GÖRAN AIJMER
for wine are used, jiu H, and it's 'sweet wine'. It is hard to tell from the data whether different kinds of wine were used on different occasions. More generally, we may remember that wine is manufactured from rice; in fact, it is rice transmuted into liquid form.
7. Food
Food was sacrificed and eaten on the graves after they had been swept. Again, the lack of detailed data makes it difficult to interpret the presenting of food as a ritual act. Some notes could be observed here. In Yiyang people ate 'stalks and grass', which, being unusual food, probably signified 'non-rice' or 'non-food'.65 We are told that in Anxiang officials prepared 'cattle'. The term may have a more narrow sense of 'beef'. Meat seems to have been paired with rice wine in many sacrifices throughout the area: on the Lantern Festival (in the first moon) in Jiangling, on Earth God Day in Wuling and Zhongxiang,7 on the Dragon Boat Festival (in the fifth moon) in the Yozhou prefecture (around Baling), and Yunmeng #,68 on Zhongyuan (in the seventh moon) in Wuling,69 and on Churia, New Year Eve, in Jiangling, Hanzhou, Jingshan, Chongyang, and Yingshan.70
Again, in the temple dedicated to General Goan in Mienyang, mentioned above, the offerings on the 13th day of the fifth moon consisted of 'cattle' meat and sweet wine. A chronicler mentions that in Tauyuan, at mourning, there was an 'excess' of slaughtering.71
If we assume that the wide category of sheng-cattle-indicates that cows, oxen and buffalos, and such bovine animals were of primary interest as slaughtering animals on Qingming (although pigs may have been included in the category), it may be interesting to associate that circumstance not only with the excessive slaughtering which was part of the mourning practices in Tauyuan, but also with the display of a clay oxen at the Lichum 'Establishment of Spring' festival around the 5th of February in the solar calendar.72 In Chongyang the 5th day of the fifth moon was called niu ri ✈ a Ox Day. Then the buffalos or cows were fed, and it was not allowed to whip the beasts or swear at them on this day.73 These practices seem all to have a close link with agriculture.74
The fact that cattle was modelled in clay seems to indicate that the nature of cattle was earthly. The breaking of the clay oxen may,
72
GÖRAN AIJMER
for wine are used, jiu H, and it 'sweet wine'. It is hard to tell from the data whether different kinds of wine were used on different occasions. More generally, we may remember that wine is manu- factured from rice; in fact, it is rice transmuted into liquid form.
7. Food
Food was sacrified and eaten on the graves after they had been swept. Again, the lack of detailed data makes it difficult to inter- prete the presenting of food as a ritual act. Some notes could be observed here. In Yiyang people ate 'stalks and grass', which, being unusual food, probably signified ‘non-rice' or non-food',65 We are told that in Anxiang officials prepared 'cattle'. The term may have a more narrow sense of 'beef'. Meat seems to have been paired with rice wine in many sacrifices throughout the area: on the Lantern Festival (in the first moon) in Jiangling, on Earth God Day in Wuling and Zhongxiang,7 on the Dragon Boat Festival (in the fifth moon) in the Yozhou prefecture (around Baling), and Yunmeng #,68 on Zhongyuan (in the seventh moon) in Wuling,69 and on Churia, New Year Eve, in Jiangling, Hanzhou, Jingshan, Chongyang, and Yingshan.70
Again, in the temple dedicated to General Goan in Mienyang, mentioned above, the offerings on the 13th day of the fifth moon consisted of ‘cattle' meat and sweet wine. A chronicler mentions that in Tauyuan, at mourning, there was an ‘excess' of slaughter- ing.71
If we assume that the wide category of sheng-cattle-indicates that cows, oxen and buffalos, and such bovine animals were of primary interest as slaughtering animals on Qingming (although pigs may have been included in the category), it may be interesting to associate that circumstance not only with the excessive slaugh- tering which was part of the mourning practices in Tauyuan, but also with the display of a clay oxen at the Lichum ‘Establishment of Spring' festival around the 5th of February in the solar calendar,72 In Chongyang the 5th day of the fifth moon was called niu ri ✈ a Ox Day. Then the buffalos or cows were fed, and it was not allow- ed to whip the beasts or swear at them on this day,73 These prac- tices seem all to have a close link with agriculture.74
The fact that cattle was modelled in clay seems to indicate that the nature of cattle was earthly. The breaking of the clay oxen may,
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