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by contrast, implied striving upwards, ascension, obtaining affinity with heaven and yang. Like Qingming, Chongyang is a visit to the dead, but to the yang ancestors. This antonymic contrast is reduced somewhat by the circumstance that graves are 'mountains, and grave climbing 'is' mountain climbing. Chongyang is, as it were, 'more' mountain than Qingming.
In our analysis we have found a correlation between the ceremonial acts of Qingming and agricultural technical acts. The graves are cleaned and presents offered on them. Also the seed beds are cleaned and seeds sown on them. Yin ancestors and earth are one and the same. But it may be that the concern of the Qingming activities is a more narrow interest than 'earth' as a general category. Ritual awareness and practical interest are focussed on the seed beds. The grave is treated as a rice nursery. At the same time it is a mountain. The grave is a sign in which is encoded a yin-yang antonymy. The same antonymy is, in turn, explicitly encoded in the contrast mountain-seed bed. The yin aspect of the grave connects with the preparation and sowing of the seed bed. Meat is presented to the grave, and the soil of the nursery is fertilized. Meat stays on the grave's surface; similarly the fertilization is received by the top soil. Rice is allowed to seep into the grave in liquid form as wine, and rice grain penetrates the earth.
Simultaneously the graves are conceived of as mountains. The bamboo money trees make sense in terms of both aspects. Partly the branches may have been protective, but I have also suggested the possibility that bamboo formed a medium over which paper money was transferred to the dead. This ritual arrangement, I guessed, would invertly correspond to the rice plant as a medium which transfers paddy from the ancestors to their living progeny. Again, the bamboo branches may have been some sort of beacon. There is a vague possibility that they led the yang essence of the ancestors to the graves containing their bones. A very bold guess is that on the occasion of Qingming the yin aspect of the dead, his gui essence (transformed from his po soul) is reunited with the shen, the yang essence of the dead, transformed from his hun soul. Such a union may have promoted rice and fertility. But we must not be carried too far in our speculations. Here remains a number of interesting possibilities for future research.