CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
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both officials and people were encouraged to participate in the rites associated with them.
These god-officials, housed in temples in the chief cities of districts, counties and provinces, were often former government officials who had worked in the locality and people were encouraged to help in their selection. The gods were expected to report social misdeeds — evasion of taxes for example — to higher gods who could punish offenders by bringing misfortune. It is said those not afraid to perjure themselves in court were often afraid to do so before the gods, and so such cults encouraged obedience to law and order.13
When these cults worked well they focussed people's interests on the administrative area of which their village was part and at the same time emphasized the position of the local village unit in the larger territorial administration. But temple-keepers and yamen clerks are said to have embezzled funds set aside for the rites and performed them in a perfunctory manner. The influence of such cults over villages more remote from city centres would probably, as with the cults to local worthies described above, be less than over nearby villages.
But the village itself was usually more directly connected with another god, to some extent operating independently of this spiritual hierarchy and standing more for local interests. This was the earth god: protector, in some of his roles, of such places as graves, bridges, rivers and canals, but also protector of a village unit or sometimes a section of a village. It is said that the earth god was usually somebody who had rendered local public service in his former human life.14 The earth god's cult was more usually associated with an open shrine than a temple, with his image being placed on the ground. His festival commonly generated a great deal of group activity: various occupational groups in a village would collect money to contribute to the festival's religious and social functions and would “elect” one of their number to serve on the committee formed to organize the festival.
While it appears unusual for the cult of the earth god to have become associated with a complex land owning organization with control over a village or village section as in the case of ancestral cults, cults to other popular gods sometimes did so. Temples built for gods who had special meaning in the life of a village
CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION
17
both officials and people were encouraged to participate in the rites associated with them.
These god-officials, housed in temples in the chief cities of districts, counties and provinces, were often former government officials who had worked in the locality and people were en- couraged to help in their selection. The gods were expected to report social misdeeds evasion of taxes for example — to higher gods who could punish offenders by bringing misfortune. It is said those not afraid to perjure themselves in court were often afraid to do so before the gods, and so such cults encouraged obedience to law and order.13
When these cults worked well they focussed people's interests on the administrative area of which their village was part and at the same time emphasized the position of the local village unit in the larger territorial administration. But temple-keepers and yamen clerks are said to have embezzled funds set aside for the rites and performed them in a perfunctory manner. The influence of such cults over villages more remote from city centres would probably, as with the cults to local worthies described above, be less than over nearby villages.
But the village itself was usually more directly connected with another god, to some extent operating independently of this spiritual hierarchy and standing more for local interests. This was the earth god: protector, in some of his roles, of such places as graves, bridges, rivers and canals, but also protector of a village unit or sometimes a section of a village. It is said that the earth god was usually somebody who had rendered local public service in his former human life.14 The earth god's cult was more usually associated with an open shrine than a temple, with his image being placed on the ground. His festival commonly generated a great deal of group activity: various occupational groups in a village would collect money to contribute to the festival's religious and social functions and would “elect" one of their number to serve on the committee formed to organize the festival.
While it appears unusual for the cult of the earth god to have become associated with a complex land owning organization with control over a village or village section as in the case of ancestral cults, cults to other popular gods sometimes did so. Temples built for gods who had special meaning in the life of a village
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