibition came to the U.S. in 1975, these guardians of revolutionary truth insisted on a sanitized catalogue that applied the Marxist-Maoist framework of Primitive Society, Slave Society, and Feudal Society and eschewed anything more than the briefest captions. Even so, the "Chinese
Preface xxiii Exhibition" was the most attended special exhibit to that date at its Amer- ican venues, the National Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Nelson Gallery (Kansas City), and Asian Art Museum (San Francisco). Articles and pho- tographs saturated much of the U.S. media. They made a deep impres- sion on me, a graduate student at the time. When I first went to Beijing in 1979 as part of a small team preparing a second exhibition from the PRC, "The Great Bronze Age of China," it was still vexing for our well-meaning hosts to deal with "foreign friends." To live in the Peking Hotel for a month, while working six days a week in the Forbidden City quarters of the Committee for Overseas Archaeo- logical Exhibitions, was still very much to live inside the belly of the Stalinist beast. That exhibition was curated by both U.S. and Chinese scholars, with texts by the former comprising most of the catalog. To clarify "misrepresentations," the Chinese side required inclusion of an ap- pendix detailing their contrary interpretations of the same evidence, a fascinating critique of art historical writing.1 This exhibition succeeded largely because of the inclusion of eight terra cotta warriors and horses from the tomb of the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.e.E.), their first visit to the U.S. and a great draw for the public. In retrospect, resumption of normal intellectual life and greater inter- action with the wider world have progressed steadily since the 1970s, even with the setback ofJune 4, 19S9. In these three decades, Chinese ar- chaeologists have participated in one of the great ages of world archae- ology, not only placing before our eyes "wonderful things" (hao dongxi) like terra cotta warriors, bronzes, and jades, but also, more significantly, creating new knowledge. In spite of the strains induced by the Four Modernizations in the 19S0s, which made archaeological work more ex- pensive and a career in that field much less remunerative than many others, there has been notable professionalization within the ranks of Chinese archaeologists. More and more field archaeologists are university graduates with advanced degrees. Scientific tools and methodologies- carbon-14 dating, phytoliths, GIS, DNA studies-unheard of in China in the 1970s are now widely employed. International collaboration in the field has been underway for almost a decade with Japanese, European, and American partners. And scholarship has synthesized and interpreted new data generated since 1949, on the one hand, and embraced a wide range of theoretical approaches, on the other. China has contributed a stunning list of sites to the UNESCO World Heritage program, and built new museums that rival their peers in Europe and America. Knowledge of China pre-modern cultures has changed fundamentally from the state of the field thirty years ago. When I started graduate school in 1973, at the beginning of this golden age, data with which to investigate the early stages of Chinese culture were extremely limited
xxiv Preface and inconsistent in quality, mostly brief reports with poor illustrations and boiler plate analysis. Today data for every topic are overwhelming in sheer quantity and much improved in general quality, and a large litera- ture has appeared on most topics. In 1972, I could read all of every issue of the journals Kaogu and Wenwu, leaving aside Marxist-Maoist commen- taries on the evils of the conspicuous consumption of a Han prince. The eighteen issues together numbered 1,231 pages. In 2001, the twenty- four issues of these same two journals totaled 2,320 pages, without politi- cal harangues. And these flagship publications, along with Kaogu xuebao (Acta Archaeologica Sinica) once effectively the whole periodical litera- ture, are today only part of the current serials. Regional journals also demand attention, as do other publications not devoted exclusively to archaeology. Reports of excavations, both brief accounts in journals and formal monographs, are likewise only part of the picture: scholarly arti- cles and books, collections of essays, symposium volumes, catalogues, and reference works are equally essential. Few if any libraries in China or the U.S. can actually subscribe to all these journals or keep abreast of all these publications. Prior to 1950, Shang archaeology was limited to excavations at one complex of sites near the modern city of Anyang (Chapter 3). Between 1950 and 1966, when publications were interrupted, a handful of new finds offered clues to earlier stages of the Shang culture (the Erligang and Erlitou sites, both in Henan, Chapters 1 and 2), and to a few re- gional developments. But these preliminary reports, short on analysis and poorly illustrated, could not paint a very arresting picture. The sec- ond edition of K. C. Chang's Archaeology ofAncient China (published in 1968; see Box 4) recapitulates finds from the 1950s and 1960s. Chang's summary was still dominated by the more complete archaeological record from prewar diggings at Anyang (1928-37), then being published injour- nals and monographs on Taiwan. The progress of Shang archaeology since 1972 has been enormous. Work has continued at the major Henan centers, Erlitou, Erligang, and Anyang. In each case there has been quantitative growth and qualitative improvement in data, and hence in our ability to date and interpret evi- dence. Formal reports for Erlitou (1999) and Zhengzhou (2001) present the bulk of the data recovered from the 1950s through the 1980s. Exca- vations have also embraced at least thirteen other provinces constituting the North, Northwest, and Yangzi macroregions (see Map 1). Every cate- gory of evidence, from pottery to oracle-bone inscriptions, from bronze vessels to chariots, from social-political organization to cult practices, has been enriched. We have more of the material culture at hand, and we know more about it: materials and their sources, techniques of man- ufacture, distribution, development, and functional contexts.
Preface xxv In tandem with prehistoric archaeology, the manifold discoveries of the early Bronze Age force a fundamental reinterpretation of ancient China.2 Any narrative we write today must consider early, parallel developments in different macroregions and the ways those cultures interacted over time. The culture of the Late Shang period (officially c. 1300-1046 B.e.E.) was manifestly the product of such interactions. For the second millennium as a whole, we have begun to recognize several advanced Bronze Age cul- tures that coexisted with the literate Shang or their ancestors. Most of these developments are not represented in the accounts of traditional his- toriography (Box 3). The Bronze Age world of the late second millen- nium was more diverse and complex than traditional scholars imagined. 3
xxvi Preface
Preface xxvii In this book, I attempt to synthesize these recent excavations: to pull the evidence together and to create a tentative framework for this forma- tive age in East Asia. New brief reports have appeared in the months I have been writing, and formal reports of that work will not appear, at best, for several years. Yet the data at hand are certainly sufficient to stim- ulate further studies. I have written for an audience drawn to the topic by their interest, without assuming any prior familiarity on their part with Chinese studies or archaeology. I draw on all sources now available, most of all Chinese archaeological reports, as well as secondary scholarship in Chinese and English, including the writings of epigraphers, historians, and art historians. The resulting chapters are not the same as the rendi- tions of scholars whose primary focus is inscriptions or bronze casting, but I have tried to learn from other specialists and to acknowledge my debts to them.3 References to excavation reports and other sources, al- most entirely Chinese-language publications, will be found in the notes. Suggestions for additional reading provide entree into English-language scholarship, although it generally lags behind efforts in China. This volume surveys the early Bronze Age in parts of modern-day China, from the Erlitou Culture to the end of dynastic Shang (officially, c. 2070-1046 B.e.E.). Both my selection of topics and their coverage are driven by what archaeologists have accomplished and had an opportu- nity to digest. I have studied many of these topics myself for about thirty years, both as a university teacher and a writer. I have also had the privi- lege of participating (1997-99) in a Sino-American survey of the Anyang region that has yielded unexpected results (see Box 13). This experi- ence, and many trips to China most years since 1979, have given me the chance to meet Chinese colleagues, to see their sites and collections, and to exchange ideas both at formal gatherings and numerous informal encounters. This book is the product most of all of the hard work and in- telligence of several generations of Chinese archaeologists.
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Introduction Early Bronze Age societies grew from deep roots in several regions of modern-day China. Before embarking on our survey of those develop- ments, we should review both the physical setting and cultural develop- ments at the beginning of this new age. Geographical Setting: Macroregions Most readers carry in their heads an icon of China derived from con- temporary maps. This mental picture represents the greater part of East Asia, from Manchuria to Hainan Island and from coastal cities to Cen- tral Asian deserts. An expansive map of China-now the territory of the PRC-is an abberation in the context of Chinese history. This map dates only from the late eighteenth century, when the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) expanded its borders to include territories inhabited by Mongols, Central Asian Turkish speakers, and Tibetans. The Manchu empire was demonstrably the largest state in the world in its day, cer- tainly the most populous, and arguably the most powerful. Its great sov- ereign, the Qianlong emperor (Hongli, r. 1735-96), could look with some disdain on European envoys like Lord Macartney who arrived at his capital in hopes of securing diplomatic and trade relations. Never before had China dominated so much of East Asia. Qianlong's empire, shorn only of "Outer" Mongolia, became the map of China in the twen- tieth century, and hence that of the PRC. The modern map represents a state of vast dimensions, the second largest country in area (after Russia) at 3.7 million square miles (9.3 mil- lion sq km). (The United States is slightly smaller at 3.6 million sq mi.) Topographical and climatic diversity are extreme: from subarctic terrain in Heilongjiang at the latitude of Hudson's Bay, Canada, to tropical forests in Guangxi at the latitude of Havana, Cuba, from the world's highest plateau in Tibet, to the coastal lowlands of Guangdong. Divided into provinces (now twenty-two, plus Taiwan), autonomous regions (five),
2 Introduction and centrally-administered cities (four), the PRC has a total population in excess of 1.2 billion. Many modern Chinese provinces are compara- ble in area and population to the largest, most populous European na- tions. Henan, for example, is 167,000 sq km in area with a population estimated (in 1997) at 93.9 million. This population-one in five hu- mans living on earth-comprises one of the world's most diverse states, with fifty-five recognized national minorities (shaoshu minzu, 9 percent of the population) in addition to the "Han" (notionally Chinese) major- ity. This China, with its vast territories and staggering population, did not exist in the second millennium B.e.E. when our story takes place. Nor should we assign our story the status of a creation epic for the PRC and its many peoples. Rather, in this book our story transpires in por- tions of the modern map, and involves a fraction of the diversity in envi- ronment and human groups noted above. To analyze the great bulk of modern China, we must first isolate core from periphery. For our purposes, the core (also called Inner China, Agrarian China, or China Proper) can be defined as about half the area of the PRC, territory east of a diagonal running from southern Manchuria in the northeast to western Yunnan in the southwest. Cleav- ing the map here, we pare off most of Manchuria, and all of Mongolia, Xinjiang, and the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (regions sometimes collec- tively called Outer China). There are several rationales for making this split: (1) these territories were, with few exceptions, worlds apart from Chinese history until the Ming and Qing periods; (2) each region ex- hibits strong contrasts in terrain, climate, subsistence, and indigenous populations when compared to the core; (3) until recently, only about 5 percent of the PRC's population lived in these regions, compared to 95 percent in the roughly equal area of the core. This periphery figures only to a very limited degree in our story of the early Bronze Age. With such exceptions as the transmission of the horse-drawn chariot from points west, the Shang and their contemporaries had little to do with most cultures of the periphery as defined here. What remains as the core is still, however, more territory than we will engage in our story. The tectonics, the underlying physical structures of the earth, of China Proper divide its terrain into a series of stepped zones decreasing in elevation like terraces from west to east. The west- ern highlands of China Proper, both north and south, are intermediate in altitude (at 1000-2000 m) between the extremely high plateaus ofTi- bet and Qinghai (about 4000 m), on the one hand, and much lower ar- eas stretching east to the coast (at less than 50 m). Both the Erlitou and Erligang archaeological cultures developed in the transitional zone be- tween the middle terrace and the lower, eastern plains. Further shaping
Introduction 3 the terrain of China Proper are east-west trending mountain chains, ex- tensions of even higher ranges of Outer China. Separating North China from the Mongolian steppe (and periphery) are the Yanshan Moun- tains, north of modern Beijing. Running across the midriff of China Proper is the Qinling range that, in the west, separates the Wei River drainage of modern Shaanxi from the Sichuan basin. Its eastern exten- sions separate north and south through the center. Finally, north of the Guangdong-Guangxi basin run the Nanling Mountains. These major east-west ranges do not account for all mountainous terrain. A series of upfolds (anticlines) running northeast to southwest cross both the stepped terraces and east-west ranges described above. For example, a single fold erupts as mountains on the Korean peninsula and reappears as the coastal mountains of Fujian. Another fold created the Taihang Mountains that separate North China lowlands from the northwest loess highlands. Further south, this fold demarcates the Upper Yangzi from the Middle Yangzi, as the setting for the Yangzi Gorges. As a conse- quence of these overlaid tectonic structures, about 33 percent of China Proper is mountainous, 26 percent plateaus, 19 percent basins, 12 per- cent plains, and 10 percent low hill country. Arable, flat terrain is gener- ally at a premium. Two great river systems cross this checkerboard of tectonic features. In the north, the Yellow River (Huang he) arises on the Qinghai- Tibetan plateau, and flows generally east and north to create a great loop around the Ordos desert. It then flows south between north-south mountains before turning left about 90 degrees to come down from the second terrace onto the eastern plains and debouch in the Yellow Sea. Like the Yangzi River in central China, the Yellow River links the highest terraces of Outer China to coastal areas of the core, but it is not naviga- ble for much of that course. Its great bend was, however, a conduit for human communication from the western margins of the North China plain (Luoyang and Zhengzhou) to the Wei River valley (modern Xi'an). The path of this great river across the plain changed many times in prehistory and in historic times. Its modern course, northeast of the Taishan massif of Shandong, is only one of several routes, albeit close to the path it followed during Shang times. The appellation "yellow" de- rives from the immense burden of silt (loess) this river carries, currently estimated at 1.6 billion tons per year. Its waters consequently are much like a slurry or soup. The other great river system, the Yangzi or Changjiang (the "winding" or "long" river), also arises in the high plateaus of the west, cuts its path southward through highlands in parallel with other great rivers of Southeast Asia (the Mekong and Salween) before entering the Sichuan
4 Introduction basin from the south. The Yangzi crosses this intermediate terrace be- fore cutting through its eastern flanks, in modern Chongqing and Hubei (the Three Gorges). Once free, the Yangzi then meanders across low-lying country from the lakelands of Hubei-Hunan into the Lower Yangzi delta below Nanjing. The river and its tributaries feed two great lakes: Lake Dongting in modern Hunan ("south of the lake"), once known as Lake Yunmeng and a natural catchment basin for all of cen- tral China, and Lake Boyang of modern Jiangxi. Unlike the Yellow, the Yangzi River is navigable for great distances east and west, and serves to- day as an essential transportation corridor. Its volume of water is far greater than the Yellow, and it broad channel was a m~or impediment to north-south communication until recent times. The worlds of these two great river systems are markedly different. The Yellow River drainage has a climate of four distinct seasons, cold winters, some snowfall, with most precipitation in the hottest months of summer. It is relatively arid; dry field agriculture predominates. Nowa- days two crops per year are generally expected, with harvests in May- June and September-October. Deciduous and conifer forests once covered foothills and mountains of the North, but serious deforestation has taken place over time. The natural fauna and flora are those of tem- perate zones. By contrast, the Yangzi River drainage is a climatic zone without harsh winter weather, some frost notwithstanding, and regular monsoonal rainfall in the summer months. It is a humid environment, with extensive areas of marsh lands, numerous lakes and rivers, and paddy rice agriculture predominant. Three crops per year are possible. Forest cover cloaks the many uplands and mountains, although here too deforestation has been an accelerating problem. Natural fauna and flora are subtropical, even tropical. The civilization of the early Bronze Age took shape within both climatic regimes. The relief map of Inner China, subdivided by mountain chains and linked by its great rivers, can best be understood in terms of physio- graphic units called macroregions (Map 1). The scheme of regions used here is derived from the work of G. W. Skinner, whose focus was the eco- nomic structure of the late empire, especially Qing markets and urban- ization. Nonetheless, Skinner's insights are extremely useful for an analysis of the Bronze Age and even earlier periods precisely because, unlike modern provinces or their premodern antecedents, a macrore- gion is a natural physiographic unit. Each macroregion centers on an in- ternal river system (its core), where the most arable land and best water resources are found. Each region is circumscribed, in turn, by natural barriers (its periphery), mainly mountain ranges that determine internal drainage. Mountains are never absolute barriers to human movement, but they do create incentives for human groups to cluster within a region
Introduction 5 _ •_ International boundary - - Macroregional boundary Regional core o 100 MILES , I Map 1. China: macroregions. William G. Skinner, "The Structure of Chinese History," Journal ofAsian Studies 44, 2 (February 1985): 273. and to interact along its internal river system. Macroregions are in most cases comparable to or even larger than the area, natural resources, and populations of states in other parts of the globe. These regions were in fact the building blocks of that historical creation we call "China." Recog- nizing them at the outset, in our discussion of the late prehistoric inter- action sphere (see Map 3), and keeping them in focus throughout our investigation, will sharpen our appreciation of this historical process.
6 Introduction The macroregions can be grouped by latitude into three bands: north, center, and south. The North China macroregion occupies the eastern half of China Proper in the north, largely the lower drainage of the Yellow River. Its northern boundary, the Yanshan range, is close to the traditional line of the Great Wall of China, running from the sea coast to the interior. A fairly sharp demarcation of terrain and cultures differentiates the North China plain and the grassland steppes of Inner Mongolia. Its western boundary is the Taihang range trending generally northeast-southwest, approximating the modern border of Hebei and Shanxi provinces. The Yellow River enters the North China Plain near the southern end of this range through Sanmen Gorge. Its southern boundary comprises low mountains extending east from the Qinling range to the Huai River, which itself constitutes the drainage for the southern plains. The Huang-Huai drainage surrounds the Shandong massif, and extends along the coast from the Great Wall to northern Jiangsu. The largest concentration of early Bronze Age sites will be found in this macroregion, many distributed around the central holy mountain, Mount Song. The western half of northern China is the Northwest macroregion. Here "natural" limits are in the eye of the beholder. Its eastern bound- ary with the North China macroregion has already been defined, and the high loess lands that extend westward from the Taihang are a major feature of this region. Its southern boundary is also the Qinling range, running east-west and defining the southern limits of the Wei River drainage. This basin, along with the middle reaches of the Yellow (divid- ing modern Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces) and the drainage of the Fen River (the drainage of modern Shanxi), constitute the macroregional core. The challenge for this macroregion is establishing its putative northern and western limits. Both could be defined as the mountains that overlook the Wei River on the north, a narrow construction. Taking a wider view, the region includes much of the Gansu corridor trending northwest, as well as the northern and western margins of the Yellow River as it arcs around the Ordos desert. However its regional limits are defined, this is the land of loess, an aeolian, fine particle soil brought into the region by wind since the retreat of the last Ice Age glaciers. Much loess has, in turn, been redeposited in the North China macrore- gion by river flows (hence the Yellow River), so that it is characteristic of the North China Plain as well. The middle band of macroregions is no less than the Yangzi River sys- tem, subdivided into Upper, Middle, and Lower segments. Here too some choices must be imposed on an ostensible natural order. The Up- per Yangzi macroregion consists of the Sichuan basin, more or less the modern province of that name, delimited by the Qinling on the north,
Introduction 7 the Three Gorges on the east, and other mountain chains on south and west. The regional core comprises the basins of the traditional "four rivers" (si chuan) , including the Yangzi, Jialing, Min, and Wu. The Mid- dle Yangzi macroregion is the lake country of modern Hubei and Hu- nan provinces, including major tributaries that flow into the lakes from north (the Han River) and south (the Xiang River). One can also in- clude the Gan River drainage of modern Jiangxi province flowing into Lake Boyang. (The latter can also be defined as its own macroregion, since it too is a drainage within an encircling mountain boundary.) The Lower Yangzi macroregion is somewhat hard to delimit on the north, but the combined Lower Yangzi drainage and Qiantang River drainage (Zhejiang province) offer a practical definition. Both the Upper and Middle Yangzi (including Gan River) macroregions now supply impor- tant archaeological evidence for the early Bronze Age. The southern band of macroregions figure not at all in our discus- sions. The Southeast Coast macroregion, the Lingnan (or Far South) macroregion, and the Yungui (or Southwest) macroregion are effec- tively excluded by the lack, to date, of significant evidence for the early Bronze Age. The penetration of these regions by peoples from the North began in earnest in the Qin period, the late third century B.C.E., and gradually increased over the early and middle empires (Han and Tang). Han-Chinese populations pushed local groups out of regional cores, a process that accelerated finally in Ming and Qing times. A high percentage of the modern "national minorities" are indigenous inhabi- tants of these southern macroregions. Contact between these macroregions can be identified in the archae- ological record from the late Neolithic period (c. 5000-2000 B.C.E.). Low mountains and valley streams permitted communication between North China and the Middle and Lower Yangzi macroregions, respec- tively. River valleys and steeper paths connected the Northwest and Up- per Yangzi macroregions, so the channels for communication were perhaps more restricted. East-west communication also utilized the great river valleys, although until modern times the transit from Middle to Upper Yangzi was especially arduous. Moreover, none of the outer limits of these same macroregions excluded contacts with neighboring peoples, although their peripheries do represent the effective limit of the ethnic-Han population in early times. Cultural Setting: The Longshan Age The sources of the early Bronze Age cultures of the northern and cen- tral macroregions are to be found in the third millennium B.C.E. This period has been commonly referred to, rather redundantly, as the late
8 Introduction phase of the late Neolithic, or Terminal Neolithic (xin shiqi shidai moqi) , Chalcolithic Age (tong shi bingyong qi), or even as the Age ofJade (yuqi shidai). It is not surprising that several competing terms are in play. Each term foregrounds its own logic. The Neolithic as a whole is now dated c. 10,000-2000 B.C.E., with the late period starting c. 5000 B.C.E. The use of "terminal," which we adopt, has the virtue of defining more narrowly a discrete final portion of this very lengthy period. While met- als, both copper and bronze, are known from a variety Neolithic sites, especially in the Northwest, it would be an overstatement to characterize the millennium as an age when metals were of considerable significance in these societies. And to characterize this whole period as an "Age of Jade" seems misleading on similar grounds. Regional cultures show dif- ferent propensities toward the use of hardstones, including true jades. Only a few, like the Lower Yangzi Liangzhu Culture, exploited them to a marked degree. Traits invoked in conventional definitions of the term "civilization" are characteristic of many Terminal Neolithic societies.! Populations grew, and higher agricultural production is commonly assumed. In- creased production depended on opening new fields and quite possibly on better organized labor. Settlements increased in real numbers, in their scale, and in the complexity of regional distribution patterns. In some areas, two or three hierarchical levels are indicated by survey data. In such regions, large centers had relationships with smaller outlying settlements as well as dispersed farming hamlets. Many regional centers were walled-especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River (North China) and Middle Yangzi macroregion. Walls and some structures within them show use of the rammed earth (hangtu) process associated with Bronze Age architecture (see Box 8). Burials at these sites, moreover, show evidence for social stratification: a small number of richly furnished, large graves contrast to less well furnished medium and small burials. Prestige goods-finely crafted pottery and hard- stones, in particular-also figure prominently in the archaeological record. Some use of metals is attested, as well as evidence for signs or graphs, perhaps early writing. All of these traits of sites and artifacts, recoverable through archaeological techniques, indicate in the aggre- gate the development of ranked societies with elites in centers exercis- ing power over regions. Some of these societies may be classed as chiefdoms or even incipient states. Chinese scholars now refer to archaeological cultures of the Terminal Neolithic as the "Longshan Age" (Map 2).2 The place name Longshan derives from a district in Zhangqiu County, Shandong province, where archaeologists investigated the Chengziyai site in 1930-31. Chengziyai was first discovered by a Shandong native, WuJinding (G. D. Wu), who
~ ~ ,,~~ ...:. -... . . Map 2. Distribution of Longshan Age sites. Van, "Longshan wenhua he shidai," in Shiqian kaogu lunji (1998), p. 27.
10 Introduction recognized stone celts and pottery sherds he found exposed in a road cut. When dangerous local conditions made excavations at Anyang, Henan, impossible (Chapter 3), the excavation team assembled by Acad- emia Sinica moved to Chengziyai. There they unearthed portions of a large walled compound, and recovered abundant black pottery, includ- ing so-called eggshell wares. This evidence was interpreted at the time as a Neolithic tradition parallel to the then better-known Yangshao Culture "painted pottery" of Henan and Gansu. The Black Pottery or Longshan Culture was found subsequently at many sites surrounding the Taishan massif, south of the Yellow River. Liang Siyong, working at the Hougang mound near Anyang, recognized what he called a "triple stratigraphy": Longshan sherds above Yangshao ones, but below Shang remains. Long- shan black wares thereafter were understood either as a separate cul- tural tradition (the two cultures theory) or as a tradition flowing from the earlier Yangshao Culture. The postwar decade saw numerous archaeological surveys, so that by 1959 Neolithic cultures had been recognized in several macroregions. The Miaodigou site near Sanmenxia, in western Henan south of the Yel- low River, and the neighboring Sanliqiao site across a ravine, inspired An Zhimin to posit a developmental sequence from late Yangshao to early Longshan (called the Miaodigou II Culture). Yangshao painted pottery then became diagnostic of the early Neolithic, while Longshan black pottery was characteristic of late Neolithic sites. Cultures compara- ble in development to the Shandong Longshan were identified in parts of Henan, Shaanxi, and the Lower and Middle Yangzi. Thus was born the "Nuclear theory." In brief, this proposed: (1) the Yangshao Culture gave way to Longshan in the Yellow River heartland of Henan-Shaanxi- Shanxi, (2) developments across a wider area reflected a subsequent ex- pansion from that nuclear area. Defining a "Lungshanoid horizon" was an early contribution of Kwang-chih Chang in his influential Archaeology ofAncient China, first edition 1963 (Box 4). Chang's list of horizon traits was persuasive but at the time could not be anchored in an absolute chronology. The publication of radiocarbon datings in the early 1970s turned this evidence on its head. Carbon datings demonstrated the antiquity of many regional cultures outside the Nuclear Area, cultures that had been assumed to be later in time than the former. The supposed primacy of the nuclear area thus vanished. Instead, it became increasingly obvious, for example in Chang's third (1977) and fourth editions (1986), that other regions had their own lengthy developmental histories prior to the Lungshanoid horizon. Expansion from a heartland center would no longer fully explain these regional developments and the resulting hori- zon. To rationalize these data, Chang proposed a model from North
o 4 Introduction 11
12 Introduction American archaeology: interaction spheres. In this model, regional cul- tures literally grew together as their populations expanded over the landscape (Map 3). Movements of people and goods, with consequent effects at both ends, became ever more frequent. Neighboring cultures thus came to exhibit common traits (seen as the horizon). The map of China thus became a collection of geographically circumscribed regions with cultures that interacted. Common traits still warrant the label Longshan for these regional cultures and this period. The term now does not signify the culture of Shandong or origins from Shandong, but
Introduction 13 (a) (b) (c) L -_ _~ ---.J Map 3. Kwang-chih Chang's "Chinese Interaction Sphere": (a) cultures ca. 7000 B.C.E.; (b) cultures ca. 5000; (c) cultures ca. 4000/3000. Chang, The Archaeology ofAncient China, 4th ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 235. rather that a culture exhibiting many of these traits was first identified there. In considering sources for the early Bronze Age, the Longshan Age cultures of Shandong (Classic Longshan), Henan, Shanxi (Taosi), Hubei (Shijiahe), and Zhejiang:Jiangsu (Liangzhu) now play key roles (compare Map 4). From the 1950s through the 1970s, regional settlement surveys had been neglected in China. Pedestrian surveys ordered in each province
14 Introduction by the Cultural Relics Bureau did document the distribution of sites along the dendritic patterns of river drainages. Survey practice, how- ever, limited description of these sites to broad statements about their area and rough-and-ready estimates of their cultural components. Both kinds of data were derived from surface collections, often utilizing road cuts and other existing exposures. Only in recent decades have more thorough excavations of habitation sites become more common, while in the last decade, systematic regional surveys, several with international collaborators, have begun to focus on settlement patterns.3 While most of these projects have not yet published their formal reports, the theory and practice of Chinese archaeology have changed in important ways as they have unfolded. Settlement archaeology has become one of the main foci of Neolithic research in China. The most startling revelation derived from new fieldwork regimens has been discovery of fifty or more walled sites across several macrore- gions. These finds now represent eight or more archaeological cultures of the Terminal Neolithic. Much of this data has been published in newspapers or yearbooks, and only a fraction have appeared as prelimi- nary reports in archaeological journals. My account is derived from an overview written by Ren Shinan, then director of the Institute of Archaeology (Beijing), published in early 1998.4 When Ren wrote, he had summary data for sites in the Middle Yellow River (Henan), the Lower Yellow River (Shandong), the Middle Yangzi (Hubei and Hunan) macroregion, and the Upper Yangzi macroregion (Sichuan). He also had some evidence for the Lower Yangzi and the Yanshan zone across the north. I have supplemented his account with data from more recent publications. Ren's article provides an estimate of the area of each site (see Table 0.1). The largest is the Shijiahe site cluster in Tianmen County, Hubei (at 1,200,000 sq m; 120 hectares) in the Middle Yangzi. Baoduncheng in Xinjin, Sichuan (the Upper Yangzi) is next largest at 600,000 sq m (60 hectares) . A middle-size range between about 35 and 15 hectares ac- counts for the greatest number of sites: now at least eleven spread across all regions. A small-size range, from 15 down to as little as one hectare, also spans the regions with eight examples. Ren Shinan isolated several general contrasts between the northern (Henan and Shandong) sites and those along the Yangzi. In the north, walled sites were constructed on level terrain, although elevated positions near terraces were some- times selected to create what Shandong archaeologists call "terrace cities" (tai cheng). Along the Yangzi, on the other hand, natural hills and ridges higher than surrounding terrain were tied together to create walls. For these reasons, northern sites tend to have regular square or rectangular footprints, while Yangzi sites are more irregular. In the
Introduction 15 TABLE 0.1. Longshan Age Walled Sites Area Dimensions Region Site (hectares) (NSxEW) Source North Henan Pingliangtai 5 185 x 185 WW 83.3 Wangchenggang 1 NS92 Wangchenggang Mengzhuang 16 375 x 340 KG 00.3 Haojiatai 3.3 Shandong Xikangliu 3.5 195 x 185 KG 95.3 Chengziyai 20 530 x 430 Top 100 Dinggong 16 350 x 310 KG 93.4 Bianxianwang 5.7 240 x 240 Tianwang 15 Youlou 2.5 150x170 Jingyanggang 38 1150 x 400 KG 97.5 Jiaochangpu 40 1100 x 360 Shanxi Taosi 270 1800 x 1500 TX5 (2003) Middle Yangzi Shijiahe 120 1200 x 1100 WW 90.8, 94.4 Chengtoushan 7.6 Diameter: 325 WW 93.12 Mingjicheng 500 x 400 Yinxiangcheng 12 350 x 580? KG 97.5,98.1 Zoumaling 7.8 300 x 370 Majiawan 24 250/440 x WW 97.7 640/740 Lower Yangzi Mojiaoshan 30 450 x 670 WW 01.12 Upper Yangzi Baoduncheng 60 1000 x 600 KG 97.1,98.1 Yufucheng 32 WW 98.12 Pixian gucheng 32.5 650 x 500 WW 99.1 Mangcheng 12 360 x 340 KG 99.7 Sources: Ren Shinan, "Zhongguo shiqian cheng zhi kaocha" [Examination of walled sites in prehistoric China], Kaogu 1998.1:1-16; Zhang Xuehai, "Shilun Shandong dichu de Longshan wenhua cheng" [Preliminary discussion of Longshan Culture walled sites in the Shandong region], Wenwu 1996.12:40-52. north a trench or footing for the wall was generally excavated first, then refilled with pounded earth as the wall was built to its full height. Forms were used to hold loose soil as it was compacted. In the south, sticky mud was mounded up and then pounded hard on exterior faces; forms were not used. Both areas have walls with moats, but in the south moats are generally wider and deeper, and they sometimes connect with the interior.
16 Introduction LEGEND _ trench _wall = road E3 pond ~river c==> terrace o 200 m. ~ Figure 0.2. Walls at Shijiahe, Tianmen, Hubei. Xiaojiawuji (1999), p. 3. Two examples will represent these varied walled sites. At Shijiahe, Hubei, about 2,000m ofwall still stands above ground level, roughly 6m high, with base dimensions of as much as 50 m and widths at top of 8- 10m (Fig. 0.2). The moat surrounding this wall is 80-100m wide, and seems to be a mix of natural channels and human effort. The enclosed area is about 1,200m north-south by a maximum of 1,100 m east-west.
Introduction 17 At least thirty sites of the period have been located within a surrounding area of 8 sq km. This is the largest walled site of the Terminal Neolithic (but see below) and is plausibly interpreted as a major regional center of the Middle Yangzi macroregion. Other Middle Yangzi walled sites are significantly smaller, and surveys have yet to establish regional settlement patterns that would determine their status or relations. In the Chengdu basin, however, recent work has established a network of some half dozen walled sites that predate the appearance of the Bronze Age Sanx- ingdui Culture (see Chapter 5). In Henan, settlement pattern data are still unavailable for regions with walled sites. At Mengzhuang, in northern Henan, ancient walls had been leveled by local farmers in recent decades. Their footprint is a square about 375 m north-south by 340 m east-west; the excavators be- lieve it may originally have been about 400 m on each side. Forms were used to hold the soil dug from both sides of the walls as it was pounded hard. The borrow trench outside then served as a moat, and was itself 20 m wide and 5-6 m deep. An opening in the east wall may have been a gate. House foundations, pits, and four fresh water wells have been plot- ted within the walls. The Mengzhuang site is the largest site presently known in the "central plains." Its occupation seems to have spanned the Longshan Age, Erlitou Culture, and Erligang Culture. Taosi, a Longshan Age culture based in the Fen River basin of Shanxi province, is another candidate for a complex society at or near a state level.5 The type site first gained attention because of its extensive ceme- tery (with 1,300 graves excavated, perhaps a sixth of the total) and the pronounced disparity in the size and furnishings of graves. Excavations resumed in 1999 with a twin focus on architectural foundations and traces of several walls. These excavations have been reported only in brief notices, but have progressed far enough that one can now speak of the largest pre-Bronze Age walled site in all of China. The estimated area within the walls is some 2,700,000 sqm (270 hectares), about half the total site. The cemetery tracts known from the 1980s are now seen as early period, extramural features. The walls themselves are mostly dated to the middle period, and were damaged in part by the late period. Within the walls were smaller walled areas, some with elite houses and burials (Figure 0.3) and others with sacrificial tracts. The story of the Taosi site is still unfolding, but the complexity of its features suggests a society and regional polity that would have rivaled the later Erlitou Cul- ture on its southeastern horizon. The better known Chengziyai site has also been reexcavated in recent years. Although a proper report has yet to appear, we now know this site was occupied from the Longshan Age into the time of Erlitou (known locally as the Yueshi Culture). Moreover, Chengziyai was a large center
I 8 Introduction LEGEND = wall • sacrifice zone 300m. , Figure 0.3. Walls at Taosi site, Xiangfen, Shanxi. Kaogu 2004.7:10. in a region with a number of smaller satellite communities (Figure 0.4). Systematic regional survey by an international team is now beginning to report similar results in other parts of Shandong. Contrary to authorita- tive accounts ofjust a few years ago, we now envision the Longshan Age, both north and south, as a period when a substantial number of walled sites dotted the landscape. Some walled sites were the hub of settlement clusters (as at Shijiahe and Chengziyai), while others might have been middle-level centers (Mengzhuang?). Still other sites probably served more narrowly defined purposes, perhaps to control resources.
Introduction 19 LEGEND • intermediate centers 3-6 hectares • third-level settlements < 2 hectares Figure 0.4. Settlement distribution near Chengziyai, Shandong. Kaogu 1998.1:3. This regional map, an area about 20km square, shows Chengziyai and an array of forty intermediate and third level settlements nearby. The Yellow River cuts across the map at top left; higher land extends southward. Most of the third level settlements are situated near tributaries that flow north toward the Yellow River; these small settlements are generally less than 2 hectares in area. The six intermediate level centers have areas estimated at 3-6 hectares. Chengziyai flourished from c. 2600 B.C.E. into the Yueshi Culture, contemporary with Erlitou. By definition, early states were stratified societies with regional settle- ment hierarchies, two characteristics that are visible in the archaeologi- cal record. Disparities in grave goods and the widespread distribution of walled sites are significant indicators that complex societies had formed in several regional settings. Most of these archaeological cultures and their regional types, however, have been sketched so far only in broad strokes. At present, only the Longshan and Liangzhu Cultures offer a reasonably wide array of data with which to move beyond what might be called ceramic definitions of those archaeological cultures. Both may have sustained incipient states. In the Middle Yangzi, the Shijiahe Cul- ture of Hubei is another possible target.6
20 Introduction The Terminal Neolithic of the third millennium B.e.E. was an interac- tion sphere as defined by Kwang-chih Chang, a world of neighboring complex societies, some possibly incipient states. In the North China macroregion, the first culture to emerge as a full-fledged state society was the Shang. Shang Culture is separated from the Terminal Neolithic by developments at two key sites in Henan, Erlitou and Erligang, the subjects of our first two chapters.
Chapter 1 Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Erlitou Culture Ie. 1900-1 500 B.C.E.) In Chinese archaeology today, discussions of the origins of civilization and of the Bronze Age generally begin with Erlitou. Erlitou is a village south of the Luo River in Yanshi County that resembles many others in this part of North China. In archaeology, Erlitou is both a site, specifi- cally a type site, and the name for an archaeological culture that existed in Henan and neighboring regions in the early second millennium B.e.E. The site stretches across open winter wheat fields south of the village toward two other hamlets, Gedangtou on the southeast and Si- jiaolou to the south (Figure 1.1). A considerable earthen mound, the "Han tomb" with its small temple, sits east of the path leading south. The Erlitou Work Station of the Institute of Archaeology stands oppo- site behind the locked metal gate of a modern brick courtyard. Erlitou is one of the most exciting targets in Chinese Bronze Age archaeology. Discovered in 1959 by Xu Xusheng as the result of a well- informed attempt to locate traces of the Xia-the first of the Three Dynasties (Sandai)-the site was first explored between 1959 and 1978. Initial finds were significant, including two large courtyards, immedi- ately dubbed palaces, and a smattering of richly furnished, medium- scale graves with fine hardstones and the earliest cast bronze ritual vessels recovered in North China. Most of all, the culture as defined by pottery and other traits looked right as either the beginnings of Shang, or equally possible, its immediate predecessor, the Xia. For Chinese scholars the palaces virtually guaranteed a state-level of social complex- ity, while the ritual jades and bronze vessels confirmed an elite atop a stratified ("slave") society. Add to these features its geographical loca- tion and chronological position, and the argument for Erlitou as Xia swept scholarly circles in the late 1970s.1 Another twenty years ofwork has followed under a younger generation of archaeologists, but those results are known only from brief reports
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In Sir R. Jenkins’ time, a century ago, the Gonds were represented as naked savages, living on roots and fruits, and hunting for strangers to sacrifice. About fifty years later, when Mr. Hislop wrote, the Māria women of the wilder tracts were said only to have a bundle of leafy twigs fastened with a string round their waist to cover them before and behind. Now men have a narrow strip of cloth round the waist and women a broader one, but in the south of Bastar they still leave their breasts uncovered. Here a woman covers her breasts for the first time when she becomes pregnant, and if a young woman did it, she would be thought to be big with child. In other localities men and women clothe themselves more like Hindus, but the women leave the greater part of the thighs bare, and men often have only one cloth round the loins and another small rag on the head. They have bangles of glass, brass and zinc, and large circlets of brass round the legs, though these are now being discarded. In Bastar both men and women have ten to twenty iron and brass hoops round their necks, and on to these rings of the same metal are strung. Rai Bahādur Panda Baijnāth counted 181 rings on one hoop round an old woman’s neck. In the Māria country the boys have small separate plots of land, which they cultivate themselves and use the proceeds as their pocket-money, and this enables them to indulge in a profusion of ornaments sometimes exceeding those worn by the girls. In Mandla women wear a number of strings of yellow and bluish-white beads. A married woman has both colours, and several cowries tied to the end of the necklace. Widows and girls may only wear the bluish-white beads without cowries, and a remarried widow may not have any yellow beads, but she can have one cowrie on her necklace. Yellow beads are thus confined to married women, yellow being the common wedding-colour. A Gond woman is not allowed to wear a choli or little jacket over the breasts. If she does she is put out of caste. This rule may arise from opposition to the adoption of Hindu customs and desire to retain a distinctive feature of dress, or it may be thought that the adoption of the choli might make Gond women weaker and unfitted for hard manual labour, like Hindu women. A Gond woman must not keep her cloth tucked up behind into her waist when she meets an elderly man of her own family, but must let it down so as to cover the upper part of her legs. If she omits to do this, on the occasion of the next wedding the Bhumka or caste priest will send some men to catch her, and when she is brought the man to whom she was disrespectful will put his right hand on the ground and she must make obeisance to it seven times, then to his left hand, then to a broom and pestle, and so on till she is tired out. When they have a sprain or swelling of the arm they make a ring of tree-fibre and wear this on the arm, and think that it will cure the sprain or swelling. 62. Ear-piercing.
The ears of girls are pierced by a thorn, and the hole is enlarged by putting in small pieces of wood or peacock’s feathers. Gond women wear in their ears the tarkhi or a little slab in shape like a palm-leaf, covered with coloured glass and fixed on to a stalk of hemp-fibre nearly an inch thick, which goes through the ear; or they wear the silver shield-shaped ornament called dhāra, which is described in the article on Sunār. In Bastar the women have their ears pierced in a dozen or more places, and have a small ring in each hole. If a woman gets her ear torn through she is simply put out of caste and has to give a feast for readmission, and is not kept out of caste till it heals, like a Hindu woman. 63. Hair. Gond men now cut their hair. Before scissors were obtainable it is said that they used to tie it up on their heads and chop off the ends with an axe, or burn them off. But the wilder Gonds often wear their hair long, and as it is seldom combed it gets tangled and matted. The Pandas or priests do not cut their hair. Women wear braids of false hair, of goats or other animals, twisted into their own to improve their appearance. In Mandla a Gond girl should not have her hair parted in the middle till she is married. When she is married this is done for the first time by the Baiga, who subsequently tattoos on her forehead the image of Chandi Māta.53 64. Bathing and washing clothes. Gonds, both men and women, do not bathe daily, but only wash their arms and legs. They think a complete bath once a month is sufficient. If a man gets ill he may think the god is angry with him for not bathing, and when he recovers he goes and has a good bath, and sometimes gives a feast. Hindus say that a Gond is only clean in the rains, when he gets a compulsory bath every day. In Bastar they seldom wash their clothes, as they think this impious, or else that the cloth would wear out too quickly if it were often washed. Here they set great store by their piece of cloth, and a woman will take it off before she cleans up her house, and do her work naked. It is probable that these wild Gonds, who could not weave, regarded the cloth as something miraculous and sacred, and, as already seen, the god Pālo is a piece of cloth.54
65. Tattooing. Both men and women were formerly much tattooed among the Gonds, though the custom is now going out among men. Women are tattooed over a large part of the body, but not on the hips or above them to the waist. Sorcerers are tattooed with some image or symbol of their god on their chest or right shoulder, and think that the god will thus always remain with them and that any magic directed against them by an enemy will fail. A woman should be tattooed at her father’s house, if possible before marriage, and if it is done after marriage her parents should pay for it. The tattooing is done with indigo in black or blue, and is sometimes a very painful process, the girl being held down by her friends while it is carried out. Loud shrieks, Forsyth says, would sometimes be heard by the traveller issuing from a village, which proclaimed that some young Gondin was being operated upon with the tattooing-needle. Patterns of animals and also common articles of household use are tattooed in dots and lines. In Mandla the legs are marked all the way up behind with sets of parallel lines, as shown above. These are called ghāts or steps, and sometimes interspersed at intervals is another figure called sānkal or chain. Perhaps their idea is to make the legs strong for climbing. 66. Special system of tattooing. Tattooing seems to have been originally a magical means of protecting the body against real and spiritual dangers, much in the same manner as the wearing of ornaments. It is also supposed that people were tattooed with images of their totem in order the better to identify themselves with it. The following account is stated to have been taken from the Baiga priest of a popular shrine of Devi in Mandla. His wife was a tattooer of both Baigas and Gonds, and considered it the correct method for the full tattooing of a woman, though very few women can nowadays be found with it. The magical intent of tattooing is here clearly brought out:— On the sole of the right foot is the annexed device:
It represents the earth, and will have the effect of preventing the woman’s foot from being bruised and cut when she walks about barefoot. On the sole of the left foot is this pattern: It is meant to be in the shape of a foot, and is called Padam Sen Deo or the Foot-god. This deity is represented by stones marked with two footprints under a tree outside the village. When they have a pain in the foot they go to him, rub his two stones together and sprinkle the dust from them on their feet as a means of cure. The device tattooed on the foot no doubt performs a similar protective function. On the upper part of the foot five dots are made, one on each toe, and a line is drawn round the foot from the big toe to the little toe. This sign is said to represent Gajkaran Deo, the elephant god, who resides in cemeteries. He is a strong god, and it is probably thought that his symbol on the feet will enable them to bear weight. On the legs behind they have the images of the Baiga priest and priestess. These are also supposed to give strength for labour, and when they cannot go into the forest from fever or weakness they say that Bura Deo, as the deified priest is called, is angry with them. On the upper legs in front they tattoo the image of a horse, and at the back a saddle between the knee and the thigh. This is Koda Deo the horse-god, whose image will make their thighs as strong as those of a horse. If they have a pain or weakness in the thigh they go and worship Koda Deo, offering him a piece of saddle-cloth. On the outer side of each upper arm they tattoo the image of Hanumān, the deified monkey and the god of strength, in the form of a man. Both men and women do this, and men apply burning cowdung to the tattoo- mark in order to burn it effectually into the arm. This god makes the arms strong to carry weights. Down the back is tattooed an oblong figure, which is the house of the god Bhimsen, with an opening at the lower end just above the buttocks to represent the gate. Inside this on the back is the image of Bhimsen’s club, consisting of a pattern of dots more or less in the shape of an Indian club. Bhimsen is the god of the cooking-place, and the image of his club, in white clay stained green with the leaves of the semar tree, is
made on the wall of the kitchen. If they have no food, or the food is bad, they say that Bhimsen is angry with them. The pattern tattooed on the back appears therefore to be meant to facilitate the digestion of food, which the Gonds apparently once supposed to pass down the body along the back. On the breast in front women tattoo the image of Bura Deo, as shown, the head on her neck and the body finishing at her breast-bone. The marks round the body represent stones, because the symbol of Bura Deo is sometimes a basket plastered with mud and filled with stones. On each side of the body women have the image of Jhulān Devi, the cradle goddess, as shown by the small figures attached to Bura Deo. But a woman cannot have the image of Jhulān Devi tattooed on her till she has borne a child. The place where the image is tattooed is that where a child rests against its mother’s body when she carries it suspended in her cloth, and it is supposed that the image of the goddess supports and protects the child, while the mother’s arms are left free for work.
Gond women, showing tattooing on backs of legs Round the neck they have Kanteshwar Māta, the goddess of the necklace. She consists of three to six lines of dots round the neck representing bead necklaces. On the face below the mouth there is sometimes the image of a cobra, and it is supposed that this will protect them from the effects of eating any poisonous thing. On the forehead women have the image of Chāndi Māta. This consists of a dot at the forehead at the parting of the hair, from which two lines of dots run down to the ears on each side, and are continued along the sides of the face to the neck. This image can only be tattooed after the hair of a woman has been parted on her marriage, and they say that
Chāndi Māta will preserve and guard the parting of the hair, that is the life of the woman’s husband, because the parting can only be worn so long as her husband is alive. Chāndi means the moon, and it seems likely that the parting of the hair may be considered to represent the bow of the moon. The elaborate system of tattooing here described is rarely found, and it is perhaps comparatively recent, having been devised by the Baiga and Pardhān priests as their intelligence developed and their theogony became more complex. 67. Branding. Men are accustomed to brand themselves on the joints of the wrists, elbows and knees with burning wood of the semar tree from the Holi fire in order to render their joints supple for dancing. It would appear that the idea of suppleness comes from the dancing of the flames or the swift burning of the fire, while the wood is also of very light weight. Men are also accustomed to burn two or three marks on each wrist with a piece of hare’s dung, perhaps to make the joints supple like the legs of a hare. 68. Food. The Gonds have scarcely any restriction on diet. They will eat fowls, beef, pork, crocodiles, certain kinds of snakes, lizards, tortoises, rats, cats, red ants, jackals and in some places monkeys. Khatola and Rāj-Gonds usually abstain from beef and the flesh of the buffalo and monkey. They consider field-mice and rats a great delicacy, and will take much trouble in finding and digging out their holes. The Māria Gonds are very fond of red ants, and in Bastar give them fried or roasted to a woman during her confinement. The common food of the labouring Gond is a gruel of rice or small millet boiled in water, the quantity of water increasing in proportion to their poverty. This is about the cheapest kind of food on which a man can live, and the quantity of grain taken in the form of this gruel or pej which will suffice for a Gond’s subsistence is astonishingly small. They grow the small grass-millets kodon and kutki for their subsistence, selling the more valuable crops for rent and expenses. The flowers of the mahua tree are also a staple article of diet, being largely eaten as well as made into liquor, and the Gond knows of many other roots and fruits of the forest. He likes to eat or drink his pej several times a day, and in Seoni, it is said, will not go more than three hours without a meal.
Gonds are rather strict in the matter of taking food from others, and in some localities refuse to accept it even from Brāhmans. Elsewhere they will take it from most Hindu castes. In Hoshangābād the men may take food from the higher Hindu castes, but not the women. This, they say, is because the woman is a wooden vessel, and if a wooden vessel is once put on the fire it is irretrievably burnt. A woman similarly is the weaker vessel and will sustain injury from any contamination. The Rāj-Gond copies Hindu ways and outdoes the Hindu in the elaboration of ceremonial purity, even having the fuel with which his Brāhman cook prepares his food sprinkled with water to purify it before it is burnt. Mr. A. K. Smith states that a Gond will not eat an antelope if a Chamār has touched it, even unskinned, and in some places they are so strict that a wife may not eat her husband’s leavings of food. The Gonds will not eat the leavings of any Hindu caste, probably on account of a traditional hostility arising out of their subjection by the Hindus. Very few Hindu castes will take water or food from the Gonds, but some who employ them as farmservants do this for convenience. The Gonds are not regarded as impure, even though from a Hindu point of view some of their habits are more objectionable than those of the impure castes. This is because the Gonds have never been completely reduced to subjection, nor converted into the village drudges, who are consigned to the most degraded occupations. Large numbers of them hold land as tenants and estates as zamīndārs; and the greater part of the Province was once governed by Gond kings. The Hindus say that they could not consider a tribe as impure to which their kings once belonged. Brāhmans will take water from Rāj-Gonds and Khatola Gonds in many localities. This is when it is freshly brought from the well and not after it has been put in their houses. 69. Liquor. Excessive drinking is the common vice of the Gonds and the principal cause which militates against their successfully competing with the Hindus. They drink the country spirit distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, and in the south of the Province toddy or the fermented juice of the date-palm. As already seen, in Bastar their idea of hell is a place without liquor. The loss of the greater part of the estates formerly held by Gond proprietors has been due to this vice, which many Hindu liquor-sellers have naturally fostered to their own advantage. No festival or wedding passes without a drunken bout, and in Chānda at the season for tapping the date-palm trees the whole population of a village may be seen lying about in the open dead drunk. They impute a certain sanctity to the mahua tree, and in some places walk round a post of it at their weddings. Liquor is indispensable at all ceremonial feasts, and a purifying quality is attributed to it, so that it is drunk at the cemetery or bathing-ghāt after a funeral. The family arranges for liquor, but mourners attending from other families also bring a bottle each with them, if
possible. Practically all the events of a Gond’s life, the birth of a child, betrothals and weddings, recovery from sickness, the arrival of a guest, bringing home the harvest, borrowing money or hiring bullocks, and making contracts for cultivation, are celebrated by drinking. And when a Gond has once begun to drink, if he has the money he usually goes on till he is drunk, and this is why the habit is such a curse to him. He is of a social disposition and does not like to drink alone. If he has drunk something, and has no more money, and the contractor refuses to let him have any more on credit as the law prescribes, the Gond will sometimes curse him and swear never to drink in his shop again. Nevertheless, within a few days he will be back, and when chaffed about it will answer simply that he could not resist the longing. In spite of all the harm it does him, it must be admitted that it is the drink which gives most of the colour and brightness to a Gond’s life, and without this it would usually be tame to a degree. When a Gond drinks water from a stream or tank, he bends down and puts his mouth to the surface and does not make a cup with his hands like a Hindu. 70. Admission of outsiders and sexual morality. Outsiders are admitted into the tribe in some localities in Bastar, and also the offspring of a Gond man or woman with a person of another caste, excepting the lowest. But some people will not admit the children of a Gond woman by a man of another caste. Not much regard is paid to the chastity of girls before marriage, though in the more civilised tracts the stricter Hindu views on the subject are beginning to prevail. Here it is said that if a girl is detected in a sexual intrigue before marriage she may be taken into caste, but may not participate in the worship of Bura Deo nor of the household god. But this is probably rather a counsel of perfection than a rule actually enforced. If a daughter is taken in the sexual act, they think some misfortune will happen to them, as the death of a cow or the failure of crops. Similarly the Māria Gonds think that if tigers kill their cattle it is a punishment for the adultery of their wives, and hence if a man loses a head or two he looks very closely after his wife, and detection is often followed by murder. Here probably adultery was originally considered an offence as being a sin against the tribe, because it contaminated the tribal blood, and out of this attitude marital jealousy has subsequently developed. Speaking generally, the enforcement of rules of sexual morality appears to be comparatively recent, and there is no doubt that the Baigas and other tribes who have lived in contact with the Gonds, as well as the Ahīrs and other low castes, have a large admixture of Gond blood. In Bastar a Gond woman formerly had no feelings of modesty as regards her breasts, but this is now being acquired. Laying the hand on a married woman’s shoulder gives great offence. Mr. Low writes:55 “It is difficult to say what is not a legal marriage from a Gond point of view; but in spite of
this laxity abductions are frequent, and Colonel Bloomfield mentions one particularly noteworthy case where the abductor, an unusually ugly Gond with a hare-lip, was stated by the complainant to have taken off first the latter’s aunt, then his sister and finally his only wife.” 71. Common sleeping-houses. Many Gond villages in Chhattīsgarh and the Feudatory States have what is known as a gotalghar. This is a large house near the village where unmarried youths and maidens collect and dance and sing together at night. Some villages have two, one for the boys and one for the girls. In Bastar the boys have a regular organisation, their captain being called Sirdār, and the master of the ceremonies Kotwār, while they have other officials bearing the designation of the State officers. After supper the unmarried boys go first to the gotalghar and are followed by the girls. The Kotwār receives the latter and directs them to bow to the Sirdār, which they do. Each girl then takes a boy and combs his hair and massages his hands and arms to refresh him, and afterwards they sing and dance together until they are tired and then go to bed. The girls can retire to their own house if they wish, but frequently they sleep in the boys’ house. Thus numerous couples become intimate, and if on discovery the parents object to their marriage, they run away to the jungle, and it has to be recognised. In some villages, however, girls are not permitted to go to the gotalghar. In one part of Bastar they have a curious rule that all males, even the married, must sleep in the common house for the eight months of the open season, while their wives sleep in their own houses. A Māria Gond thinks it impious to have sexual intercourse with his wife in his house, as it would be an insult to the goddess of wealth who lives in the house, and the effect would be to drive her away. Their solicitude for this goddess is the more noticeable, as the Māria Gond’s house and furniture probably constitute one of the least valuable human habitations on the face of the globe. 72. Methods of greeting and observances between relatives. When two Gond friends or relatives meet, they clasp each other in their arms and lean against each shoulder in turn. A man will then touch the knees of an elder male relative with his fingers, carrying them afterwards to his own forehead. This is equivalent to falling at the other’s feet, and is a token of respect shown to all elder male relatives and also to a son-in-law, sister’s husband, and a samhdi, that is the father of a son- or daughter-in-law. Their term of salutation is Johār, and they say this to each other.
Another method of greeting is that each should put his fingers under the other’s chin and then kiss them himself. Women also do this when they meet. Or a younger woman meeting an elder will touch her feet, and the elder will then kiss her on the forehead and on each cheek. If they have not met for some time they will weep. It is said that Baigas will kiss each other on the cheek when meeting, both men and women. A Gond will kiss and caress his wife after marriage, but as soon as she has a child he drops the habit and never does it again. When husband and wife meet after an absence the wife touches her husband’s feet with her hand and carries it to her forehead, but the husband makes no demonstration. The Gonds kiss their children. Among the Māria Gonds the wife is said not to sleep on a cot in her husband’s house, which would be thought disrespectful to him, but on the ground. Nor will a woman even sit on a cot in her own house, as if any male relative happened to be in the house it would be disrespectful to him. A woman will not say the name of her husband, his elder or younger brother, or his elder brother’s sons. A man will not mention his wife’s name nor that of her elder sister. 73. The caste panchāyat and social offences. The tribe have panchāyats or committees for the settlement of tribal disputes and offences. A member of the panchāyat is selected by general consent, and holds office during good behaviour. The office is not hereditary, and generally there does not seem to be a recognised head of the panchāyat. In Mandla there is a separate panchāyat for each village, and every Gond male adult belongs to it, and all have to be summoned to a meeting. When they assemble five leading elderly men decide the matter in dispute, as representing the assembly. Caste offences are of the usual Hindu type with some variations. Adultery, taking another man’s wife or daughter, getting vermin in a wound, being sent to jail and eating the jail food, or even having handcuffs put on, a woman getting her ear torn, and eating or even smoking with a man of very low caste, are the ordinary offences. Others are being beaten by a shoe, dealing in the hides of cattle or keeping donkeys, removing the corpse of a dead horse or donkey, being touched by a sweeper, cooking in the earthen pots of any impure caste, a woman entering the kitchen during her monthly impurity, and taking to wife the widow of a younger brother, but not of course of an elder brother. In the case of septs which revere a totem animal or plant, any act committed in connection with that animal or plant by a member of the sept is an offence within the cognisance of the panchāyat. Thus in Mandla the Kumhra sept revere the goat and the Markām sept the crocodile and crab. If a member of one of these septs touches, keeps, kills or eats the animal which his sept reveres, he is put out of caste and comes before the panchāyat. In practice the offences with which the panchāyat most frequently deals are
the taking of another man’s wife or the kidnapping of a daughter for marriage, this last usually occurring between relatives. Both these offences can also be brought before the regular courts, but it is usually only when the aggrieved person cannot get satisfaction from the panchāyat, or when the offender refuses to abide by its decision, that the case goes to court. If a Gond loses his wife he will in the ordinary course compromise the matter if the man who takes her will repay his wedding expenses; this is a very serious business for him, as his wedding is the principal expense of a man’s life, and it is probable that he may not be able to afford to buy another girl and pay for her wedding. If he cannot get his wedding expenses back through the panchāyat he files a complaint of adultery under the Penal Code, in the hope of being repaid through a fine inflicted on the offender, and it is perfectly right and just that this should be done. When a girl is kidnapped for marriage, her family can usually be induced to recognise the affair if they receive the price they could have got for the girl in an ordinary marriage, and perhaps a little more, as a solace to their outraged feelings. The panchāyat takes no cognisance of theft, cheating, forgery, perjury, causing hurt and other forms of crime. These are not considered to be offences against the caste, and no penalty is inflicted for them. Only if a man is arrested and handcuffed, or if he is sent to jail for any such crime, he is put out of caste for eating the jail food and subjected in this latter case to a somewhat severe penalty. It is not clear whether a Gond is put out of caste for murder, though Hindu panchāyats take cognisance of this offence. 74. Caste penalty feasts. The punishments inflicted by the panchāyat consist of feasts, and in the case of minor offences of a fine. This last, subject perhaps to some commission to the members for their services, is always spent on liquor, the drinking of which by the offender with the caste-fellows will purify him. The Gonds consider country liquor as equivalent to the Hindu Amrita or nectar. The penalty for a serious offence involves three feasts. The first, known as the meal of impurity, consists of sweet wheaten cakes which are eaten by the elders on the bank of a stream or well. The second or main feast is given in the offender’s courtyard to all the castemen of the village and sometimes of other villages. Rice, pulse, and meat, either of a slaughtered pig or goat, are provided at this. The third feast is known as ‘The taking back into caste’ and is held in the offender’s house and may be cooked by him. Wheat, rice and pulses are served, but not meat or vegetables. When the panchāyat have eaten this food in the offender’s house he is again a proper member of the caste. Liquor is essential at each feast. The nature of the penalty feasts is thus very clear. They have the effect of a gradual purification of the offender. In the first meal he can take no part, nor
is it served in his house, but in some neutral place. For the second meal the castemen go so far as to sit in his compound, but apparently he does not cook the food nor partake of it. At the third meal they eat with him in his house and he is fully purified. These three meals are prescribed only for serious offences, and for ordinary ones only two meals, the offender partaking of the second. The three meals are usually exacted from a woman taken in adultery with an outsider. In this case the woman’s head is shaved at the first meal by the Sharmia, that is her son-in-law, and the children put her to shame by throwing lumps of cowdung at her. She runs away and bathes in a stream. At the second meal, taken in her courtyard, the Sharmia sprinkles some blood on the ground and on the lintel of the door as an offering to the gods and in order that the house may be pure for the future. If a man is poor and cannot afford the expense of the penalty feasts imposed on him, the panchāyat will agree that only a few persons will attend instead of the whole community. The procedure above described is probably borrowed to a large extent from Hinduism, but the working of a panchāyat can be observed better among the Gonds and lower castes than among high-caste Hindus, who are tending to let it lapse into abeyance. 75. Special purification ceremony. The following detailed process of purification had to be undergone by a well-to-do Gond widow in Mandla who had been detected with a man of the Panka caste, lying drunk and naked in a liquor-shop. The Gonds here consider the Pankas socially beneath themselves. The ritual clearly belongs to Hinduism, as shown by the purifying virtue attached to contact with cows and bullocks and cowdung, and was directed by the Panda or priest of Devi’s shrine, who, however, would probably be a Gond. First, the offending woman was taken right out of the village across a stream; here her head was shaved with the urine of an all-black bullock and her body washed with his dung, and she then bathed in the stream, and a feast was given on its bank to the caste. She slept here, and next day was yoked to the same bullock and taken thus to the Kharkha or standing-place for the village cattle. She was rolled over the surface of the Kharkha about four times, again rubbed with cowdung, another feast was given, and she slept the night on the spot, without being washed. Next day, covered with the dust and cowdung of the Kharkha, she crouched underneath the black bullock’s belly and in this manner proceeded to the gate of her own yard. Here a bottle of liquor and fifteen chickens were waved round her and afterwards offered at Devi’s shrine, where they became the property of the Panda who was conducting the ceremony. Another feast was given in her yard and the woman slept there. Next day the woman, after bathing, was placed standing with one foot outside her threshold and the other inside; a feast was given, called the feast of the threshold, and she again slept in her yard. On the following day came the final feast of purification in
the house. The woman was bathed eleven times, and a hen, a chicken and five eggs were offered by the Panda to each of her household gods. Then she drank a little liquor from a cup of which the Panda had drunk, and ate some of the leavings of food of which he had eaten. The black bullock and a piece of cloth sufficient to cover it were presented to the Panda for his services. Then the woman took a dish of rice and pulse and placed a little in the leaf-cup of each of the caste-fellows present, and they all ate it and she was readmitted to caste. Twelve cow-buffaloes were sold to pay for the ceremony, which perhaps cost Rs. 600 or more. Māria Gonds in dancing costume 76. Dancing. Dancing and singing to the dance constitute the social amusement and recreation of the Gonds, and they are passionately fond of it. The principal dance is the Karma, danced in celebration of the bringing of the leafy branch of a tree from the forest in the rains. They continue to dance it as a recreation during the nights of the cold and hot weather, whenever they have leisure and a supply of liquor, which is almost indispensable, is forthcoming. The Mārias dance, men and women together, in a great circle, each man holding the girl next him on one side round the neck and on the other round the waist.
They keep perfect time, moving each foot alternately in unison throughout the line, and moving round in a slow circle. Only unmarried girls may join in a Māria dance, and once a woman is married she can never dance again. This is no doubt a salutary provision for household happiness, as sometimes couples, excited by the dance and wine, run away from it into the jungle and stay there for a day or two till their relatives bring them home and consider them as married. At the Māria dances the men wear the skins of tigers, panthers, deer and other animals, and sometimes head-dresses of peacock’s feathers. They may also have a girdle of cowries round the waist, and a bell tied to their back to ring as they move. The musicians sit in the centre and play various kinds of drums and tom-toms. At a large Māria dance there may be as many as thirty musicians, and the provision of rice or kodon and liquor may cost as much as Rs. 50. In other localities the dance is less picturesque. Men and women form two long lines opposite each other, with the musicians in the centre, and advance and retreat alternately, bringing one foot forward and the other up behind it, with a similar movement in retiring. Married women may dance, and the men do not hold the women at any time. At intervals they break off and liquor is distributed in small leaf-cups, or if these are not available, it is poured into the hands of the dancers held together like a cup. In either case a considerable proportion of the liquor is usually spilt on to the ground. 77. Songs. All the time they are dancing they also sing in unison, the men sometimes singing one line and the women the next, or both together. The songs are with few exceptions of an erotic character, and a few specimens are subjoined. a. Be not proud of your body, your body must go away above (to death). Your mother, brother and all your kinsmen, you must leave them and go. You may have lakhs of treasure in your house, but you must leave it all and go. b. The musicians play and the feet beat on the earth. A pice (¼d.) for a divorced woman, two pice for a kept woman, for a virgin many sounding rupees. The musicians play and the earth sounds with the trampling of feet. c. Rāja Darwa is dead, he died in his youth. Who is he that has taken the small gun, who has taken the big bow? Who is aiming through the harra and bahera trees, who is aiming on the plain? Who has killed the quail and partridge, who has killed the peacock? Rāja Darwa has died in the prime of his youth.
The big brother says, ‘I killed him, I killed him’; the little brother shot the arrow. Rāja Darwa has died in the bloom of his youth. d. Rāwan56 is coming disguised as a Bairāgi; by what road will Rāwan come? The houses and castles fell before him, the ruler of Bhānwargarh rose up in fear. He set the match to his powder, he stooped and crept along the ground and fired. e. Little pleasure is got from a kept woman; she gives her lord pej (gruel) of kutki to drink. She gives it him in a leaf-cup of laburnum;57 the cup is too small for him to drink. She put two gourds full of water in it, and the gruel is so thin that it gives him no sustenance. f. Man speaks: The wife is asleep and her Rāja (husband) is asleep in her lap. She has taken a piece of bread in her lap and water in her vessel. See from her eyes will she come or not? Woman: I have left my cow in her shed, my buffalo in her stall. I have left my baby at the breast and am come alone to follow you. g. The father said to his son, ‘Do not go out to service with any master, neither go to any strange woman. I will sell my sickle and axe, and make you two marriages.’ He made a marriage feast for his son, and in one plate he put rice, and over it meat, and poured soup over it till it flowed out of the plate. Then he said to the men and women, young and old, ‘Come and eat your fill.’ 78. Language. In 1911 Gondi was spoken by 1,500,000 persons, or more than half the total number of Gonds in India. The other Gonds of the Central Provinces speak a broken Hindi. Gondi is a Dravidian language, having a common ancestor with Tamil and Canarese, but little immediate connection with its neighbour Telugu; the specimens given by Sir G. Grierson
show that a large number of Hindi words have been adopted into the vocabulary of Gondi, and this tendency is no doubt on the increase. There are probably few Gonds outside the Feudatory States, and possibly a few of the wildest tracts in British Districts, who could not understand Hindi to some extent. And with the extension of primary education in British Districts Gondi is likely to decline still more rapidly. Gondi has no literature and no character of its own; but the Gospels and the Book of Genesis have been translated into it and several grammatical sketches and vocabularies compiled. In Saugor the Hindus speak of Gondi as Farsi or Persian, apparently applying this latter name to any foreign language.
(h) Occupation 79. Cultivation. The Gonds are mainly engaged in agriculture, and the great bulk of them are farmservants and labourers. In the hilly tracts, however, there is a substantial Gond tenantry, and a small number of proprietors remain, though the majority have been ousted by Hindu moneylenders and liquor- sellers. In the eastern Districts many important zamīndāri estates are owned by Gond proprietors. The ancestors of these families held the wild hilly country on the borders of the plains in feudal tenure from the central rulers, and were responsible for the restraint of the savage hillmen under their jurisdiction, and the protection of the rich and settled lowlands from predatory inroads from without. Their descendants are ordinary landed proprietors, and would by this time have lost their estates but for the protection of the law declaring them impartible and inalienable. A few of the Feudatory Chiefs are also Gonds. Gond proprietors are generally easy- going and kind-hearted to their tenants, but lacking in business acumen and energy, and often addicted to drink and women. The tenants are as a class
shiftless and improvident and heavily indebted. But they show signs of improvement, especially in the ryotwāri villages under direct Government management, and it may be hoped that primary education and more temperate habits will gradually render them equal to the Hindu cultivators. 80. Patch cultivation. In the Feudatory States and some of the zamīndāris the Gonds retain the dahia or bewar method of shifting cultivation, which has been prohibited everywhere else on account of its destructive effects on the forests. The Māria Gonds of Bastar cut down a patch of jungle on a hillside about February, and on its drying up burn all the wood in April or May. Tying strips of the bark of the sāj tree to their feet to prevent them from being burnt, they walk over the smouldering area, and with long bamboo sticks move any unburnt logs into a burning patch, so that they may all be consumed. When the first showers of rain fall they scatter seed of the small millets into the soft covering of wood ashes, and the fertility of the soil is such that without further trouble they get a return of a hundred-fold or more. The same patch can be sown for three years in succession without ploughing, but it then gives out, and the Gonds move themselves and their habitations to a fresh one. When the jungle has been allowed to grow on the old patch for ten or twelve years, there is sufficient material for a fresh supply of wood-ash manure, and they burn it over again. Teak yields a particularly fertilising ash, and when standing the tree is hurtful to crops grown near it, as its large, broad leaves cause a heavy drip and wash out the grain. Hence the Gonds were particularly hostile to this tree, and it is probably to their destructive efforts that the poor growth of teak over large areas of the Provincial forests is due.58 The Māria Gonds do not use the plough, and their only agricultural implement is a kind of hoe or spade. Elsewhere the Gonds are gradually adopting the Hindu methods of cultivation, but their land is generally in hilly and jungly tracts and of poor quality. They occupy large areas of the wretched barra or gravel soil which has disintegrated from the rock of the hillsides, and covers it in a thin sheet
mixed with quantities of large stones. The Gonds, however, like this land, as it is so shallow as to entail very little trouble in ploughing, and it is suitable for their favourite crops of the small millets, kodon and kutki, and the poorer oilseeds. After three years of cropping it must be given an equal or longer period of fallow before it will again yield any return. The Gonds say it is nārang or exhausted. In the new ryotwāri villages formed within the last twenty years the Gonds form a large section, and in Mandla the great majority, of the tenantry, and have good black-soil fields which grow wheat and other valuable crops. Here, perhaps, their condition is happier than anywhere else, as they are secured in the possession of their lands subject to the payment of revenue, liberally assisted with Government loans at low interest, and protected as far as possible from the petty extortion and peculation of Hindu subordinate officials and moneylenders. The opening of a substantial number of primary schools to serve these villages will, it may be hoped, have the effect of making the Gond a more intelligent and provident cultivator, and counteract the excessive addiction to liquor which is the great drawback to his prosperity. The fondness of the Gond for his bāri or garden plot adjoining his hut has been described in the section on villages and houses. 81. Hunting: traps for animals. The primary occupation of the Gonds in former times was hunting and fishing, but their opportunities in this respect have been greatly circumscribed by the conservation of the game in Government forests, which was essential if it was not to become extinct, when the native shikāris had obtained firearms. Their weapons were until recently bows and arrows, but now Gond hunters usually have an old matchlock gun. They have several ingenious devices for trapping animals. It is essential for them to make a stockade round their patch cultivation fields in the forests, or the grain would be devoured by pig and deer. At one point in this they leave a narrow opening, and in front of it dig a deep pit and cover it with brushwood and grass; then at the main entrance they spread some sand.
Coming in the middle of the night they see from the footprints in the sand what animals have entered the enclosure; if these are worth catching they close the main gate, and make as much noise as they can. The frightened animals dash round the enclosure and, seeing the opening, run through it and fall into the pit, where they are easily despatched with clubs and axes. They also set traps across the forest paths frequented by animals. The method is to take a strong raw-hide rope and secure one end of it to a stout sapling, which is bent down like a spring. The other end is made into a noose and laid open on the ground, often over a small hole. It is secured by a stone or log of wood, and this is so arranged by means of some kind of fall-trap that on pressure in the centre of the hole it is displaced and releases the noose. The animal comes and puts his foot in the hole, thus removing the trap which secured the noose. This flies up and takes the animal’s foot with it, being drawn tight in mid-air by the rebound of the sapling. The animal is thus suspended with one foot in the air, which it cannot free, and the Gonds come and kill it. Tigers are sometimes caught in this manner. A third very cruel kind of trap is made by putting up a hedge of thorns and grass across a forest-path, on the farther side of which they plant a few strong and sharply-pointed bamboo stakes. A deer coming up will jump the hedge, and on landing will be impaled on one of the stakes. The wound is very severe and often festers immediately, so that the victim dies in a few hours. Or they suspend a heavy beam over a forest path held erect by a loose prop which stands on the path. The deer comes along and knocks aside the prop, and the beam falls on him and pins him down. Mr. Montgomerie writes as follows on Gond methods of hunting:59 “The use of the bow and arrow is being forgotten owing to the restrictions placed by Government on hunting. The Gonds can still throw an axe fairly straight, but a running hare is a difficult mark and has a good chance of escaping. The hare, however, falls a victim to the fascination of fire. The Gond takes an earthen pot, knocks a large hole in the side of it, and slings it on a pole with a counterbalancing stone at the other end. Then at night he slings the pole over one shoulder, with the earthen pot in front containing fire, and sallies out hare-hunting. He is accompanied by a man who bears a bamboo. The hare, attracted and fascinated by the light, comes close and watches it stupidly till the bamboo descends on the animal’s head, and the Gonds have
hare for supper.” Sometimes a bell is rung as well, and this is said to attract the animals. They also catch fish by holding a lamp over the water on a dark night and spearing them with a trident.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 The country of Gondwāna properly included the Satpūra plateau and a section of the Nāgpur plain and Nerbudda valley to the south and west. Early History of India, 3rd ed. p. 337. Art. Gondwāna. Linguistic Survey, Munda and Dravidian Languages, iv. p. 285. Notes, p. 15. Garha is six miles from Jubbulpore. See article on Kol. Mr. Standen’s Betūl Settlement Report. The argument in this section will be followed more easily if read after the legend in the following paragraphs. Highlands of Central India (Chapman & Hall). Deo-khulla or threshing-floor of the gods. See section on Religion. Passage from Mr. Hislop’s version. Dhūpgarh in Pachmarhi might be indicated, which has a steep summit. Terminalia arjuna. This extract is reproduced by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Chapman & Hall, London. Tekām the teak tree, Markām the mango tree, and Telengām the Telugu. These are the names of well-known exogamous septs.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 See section on Religion. See also art. Kahār. The theory is stated and explained in vol. iv. of Exogamy and Totemism. See para. 15. Boswellia serrata. Semecarpus anacardium. Anogeissus latifolia. Diosypyros tomentosa. One rupee = 1s. 4d. From Mr. Langhorne’s monograph. The above rite has some resemblance to the test required of the suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey of bending the bow of Odysseus and shooting an arrow through the axes, which they could not perform. The information on child-birth is obtained from papers by Mr. Durga Prasād Pānde, Extra Assistant Commissioner, and the Rev. Mr. Franzen of Chhindwāra, and from notes taken in Mandla. See articles on Kunbi, Kurmi, and Mehtar. Boswellia serrata. The following examples of names were furnished by the Rev. Mr. Franzen and Mr. D. P. Pande. See article on Kurmi. Boswellia serrata. Deputy-Commissioner, Chhīndwāra. The note was contributed to the Central Provinces Census Report for 1881 (Mr. Drysdale). Ghora, a horse. Diospyros tomentosa. Cassia fistula.
38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 This is incorrect, at present at any rate, as the Karma is danced during the harvest period. But it is probable that the ritual observances for communal fishing and hunting have now fallen into abeyance. C. P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 130. This section contains some information furnished by R. B. Hīra Lāl. Notes on the Gonds, pp. 15, 16. Indian Caste, i. p. 325. See article Birhor. See article Bhunjia. Notes, p. 1. Highlands of Central India, p. 156. Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 41. Assessment of revenue for land. Quoted in C.P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 113. Chhīndwāra Settlement Report. Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 43. Ind. Ant. (1876), p. 359. See para. 65, Tattooing. See para. 41, Religion. Balaghat District Gazetteer, p. 87. Rāwan was the demon king of Ceylon who fought against Rāma, and from whom the Gonds are supposed to be descended. Hence this song may perhaps refer to a Gond revolt against the Hindus. The amaltas or Cassia fistula, which has flowers like a laburnum. The idea is perhaps that its leaves are too small to make a proper leaf-cup, and she will not take the trouble to get suitable leaves. Hislop, Notes, p. 2. Chhindwāra Settlement Report.
China In The Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L Thorp
Gond-Gowāri Gond-Gowāri.1—A small hybrid caste formed from alliances between Gonds and Gowāris or herdsmen of the Marātha country. Though they must now be considered as a distinct caste, being impure and thus ranking lower than either the Gonds or Gowāris, they are still often identified with either of them. In 1901 only 3000 were returned, principally from the Nāgpur and Chānda Districts. In 1911 they were amalgamated with the Gowāris, and this view may be accepted as their origin is the same. The Gowāris say that the Gond-Gowāris are the descendants of one of two brothers who accidentally ate the flesh of a cow. Both the Gonds and Gowāris frequent the jungles for long periods together, and it is natural that intimacies should spring up between the youth of either sex. And the progeny of these irregular connections has formed a separate caste, looked down upon by both its progenitors. The Gond-Gowāris have no subcastes, and for purposes of marriages are divided into exogamous septs, all bearing Gond names. Like the Gonds, the caste is also split into two divisions, worshipping six and seven gods respectively, and members of septs worshipping the same number of gods must not marry with each other. The deities of the six and seven god-worshippers are identical, except that the latter have one extra called Durga or Devi, who is represented by a copper coin of the old Nāgpur dynasty. Of the other deities Būra Deo is a piece of iron, Khoda and Khodāvan are both pieces of the kadamb tree (Nauclea parvifolia), Supāri is the areca-nut, and Kaipen consists of two iron rings and counts as two deities. It seems probable, therefore, from the double set of identical deities that two of the original ones have been forgotten. The gods are kept on a small piece of red cloth in a closed bamboo basket, which must not be opened except on days of worship, lest they should work some mischief; on these special days they are rendered harmless for the time being by the homage which is rendered to them. Marriage is adult, and a bride-price of nine rupees and some grain is commonly paid by the boy’s family. The ceremony is a mixture of Gond and Marātha forms; the couple walk seven times round a bohla or mound of earth and the guests clap their hands. At a widow-marriage they walk three and a half times round a burning lamp, as this is considered to be only a kind of half-marriage. The morality of the caste is very loose, and a wife will commonly be pardoned any transgression except an intrigue with a man of very low caste. Women of other castes, such as Kunbis or Barhais, may be admitted to the community on forming a connection with a Gond-Gowāri. The caste have no prescribed observance of mourning for the dead. The Gond-Gowāris are cultivators and labourers, and dress like the Kunbis. They are considered to be impure and must live outside the village, while other castes refuse to touch them. The bodies of the women are disfigured by excessive tattooing, the legs being covered with a pattern of dots and lines reaching up to the thighs. In this matter
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China In The Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L Thorp

  • 1. China In The Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L Thorp download https://ebookbell.com/product/china-in-the-early-bronze-age- shang-civilization-robert-l-thorp-5257250 Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com
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  • 6. China in the Early Bronze Age
  • 7. Encounters with Asia Victor H. Mair, Series Editor Encounters with Asia is an interdisciplinary series dedicated to the exploration of all the major regions and cultures of this vast continent. Its timeframe extends from the prehistoric to the contemporary; its geographic scope ranges from the Urals and the Caucasus to the Pacific. A particular focus of the series is the Silk Road in all of its ramifications: religion, art, music, medicine, science, trade, and so forth. Among the disciplines represented in this series are history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. The series aims particularly to clarify the complex interrelationships among various peoples within Asia, and also with societies beyond Asia.
  • 8. China in the Early Bronze Age Shang Civilization Robert L. Thorp PENN University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia
  • 9. Publication of this volume was assisted by a subvention from the Center for East Asian Studies of the University of Pennsylvania Copyright © 2006 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thorp, Robert L., 1946- China in the early bronze age: Shang civilization / Robert L. Thorp. p. cm.-(Encounters with Asia) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8122-3910-2 ISBN-I0: 0-8122-3910-5 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. China-History-Shang dynasty, 1766-1122 B.C. I. Title. II. Series DS744.2.T46 2005 931 '.02-dc22 2005042426
  • 10. In Memoriam: Kwang-chih Chang (193 1-200 1)
  • 12. Contents List of Illustrations A Note on Documentation Preface Introduction Geographical Setting: Macroregions Cultural Setting: The Longshan Age 1. Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Erlitou Culture The Erlitou Site The Material World: Bronze andJade Contemporary Cultures and Interaction The Search for the Xia 2. Foundations of the Bronze Age: The Erligang Culture A Network of Sites Technologies of Power and Prestige IX XVII XIX 1 1 7 21 25 36 49 57 62 62 78
  • 13. viii Contents Erligang Society: Material Evidence 99 Erligang and the Regions 106 3. The Shang Kings at Anyang 117 Exploration of Yinxu 120 "Great Settlement Shang" 126 Elite Crafts 153 4. Shang Cult: Divination and Sacrifice 172 Oracle-Bone Divination 172 Ritual Spaces and Sacrifice Ritual 185 Bronze Ritual Vessels 191 Inscriptions and Social Relations 208 5. The Late Shang World 214 The View from Yinxu 215 Exchange Relations: Resources and Products 237 Cause and Effect: Debts to Shang 244 Mterword: The Invention of Chinese Civilization 264 Suggested Reading 267 Notes 275 Index 283 Acknowledgments 291
  • 14. Illustrations Maps 1 China: macroregions 2 Distribution, Longshan Age sites 3 Chang's "Chinese Interaction Sphere" 4 Cultures contemporary with Erlitou 5 Erligang period sites 6 Late Shang sites near Anyang 7 Sites contemporary with Anyang Figures P.l "Three Sovereigns" rubbing from Wu family shrines 0.1 K. C. Chang at Shangqiu 0.2 Walls at Shijiahe, Tianmen 0.3 Walls at Taosi site, Xiangfen 0.4 Settlement distribution near Chengziyai 1.1 Erlitou site 5 9 13 49 63 118 215 XXVI 11 16 18 19 22
  • 15. x Illustrations 1.2 Courtyards at Erlitou 1.3 Tombs at Erlitou 1.4 Erlitou Culture sites, Vi-Luo drainage 1.5 Longshan Age walled sites 1.6 Erlitou Culture pottery 1.7 Bronze bell, Erlitou 1.8 Bronze plaques, Erlitou 1.9 Bronze blades, Erlitou 1.10 Bronze jue vessel, Erlitou 1.11 Bronze jia vessel, Erlitou 1.12 Bronze he tripod, Erlitou 1.13 Jade yueaxe, Erlitou 1.14 Xindian walled site, Chifeng 1.15 Jades, Erlitou and Shijiahe 1.16 Metal artifacts, Siba sites 1.17 Jue and gui, Dadianzi, Chifeng 1.18 Painted pottery designs, Dadianzi 2.1 Erligang period walls, Zhengzhou 2.2 Plan of Erligang period wall, Yanshi 2.3 Cross-section of Zhengzhou wall 2.4 Peasants pounding earth, Qian County 2.5 Plan ofwest gate no. 2, Yanshi wall 29 33 35 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 47 48 51 53 55 56 58 65 68 69 71 72
  • 16. 2.6 Erligang period walled sites 2.7 Houses at Taixi site, Gaocheng 2.8 House, Mengzhuang, Zhecheng 2.9 Restoration of foundation 15, Zhengzhou 2.10 Plan and restoration of halls, Panlongcheng 2.11 Bronze architectural fitting, Xiaoshuangqiao 2.12 Fangding, Duling, Zhengzhou 2.13 Muslim food products factory pit, Zhengzhou 2.14 You from factory pit 2.15 Nanshuncheng road site, Zhengzhou 2.16 Nanshuncheng road assemblage 2.17 Erligang period mining, Tongling 2.18 Ceramic molds, Nanguanwai, Zhengzhou 2.19 Bivalve mold for ge dagger-axe 2.20 Mold set for jia 2.21 Burials, Taixi 2.22 Plan of Lijiazui grave 2, Panlongcheng 2.23 Artifact scatter, Dayangzhou, Xin'gan 2.24 Dayangzhou fangding 2.25 Dayangzhou yan (xian) 2.26 Dayangzhou li 2.27 Dayangzhou fangyou Illustrations xi 74 77 77 80 82 84 87 88 89 90 91 93 95 96 97 103 105 109 111 112 113 114
  • 17. xii Illustrations 2.28 Dayangzhou bronze head 3.1 "Second generation" archaeologists 3.2 Aerial view, Huan River and Yinxu 3.3 Palace zone, Xiaotun North 3.4 Royal tombs, Xibeigang 3.5 Huan-bei Shang wall site 3.6 Plan of palace J-l, Huan-bei site 3.7 Sites along Huan River 3.8 D Group foundations, Xiaotun East 3.9 Carvings from foundations 10 and 11, Xiaotun North 3.10 Casting shop with mold assembly, Miaopu North 3.11 Fragments of decorated molds, Miaopu North 3.12 Plan of tomb 1550, Xibeigang 3.13 Grave clusters and inscriptions, West Zones 3.14 Ceramic seriation from Yinxu burials 3.15 Hard white pottery vessel 3.16 Ivory goblets, tomb 5, Anyang 3.17 Stone chime, Anyang 3.18 Marble animals, tomb 1001, Xibeigang 3.19 Inscription onjade ge, tomb 18, Xiaotun North 3.20 Bing with ancestor dedications, Hougang tomb 3 3.21 Jade menagerie, tomb 5 115 124 127 128 130 132 133 134 139 140 141 143 148 151 154 156 158 159 160 162 163 164
  • 18. 3.22 Jade and stone figures, tomb 5 3.23 Jade phoenix, Shijiahe Culture, tomb 5 3.24 Bronze yue, tomb 5 3.25 Weapons 3.26 Chariot pit (M40), Meiyuanzhuang 4.1 Hollows on scapulas and plastrons 4.2 Scapula and rubbing, Locus West 4.3 Plastron, Huayuanzhuang East 4.4 Display inscription (Bingbian 247) 4.5 Offering hall, tomb 5, Locus North 4.6 Sacrificial tracts, Locus North 4.7 Sacrificial pit, Hougang 4.8 Si Qiao Mu fanghu, tomb 5 4.9 Ya zhijiao, tomb 160, Guojiazhuang 4.10 Fangdingvessels 4.11 Bowls (gui, yu), tomb 5 4.12 Jia vessels, tomb 5 4.13 Square-section vessels, tomb 160, Guojiazhuang 4.14 Fu Hao fangzun, tomb 5 4.15 YM232 assemblage 4.16 Mask motifs, tomb 5 4.17 Band decoration, tomb 172, Miaopu North Illustrations xiii 166 167 168 169 170 174 175 177 178 186 188 190 193 196 197 199 200 202 203 205 206 207
  • 19. xiv Illustrations 4.18 Wu Fu Yi he and inscription 4.19 Inscriptions, tomb 1713, West Zones 4.20 Shu Si Zi ding inscription, Hougang 5.1 Late Shang clan emblems 5.2 Late Shang clan emblems, Ya Chou 5.3 Tomb, Taiqing Gong, Luyi 5.4 Plan ofM1, Lingshi 5.5 "Bing" emblems, Lingshi M1 5.6 Bronze vessels, Lingshi M1 5.7 Baton, Lingshi M1 5.8 Northern Zone weapons and regalia 5.9 Anyang nao bells, West Zones M699 5.10 Rubbing of giant nao bell, Shiguzhai 5.11 Plan ofwalls, Sanxingdui, Guanghan 5.12 Bronze zun vessel, Sanxingdui pit 2 5.13 Stoneware zun, Zhengzhou 5.14 Stoneware zun, Xin'gan 5.15 Bronze drum, Chongyang 5.16 Courtyard, Fengchu Village, Qishan 5.17 Excavation of pit 2, Sanxingdui 5.18 Bronze heads, pits 1 and 2 209 211 212 219 220 221 224 225 226 227 229 231 232 235 236 240 241 243 247 250 253
  • 20. 5.19 Bronze masks, pit 2 5.20 Bronze standing figure, pit 2 5.21 "Animal mask," pit 2 5.22 Female figure with offering vessel, pit 2 5.23 Nine-branch tree, pit 2 5.24 Unknown object, pit 2 5.25 Site plan, Huangzhong andJinsha, Chengdu 5.26 Gold sun disk 5.27 Bronze standing figure 5.28 Stone kneeling figure Tables 0.1 Longshan Age Walled Sites 1.1 Sandai (Three Dynasties) Chronology 2.1 Archaeological Cultures and Periods 2.2 Erligang Period Walled Sites 3.1 Yinxu Periodization 3.2 Xibeigang Tombs and Shang Reigns 4.1 Census, Excavated Bronze Vessels 4.2 Attributed Burials, Yinxu 5.1 Contents, Sanxingdui Pits Illustrations xv 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 15 24 64 64 125 147 195 210 251
  • 21. xvi Illustrations Box Features 1 What Are "Cultural Relics"? 2 The Institute ofArchaeology 3 Mythic Narratives 4 K.C.Chang 5 The Three Dynasties Chronology Project 6 Regional Survey and Erlitou 7 Myths of the Xia 8 Hangtu: Building with Pounded Earth 9 Royal Rites at Zhengzhou? 10 Myths of the Shang 11 Anyang Archaeologists 12 The Anyang Work Team 13 The Huan-bei Wall 14 Tomb 5 and Lady Hao 15 H. G. Creel: Excavating at Anyang 16 David N. Keightley: Divination as Process 17 Max Loehr and His "Five Styles" 18 The Lords of Bing 19 NaoBells of Hunan 20 Myths of the Zhou xix XXI xxv 11 23 34 59 70 86 100 118 123 131 136 145 180 192 223 231 245
  • 22. A Note on Documentation The text is furnished with notes that credit Chinese-language sources. Books are cited by author, title (in Chinese romanization only) and date; unless otherwise noted, all publications were produced in Beijing. Journals are cited by abbreviation (KG, KJ, KX, ~ WZC for Kaogu, Kaoguxue jikan, Kaogu xuebao, Wenwu, Wenwu Ziliao Congkan respectively), with year and issue number. Authorship is indicated when individuals are named; institutional (collective, group) authorship is not listed. English-language sources will be found in the Suggested Reading sec- tion, by chapter.
  • 24. Preface For anyone interested in ancient China, the last three decades have been a proverbial golden age. This era began in 1972, even before the chaos of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (wenhua da geming) had sub- sided. Two actions taken by the government introduced the world to contemporary Chinese archaeology. First, the three nationaljournals of archaeology and "cultural relics" work (Box 1) resumed publication after a hiatus since 1966. Month by month in 1972 reports and photographs of extraordinary discoveries appeared. Although archaeologists had
  • 26. Preface xxi been sent down to May 7th cadre schools and even pig farms, as with the staff of the Institute ofArchaeology (Box 2), significant strides had been made. And at about the same time, some of these discoveries-from Ne- olithic pots to Han burial shrouds and Yuan blue-and-white porcelain- became the signature objects for ambitious exhibitions sent to Europe o 2 cha oogy
  • 27. xxii Preface andJapan, and eventually also Canada and the United States ("the Chi- nese Exhibition"). This initiative was designed to counter negative news generated by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and to make the case that the People's Republic (PRC) was a responsible member of the world community, one that respects its cultural heritage. Contemporary politics mixed with archaeology and history. Issues of Kaogu (Archaeology) and Wenwu (Cultural Relics) were, to be sure, prefaced by the requisite "Sayings of Chairman Mao" on their fly leaf, as an imprimatur that certified political orthodoxy. Excavation reports as well as other articles, moreover, were punctuated by bold type quoting Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, as well as Mao, as a kind of Marxist commentary on their contents. Some articles were even writ- ten by the workers of a factory or soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) who had been inspired when taking part in a salvage exca- vation. Some issues were overwhelmed by articles on the latest political campaign-for example, "Criticize Confucius and Lin Biao" in the late 1970s, but even so there was space for reporting a new Han tomb or Neolithic cemetery. Month by month and year after year this dance played out. Gradually the political icing disappeared from the archaeo- logical cake. Within the Ministry of Culture and Cultural Relics Bureau, ideologues criticized the presentation of their traveling exhibition in Great Britain, where it was called "The Genius of China." The catalog featured a text by an English art historian, William Watson, who made references to such in- appropriate subjects as dynastic periods and the quality of objects. When the exhibition came to the U.S. in 1975, these guardians of revolutionary truth insisted on a sanitized catalogue that applied the Marxist-Maoist framework of Primitive Society, Slave Society, and Feudal Society and eschewed anything more than the briefest captions. Even so, the "Chinese
  • 28. Preface xxiii Exhibition" was the most attended special exhibit to that date at its Amer- ican venues, the National Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Nelson Gallery (Kansas City), and Asian Art Museum (San Francisco). Articles and pho- tographs saturated much of the U.S. media. They made a deep impres- sion on me, a graduate student at the time. When I first went to Beijing in 1979 as part of a small team preparing a second exhibition from the PRC, "The Great Bronze Age of China," it was still vexing for our well-meaning hosts to deal with "foreign friends." To live in the Peking Hotel for a month, while working six days a week in the Forbidden City quarters of the Committee for Overseas Archaeo- logical Exhibitions, was still very much to live inside the belly of the Stalinist beast. That exhibition was curated by both U.S. and Chinese scholars, with texts by the former comprising most of the catalog. To clarify "misrepresentations," the Chinese side required inclusion of an ap- pendix detailing their contrary interpretations of the same evidence, a fascinating critique of art historical writing.1 This exhibition succeeded largely because of the inclusion of eight terra cotta warriors and horses from the tomb of the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.e.E.), their first visit to the U.S. and a great draw for the public. In retrospect, resumption of normal intellectual life and greater inter- action with the wider world have progressed steadily since the 1970s, even with the setback ofJune 4, 19S9. In these three decades, Chinese ar- chaeologists have participated in one of the great ages of world archae- ology, not only placing before our eyes "wonderful things" (hao dongxi) like terra cotta warriors, bronzes, and jades, but also, more significantly, creating new knowledge. In spite of the strains induced by the Four Modernizations in the 19S0s, which made archaeological work more ex- pensive and a career in that field much less remunerative than many others, there has been notable professionalization within the ranks of Chinese archaeologists. More and more field archaeologists are university graduates with advanced degrees. Scientific tools and methodologies- carbon-14 dating, phytoliths, GIS, DNA studies-unheard of in China in the 1970s are now widely employed. International collaboration in the field has been underway for almost a decade with Japanese, European, and American partners. And scholarship has synthesized and interpreted new data generated since 1949, on the one hand, and embraced a wide range of theoretical approaches, on the other. China has contributed a stunning list of sites to the UNESCO World Heritage program, and built new museums that rival their peers in Europe and America. Knowledge of China pre-modern cultures has changed fundamentally from the state of the field thirty years ago. When I started graduate school in 1973, at the beginning of this golden age, data with which to investigate the early stages of Chinese culture were extremely limited
  • 29. xxiv Preface and inconsistent in quality, mostly brief reports with poor illustrations and boiler plate analysis. Today data for every topic are overwhelming in sheer quantity and much improved in general quality, and a large litera- ture has appeared on most topics. In 1972, I could read all of every issue of the journals Kaogu and Wenwu, leaving aside Marxist-Maoist commen- taries on the evils of the conspicuous consumption of a Han prince. The eighteen issues together numbered 1,231 pages. In 2001, the twenty- four issues of these same two journals totaled 2,320 pages, without politi- cal harangues. And these flagship publications, along with Kaogu xuebao (Acta Archaeologica Sinica) once effectively the whole periodical litera- ture, are today only part of the current serials. Regional journals also demand attention, as do other publications not devoted exclusively to archaeology. Reports of excavations, both brief accounts in journals and formal monographs, are likewise only part of the picture: scholarly arti- cles and books, collections of essays, symposium volumes, catalogues, and reference works are equally essential. Few if any libraries in China or the U.S. can actually subscribe to all these journals or keep abreast of all these publications. Prior to 1950, Shang archaeology was limited to excavations at one complex of sites near the modern city of Anyang (Chapter 3). Between 1950 and 1966, when publications were interrupted, a handful of new finds offered clues to earlier stages of the Shang culture (the Erligang and Erlitou sites, both in Henan, Chapters 1 and 2), and to a few re- gional developments. But these preliminary reports, short on analysis and poorly illustrated, could not paint a very arresting picture. The sec- ond edition of K. C. Chang's Archaeology ofAncient China (published in 1968; see Box 4) recapitulates finds from the 1950s and 1960s. Chang's summary was still dominated by the more complete archaeological record from prewar diggings at Anyang (1928-37), then being published injour- nals and monographs on Taiwan. The progress of Shang archaeology since 1972 has been enormous. Work has continued at the major Henan centers, Erlitou, Erligang, and Anyang. In each case there has been quantitative growth and qualitative improvement in data, and hence in our ability to date and interpret evi- dence. Formal reports for Erlitou (1999) and Zhengzhou (2001) present the bulk of the data recovered from the 1950s through the 1980s. Exca- vations have also embraced at least thirteen other provinces constituting the North, Northwest, and Yangzi macroregions (see Map 1). Every cate- gory of evidence, from pottery to oracle-bone inscriptions, from bronze vessels to chariots, from social-political organization to cult practices, has been enriched. We have more of the material culture at hand, and we know more about it: materials and their sources, techniques of man- ufacture, distribution, development, and functional contexts.
  • 30. Preface xxv In tandem with prehistoric archaeology, the manifold discoveries of the early Bronze Age force a fundamental reinterpretation of ancient China.2 Any narrative we write today must consider early, parallel developments in different macroregions and the ways those cultures interacted over time. The culture of the Late Shang period (officially c. 1300-1046 B.e.E.) was manifestly the product of such interactions. For the second millennium as a whole, we have begun to recognize several advanced Bronze Age cul- tures that coexisted with the literate Shang or their ancestors. Most of these developments are not represented in the accounts of traditional his- toriography (Box 3). The Bronze Age world of the late second millen- nium was more diverse and complex than traditional scholars imagined. 3
  • 32. Preface xxvii In this book, I attempt to synthesize these recent excavations: to pull the evidence together and to create a tentative framework for this forma- tive age in East Asia. New brief reports have appeared in the months I have been writing, and formal reports of that work will not appear, at best, for several years. Yet the data at hand are certainly sufficient to stim- ulate further studies. I have written for an audience drawn to the topic by their interest, without assuming any prior familiarity on their part with Chinese studies or archaeology. I draw on all sources now available, most of all Chinese archaeological reports, as well as secondary scholarship in Chinese and English, including the writings of epigraphers, historians, and art historians. The resulting chapters are not the same as the rendi- tions of scholars whose primary focus is inscriptions or bronze casting, but I have tried to learn from other specialists and to acknowledge my debts to them.3 References to excavation reports and other sources, al- most entirely Chinese-language publications, will be found in the notes. Suggestions for additional reading provide entree into English-language scholarship, although it generally lags behind efforts in China. This volume surveys the early Bronze Age in parts of modern-day China, from the Erlitou Culture to the end of dynastic Shang (officially, c. 2070-1046 B.e.E.). Both my selection of topics and their coverage are driven by what archaeologists have accomplished and had an opportu- nity to digest. I have studied many of these topics myself for about thirty years, both as a university teacher and a writer. I have also had the privi- lege of participating (1997-99) in a Sino-American survey of the Anyang region that has yielded unexpected results (see Box 13). This experi- ence, and many trips to China most years since 1979, have given me the chance to meet Chinese colleagues, to see their sites and collections, and to exchange ideas both at formal gatherings and numerous informal encounters. This book is the product most of all of the hard work and in- telligence of several generations of Chinese archaeologists.
  • 34. Introduction Early Bronze Age societies grew from deep roots in several regions of modern-day China. Before embarking on our survey of those develop- ments, we should review both the physical setting and cultural develop- ments at the beginning of this new age. Geographical Setting: Macroregions Most readers carry in their heads an icon of China derived from con- temporary maps. This mental picture represents the greater part of East Asia, from Manchuria to Hainan Island and from coastal cities to Cen- tral Asian deserts. An expansive map of China-now the territory of the PRC-is an abberation in the context of Chinese history. This map dates only from the late eighteenth century, when the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) expanded its borders to include territories inhabited by Mongols, Central Asian Turkish speakers, and Tibetans. The Manchu empire was demonstrably the largest state in the world in its day, cer- tainly the most populous, and arguably the most powerful. Its great sov- ereign, the Qianlong emperor (Hongli, r. 1735-96), could look with some disdain on European envoys like Lord Macartney who arrived at his capital in hopes of securing diplomatic and trade relations. Never before had China dominated so much of East Asia. Qianlong's empire, shorn only of "Outer" Mongolia, became the map of China in the twen- tieth century, and hence that of the PRC. The modern map represents a state of vast dimensions, the second largest country in area (after Russia) at 3.7 million square miles (9.3 mil- lion sq km). (The United States is slightly smaller at 3.6 million sq mi.) Topographical and climatic diversity are extreme: from subarctic terrain in Heilongjiang at the latitude of Hudson's Bay, Canada, to tropical forests in Guangxi at the latitude of Havana, Cuba, from the world's highest plateau in Tibet, to the coastal lowlands of Guangdong. Divided into provinces (now twenty-two, plus Taiwan), autonomous regions (five),
  • 35. 2 Introduction and centrally-administered cities (four), the PRC has a total population in excess of 1.2 billion. Many modern Chinese provinces are compara- ble in area and population to the largest, most populous European na- tions. Henan, for example, is 167,000 sq km in area with a population estimated (in 1997) at 93.9 million. This population-one in five hu- mans living on earth-comprises one of the world's most diverse states, with fifty-five recognized national minorities (shaoshu minzu, 9 percent of the population) in addition to the "Han" (notionally Chinese) major- ity. This China, with its vast territories and staggering population, did not exist in the second millennium B.e.E. when our story takes place. Nor should we assign our story the status of a creation epic for the PRC and its many peoples. Rather, in this book our story transpires in por- tions of the modern map, and involves a fraction of the diversity in envi- ronment and human groups noted above. To analyze the great bulk of modern China, we must first isolate core from periphery. For our purposes, the core (also called Inner China, Agrarian China, or China Proper) can be defined as about half the area of the PRC, territory east of a diagonal running from southern Manchuria in the northeast to western Yunnan in the southwest. Cleav- ing the map here, we pare off most of Manchuria, and all of Mongolia, Xinjiang, and the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (regions sometimes collec- tively called Outer China). There are several rationales for making this split: (1) these territories were, with few exceptions, worlds apart from Chinese history until the Ming and Qing periods; (2) each region ex- hibits strong contrasts in terrain, climate, subsistence, and indigenous populations when compared to the core; (3) until recently, only about 5 percent of the PRC's population lived in these regions, compared to 95 percent in the roughly equal area of the core. This periphery figures only to a very limited degree in our story of the early Bronze Age. With such exceptions as the transmission of the horse-drawn chariot from points west, the Shang and their contemporaries had little to do with most cultures of the periphery as defined here. What remains as the core is still, however, more territory than we will engage in our story. The tectonics, the underlying physical structures of the earth, of China Proper divide its terrain into a series of stepped zones decreasing in elevation like terraces from west to east. The west- ern highlands of China Proper, both north and south, are intermediate in altitude (at 1000-2000 m) between the extremely high plateaus ofTi- bet and Qinghai (about 4000 m), on the one hand, and much lower ar- eas stretching east to the coast (at less than 50 m). Both the Erlitou and Erligang archaeological cultures developed in the transitional zone be- tween the middle terrace and the lower, eastern plains. Further shaping
  • 36. Introduction 3 the terrain of China Proper are east-west trending mountain chains, ex- tensions of even higher ranges of Outer China. Separating North China from the Mongolian steppe (and periphery) are the Yanshan Moun- tains, north of modern Beijing. Running across the midriff of China Proper is the Qinling range that, in the west, separates the Wei River drainage of modern Shaanxi from the Sichuan basin. Its eastern exten- sions separate north and south through the center. Finally, north of the Guangdong-Guangxi basin run the Nanling Mountains. These major east-west ranges do not account for all mountainous terrain. A series of upfolds (anticlines) running northeast to southwest cross both the stepped terraces and east-west ranges described above. For example, a single fold erupts as mountains on the Korean peninsula and reappears as the coastal mountains of Fujian. Another fold created the Taihang Mountains that separate North China lowlands from the northwest loess highlands. Further south, this fold demarcates the Upper Yangzi from the Middle Yangzi, as the setting for the Yangzi Gorges. As a conse- quence of these overlaid tectonic structures, about 33 percent of China Proper is mountainous, 26 percent plateaus, 19 percent basins, 12 per- cent plains, and 10 percent low hill country. Arable, flat terrain is gener- ally at a premium. Two great river systems cross this checkerboard of tectonic features. In the north, the Yellow River (Huang he) arises on the Qinghai- Tibetan plateau, and flows generally east and north to create a great loop around the Ordos desert. It then flows south between north-south mountains before turning left about 90 degrees to come down from the second terrace onto the eastern plains and debouch in the Yellow Sea. Like the Yangzi River in central China, the Yellow River links the highest terraces of Outer China to coastal areas of the core, but it is not naviga- ble for much of that course. Its great bend was, however, a conduit for human communication from the western margins of the North China plain (Luoyang and Zhengzhou) to the Wei River valley (modern Xi'an). The path of this great river across the plain changed many times in prehistory and in historic times. Its modern course, northeast of the Taishan massif of Shandong, is only one of several routes, albeit close to the path it followed during Shang times. The appellation "yellow" de- rives from the immense burden of silt (loess) this river carries, currently estimated at 1.6 billion tons per year. Its waters consequently are much like a slurry or soup. The other great river system, the Yangzi or Changjiang (the "winding" or "long" river), also arises in the high plateaus of the west, cuts its path southward through highlands in parallel with other great rivers of Southeast Asia (the Mekong and Salween) before entering the Sichuan
  • 37. 4 Introduction basin from the south. The Yangzi crosses this intermediate terrace be- fore cutting through its eastern flanks, in modern Chongqing and Hubei (the Three Gorges). Once free, the Yangzi then meanders across low-lying country from the lakelands of Hubei-Hunan into the Lower Yangzi delta below Nanjing. The river and its tributaries feed two great lakes: Lake Dongting in modern Hunan ("south of the lake"), once known as Lake Yunmeng and a natural catchment basin for all of cen- tral China, and Lake Boyang of modern Jiangxi. Unlike the Yellow, the Yangzi River is navigable for great distances east and west, and serves to- day as an essential transportation corridor. Its volume of water is far greater than the Yellow, and it broad channel was a m~or impediment to north-south communication until recent times. The worlds of these two great river systems are markedly different. The Yellow River drainage has a climate of four distinct seasons, cold winters, some snowfall, with most precipitation in the hottest months of summer. It is relatively arid; dry field agriculture predominates. Nowa- days two crops per year are generally expected, with harvests in May- June and September-October. Deciduous and conifer forests once covered foothills and mountains of the North, but serious deforestation has taken place over time. The natural fauna and flora are those of tem- perate zones. By contrast, the Yangzi River drainage is a climatic zone without harsh winter weather, some frost notwithstanding, and regular monsoonal rainfall in the summer months. It is a humid environment, with extensive areas of marsh lands, numerous lakes and rivers, and paddy rice agriculture predominant. Three crops per year are possible. Forest cover cloaks the many uplands and mountains, although here too deforestation has been an accelerating problem. Natural fauna and flora are subtropical, even tropical. The civilization of the early Bronze Age took shape within both climatic regimes. The relief map of Inner China, subdivided by mountain chains and linked by its great rivers, can best be understood in terms of physio- graphic units called macroregions (Map 1). The scheme of regions used here is derived from the work of G. W. Skinner, whose focus was the eco- nomic structure of the late empire, especially Qing markets and urban- ization. Nonetheless, Skinner's insights are extremely useful for an analysis of the Bronze Age and even earlier periods precisely because, unlike modern provinces or their premodern antecedents, a macrore- gion is a natural physiographic unit. Each macroregion centers on an in- ternal river system (its core), where the most arable land and best water resources are found. Each region is circumscribed, in turn, by natural barriers (its periphery), mainly mountain ranges that determine internal drainage. Mountains are never absolute barriers to human movement, but they do create incentives for human groups to cluster within a region
  • 38. Introduction 5 _ •_ International boundary - - Macroregional boundary Regional core o 100 MILES , I Map 1. China: macroregions. William G. Skinner, "The Structure of Chinese History," Journal ofAsian Studies 44, 2 (February 1985): 273. and to interact along its internal river system. Macroregions are in most cases comparable to or even larger than the area, natural resources, and populations of states in other parts of the globe. These regions were in fact the building blocks of that historical creation we call "China." Recog- nizing them at the outset, in our discussion of the late prehistoric inter- action sphere (see Map 3), and keeping them in focus throughout our investigation, will sharpen our appreciation of this historical process.
  • 39. 6 Introduction The macroregions can be grouped by latitude into three bands: north, center, and south. The North China macroregion occupies the eastern half of China Proper in the north, largely the lower drainage of the Yellow River. Its northern boundary, the Yanshan range, is close to the traditional line of the Great Wall of China, running from the sea coast to the interior. A fairly sharp demarcation of terrain and cultures differentiates the North China plain and the grassland steppes of Inner Mongolia. Its western boundary is the Taihang range trending generally northeast-southwest, approximating the modern border of Hebei and Shanxi provinces. The Yellow River enters the North China Plain near the southern end of this range through Sanmen Gorge. Its southern boundary comprises low mountains extending east from the Qinling range to the Huai River, which itself constitutes the drainage for the southern plains. The Huang-Huai drainage surrounds the Shandong massif, and extends along the coast from the Great Wall to northern Jiangsu. The largest concentration of early Bronze Age sites will be found in this macroregion, many distributed around the central holy mountain, Mount Song. The western half of northern China is the Northwest macroregion. Here "natural" limits are in the eye of the beholder. Its eastern bound- ary with the North China macroregion has already been defined, and the high loess lands that extend westward from the Taihang are a major feature of this region. Its southern boundary is also the Qinling range, running east-west and defining the southern limits of the Wei River drainage. This basin, along with the middle reaches of the Yellow (divid- ing modern Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces) and the drainage of the Fen River (the drainage of modern Shanxi), constitute the macroregional core. The challenge for this macroregion is establishing its putative northern and western limits. Both could be defined as the mountains that overlook the Wei River on the north, a narrow construction. Taking a wider view, the region includes much of the Gansu corridor trending northwest, as well as the northern and western margins of the Yellow River as it arcs around the Ordos desert. However its regional limits are defined, this is the land of loess, an aeolian, fine particle soil brought into the region by wind since the retreat of the last Ice Age glaciers. Much loess has, in turn, been redeposited in the North China macrore- gion by river flows (hence the Yellow River), so that it is characteristic of the North China Plain as well. The middle band of macroregions is no less than the Yangzi River sys- tem, subdivided into Upper, Middle, and Lower segments. Here too some choices must be imposed on an ostensible natural order. The Up- per Yangzi macroregion consists of the Sichuan basin, more or less the modern province of that name, delimited by the Qinling on the north,
  • 40. Introduction 7 the Three Gorges on the east, and other mountain chains on south and west. The regional core comprises the basins of the traditional "four rivers" (si chuan) , including the Yangzi, Jialing, Min, and Wu. The Mid- dle Yangzi macroregion is the lake country of modern Hubei and Hu- nan provinces, including major tributaries that flow into the lakes from north (the Han River) and south (the Xiang River). One can also in- clude the Gan River drainage of modern Jiangxi province flowing into Lake Boyang. (The latter can also be defined as its own macroregion, since it too is a drainage within an encircling mountain boundary.) The Lower Yangzi macroregion is somewhat hard to delimit on the north, but the combined Lower Yangzi drainage and Qiantang River drainage (Zhejiang province) offer a practical definition. Both the Upper and Middle Yangzi (including Gan River) macroregions now supply impor- tant archaeological evidence for the early Bronze Age. The southern band of macroregions figure not at all in our discus- sions. The Southeast Coast macroregion, the Lingnan (or Far South) macroregion, and the Yungui (or Southwest) macroregion are effec- tively excluded by the lack, to date, of significant evidence for the early Bronze Age. The penetration of these regions by peoples from the North began in earnest in the Qin period, the late third century B.C.E., and gradually increased over the early and middle empires (Han and Tang). Han-Chinese populations pushed local groups out of regional cores, a process that accelerated finally in Ming and Qing times. A high percentage of the modern "national minorities" are indigenous inhabi- tants of these southern macroregions. Contact between these macroregions can be identified in the archae- ological record from the late Neolithic period (c. 5000-2000 B.C.E.). Low mountains and valley streams permitted communication between North China and the Middle and Lower Yangzi macroregions, respec- tively. River valleys and steeper paths connected the Northwest and Up- per Yangzi macroregions, so the channels for communication were perhaps more restricted. East-west communication also utilized the great river valleys, although until modern times the transit from Middle to Upper Yangzi was especially arduous. Moreover, none of the outer limits of these same macroregions excluded contacts with neighboring peoples, although their peripheries do represent the effective limit of the ethnic-Han population in early times. Cultural Setting: The Longshan Age The sources of the early Bronze Age cultures of the northern and cen- tral macroregions are to be found in the third millennium B.C.E. This period has been commonly referred to, rather redundantly, as the late
  • 41. 8 Introduction phase of the late Neolithic, or Terminal Neolithic (xin shiqi shidai moqi) , Chalcolithic Age (tong shi bingyong qi), or even as the Age ofJade (yuqi shidai). It is not surprising that several competing terms are in play. Each term foregrounds its own logic. The Neolithic as a whole is now dated c. 10,000-2000 B.C.E., with the late period starting c. 5000 B.C.E. The use of "terminal," which we adopt, has the virtue of defining more narrowly a discrete final portion of this very lengthy period. While met- als, both copper and bronze, are known from a variety Neolithic sites, especially in the Northwest, it would be an overstatement to characterize the millennium as an age when metals were of considerable significance in these societies. And to characterize this whole period as an "Age of Jade" seems misleading on similar grounds. Regional cultures show dif- ferent propensities toward the use of hardstones, including true jades. Only a few, like the Lower Yangzi Liangzhu Culture, exploited them to a marked degree. Traits invoked in conventional definitions of the term "civilization" are characteristic of many Terminal Neolithic societies.! Populations grew, and higher agricultural production is commonly assumed. In- creased production depended on opening new fields and quite possibly on better organized labor. Settlements increased in real numbers, in their scale, and in the complexity of regional distribution patterns. In some areas, two or three hierarchical levels are indicated by survey data. In such regions, large centers had relationships with smaller outlying settlements as well as dispersed farming hamlets. Many regional centers were walled-especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River (North China) and Middle Yangzi macroregion. Walls and some structures within them show use of the rammed earth (hangtu) process associated with Bronze Age architecture (see Box 8). Burials at these sites, moreover, show evidence for social stratification: a small number of richly furnished, large graves contrast to less well furnished medium and small burials. Prestige goods-finely crafted pottery and hard- stones, in particular-also figure prominently in the archaeological record. Some use of metals is attested, as well as evidence for signs or graphs, perhaps early writing. All of these traits of sites and artifacts, recoverable through archaeological techniques, indicate in the aggre- gate the development of ranked societies with elites in centers exercis- ing power over regions. Some of these societies may be classed as chiefdoms or even incipient states. Chinese scholars now refer to archaeological cultures of the Terminal Neolithic as the "Longshan Age" (Map 2).2 The place name Longshan derives from a district in Zhangqiu County, Shandong province, where archaeologists investigated the Chengziyai site in 1930-31. Chengziyai was first discovered by a Shandong native, WuJinding (G. D. Wu), who
  • 42. ~ ~ ,,~~ ...:. -... . . Map 2. Distribution of Longshan Age sites. Van, "Longshan wenhua he shidai," in Shiqian kaogu lunji (1998), p. 27.
  • 43. 10 Introduction recognized stone celts and pottery sherds he found exposed in a road cut. When dangerous local conditions made excavations at Anyang, Henan, impossible (Chapter 3), the excavation team assembled by Acad- emia Sinica moved to Chengziyai. There they unearthed portions of a large walled compound, and recovered abundant black pottery, includ- ing so-called eggshell wares. This evidence was interpreted at the time as a Neolithic tradition parallel to the then better-known Yangshao Culture "painted pottery" of Henan and Gansu. The Black Pottery or Longshan Culture was found subsequently at many sites surrounding the Taishan massif, south of the Yellow River. Liang Siyong, working at the Hougang mound near Anyang, recognized what he called a "triple stratigraphy": Longshan sherds above Yangshao ones, but below Shang remains. Long- shan black wares thereafter were understood either as a separate cul- tural tradition (the two cultures theory) or as a tradition flowing from the earlier Yangshao Culture. The postwar decade saw numerous archaeological surveys, so that by 1959 Neolithic cultures had been recognized in several macroregions. The Miaodigou site near Sanmenxia, in western Henan south of the Yel- low River, and the neighboring Sanliqiao site across a ravine, inspired An Zhimin to posit a developmental sequence from late Yangshao to early Longshan (called the Miaodigou II Culture). Yangshao painted pottery then became diagnostic of the early Neolithic, while Longshan black pottery was characteristic of late Neolithic sites. Cultures compara- ble in development to the Shandong Longshan were identified in parts of Henan, Shaanxi, and the Lower and Middle Yangzi. Thus was born the "Nuclear theory." In brief, this proposed: (1) the Yangshao Culture gave way to Longshan in the Yellow River heartland of Henan-Shaanxi- Shanxi, (2) developments across a wider area reflected a subsequent ex- pansion from that nuclear area. Defining a "Lungshanoid horizon" was an early contribution of Kwang-chih Chang in his influential Archaeology ofAncient China, first edition 1963 (Box 4). Chang's list of horizon traits was persuasive but at the time could not be anchored in an absolute chronology. The publication of radiocarbon datings in the early 1970s turned this evidence on its head. Carbon datings demonstrated the antiquity of many regional cultures outside the Nuclear Area, cultures that had been assumed to be later in time than the former. The supposed primacy of the nuclear area thus vanished. Instead, it became increasingly obvious, for example in Chang's third (1977) and fourth editions (1986), that other regions had their own lengthy developmental histories prior to the Lungshanoid horizon. Expansion from a heartland center would no longer fully explain these regional developments and the resulting hori- zon. To rationalize these data, Chang proposed a model from North
  • 45. 12 Introduction American archaeology: interaction spheres. In this model, regional cul- tures literally grew together as their populations expanded over the landscape (Map 3). Movements of people and goods, with consequent effects at both ends, became ever more frequent. Neighboring cultures thus came to exhibit common traits (seen as the horizon). The map of China thus became a collection of geographically circumscribed regions with cultures that interacted. Common traits still warrant the label Longshan for these regional cultures and this period. The term now does not signify the culture of Shandong or origins from Shandong, but
  • 46. Introduction 13 (a) (b) (c) L -_ _~ ---.J Map 3. Kwang-chih Chang's "Chinese Interaction Sphere": (a) cultures ca. 7000 B.C.E.; (b) cultures ca. 5000; (c) cultures ca. 4000/3000. Chang, The Archaeology ofAncient China, 4th ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), p. 235. rather that a culture exhibiting many of these traits was first identified there. In considering sources for the early Bronze Age, the Longshan Age cultures of Shandong (Classic Longshan), Henan, Shanxi (Taosi), Hubei (Shijiahe), and Zhejiang:Jiangsu (Liangzhu) now play key roles (compare Map 4). From the 1950s through the 1970s, regional settlement surveys had been neglected in China. Pedestrian surveys ordered in each province
  • 47. 14 Introduction by the Cultural Relics Bureau did document the distribution of sites along the dendritic patterns of river drainages. Survey practice, how- ever, limited description of these sites to broad statements about their area and rough-and-ready estimates of their cultural components. Both kinds of data were derived from surface collections, often utilizing road cuts and other existing exposures. Only in recent decades have more thorough excavations of habitation sites become more common, while in the last decade, systematic regional surveys, several with international collaborators, have begun to focus on settlement patterns.3 While most of these projects have not yet published their formal reports, the theory and practice of Chinese archaeology have changed in important ways as they have unfolded. Settlement archaeology has become one of the main foci of Neolithic research in China. The most startling revelation derived from new fieldwork regimens has been discovery of fifty or more walled sites across several macrore- gions. These finds now represent eight or more archaeological cultures of the Terminal Neolithic. Much of this data has been published in newspapers or yearbooks, and only a fraction have appeared as prelimi- nary reports in archaeological journals. My account is derived from an overview written by Ren Shinan, then director of the Institute of Archaeology (Beijing), published in early 1998.4 When Ren wrote, he had summary data for sites in the Middle Yellow River (Henan), the Lower Yellow River (Shandong), the Middle Yangzi (Hubei and Hunan) macroregion, and the Upper Yangzi macroregion (Sichuan). He also had some evidence for the Lower Yangzi and the Yanshan zone across the north. I have supplemented his account with data from more recent publications. Ren's article provides an estimate of the area of each site (see Table 0.1). The largest is the Shijiahe site cluster in Tianmen County, Hubei (at 1,200,000 sq m; 120 hectares) in the Middle Yangzi. Baoduncheng in Xinjin, Sichuan (the Upper Yangzi) is next largest at 600,000 sq m (60 hectares) . A middle-size range between about 35 and 15 hectares ac- counts for the greatest number of sites: now at least eleven spread across all regions. A small-size range, from 15 down to as little as one hectare, also spans the regions with eight examples. Ren Shinan isolated several general contrasts between the northern (Henan and Shandong) sites and those along the Yangzi. In the north, walled sites were constructed on level terrain, although elevated positions near terraces were some- times selected to create what Shandong archaeologists call "terrace cities" (tai cheng). Along the Yangzi, on the other hand, natural hills and ridges higher than surrounding terrain were tied together to create walls. For these reasons, northern sites tend to have regular square or rectangular footprints, while Yangzi sites are more irregular. In the
  • 48. Introduction 15 TABLE 0.1. Longshan Age Walled Sites Area Dimensions Region Site (hectares) (NSxEW) Source North Henan Pingliangtai 5 185 x 185 WW 83.3 Wangchenggang 1 NS92 Wangchenggang Mengzhuang 16 375 x 340 KG 00.3 Haojiatai 3.3 Shandong Xikangliu 3.5 195 x 185 KG 95.3 Chengziyai 20 530 x 430 Top 100 Dinggong 16 350 x 310 KG 93.4 Bianxianwang 5.7 240 x 240 Tianwang 15 Youlou 2.5 150x170 Jingyanggang 38 1150 x 400 KG 97.5 Jiaochangpu 40 1100 x 360 Shanxi Taosi 270 1800 x 1500 TX5 (2003) Middle Yangzi Shijiahe 120 1200 x 1100 WW 90.8, 94.4 Chengtoushan 7.6 Diameter: 325 WW 93.12 Mingjicheng 500 x 400 Yinxiangcheng 12 350 x 580? KG 97.5,98.1 Zoumaling 7.8 300 x 370 Majiawan 24 250/440 x WW 97.7 640/740 Lower Yangzi Mojiaoshan 30 450 x 670 WW 01.12 Upper Yangzi Baoduncheng 60 1000 x 600 KG 97.1,98.1 Yufucheng 32 WW 98.12 Pixian gucheng 32.5 650 x 500 WW 99.1 Mangcheng 12 360 x 340 KG 99.7 Sources: Ren Shinan, "Zhongguo shiqian cheng zhi kaocha" [Examination of walled sites in prehistoric China], Kaogu 1998.1:1-16; Zhang Xuehai, "Shilun Shandong dichu de Longshan wenhua cheng" [Preliminary discussion of Longshan Culture walled sites in the Shandong region], Wenwu 1996.12:40-52. north a trench or footing for the wall was generally excavated first, then refilled with pounded earth as the wall was built to its full height. Forms were used to hold loose soil as it was compacted. In the south, sticky mud was mounded up and then pounded hard on exterior faces; forms were not used. Both areas have walls with moats, but in the south moats are generally wider and deeper, and they sometimes connect with the interior.
  • 49. 16 Introduction LEGEND _ trench _wall = road E3 pond ~river c==> terrace o 200 m. ~ Figure 0.2. Walls at Shijiahe, Tianmen, Hubei. Xiaojiawuji (1999), p. 3. Two examples will represent these varied walled sites. At Shijiahe, Hubei, about 2,000m ofwall still stands above ground level, roughly 6m high, with base dimensions of as much as 50 m and widths at top of 8- 10m (Fig. 0.2). The moat surrounding this wall is 80-100m wide, and seems to be a mix of natural channels and human effort. The enclosed area is about 1,200m north-south by a maximum of 1,100 m east-west.
  • 50. Introduction 17 At least thirty sites of the period have been located within a surrounding area of 8 sq km. This is the largest walled site of the Terminal Neolithic (but see below) and is plausibly interpreted as a major regional center of the Middle Yangzi macroregion. Other Middle Yangzi walled sites are significantly smaller, and surveys have yet to establish regional settlement patterns that would determine their status or relations. In the Chengdu basin, however, recent work has established a network of some half dozen walled sites that predate the appearance of the Bronze Age Sanx- ingdui Culture (see Chapter 5). In Henan, settlement pattern data are still unavailable for regions with walled sites. At Mengzhuang, in northern Henan, ancient walls had been leveled by local farmers in recent decades. Their footprint is a square about 375 m north-south by 340 m east-west; the excavators be- lieve it may originally have been about 400 m on each side. Forms were used to hold the soil dug from both sides of the walls as it was pounded hard. The borrow trench outside then served as a moat, and was itself 20 m wide and 5-6 m deep. An opening in the east wall may have been a gate. House foundations, pits, and four fresh water wells have been plot- ted within the walls. The Mengzhuang site is the largest site presently known in the "central plains." Its occupation seems to have spanned the Longshan Age, Erlitou Culture, and Erligang Culture. Taosi, a Longshan Age culture based in the Fen River basin of Shanxi province, is another candidate for a complex society at or near a state level.5 The type site first gained attention because of its extensive ceme- tery (with 1,300 graves excavated, perhaps a sixth of the total) and the pronounced disparity in the size and furnishings of graves. Excavations resumed in 1999 with a twin focus on architectural foundations and traces of several walls. These excavations have been reported only in brief notices, but have progressed far enough that one can now speak of the largest pre-Bronze Age walled site in all of China. The estimated area within the walls is some 2,700,000 sqm (270 hectares), about half the total site. The cemetery tracts known from the 1980s are now seen as early period, extramural features. The walls themselves are mostly dated to the middle period, and were damaged in part by the late period. Within the walls were smaller walled areas, some with elite houses and burials (Figure 0.3) and others with sacrificial tracts. The story of the Taosi site is still unfolding, but the complexity of its features suggests a society and regional polity that would have rivaled the later Erlitou Cul- ture on its southeastern horizon. The better known Chengziyai site has also been reexcavated in recent years. Although a proper report has yet to appear, we now know this site was occupied from the Longshan Age into the time of Erlitou (known locally as the Yueshi Culture). Moreover, Chengziyai was a large center
  • 51. I 8 Introduction LEGEND = wall • sacrifice zone 300m. , Figure 0.3. Walls at Taosi site, Xiangfen, Shanxi. Kaogu 2004.7:10. in a region with a number of smaller satellite communities (Figure 0.4). Systematic regional survey by an international team is now beginning to report similar results in other parts of Shandong. Contrary to authorita- tive accounts ofjust a few years ago, we now envision the Longshan Age, both north and south, as a period when a substantial number of walled sites dotted the landscape. Some walled sites were the hub of settlement clusters (as at Shijiahe and Chengziyai), while others might have been middle-level centers (Mengzhuang?). Still other sites probably served more narrowly defined purposes, perhaps to control resources.
  • 52. Introduction 19 LEGEND • intermediate centers 3-6 hectares • third-level settlements < 2 hectares Figure 0.4. Settlement distribution near Chengziyai, Shandong. Kaogu 1998.1:3. This regional map, an area about 20km square, shows Chengziyai and an array of forty intermediate and third level settlements nearby. The Yellow River cuts across the map at top left; higher land extends southward. Most of the third level settlements are situated near tributaries that flow north toward the Yellow River; these small settlements are generally less than 2 hectares in area. The six intermediate level centers have areas estimated at 3-6 hectares. Chengziyai flourished from c. 2600 B.C.E. into the Yueshi Culture, contemporary with Erlitou. By definition, early states were stratified societies with regional settle- ment hierarchies, two characteristics that are visible in the archaeologi- cal record. Disparities in grave goods and the widespread distribution of walled sites are significant indicators that complex societies had formed in several regional settings. Most of these archaeological cultures and their regional types, however, have been sketched so far only in broad strokes. At present, only the Longshan and Liangzhu Cultures offer a reasonably wide array of data with which to move beyond what might be called ceramic definitions of those archaeological cultures. Both may have sustained incipient states. In the Middle Yangzi, the Shijiahe Cul- ture of Hubei is another possible target.6
  • 53. 20 Introduction The Terminal Neolithic of the third millennium B.e.E. was an interac- tion sphere as defined by Kwang-chih Chang, a world of neighboring complex societies, some possibly incipient states. In the North China macroregion, the first culture to emerge as a full-fledged state society was the Shang. Shang Culture is separated from the Terminal Neolithic by developments at two key sites in Henan, Erlitou and Erligang, the subjects of our first two chapters.
  • 54. Chapter 1 Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Erlitou Culture Ie. 1900-1 500 B.C.E.) In Chinese archaeology today, discussions of the origins of civilization and of the Bronze Age generally begin with Erlitou. Erlitou is a village south of the Luo River in Yanshi County that resembles many others in this part of North China. In archaeology, Erlitou is both a site, specifi- cally a type site, and the name for an archaeological culture that existed in Henan and neighboring regions in the early second millennium B.e.E. The site stretches across open winter wheat fields south of the village toward two other hamlets, Gedangtou on the southeast and Si- jiaolou to the south (Figure 1.1). A considerable earthen mound, the "Han tomb" with its small temple, sits east of the path leading south. The Erlitou Work Station of the Institute of Archaeology stands oppo- site behind the locked metal gate of a modern brick courtyard. Erlitou is one of the most exciting targets in Chinese Bronze Age archaeology. Discovered in 1959 by Xu Xusheng as the result of a well- informed attempt to locate traces of the Xia-the first of the Three Dynasties (Sandai)-the site was first explored between 1959 and 1978. Initial finds were significant, including two large courtyards, immedi- ately dubbed palaces, and a smattering of richly furnished, medium- scale graves with fine hardstones and the earliest cast bronze ritual vessels recovered in North China. Most of all, the culture as defined by pottery and other traits looked right as either the beginnings of Shang, or equally possible, its immediate predecessor, the Xia. For Chinese scholars the palaces virtually guaranteed a state-level of social complex- ity, while the ritual jades and bronze vessels confirmed an elite atop a stratified ("slave") society. Add to these features its geographical loca- tion and chronological position, and the argument for Erlitou as Xia swept scholarly circles in the late 1970s.1 Another twenty years ofwork has followed under a younger generation of archaeologists, but those results are known only from brief reports
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  • 56. In Sir R. Jenkins’ time, a century ago, the Gonds were represented as naked savages, living on roots and fruits, and hunting for strangers to sacrifice. About fifty years later, when Mr. Hislop wrote, the Māria women of the wilder tracts were said only to have a bundle of leafy twigs fastened with a string round their waist to cover them before and behind. Now men have a narrow strip of cloth round the waist and women a broader one, but in the south of Bastar they still leave their breasts uncovered. Here a woman covers her breasts for the first time when she becomes pregnant, and if a young woman did it, she would be thought to be big with child. In other localities men and women clothe themselves more like Hindus, but the women leave the greater part of the thighs bare, and men often have only one cloth round the loins and another small rag on the head. They have bangles of glass, brass and zinc, and large circlets of brass round the legs, though these are now being discarded. In Bastar both men and women have ten to twenty iron and brass hoops round their necks, and on to these rings of the same metal are strung. Rai Bahādur Panda Baijnāth counted 181 rings on one hoop round an old woman’s neck. In the Māria country the boys have small separate plots of land, which they cultivate themselves and use the proceeds as their pocket-money, and this enables them to indulge in a profusion of ornaments sometimes exceeding those worn by the girls. In Mandla women wear a number of strings of yellow and bluish-white beads. A married woman has both colours, and several cowries tied to the end of the necklace. Widows and girls may only wear the bluish-white beads without cowries, and a remarried widow may not have any yellow beads, but she can have one cowrie on her necklace. Yellow beads are thus confined to married women, yellow being the common wedding-colour. A Gond woman is not allowed to wear a choli or little jacket over the breasts. If she does she is put out of caste. This rule may arise from opposition to the adoption of Hindu customs and desire to retain a distinctive feature of dress, or it may be thought that the adoption of the choli might make Gond women weaker and unfitted for hard manual labour, like Hindu women. A Gond woman must not keep her cloth tucked up behind into her waist when she meets an elderly man of her own family, but must let it down so as to cover the upper part of her legs. If she omits to do this, on the occasion of the next wedding the Bhumka or caste priest will send some men to catch her, and when she is brought the man to whom she was disrespectful will put his right hand on the ground and she must make obeisance to it seven times, then to his left hand, then to a broom and pestle, and so on till she is tired out. When they have a sprain or swelling of the arm they make a ring of tree-fibre and wear this on the arm, and think that it will cure the sprain or swelling. 62. Ear-piercing.
  • 57. The ears of girls are pierced by a thorn, and the hole is enlarged by putting in small pieces of wood or peacock’s feathers. Gond women wear in their ears the tarkhi or a little slab in shape like a palm-leaf, covered with coloured glass and fixed on to a stalk of hemp-fibre nearly an inch thick, which goes through the ear; or they wear the silver shield-shaped ornament called dhāra, which is described in the article on Sunār. In Bastar the women have their ears pierced in a dozen or more places, and have a small ring in each hole. If a woman gets her ear torn through she is simply put out of caste and has to give a feast for readmission, and is not kept out of caste till it heals, like a Hindu woman. 63. Hair. Gond men now cut their hair. Before scissors were obtainable it is said that they used to tie it up on their heads and chop off the ends with an axe, or burn them off. But the wilder Gonds often wear their hair long, and as it is seldom combed it gets tangled and matted. The Pandas or priests do not cut their hair. Women wear braids of false hair, of goats or other animals, twisted into their own to improve their appearance. In Mandla a Gond girl should not have her hair parted in the middle till she is married. When she is married this is done for the first time by the Baiga, who subsequently tattoos on her forehead the image of Chandi Māta.53 64. Bathing and washing clothes. Gonds, both men and women, do not bathe daily, but only wash their arms and legs. They think a complete bath once a month is sufficient. If a man gets ill he may think the god is angry with him for not bathing, and when he recovers he goes and has a good bath, and sometimes gives a feast. Hindus say that a Gond is only clean in the rains, when he gets a compulsory bath every day. In Bastar they seldom wash their clothes, as they think this impious, or else that the cloth would wear out too quickly if it were often washed. Here they set great store by their piece of cloth, and a woman will take it off before she cleans up her house, and do her work naked. It is probable that these wild Gonds, who could not weave, regarded the cloth as something miraculous and sacred, and, as already seen, the god Pālo is a piece of cloth.54
  • 58. 65. Tattooing. Both men and women were formerly much tattooed among the Gonds, though the custom is now going out among men. Women are tattooed over a large part of the body, but not on the hips or above them to the waist. Sorcerers are tattooed with some image or symbol of their god on their chest or right shoulder, and think that the god will thus always remain with them and that any magic directed against them by an enemy will fail. A woman should be tattooed at her father’s house, if possible before marriage, and if it is done after marriage her parents should pay for it. The tattooing is done with indigo in black or blue, and is sometimes a very painful process, the girl being held down by her friends while it is carried out. Loud shrieks, Forsyth says, would sometimes be heard by the traveller issuing from a village, which proclaimed that some young Gondin was being operated upon with the tattooing-needle. Patterns of animals and also common articles of household use are tattooed in dots and lines. In Mandla the legs are marked all the way up behind with sets of parallel lines, as shown above. These are called ghāts or steps, and sometimes interspersed at intervals is another figure called sānkal or chain. Perhaps their idea is to make the legs strong for climbing. 66. Special system of tattooing. Tattooing seems to have been originally a magical means of protecting the body against real and spiritual dangers, much in the same manner as the wearing of ornaments. It is also supposed that people were tattooed with images of their totem in order the better to identify themselves with it. The following account is stated to have been taken from the Baiga priest of a popular shrine of Devi in Mandla. His wife was a tattooer of both Baigas and Gonds, and considered it the correct method for the full tattooing of a woman, though very few women can nowadays be found with it. The magical intent of tattooing is here clearly brought out:— On the sole of the right foot is the annexed device:
  • 59. It represents the earth, and will have the effect of preventing the woman’s foot from being bruised and cut when she walks about barefoot. On the sole of the left foot is this pattern: It is meant to be in the shape of a foot, and is called Padam Sen Deo or the Foot-god. This deity is represented by stones marked with two footprints under a tree outside the village. When they have a pain in the foot they go to him, rub his two stones together and sprinkle the dust from them on their feet as a means of cure. The device tattooed on the foot no doubt performs a similar protective function. On the upper part of the foot five dots are made, one on each toe, and a line is drawn round the foot from the big toe to the little toe. This sign is said to represent Gajkaran Deo, the elephant god, who resides in cemeteries. He is a strong god, and it is probably thought that his symbol on the feet will enable them to bear weight. On the legs behind they have the images of the Baiga priest and priestess. These are also supposed to give strength for labour, and when they cannot go into the forest from fever or weakness they say that Bura Deo, as the deified priest is called, is angry with them. On the upper legs in front they tattoo the image of a horse, and at the back a saddle between the knee and the thigh. This is Koda Deo the horse-god, whose image will make their thighs as strong as those of a horse. If they have a pain or weakness in the thigh they go and worship Koda Deo, offering him a piece of saddle-cloth. On the outer side of each upper arm they tattoo the image of Hanumān, the deified monkey and the god of strength, in the form of a man. Both men and women do this, and men apply burning cowdung to the tattoo- mark in order to burn it effectually into the arm. This god makes the arms strong to carry weights. Down the back is tattooed an oblong figure, which is the house of the god Bhimsen, with an opening at the lower end just above the buttocks to represent the gate. Inside this on the back is the image of Bhimsen’s club, consisting of a pattern of dots more or less in the shape of an Indian club. Bhimsen is the god of the cooking-place, and the image of his club, in white clay stained green with the leaves of the semar tree, is
  • 60. made on the wall of the kitchen. If they have no food, or the food is bad, they say that Bhimsen is angry with them. The pattern tattooed on the back appears therefore to be meant to facilitate the digestion of food, which the Gonds apparently once supposed to pass down the body along the back. On the breast in front women tattoo the image of Bura Deo, as shown, the head on her neck and the body finishing at her breast-bone. The marks round the body represent stones, because the symbol of Bura Deo is sometimes a basket plastered with mud and filled with stones. On each side of the body women have the image of Jhulān Devi, the cradle goddess, as shown by the small figures attached to Bura Deo. But a woman cannot have the image of Jhulān Devi tattooed on her till she has borne a child. The place where the image is tattooed is that where a child rests against its mother’s body when she carries it suspended in her cloth, and it is supposed that the image of the goddess supports and protects the child, while the mother’s arms are left free for work.
  • 61. Gond women, showing tattooing on backs of legs Round the neck they have Kanteshwar Māta, the goddess of the necklace. She consists of three to six lines of dots round the neck representing bead necklaces. On the face below the mouth there is sometimes the image of a cobra, and it is supposed that this will protect them from the effects of eating any poisonous thing. On the forehead women have the image of Chāndi Māta. This consists of a dot at the forehead at the parting of the hair, from which two lines of dots run down to the ears on each side, and are continued along the sides of the face to the neck. This image can only be tattooed after the hair of a woman has been parted on her marriage, and they say that
  • 62. Chāndi Māta will preserve and guard the parting of the hair, that is the life of the woman’s husband, because the parting can only be worn so long as her husband is alive. Chāndi means the moon, and it seems likely that the parting of the hair may be considered to represent the bow of the moon. The elaborate system of tattooing here described is rarely found, and it is perhaps comparatively recent, having been devised by the Baiga and Pardhān priests as their intelligence developed and their theogony became more complex. 67. Branding. Men are accustomed to brand themselves on the joints of the wrists, elbows and knees with burning wood of the semar tree from the Holi fire in order to render their joints supple for dancing. It would appear that the idea of suppleness comes from the dancing of the flames or the swift burning of the fire, while the wood is also of very light weight. Men are also accustomed to burn two or three marks on each wrist with a piece of hare’s dung, perhaps to make the joints supple like the legs of a hare. 68. Food. The Gonds have scarcely any restriction on diet. They will eat fowls, beef, pork, crocodiles, certain kinds of snakes, lizards, tortoises, rats, cats, red ants, jackals and in some places monkeys. Khatola and Rāj-Gonds usually abstain from beef and the flesh of the buffalo and monkey. They consider field-mice and rats a great delicacy, and will take much trouble in finding and digging out their holes. The Māria Gonds are very fond of red ants, and in Bastar give them fried or roasted to a woman during her confinement. The common food of the labouring Gond is a gruel of rice or small millet boiled in water, the quantity of water increasing in proportion to their poverty. This is about the cheapest kind of food on which a man can live, and the quantity of grain taken in the form of this gruel or pej which will suffice for a Gond’s subsistence is astonishingly small. They grow the small grass-millets kodon and kutki for their subsistence, selling the more valuable crops for rent and expenses. The flowers of the mahua tree are also a staple article of diet, being largely eaten as well as made into liquor, and the Gond knows of many other roots and fruits of the forest. He likes to eat or drink his pej several times a day, and in Seoni, it is said, will not go more than three hours without a meal.
  • 63. Gonds are rather strict in the matter of taking food from others, and in some localities refuse to accept it even from Brāhmans. Elsewhere they will take it from most Hindu castes. In Hoshangābād the men may take food from the higher Hindu castes, but not the women. This, they say, is because the woman is a wooden vessel, and if a wooden vessel is once put on the fire it is irretrievably burnt. A woman similarly is the weaker vessel and will sustain injury from any contamination. The Rāj-Gond copies Hindu ways and outdoes the Hindu in the elaboration of ceremonial purity, even having the fuel with which his Brāhman cook prepares his food sprinkled with water to purify it before it is burnt. Mr. A. K. Smith states that a Gond will not eat an antelope if a Chamār has touched it, even unskinned, and in some places they are so strict that a wife may not eat her husband’s leavings of food. The Gonds will not eat the leavings of any Hindu caste, probably on account of a traditional hostility arising out of their subjection by the Hindus. Very few Hindu castes will take water or food from the Gonds, but some who employ them as farmservants do this for convenience. The Gonds are not regarded as impure, even though from a Hindu point of view some of their habits are more objectionable than those of the impure castes. This is because the Gonds have never been completely reduced to subjection, nor converted into the village drudges, who are consigned to the most degraded occupations. Large numbers of them hold land as tenants and estates as zamīndārs; and the greater part of the Province was once governed by Gond kings. The Hindus say that they could not consider a tribe as impure to which their kings once belonged. Brāhmans will take water from Rāj-Gonds and Khatola Gonds in many localities. This is when it is freshly brought from the well and not after it has been put in their houses. 69. Liquor. Excessive drinking is the common vice of the Gonds and the principal cause which militates against their successfully competing with the Hindus. They drink the country spirit distilled from the flowers of the mahua tree, and in the south of the Province toddy or the fermented juice of the date-palm. As already seen, in Bastar their idea of hell is a place without liquor. The loss of the greater part of the estates formerly held by Gond proprietors has been due to this vice, which many Hindu liquor-sellers have naturally fostered to their own advantage. No festival or wedding passes without a drunken bout, and in Chānda at the season for tapping the date-palm trees the whole population of a village may be seen lying about in the open dead drunk. They impute a certain sanctity to the mahua tree, and in some places walk round a post of it at their weddings. Liquor is indispensable at all ceremonial feasts, and a purifying quality is attributed to it, so that it is drunk at the cemetery or bathing-ghāt after a funeral. The family arranges for liquor, but mourners attending from other families also bring a bottle each with them, if
  • 64. possible. Practically all the events of a Gond’s life, the birth of a child, betrothals and weddings, recovery from sickness, the arrival of a guest, bringing home the harvest, borrowing money or hiring bullocks, and making contracts for cultivation, are celebrated by drinking. And when a Gond has once begun to drink, if he has the money he usually goes on till he is drunk, and this is why the habit is such a curse to him. He is of a social disposition and does not like to drink alone. If he has drunk something, and has no more money, and the contractor refuses to let him have any more on credit as the law prescribes, the Gond will sometimes curse him and swear never to drink in his shop again. Nevertheless, within a few days he will be back, and when chaffed about it will answer simply that he could not resist the longing. In spite of all the harm it does him, it must be admitted that it is the drink which gives most of the colour and brightness to a Gond’s life, and without this it would usually be tame to a degree. When a Gond drinks water from a stream or tank, he bends down and puts his mouth to the surface and does not make a cup with his hands like a Hindu. 70. Admission of outsiders and sexual morality. Outsiders are admitted into the tribe in some localities in Bastar, and also the offspring of a Gond man or woman with a person of another caste, excepting the lowest. But some people will not admit the children of a Gond woman by a man of another caste. Not much regard is paid to the chastity of girls before marriage, though in the more civilised tracts the stricter Hindu views on the subject are beginning to prevail. Here it is said that if a girl is detected in a sexual intrigue before marriage she may be taken into caste, but may not participate in the worship of Bura Deo nor of the household god. But this is probably rather a counsel of perfection than a rule actually enforced. If a daughter is taken in the sexual act, they think some misfortune will happen to them, as the death of a cow or the failure of crops. Similarly the Māria Gonds think that if tigers kill their cattle it is a punishment for the adultery of their wives, and hence if a man loses a head or two he looks very closely after his wife, and detection is often followed by murder. Here probably adultery was originally considered an offence as being a sin against the tribe, because it contaminated the tribal blood, and out of this attitude marital jealousy has subsequently developed. Speaking generally, the enforcement of rules of sexual morality appears to be comparatively recent, and there is no doubt that the Baigas and other tribes who have lived in contact with the Gonds, as well as the Ahīrs and other low castes, have a large admixture of Gond blood. In Bastar a Gond woman formerly had no feelings of modesty as regards her breasts, but this is now being acquired. Laying the hand on a married woman’s shoulder gives great offence. Mr. Low writes:55 “It is difficult to say what is not a legal marriage from a Gond point of view; but in spite of
  • 65. this laxity abductions are frequent, and Colonel Bloomfield mentions one particularly noteworthy case where the abductor, an unusually ugly Gond with a hare-lip, was stated by the complainant to have taken off first the latter’s aunt, then his sister and finally his only wife.” 71. Common sleeping-houses. Many Gond villages in Chhattīsgarh and the Feudatory States have what is known as a gotalghar. This is a large house near the village where unmarried youths and maidens collect and dance and sing together at night. Some villages have two, one for the boys and one for the girls. In Bastar the boys have a regular organisation, their captain being called Sirdār, and the master of the ceremonies Kotwār, while they have other officials bearing the designation of the State officers. After supper the unmarried boys go first to the gotalghar and are followed by the girls. The Kotwār receives the latter and directs them to bow to the Sirdār, which they do. Each girl then takes a boy and combs his hair and massages his hands and arms to refresh him, and afterwards they sing and dance together until they are tired and then go to bed. The girls can retire to their own house if they wish, but frequently they sleep in the boys’ house. Thus numerous couples become intimate, and if on discovery the parents object to their marriage, they run away to the jungle, and it has to be recognised. In some villages, however, girls are not permitted to go to the gotalghar. In one part of Bastar they have a curious rule that all males, even the married, must sleep in the common house for the eight months of the open season, while their wives sleep in their own houses. A Māria Gond thinks it impious to have sexual intercourse with his wife in his house, as it would be an insult to the goddess of wealth who lives in the house, and the effect would be to drive her away. Their solicitude for this goddess is the more noticeable, as the Māria Gond’s house and furniture probably constitute one of the least valuable human habitations on the face of the globe. 72. Methods of greeting and observances between relatives. When two Gond friends or relatives meet, they clasp each other in their arms and lean against each shoulder in turn. A man will then touch the knees of an elder male relative with his fingers, carrying them afterwards to his own forehead. This is equivalent to falling at the other’s feet, and is a token of respect shown to all elder male relatives and also to a son-in-law, sister’s husband, and a samhdi, that is the father of a son- or daughter-in-law. Their term of salutation is Johār, and they say this to each other.
  • 66. Another method of greeting is that each should put his fingers under the other’s chin and then kiss them himself. Women also do this when they meet. Or a younger woman meeting an elder will touch her feet, and the elder will then kiss her on the forehead and on each cheek. If they have not met for some time they will weep. It is said that Baigas will kiss each other on the cheek when meeting, both men and women. A Gond will kiss and caress his wife after marriage, but as soon as she has a child he drops the habit and never does it again. When husband and wife meet after an absence the wife touches her husband’s feet with her hand and carries it to her forehead, but the husband makes no demonstration. The Gonds kiss their children. Among the Māria Gonds the wife is said not to sleep on a cot in her husband’s house, which would be thought disrespectful to him, but on the ground. Nor will a woman even sit on a cot in her own house, as if any male relative happened to be in the house it would be disrespectful to him. A woman will not say the name of her husband, his elder or younger brother, or his elder brother’s sons. A man will not mention his wife’s name nor that of her elder sister. 73. The caste panchāyat and social offences. The tribe have panchāyats or committees for the settlement of tribal disputes and offences. A member of the panchāyat is selected by general consent, and holds office during good behaviour. The office is not hereditary, and generally there does not seem to be a recognised head of the panchāyat. In Mandla there is a separate panchāyat for each village, and every Gond male adult belongs to it, and all have to be summoned to a meeting. When they assemble five leading elderly men decide the matter in dispute, as representing the assembly. Caste offences are of the usual Hindu type with some variations. Adultery, taking another man’s wife or daughter, getting vermin in a wound, being sent to jail and eating the jail food, or even having handcuffs put on, a woman getting her ear torn, and eating or even smoking with a man of very low caste, are the ordinary offences. Others are being beaten by a shoe, dealing in the hides of cattle or keeping donkeys, removing the corpse of a dead horse or donkey, being touched by a sweeper, cooking in the earthen pots of any impure caste, a woman entering the kitchen during her monthly impurity, and taking to wife the widow of a younger brother, but not of course of an elder brother. In the case of septs which revere a totem animal or plant, any act committed in connection with that animal or plant by a member of the sept is an offence within the cognisance of the panchāyat. Thus in Mandla the Kumhra sept revere the goat and the Markām sept the crocodile and crab. If a member of one of these septs touches, keeps, kills or eats the animal which his sept reveres, he is put out of caste and comes before the panchāyat. In practice the offences with which the panchāyat most frequently deals are
  • 67. the taking of another man’s wife or the kidnapping of a daughter for marriage, this last usually occurring between relatives. Both these offences can also be brought before the regular courts, but it is usually only when the aggrieved person cannot get satisfaction from the panchāyat, or when the offender refuses to abide by its decision, that the case goes to court. If a Gond loses his wife he will in the ordinary course compromise the matter if the man who takes her will repay his wedding expenses; this is a very serious business for him, as his wedding is the principal expense of a man’s life, and it is probable that he may not be able to afford to buy another girl and pay for her wedding. If he cannot get his wedding expenses back through the panchāyat he files a complaint of adultery under the Penal Code, in the hope of being repaid through a fine inflicted on the offender, and it is perfectly right and just that this should be done. When a girl is kidnapped for marriage, her family can usually be induced to recognise the affair if they receive the price they could have got for the girl in an ordinary marriage, and perhaps a little more, as a solace to their outraged feelings. The panchāyat takes no cognisance of theft, cheating, forgery, perjury, causing hurt and other forms of crime. These are not considered to be offences against the caste, and no penalty is inflicted for them. Only if a man is arrested and handcuffed, or if he is sent to jail for any such crime, he is put out of caste for eating the jail food and subjected in this latter case to a somewhat severe penalty. It is not clear whether a Gond is put out of caste for murder, though Hindu panchāyats take cognisance of this offence. 74. Caste penalty feasts. The punishments inflicted by the panchāyat consist of feasts, and in the case of minor offences of a fine. This last, subject perhaps to some commission to the members for their services, is always spent on liquor, the drinking of which by the offender with the caste-fellows will purify him. The Gonds consider country liquor as equivalent to the Hindu Amrita or nectar. The penalty for a serious offence involves three feasts. The first, known as the meal of impurity, consists of sweet wheaten cakes which are eaten by the elders on the bank of a stream or well. The second or main feast is given in the offender’s courtyard to all the castemen of the village and sometimes of other villages. Rice, pulse, and meat, either of a slaughtered pig or goat, are provided at this. The third feast is known as ‘The taking back into caste’ and is held in the offender’s house and may be cooked by him. Wheat, rice and pulses are served, but not meat or vegetables. When the panchāyat have eaten this food in the offender’s house he is again a proper member of the caste. Liquor is essential at each feast. The nature of the penalty feasts is thus very clear. They have the effect of a gradual purification of the offender. In the first meal he can take no part, nor
  • 68. is it served in his house, but in some neutral place. For the second meal the castemen go so far as to sit in his compound, but apparently he does not cook the food nor partake of it. At the third meal they eat with him in his house and he is fully purified. These three meals are prescribed only for serious offences, and for ordinary ones only two meals, the offender partaking of the second. The three meals are usually exacted from a woman taken in adultery with an outsider. In this case the woman’s head is shaved at the first meal by the Sharmia, that is her son-in-law, and the children put her to shame by throwing lumps of cowdung at her. She runs away and bathes in a stream. At the second meal, taken in her courtyard, the Sharmia sprinkles some blood on the ground and on the lintel of the door as an offering to the gods and in order that the house may be pure for the future. If a man is poor and cannot afford the expense of the penalty feasts imposed on him, the panchāyat will agree that only a few persons will attend instead of the whole community. The procedure above described is probably borrowed to a large extent from Hinduism, but the working of a panchāyat can be observed better among the Gonds and lower castes than among high-caste Hindus, who are tending to let it lapse into abeyance. 75. Special purification ceremony. The following detailed process of purification had to be undergone by a well-to-do Gond widow in Mandla who had been detected with a man of the Panka caste, lying drunk and naked in a liquor-shop. The Gonds here consider the Pankas socially beneath themselves. The ritual clearly belongs to Hinduism, as shown by the purifying virtue attached to contact with cows and bullocks and cowdung, and was directed by the Panda or priest of Devi’s shrine, who, however, would probably be a Gond. First, the offending woman was taken right out of the village across a stream; here her head was shaved with the urine of an all-black bullock and her body washed with his dung, and she then bathed in the stream, and a feast was given on its bank to the caste. She slept here, and next day was yoked to the same bullock and taken thus to the Kharkha or standing-place for the village cattle. She was rolled over the surface of the Kharkha about four times, again rubbed with cowdung, another feast was given, and she slept the night on the spot, without being washed. Next day, covered with the dust and cowdung of the Kharkha, she crouched underneath the black bullock’s belly and in this manner proceeded to the gate of her own yard. Here a bottle of liquor and fifteen chickens were waved round her and afterwards offered at Devi’s shrine, where they became the property of the Panda who was conducting the ceremony. Another feast was given in her yard and the woman slept there. Next day the woman, after bathing, was placed standing with one foot outside her threshold and the other inside; a feast was given, called the feast of the threshold, and she again slept in her yard. On the following day came the final feast of purification in
  • 69. the house. The woman was bathed eleven times, and a hen, a chicken and five eggs were offered by the Panda to each of her household gods. Then she drank a little liquor from a cup of which the Panda had drunk, and ate some of the leavings of food of which he had eaten. The black bullock and a piece of cloth sufficient to cover it were presented to the Panda for his services. Then the woman took a dish of rice and pulse and placed a little in the leaf-cup of each of the caste-fellows present, and they all ate it and she was readmitted to caste. Twelve cow-buffaloes were sold to pay for the ceremony, which perhaps cost Rs. 600 or more. Māria Gonds in dancing costume 76. Dancing. Dancing and singing to the dance constitute the social amusement and recreation of the Gonds, and they are passionately fond of it. The principal dance is the Karma, danced in celebration of the bringing of the leafy branch of a tree from the forest in the rains. They continue to dance it as a recreation during the nights of the cold and hot weather, whenever they have leisure and a supply of liquor, which is almost indispensable, is forthcoming. The Mārias dance, men and women together, in a great circle, each man holding the girl next him on one side round the neck and on the other round the waist.
  • 70. They keep perfect time, moving each foot alternately in unison throughout the line, and moving round in a slow circle. Only unmarried girls may join in a Māria dance, and once a woman is married she can never dance again. This is no doubt a salutary provision for household happiness, as sometimes couples, excited by the dance and wine, run away from it into the jungle and stay there for a day or two till their relatives bring them home and consider them as married. At the Māria dances the men wear the skins of tigers, panthers, deer and other animals, and sometimes head-dresses of peacock’s feathers. They may also have a girdle of cowries round the waist, and a bell tied to their back to ring as they move. The musicians sit in the centre and play various kinds of drums and tom-toms. At a large Māria dance there may be as many as thirty musicians, and the provision of rice or kodon and liquor may cost as much as Rs. 50. In other localities the dance is less picturesque. Men and women form two long lines opposite each other, with the musicians in the centre, and advance and retreat alternately, bringing one foot forward and the other up behind it, with a similar movement in retiring. Married women may dance, and the men do not hold the women at any time. At intervals they break off and liquor is distributed in small leaf-cups, or if these are not available, it is poured into the hands of the dancers held together like a cup. In either case a considerable proportion of the liquor is usually spilt on to the ground. 77. Songs. All the time they are dancing they also sing in unison, the men sometimes singing one line and the women the next, or both together. The songs are with few exceptions of an erotic character, and a few specimens are subjoined. a. Be not proud of your body, your body must go away above (to death). Your mother, brother and all your kinsmen, you must leave them and go. You may have lakhs of treasure in your house, but you must leave it all and go. b. The musicians play and the feet beat on the earth. A pice (¼d.) for a divorced woman, two pice for a kept woman, for a virgin many sounding rupees. The musicians play and the earth sounds with the trampling of feet. c. Rāja Darwa is dead, he died in his youth. Who is he that has taken the small gun, who has taken the big bow? Who is aiming through the harra and bahera trees, who is aiming on the plain? Who has killed the quail and partridge, who has killed the peacock? Rāja Darwa has died in the prime of his youth.
  • 71. The big brother says, ‘I killed him, I killed him’; the little brother shot the arrow. Rāja Darwa has died in the bloom of his youth. d. Rāwan56 is coming disguised as a Bairāgi; by what road will Rāwan come? The houses and castles fell before him, the ruler of Bhānwargarh rose up in fear. He set the match to his powder, he stooped and crept along the ground and fired. e. Little pleasure is got from a kept woman; she gives her lord pej (gruel) of kutki to drink. She gives it him in a leaf-cup of laburnum;57 the cup is too small for him to drink. She put two gourds full of water in it, and the gruel is so thin that it gives him no sustenance. f. Man speaks: The wife is asleep and her Rāja (husband) is asleep in her lap. She has taken a piece of bread in her lap and water in her vessel. See from her eyes will she come or not? Woman: I have left my cow in her shed, my buffalo in her stall. I have left my baby at the breast and am come alone to follow you. g. The father said to his son, ‘Do not go out to service with any master, neither go to any strange woman. I will sell my sickle and axe, and make you two marriages.’ He made a marriage feast for his son, and in one plate he put rice, and over it meat, and poured soup over it till it flowed out of the plate. Then he said to the men and women, young and old, ‘Come and eat your fill.’ 78. Language. In 1911 Gondi was spoken by 1,500,000 persons, or more than half the total number of Gonds in India. The other Gonds of the Central Provinces speak a broken Hindi. Gondi is a Dravidian language, having a common ancestor with Tamil and Canarese, but little immediate connection with its neighbour Telugu; the specimens given by Sir G. Grierson
  • 72. show that a large number of Hindi words have been adopted into the vocabulary of Gondi, and this tendency is no doubt on the increase. There are probably few Gonds outside the Feudatory States, and possibly a few of the wildest tracts in British Districts, who could not understand Hindi to some extent. And with the extension of primary education in British Districts Gondi is likely to decline still more rapidly. Gondi has no literature and no character of its own; but the Gospels and the Book of Genesis have been translated into it and several grammatical sketches and vocabularies compiled. In Saugor the Hindus speak of Gondi as Farsi or Persian, apparently applying this latter name to any foreign language.
  • 73. (h) Occupation 79. Cultivation. The Gonds are mainly engaged in agriculture, and the great bulk of them are farmservants and labourers. In the hilly tracts, however, there is a substantial Gond tenantry, and a small number of proprietors remain, though the majority have been ousted by Hindu moneylenders and liquor- sellers. In the eastern Districts many important zamīndāri estates are owned by Gond proprietors. The ancestors of these families held the wild hilly country on the borders of the plains in feudal tenure from the central rulers, and were responsible for the restraint of the savage hillmen under their jurisdiction, and the protection of the rich and settled lowlands from predatory inroads from without. Their descendants are ordinary landed proprietors, and would by this time have lost their estates but for the protection of the law declaring them impartible and inalienable. A few of the Feudatory Chiefs are also Gonds. Gond proprietors are generally easy- going and kind-hearted to their tenants, but lacking in business acumen and energy, and often addicted to drink and women. The tenants are as a class
  • 74. shiftless and improvident and heavily indebted. But they show signs of improvement, especially in the ryotwāri villages under direct Government management, and it may be hoped that primary education and more temperate habits will gradually render them equal to the Hindu cultivators. 80. Patch cultivation. In the Feudatory States and some of the zamīndāris the Gonds retain the dahia or bewar method of shifting cultivation, which has been prohibited everywhere else on account of its destructive effects on the forests. The Māria Gonds of Bastar cut down a patch of jungle on a hillside about February, and on its drying up burn all the wood in April or May. Tying strips of the bark of the sāj tree to their feet to prevent them from being burnt, they walk over the smouldering area, and with long bamboo sticks move any unburnt logs into a burning patch, so that they may all be consumed. When the first showers of rain fall they scatter seed of the small millets into the soft covering of wood ashes, and the fertility of the soil is such that without further trouble they get a return of a hundred-fold or more. The same patch can be sown for three years in succession without ploughing, but it then gives out, and the Gonds move themselves and their habitations to a fresh one. When the jungle has been allowed to grow on the old patch for ten or twelve years, there is sufficient material for a fresh supply of wood-ash manure, and they burn it over again. Teak yields a particularly fertilising ash, and when standing the tree is hurtful to crops grown near it, as its large, broad leaves cause a heavy drip and wash out the grain. Hence the Gonds were particularly hostile to this tree, and it is probably to their destructive efforts that the poor growth of teak over large areas of the Provincial forests is due.58 The Māria Gonds do not use the plough, and their only agricultural implement is a kind of hoe or spade. Elsewhere the Gonds are gradually adopting the Hindu methods of cultivation, but their land is generally in hilly and jungly tracts and of poor quality. They occupy large areas of the wretched barra or gravel soil which has disintegrated from the rock of the hillsides, and covers it in a thin sheet
  • 75. mixed with quantities of large stones. The Gonds, however, like this land, as it is so shallow as to entail very little trouble in ploughing, and it is suitable for their favourite crops of the small millets, kodon and kutki, and the poorer oilseeds. After three years of cropping it must be given an equal or longer period of fallow before it will again yield any return. The Gonds say it is nārang or exhausted. In the new ryotwāri villages formed within the last twenty years the Gonds form a large section, and in Mandla the great majority, of the tenantry, and have good black-soil fields which grow wheat and other valuable crops. Here, perhaps, their condition is happier than anywhere else, as they are secured in the possession of their lands subject to the payment of revenue, liberally assisted with Government loans at low interest, and protected as far as possible from the petty extortion and peculation of Hindu subordinate officials and moneylenders. The opening of a substantial number of primary schools to serve these villages will, it may be hoped, have the effect of making the Gond a more intelligent and provident cultivator, and counteract the excessive addiction to liquor which is the great drawback to his prosperity. The fondness of the Gond for his bāri or garden plot adjoining his hut has been described in the section on villages and houses. 81. Hunting: traps for animals. The primary occupation of the Gonds in former times was hunting and fishing, but their opportunities in this respect have been greatly circumscribed by the conservation of the game in Government forests, which was essential if it was not to become extinct, when the native shikāris had obtained firearms. Their weapons were until recently bows and arrows, but now Gond hunters usually have an old matchlock gun. They have several ingenious devices for trapping animals. It is essential for them to make a stockade round their patch cultivation fields in the forests, or the grain would be devoured by pig and deer. At one point in this they leave a narrow opening, and in front of it dig a deep pit and cover it with brushwood and grass; then at the main entrance they spread some sand.
  • 76. Coming in the middle of the night they see from the footprints in the sand what animals have entered the enclosure; if these are worth catching they close the main gate, and make as much noise as they can. The frightened animals dash round the enclosure and, seeing the opening, run through it and fall into the pit, where they are easily despatched with clubs and axes. They also set traps across the forest paths frequented by animals. The method is to take a strong raw-hide rope and secure one end of it to a stout sapling, which is bent down like a spring. The other end is made into a noose and laid open on the ground, often over a small hole. It is secured by a stone or log of wood, and this is so arranged by means of some kind of fall-trap that on pressure in the centre of the hole it is displaced and releases the noose. The animal comes and puts his foot in the hole, thus removing the trap which secured the noose. This flies up and takes the animal’s foot with it, being drawn tight in mid-air by the rebound of the sapling. The animal is thus suspended with one foot in the air, which it cannot free, and the Gonds come and kill it. Tigers are sometimes caught in this manner. A third very cruel kind of trap is made by putting up a hedge of thorns and grass across a forest-path, on the farther side of which they plant a few strong and sharply-pointed bamboo stakes. A deer coming up will jump the hedge, and on landing will be impaled on one of the stakes. The wound is very severe and often festers immediately, so that the victim dies in a few hours. Or they suspend a heavy beam over a forest path held erect by a loose prop which stands on the path. The deer comes along and knocks aside the prop, and the beam falls on him and pins him down. Mr. Montgomerie writes as follows on Gond methods of hunting:59 “The use of the bow and arrow is being forgotten owing to the restrictions placed by Government on hunting. The Gonds can still throw an axe fairly straight, but a running hare is a difficult mark and has a good chance of escaping. The hare, however, falls a victim to the fascination of fire. The Gond takes an earthen pot, knocks a large hole in the side of it, and slings it on a pole with a counterbalancing stone at the other end. Then at night he slings the pole over one shoulder, with the earthen pot in front containing fire, and sallies out hare-hunting. He is accompanied by a man who bears a bamboo. The hare, attracted and fascinated by the light, comes close and watches it stupidly till the bamboo descends on the animal’s head, and the Gonds have
  • 77. hare for supper.” Sometimes a bell is rung as well, and this is said to attract the animals. They also catch fish by holding a lamp over the water on a dark night and spearing them with a trident.
  • 78. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 The country of Gondwāna properly included the Satpūra plateau and a section of the Nāgpur plain and Nerbudda valley to the south and west. Early History of India, 3rd ed. p. 337. Art. Gondwāna. Linguistic Survey, Munda and Dravidian Languages, iv. p. 285. Notes, p. 15. Garha is six miles from Jubbulpore. See article on Kol. Mr. Standen’s Betūl Settlement Report. The argument in this section will be followed more easily if read after the legend in the following paragraphs. Highlands of Central India (Chapman & Hall). Deo-khulla or threshing-floor of the gods. See section on Religion. Passage from Mr. Hislop’s version. Dhūpgarh in Pachmarhi might be indicated, which has a steep summit. Terminalia arjuna. This extract is reproduced by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Chapman & Hall, London. Tekām the teak tree, Markām the mango tree, and Telengām the Telugu. These are the names of well-known exogamous septs.
  • 79. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 See section on Religion. See also art. Kahār. The theory is stated and explained in vol. iv. of Exogamy and Totemism. See para. 15. Boswellia serrata. Semecarpus anacardium. Anogeissus latifolia. Diosypyros tomentosa. One rupee = 1s. 4d. From Mr. Langhorne’s monograph. The above rite has some resemblance to the test required of the suitors of Penelope in the Odyssey of bending the bow of Odysseus and shooting an arrow through the axes, which they could not perform. The information on child-birth is obtained from papers by Mr. Durga Prasād Pānde, Extra Assistant Commissioner, and the Rev. Mr. Franzen of Chhindwāra, and from notes taken in Mandla. See articles on Kunbi, Kurmi, and Mehtar. Boswellia serrata. The following examples of names were furnished by the Rev. Mr. Franzen and Mr. D. P. Pande. See article on Kurmi. Boswellia serrata. Deputy-Commissioner, Chhīndwāra. The note was contributed to the Central Provinces Census Report for 1881 (Mr. Drysdale). Ghora, a horse. Diospyros tomentosa. Cassia fistula.
  • 80. 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 This is incorrect, at present at any rate, as the Karma is danced during the harvest period. But it is probable that the ritual observances for communal fishing and hunting have now fallen into abeyance. C. P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 130. This section contains some information furnished by R. B. Hīra Lāl. Notes on the Gonds, pp. 15, 16. Indian Caste, i. p. 325. See article Birhor. See article Bhunjia. Notes, p. 1. Highlands of Central India, p. 156. Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 41. Assessment of revenue for land. Quoted in C.P. Gazetteer (1871), Introduction, p. 113. Chhīndwāra Settlement Report. Report on Bastar Dependency, p. 43. Ind. Ant. (1876), p. 359. See para. 65, Tattooing. See para. 41, Religion. Balaghat District Gazetteer, p. 87. Rāwan was the demon king of Ceylon who fought against Rāma, and from whom the Gonds are supposed to be descended. Hence this song may perhaps refer to a Gond revolt against the Hindus. The amaltas or Cassia fistula, which has flowers like a laburnum. The idea is perhaps that its leaves are too small to make a proper leaf-cup, and she will not take the trouble to get suitable leaves. Hislop, Notes, p. 2. Chhindwāra Settlement Report.
  • 82. Gond-Gowāri Gond-Gowāri.1—A small hybrid caste formed from alliances between Gonds and Gowāris or herdsmen of the Marātha country. Though they must now be considered as a distinct caste, being impure and thus ranking lower than either the Gonds or Gowāris, they are still often identified with either of them. In 1901 only 3000 were returned, principally from the Nāgpur and Chānda Districts. In 1911 they were amalgamated with the Gowāris, and this view may be accepted as their origin is the same. The Gowāris say that the Gond-Gowāris are the descendants of one of two brothers who accidentally ate the flesh of a cow. Both the Gonds and Gowāris frequent the jungles for long periods together, and it is natural that intimacies should spring up between the youth of either sex. And the progeny of these irregular connections has formed a separate caste, looked down upon by both its progenitors. The Gond-Gowāris have no subcastes, and for purposes of marriages are divided into exogamous septs, all bearing Gond names. Like the Gonds, the caste is also split into two divisions, worshipping six and seven gods respectively, and members of septs worshipping the same number of gods must not marry with each other. The deities of the six and seven god-worshippers are identical, except that the latter have one extra called Durga or Devi, who is represented by a copper coin of the old Nāgpur dynasty. Of the other deities Būra Deo is a piece of iron, Khoda and Khodāvan are both pieces of the kadamb tree (Nauclea parvifolia), Supāri is the areca-nut, and Kaipen consists of two iron rings and counts as two deities. It seems probable, therefore, from the double set of identical deities that two of the original ones have been forgotten. The gods are kept on a small piece of red cloth in a closed bamboo basket, which must not be opened except on days of worship, lest they should work some mischief; on these special days they are rendered harmless for the time being by the homage which is rendered to them. Marriage is adult, and a bride-price of nine rupees and some grain is commonly paid by the boy’s family. The ceremony is a mixture of Gond and Marātha forms; the couple walk seven times round a bohla or mound of earth and the guests clap their hands. At a widow-marriage they walk three and a half times round a burning lamp, as this is considered to be only a kind of half-marriage. The morality of the caste is very loose, and a wife will commonly be pardoned any transgression except an intrigue with a man of very low caste. Women of other castes, such as Kunbis or Barhais, may be admitted to the community on forming a connection with a Gond-Gowāri. The caste have no prescribed observance of mourning for the dead. The Gond-Gowāris are cultivators and labourers, and dress like the Kunbis. They are considered to be impure and must live outside the village, while other castes refuse to touch them. The bodies of the women are disfigured by excessive tattooing, the legs being covered with a pattern of dots and lines reaching up to the thighs. In this matter
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