NO. 2 FOLK RELIGION IN SOUTHWEST CHINA — GRAHAM 47 



not and when to offer sacrifices, and to solve many other problems. 

 During the Shang dynasty tortoise shells and scapulas and long bones 

 of cattle were used. During the Chou dynasty tortoise shells and 

 millet foil were used. The Book of Changes is a book of divination 

 enabling one to determine what is lucky or unlucky by referring to 

 the 64 diagrams. 



In the Chou dynasty there were witches and wizards who were be- 

 lieved to have power to communicate with the deceased ancestors and 

 with the gods. Like modern mediums, it was thought that they ob- 

 tained messages and advice from the celestial beings. They also per- 

 formed magical ceremonies to heal diseases, to cause rain, to insure 

 good crops, and for other purposes. Dreams were used and inter- 

 preted in divination. It seems very evident that in modern times the 

 sorcerer, or titan kiing, of the Wu Chiao, the mediums of the Ju T'an, 

 and many Buddhist and Taoist priests are the descendants of the 

 witches, wizards, sorcerers, and mediums of the Chou dynasty. 



In ancient China there were no official or celibate priests. The 

 ceremonies of ancestor worship were conducted by the male heads of 

 families. Persons of high rank were sometimes helped in the conduct 

 of these ceremonies by officers, servants, and even slaves, who knew 

 the ceremonies and how they should be conducted. 



In the Chou dynasty there was a moral development or reformation 

 among leaders and scholars in ethics, politics, and religion, which 

 changed the attitude toward gods and toward human conduct. The 

 gods were believed to be righteous and to require good moral conduct 

 on the part of men, rewarding the good and punishing the evil. This 

 moral reform led to protests against the sacrificing of human beings 

 at funerals and burying them alive with the dead (ibid., p. 344). 

 This was centuries before Roman law prohibited the sacrifice of 

 human beings among the Druids of western Europe. While human 

 sacrifice did not entirely cease, in later Chou times many Chinese 

 instead made wooden or straw images of human beings and buried 

 them with their dead. I have seen a number of these wooden images 

 that were deposited in late Chou tombs near Changsha. 



There was also worship of the gods, although no images were made 

 of them. The ancestors, if not worshiped and regarded as deities, 

 were nearly so. Among the Shang dynasty Chinese the chief god 

 was Ti ^ or Shang Ti Ji^. The word Shang Ti means ruler 

 above, or god above, or possibly the higher or supreme god. He was 

 not the one and only god, and there is no certain evidence that Chinese 

 religion was ever monotheistic, a statement that can safely be made 



