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The Ghost Head Mask and Metamorphic Shang Imagery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
Elizabeth Childs-Johnson*
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531 East 88th St. Apt. 4B, New York, NY 10128
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Abstract

The meaning of Shang ritual imagery has long baffled scholars. Art historians and anthropologists have wrestled with its meaning every since 1928 when bronzes began to be excavated at Anyang, the Late Shang capital. It is now possible to explore various data to identify the religious significance of Shang ritual art From an art historical point of view, it is evident that certain standard modes of representation were designed to symbolize the theme of metamorphosis from the human to the animal spirit realm. This symbolism also helps to explain why the ubiquitous animal image in Shang art is conceived as a mask. Epigraph-ical data support the interpretation that Shang religion was based on the belief of metamorphosis as represented in art, and that the Shang king once acted as shaman-priest, chief-in-charge of invocation and a mask wearing rite. This interpretation depends on data provided by key terms in Shang bone inscriptions, such as gui 鬼, usually translated spirit ghost and others, directly related, such as the unpronounceable ff and zhu 祝. My intention is to elucidate why spirit ghosts of ancestors, gui were envisioned as anthropomorphized animal masks and how this conception is connected with the shamanic foundation of Shang religion. Although bone inscriptional data indicates that there is a dramatic shift away from exorcistic practices of shamanic origin to cult worship focused on dead royal ancestors, the combined evidence from art and epigraphy strongly argues for a Shang religion founded on the belief in metamorphosis and the king as shaman-priest.

自從1928年商晚期靑銅容器於安陽出土以來, 藝術史家和考古學家一直在爲探索銅器上的動物紋飾之意義而煞費苦心, 但至今尙未見到能使學界較爲滿意的解釋.本文試圔通過對幾種新的甲骨文字材料及藝術史上的材料進行分析,以探討禮器傳統中如饕餮紋飾的宗敎意義.從藝術史的觀點看,筆者認爲靑銅紋飾中的某些典型設計在宗敎方面具有將人變成動物神祇之象徵作用, 這也有助於解釋殷商藝術中之動物紋飾爲甚麼總是呈一面具狀.甲骨中的關鍵字更爲這種解釋提供了旁證,如״鬼״字與״ΐ״ 、״祝״等字密切相關.在這篇論文中, 筆者試圖解答何以宗先的亡靈——鬼會以人格化了的動物面具呈現,及以這種觀念是如何與作爲商朝宗敎信仰中基礎之薩滿敎相繋聯的.雖然甲骨文字材料表明宗先崇拜早已取代了早期薩滿敎中之祓除儀式, 不過器物與文字上的證據還是强烈表明商人的宗教信仰是建立在״形變״之上而商王與薩滿敎敎主之職能毫無二致.

Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 20 , 1995 , pp. 79 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1995

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References

1. Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth, “The Demon Who Devours But Cannot Swallow: Human to Animal Metamorphosis in Shang Ritual Bronze Imagery,” Chinese Archaeology Enters the Twenty-first Century Symposium Papers (05 28-30, 1993)Google Scholar, Beijing University, in press. Related, briefer treatments of this theme have appeared in Chinese; see e.g., “Shang ren liyi yishu zhong de shamanjiao tezheng jidui Sichuan Guanghan San-xingdui xinjin faxian de tuice (tiyao),”商人禮儀藝術中的薩滿敎特徵及對四川廣漢三星堆新近發現的推測(摘要), Nanfang minzu kaogu 南方民族考古 1989.2, 65–67Google Scholar.

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13. The relationship between kingly and supernatural power, or that between Shang Di and the royal ancestral spirits, has been the subject of unresolved debate. Shang Di, for example has been treated from two different extremes: either as an abstraction without specific godly attributes or as an ultimate ancestor, the progenitor of the Shang ruling house. Both definitions have their difficulties but the second appears to be more accurate. The problem in identifying Shang Di's nature has to do with the difficulty of identifying the original meaning of Di. It is significant that Shang Di was worshipped with Xiao sacrifice like other distant kings. Shang Di was also received in the bin 賓 rite by deceased royal kings; see Keightley, David N., “The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese Political Structure,” History of Religions 17 (1978), 215CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Like them and kingly spirits, Di shares power over the natural world. Shang Di stands at the pinnacle of a spiritual hierarchy, beneath which are royal ancestors in order of their succession. Shang Di appears to have been primordial, in the sense of having comprehensive power over the kings beneath him.

14. Chang Tsung-tung recognizes the standardization of ancestor rites as signifying a change in religious outlook, from the cult of the ghost of Period I to the cult of the ancestor spirit of Period IIB-V (Der Kult der Shang Dynastie, 159, 161). I agree in part with this interpretation but would emphasize that the cult of the ghost continues to be all-important since, like Shang Di, the power of the ghost of royal ancestor spirits to curse and bless is consistent throughout inscriptions of Periods I-V. I see evidence for a change in religious orientation with a new emphasis on the institution-alization of ancestor worship rites; see Keightley, David N., “The Religious Commitment,” 216Google Scholar. There is a deemphasis on shamanistic practices and outlook, as, for example, represented by the disappearance of Xiao cult burning and related agricultural rites addressed to Shang Di and high ancestors. On the latter point, Chang also wrestles with the idea that ritual bronze art may represent a survival of earlier concepts: Zusammenfassend stellen wir eine Zweigleisigkeit in der Religion der Shang fest. Einerseits war ihr Kult, wie wir ihn aufgrund der Orakelinschriften rekonstruiert haben, diesseitsbezogen und an Fabelwesen arm; im Mittelpunkt stand der Kult der eigenen Ahnen als mächtige Universalgötter. Andererseits gibt die Kunst der als Grabbeigaben hergestellten Bronzen eine Glaubenswelt mit zahlreichen tiergestaltigen Ungeheuer wieder, an der die Shang offenbar nicht mehr festhielten. In diesem Sinne wäre die Kunst der Sakralbronzen bereits zur Shang-Zeit ein “Survival” geworden, ein unorganisches and unverstandenes Überleben von Vorstellungen alterer Entwicklungszustände (Der Kult der Shang Dynastie, 261).

His point about “survival” is fundamental in understanding the limitations of our literary evidence. Shamanistic tendencies, such as use of a mask symbol in art, are already present in Early Shang art and in pre-Shang Late Neolithic art of Liangzhu and Longshan eras; see e.g., Yongkang, Mou 牟永抗, “Liangzhu yuqi shang shen chongbai de tansuo” 良诸玉器上的神宗拜的探索, Qingzhu Su Bingqikaogu wushiwu-nian lunwenji 慶祝蘇秉奇考古五十年論文集 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989)Google Scholar. By the time of Wu Ding in Late Shang times, there is already evidence that ancestors were not envisioned as individualized gods but as generic, generationally significant spirits with god-like power. Hu Houxuan 胡厚宣 identifies a similar change in emphasis from worship of gods to that of kings, with the result that kings in post-Wu Ding inscriptions were addressed with the title Di as in Shang Di; see Houxuan, Hu, “Yindai zhi tianshen” 殷代之天神, Jiaguxue Shangshi luncong 甲骨學商史論叢, (Chengdu: Jilu daxue, 1945), 300–301Google Scholar. Chen Mengjia identifies this change as one from a fear of animals to a fear of gui-ancestral ghosts, and the consequent anthropomorphization of myth into history, or transformation from animal to human; see Chen, , “Shangdai shenhua yu wushu,” 515, 568Google Scholar.

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19. For these variations, see Shima Kunio, Inkyo bokuji sōrui, 44.4-45.2.

20. Chen Mengjia identifies this invoker as the shaman-king; see “Shangdai shen-hua yu wushu,” 533-535. In the much later Han Shuowen definition for zhu, the one who invokes is identified as a wu-shaman.

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26. Zhou li zhushu, 7.28.5a; Gao You refers to a similar passage in Huainanzi and with a similar interpretation that期is 醜 and 魁 is 氣 or that the gui spirit mask is the same as the Han exorcist head mask worn to exorcize demons; see Niansun, Wang 王念孫 ed., Huainanzi 淮南子 (rpt., Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1989)Google Scholar, 7.57.20 許慎. In tracing the origin of puppets and history of the head mask, Sun Kaiti relies on the above references; see “Kueilei xi kaoyuan,” 84-89. Sun's analyses identify the head masks as impersonator's masks worn at traditional funeral rites since the Han dynasty and as the basis of puppet mask imagery.

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