One year ago on Round and Square (21 October 2011)—Styling Culture: Messy Terms and Phrases
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Rural Religion in Early China."
Click here for the introduction to "La Pensée Cyclique" the "umbrella topic for this series.
Click here for other posts in Round and Square's "Rural Religion in China" series:
Rural 17 Rural 18 Rural 19 Rural 20 Rural 21 Rural 22 Rural 23 Rural 24
Rural 25 Rural 26 Rural 27 Rural 28 Rural 29 Rural 30 Rural 31 Rural 32
Rural 33
Storing Seed
The holy place is a key component in the complex mixture of ideas that were generated in early China regarding society, nature, and the flow of the cosmos. Earth was the foundation, and the holy place was a particularly resonant slice of it. Still, in both symbolic and practical ways, the opposition of the sexes is the key component, from yin and yang to the human social order. Marcel Granet points clearly to the “act of communion” that was generated by this opposition, and the sexual encounters that both regenerated the species and gave sustenance to the earth.
The beliefs attached to the idea of the Holy Place dominated the
conceptions formed of the Earth; but these conceptions took on a more
precise shape under the influence of images conceived in another setting
and of emotions aroused at other times. The opposition of the sexes, kept
up even in the round of domestic life, preserved all the value of an act of
communion to the sexual encounters all husbands and wives (ever of
different name and essence).[1]
Les croyances attachées à l'idée de Lieu Saint ont dominé les
représentations que l'on se fit de la Terre ; mais ces représentations prirent
une forme plus précise sous l'influence d'images formées dans un autre
milieu et d'émotions éveillées à d'autres moments. L'opposition des sexes,
maintenue même dans le courant de la vie domestique, conservait au
rapprochement sexuel des maris et des femmes, toujours de nom différent
et d'essence différente, toute la valeur d'un acte communiel.[2]
These sexual encounters also regenerated society, and the “different name and essence” referred to above is at the heart of the concept. The opposition, as Granet notes, was continued in domestic life. Never was there an easy rapport between the sexes. They were deeply divided, practically and ritually, and that carried over all the way to the sexual act itself. The coming together of the sexes was far more complicated than practicality or passion might lead one to believe. It was an act of communion, and it regenerated society by combining the physical natures of a yin and yang essence. All encounters—from dining and work to chanting and sex—were ordered. Yin and yang did not alternate idly. They were rather more like magnetic poles coming together. From Granet's perspective these oppositions in social life and thought were like points on a compass...or hydrogen and oxygen.
We now encounter another key set of ideas in Granet's imaginative ethnography, and these include the linkage of the genders, sexuality, earth, and the very architecture of the domestic order. The simple abode, as Granet’s student Rolf Stein makes clear, is founded on earth but connected (through the hole in the roof) to the pole star, which centers the heavens.[3] With that cosmic architecture as a foundation, as it were, Granet explains that sexual communions needed to be as “earthy” as possible. They entailed connecting the energies of yang and yin in a distinctively yin-like environment—the dark corner of the house that serves, as well, as the source of grain storage.
These sexual communions, likewise made in contact with the earth,
entailed the idea of a communion with Earth, but with domestic Earth. They
took place in the dark corner of the house that served as granary and where
the seed was stored.[4]
Ces communions sexuelles, qui se faisaient aussi au contact de la terre,
entraînaient l'idée d'une communion avec le Sol, mais avec le Sol
domestique. Elles avaient lieu dans le coin sombre de la maison qui servait
de grenier et où l'on gardait les semences.[5]
It is impossible to miss the significance of “seed storage” in this conception. Just as the seed of males must be stored in a dark corner of the human architecture, so, too, must the grain of the earth be stored in a dark corner of the home. Seeds need the proper conditions in the storehouse of nature and the storehouse of humankind. There is, in both cases, a kind of communion under the cover of a yin shelter
Seeds require the very essence of yin protection. They need a fluid, wet environment. Moreover, before the seeds are “planted,” they must to be stored in safe places. When they emerge from that safety, they are placed strategically (for the spring rites make very clear that the planting itself is a kind of communion with the earth), and they grow richly in the most fertile of territories. None of this, human or agricultural, is left to chance in the social practices of early China. The stakes are far too great to be left to individual ingenuity or experimentation.
The very order of the universe was at stake.
Granet now makes another case for reckoning at least some of early Chinese life through the woman and her family. Women were the real foundation of early Chinese social life. One need only change perspective slightly to see them “leading” their households, their families, and both their native and adopted villages to a seasonal renewal in the yin-like protection of a holy place. In short, despite powerful ideology to the contrary (much of it developed a good deal later than the festivals about which Granet theorizes), the most important concepts in early Chinese rural life were “naturally” reckoned through the female line—through female “territory,” as it were. Women and earth gave life.
Now, the house first belonged to the wife, who received into it her husband
come from another hamlet, and from the time that the ties of kinship no
longer appeared solely in the form of village consubstantiality, from the time
when the basis of family organization was not merely group kinship, and the
notion of filiation, taking on importance, began to appear to be its foundation,
it was the women who transmitted the name, real emblem of domestic
consubstantiality; from that time one, the wives—if I may so put it—were
mothers when their husbands were still only sons-in-law. By the contagious
effect of emotions of communion there were created a veritable confusion
and an interchange of attributes among the mothers of families, the female
originators of the stock, the stored seed, and domestic Earth.[6]
Or, la maison appartint d'abord à la femme qui y recevait le mari venu d'un
autre hameau et, dès que les rapports de parenté n'apparurent plus
uniquement sous l'aspect de la consubstantialité villageoise, dès que le
principe d'organisation de la famille De fut plus seulement la parenté de
groupe et que l'idée de filiation prenant de l'importance commença d'en
paraître le, fondement, ce furent les femmes qui transmirent le nom, emblème
réel de la consubstantialité domestique ; dès lors, les femmes, si je puis dire,
furent des mères, quand leurs maris n'étaient encore que des gendres. Entre
les mères de famille, les femmes auteurs de la race, les semences engrangées
et le Sol domestique, par l'effet contagieux des émotions communielles, il se fit
une véritable confusion et un échange d'attributs.[7]
Once human groupings were differentiated and the concept of kinship grew, women became the “real emblems of consubstantiality.” The women were mothers of families, as Granet notes, but they were, far more profoundly, the very originators of all life. That process is fundamentally linked to the earth and its own fertility. Women were the very picture of earth, and earth the very mirror image of women. Fertility was their foundation.
Granet begins here to make explicit connections between seeds and women. Adeptly characterizing women not only as bearers of seed, but guardians of it as well, he notes that upon women was conferred the power of germination. Women were nursers, and not only of their own infants. They were the nursers of the earth, for all were ultimately born of contact between the human sexes and the earth itself in this way of imagining the social order.
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Rural Religion in Early China."
Click here for the introduction to "La Pensée Cyclique" the "umbrella topic for this series.
 |
| [a] Seed RF |
Rural 17 Rural 18 Rural 19 Rural 20 Rural 21 Rural 22 Rural 23 Rural 24
Rural 25 Rural 26 Rural 27 Rural 28 Rural 29 Rural 30 Rural 31 Rural 32
Rural 33
Storing Seed
The holy place is a key component in the complex mixture of ideas that were generated in early China regarding society, nature, and the flow of the cosmos. Earth was the foundation, and the holy place was a particularly resonant slice of it. Still, in both symbolic and practical ways, the opposition of the sexes is the key component, from yin and yang to the human social order. Marcel Granet points clearly to the “act of communion” that was generated by this opposition, and the sexual encounters that both regenerated the species and gave sustenance to the earth.
The beliefs attached to the idea of the Holy Place dominated the
conceptions formed of the Earth; but these conceptions took on a more
precise shape under the influence of images conceived in another setting
and of emotions aroused at other times. The opposition of the sexes, kept
up even in the round of domestic life, preserved all the value of an act of
communion to the sexual encounters all husbands and wives (ever of
different name and essence).[1]
Les croyances attachées à l'idée de Lieu Saint ont dominé les
représentations que l'on se fit de la Terre ; mais ces représentations prirent
une forme plus précise sous l'influence d'images formées dans un autre
milieu et d'émotions éveillées à d'autres moments. L'opposition des sexes,
maintenue même dans le courant de la vie domestique, conservait au
rapprochement sexuel des maris et des femmes, toujours de nom différent
et d'essence différente, toute la valeur d'un acte communiel.[2]
 |
| [b] Encounter RF |
These sexual encounters also regenerated society, and the “different name and essence” referred to above is at the heart of the concept. The opposition, as Granet notes, was continued in domestic life. Never was there an easy rapport between the sexes. They were deeply divided, practically and ritually, and that carried over all the way to the sexual act itself. The coming together of the sexes was far more complicated than practicality or passion might lead one to believe. It was an act of communion, and it regenerated society by combining the physical natures of a yin and yang essence. All encounters—from dining and work to chanting and sex—were ordered. Yin and yang did not alternate idly. They were rather more like magnetic poles coming together. From Granet's perspective these oppositions in social life and thought were like points on a compass...or hydrogen and oxygen.
We now encounter another key set of ideas in Granet's imaginative ethnography, and these include the linkage of the genders, sexuality, earth, and the very architecture of the domestic order. The simple abode, as Granet’s student Rolf Stein makes clear, is founded on earth but connected (through the hole in the roof) to the pole star, which centers the heavens.[3] With that cosmic architecture as a foundation, as it were, Granet explains that sexual communions needed to be as “earthy” as possible. They entailed connecting the energies of yang and yin in a distinctively yin-like environment—the dark corner of the house that serves, as well, as the source of grain storage.
These sexual communions, likewise made in contact with the earth,
entailed the idea of a communion with Earth, but with domestic Earth. They
took place in the dark corner of the house that served as granary and where
the seed was stored.[4]
Ces communions sexuelles, qui se faisaient aussi au contact de la terre,
entraînaient l'idée d'une communion avec le Sol, mais avec le Sol
domestique. Elles avaient lieu dans le coin sombre de la maison qui servait
de grenier et où l'on gardait les semences.[5]
 |
| [c] Ingenuity RF |
It is impossible to miss the significance of “seed storage” in this conception. Just as the seed of males must be stored in a dark corner of the human architecture, so, too, must the grain of the earth be stored in a dark corner of the home. Seeds need the proper conditions in the storehouse of nature and the storehouse of humankind. There is, in both cases, a kind of communion under the cover of a yin shelter
Seeds require the very essence of yin protection. They need a fluid, wet environment. Moreover, before the seeds are “planted,” they must to be stored in safe places. When they emerge from that safety, they are placed strategically (for the spring rites make very clear that the planting itself is a kind of communion with the earth), and they grow richly in the most fertile of territories. None of this, human or agricultural, is left to chance in the social practices of early China. The stakes are far too great to be left to individual ingenuity or experimentation.
The very order of the universe was at stake.
Granet now makes another case for reckoning at least some of early Chinese life through the woman and her family. Women were the real foundation of early Chinese social life. One need only change perspective slightly to see them “leading” their households, their families, and both their native and adopted villages to a seasonal renewal in the yin-like protection of a holy place. In short, despite powerful ideology to the contrary (much of it developed a good deal later than the festivals about which Granet theorizes), the most important concepts in early Chinese rural life were “naturally” reckoned through the female line—through female “territory,” as it were. Women and earth gave life.
Now, the house first belonged to the wife, who received into it her husband
come from another hamlet, and from the time that the ties of kinship no
longer appeared solely in the form of village consubstantiality, from the time
when the basis of family organization was not merely group kinship, and the
notion of filiation, taking on importance, began to appear to be its foundation,
it was the women who transmitted the name, real emblem of domestic
consubstantiality; from that time one, the wives—if I may so put it—were
mothers when their husbands were still only sons-in-law. By the contagious
effect of emotions of communion there were created a veritable confusion
and an interchange of attributes among the mothers of families, the female
originators of the stock, the stored seed, and domestic Earth.[6]
Or, la maison appartint d'abord à la femme qui y recevait le mari venu d'un
autre hameau et, dès que les rapports de parenté n'apparurent plus
uniquement sous l'aspect de la consubstantialité villageoise, dès que le
principe d'organisation de la famille De fut plus seulement la parenté de
groupe et que l'idée de filiation prenant de l'importance commença d'en
paraître le, fondement, ce furent les femmes qui transmirent le nom, emblème
réel de la consubstantialité domestique ; dès lors, les femmes, si je puis dire,
furent des mères, quand leurs maris n'étaient encore que des gendres. Entre
les mères de famille, les femmes auteurs de la race, les semences engrangées
et le Sol domestique, par l'effet contagieux des émotions communielles, il se fit
une véritable confusion et un échange d'attributs.[7]
 |
| [d] Fertile RF |
Once human groupings were differentiated and the concept of kinship grew, women became the “real emblems of consubstantiality.” The women were mothers of families, as Granet notes, but they were, far more profoundly, the very originators of all life. That process is fundamentally linked to the earth and its own fertility. Women were the very picture of earth, and earth the very mirror image of women. Fertility was their foundation.
Granet begins here to make explicit connections between seeds and women. Adeptly characterizing women not only as bearers of seed, but guardians of it as well, he notes that upon women was conferred the power of germination. Women were nursers, and not only of their own infants. They were the nursers of the earth, for all were ultimately born of contact between the human sexes and the earth itself in this way of imagining the social order.
Life was enclosed within seed as it was within women; stored near the
conjugal sleeping place, the grain fertilized the women; guardians of the
seed, the women conferred upon it the power of germination. The seed
nourished; the women nursed. Earth was a Mother, a Nurse. Sowed with
seed it spent ten cycles of the moon in gestation, and women followed its
example.[8]
De la vie était enclose dans les graines comme dans les femmes ; les
graines, déposées près de la couche conjugale, fécondaient les femmes ;
les femmes, gardiennes des semences, leur conféraient le pouvoir de germer;
les graines nourrissaient ; les femmes étaient nourrices. La Terre était une
Mère, une Nourrice ; ensemencée, elle faisait en dix lunaisons son œuvre de
gestation et les femmes l'imitaient;…[9]
 |
| [e] Stored RF |
Granet notes the gestational cycles of ten moons, and almost seems to imply that such a natural process as women’s childbirth derived its essence from contact with agricultural products. So closely intertwined were they, though, that Granet’s rhetoric pulls him toward a rhetoric of causation that is somewhat striking. The grain fertilized the women and the women, in turn, gave grain the power of germination. Granet’s interpretation of the texts is sound. He doesn’t both to attempt persuading those with other, perhaps more ordinary, perspectives on causation.
Within Earth all life was contained; through It all life was developed; It took
the dead into its bosom and alone fed infants during their first three days. It
was a maternal, a nurturing, a life giving Power. The stock was born of It and
drew from IT its substance.[10]
[E]n Elle, toute vie était enclose ; par Elle se développait toute vie ; Elle
recevait les morts en son sein et pendant leurs trois premiers jours nourrissait
seule les enfants. Elle était une Puissance maternelle, nourricière, vivifiante.
La race naissait d'Elle et tirait d'Elle sa substance.[11]
Earth was the source of life, and all stock was born of it. As we shall soon see, all stock died of it, too, creating cycles of death and rebirth that would gain even greater importance in later Chinese thought. As it is, however, we are left with women, earth, and seed. They are the foundation of everything about which Granet has written up to this point, and the solid core of everything social and religious in early Chinese life.
Earth, wind, and fire; women, earth, and seed.
Click here for other posts in Round and Square's "Rural Religion in China" series:
Rural 17 Rural 18 Rural 19 Rural 20 Rural 21 Rural 22 Rural 23 Rural 24
Rural 25 Rural 26 Rural 27 Rural 28 Rural 29 Rural 30 Rural 31 Rural 32
Rural 33
 |
| [f] Foundations RF |
[1] Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated by Maurice Freedman] (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 51.
[2] Marcel Granet, La religion des chinois (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1922), 24.
[3] Rolf Stein, The World in Miniature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 103-106.
[3] Rolf Stein, The World in Miniature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 103-106.
[4] Granet, Religion, 51.
[5] Granet, La religion, 24.
[6] Granet, Religion, 51.
[7] Granet, La religion, 24.
Bibliography
[8] Granet, Religion, 51.
[9] Granet, La religion, 24.
[10] Granet, Religion, 51.
[11] Granet, La religion, 24.
Bibliography
Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People [Translated by Maurice Freedman]. New York:
Harper & Row, 1975.
Granet, Marcel. La religion des chinois. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1922. Harper & Row, 1975.
Stein, Rolf. The World in Miniature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.
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