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religious practice apart, that is, from the ethnically different Boat People of the South China coast. I also explained that many of the spirit images I had obtained came from Shaoyang county in Hunan province and from the township of Wu Kang in particular. These locations could be pinpointed with accuracy from the slips of paper concealed in the cavities in the backs of the images which also gave dates and other details. The images housed, and in a few cases outwardly represented, as portrait images, the souls of dead individuals. The subject of spirit images, at that time, did not appear to have been described elsewhere and it was left in the air whether this custom was unique to Hunan and the western part of Kiangsi which joins Hunan province, awaiting further evidence.
This does not seem to have been forthcoming. However, one image with the cavity in its back still sealed, obtained very recently [November 1992] in Yangshuo, just south of Kueilin, from a stall packed with such images (the majority of which had the cavities in their backs open and empty) revealed that the image, said by locals to have been from Kueilin city itself, was also from Wu Kang. It had been carved and dedicated to a Mrs Ch'en in the thirteenth year of Tao Kuang (AD 1834), and whilst this does not answer the question whether the custom of having carved images of soul figures extended beyond Hunan and western Kiangsi, the large number of such images still available on stalls in China does highlight the popularity and extent of the custom within that limited area of China.
KEITH STEVENS
T'I-SHEN
替身
A SUBSTITUTE FOR A PERSON
Some years ago a number of popular images commonly seen in a god carver's shop in Singapore were described by the carver as 'Half spirit and half demon', pan-shen pan-kuei.' They were all remarkably similar with only minor differentiating features though all had a surname on the back. The majority were female and were easily identifiable by the birds, one under each foot. The males were less easily identifiable though the surname on the reverse was the clue. Once or twice similar images were noted on altars in public temples
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religious practice apart, that is, from the ethnically different Boat People of the South China coast. I also explained that many of the spirit images I had obtained came from Shaoyang county in Hunan province and from the township of Wu Kang in particular. These locations could be pinpointed with accuracy from the slips of paper concealed in the cavities in the backs of the images which also gave dates and other details. The images housed, and in a few cases outwardly represented, as portrait images, the souls of dead individuals. The subject of spirit images, at that time, did not appear to have been described elsewhere and it was left in the air whether this custorm was unique to Hunan and the western part of Kiangsi which joins Hunan province, awaiting further evidence.
This does not seem to have been forthcoming. However, one image with the cavity in its back still scaled, obtained very recently [November 1992] in Yangshuo, just south of Kueilin, from a stall packed with such images (the majority of which had the cavities in their backs open and empty) revealed that the image, said by locals to have been from Kucilin city itself, was also from Wu Kang. It had been carved and dedicated to a Mrs Ch'en in the thirteenth year of Tao Kuang (AD 1834), and whilst this does not answer the question whether the custom of having carved images of soul figures extended beyond Hunan and western Kiangsi, the large number of such images still available on stalls in China does highlight the popularity and extent of the custom within that limited area of China.
KEITH STEVENS
T'I-SHEN
替身
A SUBSTITUTE FOR A PERSON
Some years ago a number of popular images commonly seen in a god carver's shop in Singapore were described by the carver as 'Half spirit and half demon', pan-shen pan-kuei.' They were all remarkably similar with only minor differentiating features though all had a surname on the back. The majority were female and were easily identifiable by the birds, one under each foot. The males were less easily identifiable though the surname on the reverse was the clue. Once or twice similar images were noted on altars in public temples
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