254
Conclusion
How unbroken is the tradition?
A disjuncture occurs with the fall of courtly ritual in the Warring States period. To what tradition did the 'Shi' participating in the archery rituals of the Warring States regard themselves as heirs?
We cannot hope to find more than fragments from the pre-Shang times, from when no written record has come down to us. But interpreting the evidence generously, magic and shamanism were the domain of the Yi clan. (In Chapter 2 of my book, Chinese Archery, I have done a more ambitious job of collating these scraps than is possible within the scope of a paper like this one.)
The legend of Yi remained popular in folklore and found its way into funereal art even of Northern Wei times. The idealized Confucian work, the 'Zhou Li', which may have originated in the Eastern Zhou state of Qi, explicitly states that there was magic involved in the target, to bring the feudal lords into line. I believe that the cultural heritage accruing to ritual archery in Warring States times included an element of magical power that echoed the activities of the archery Shamans of the distant past.
Further disjunctures are less acute. The weakening of ritual beliefs throughout the Han and Wei-Jin periods were replaced by the inclusion of the Confucian orthodoxy (in the form of the 'Archery Classic', which itself acknowledged archery magic though the theory of the hou target, rites of passage for males and ritual dance movements to music). The Confucian ‘Archery Classic' acted as centre of a major gravitational force. Once formally incorporated in the Imperial Examination System, not only did the Confucian system ensure that the traditions of the Zhou period remained alive, it even exerted an influence in maintaining archery as a semi-ritual pursuit outside the purely practical field of military affairs, despite being part of the syllabus of a supposed military examination'.
If this tradition has died out in China, it is not altogether lost. The practice of traditional archery in both Korea and China up to the present day recognises, preserves and respects aspects of the cultural tradition of Confucian ritual archery.
254
Conclusion
How unbroken is the tradition?
A disjuncture occurs with the fall of courtly ritual in the Warring States period. To what tradition did the 'Shi' participating in the archery rituals of the Warring States regard themselves as heirs?
We cannot hope to find more than fragments from the pre-Shang times, from when no written record has come down to us. But interpreting the evidence generously, magic and shamanism were the domain of the Yi clan. (In Chapter 2 of my book, Chinese Archery, I have done a more ambitious job of collating these scraps than is possible within the scope of a paper like this one.)
The legend of Yi remained popular in folklore and found its way into funereal art even of Northern Wei times. The idealized Confucian work, the 'Zhou Li', which may have originated in the Eastern Zhou state of Qi, explicitly states that there was magic involved in the target, to bring the feudal lords into line. I believe that the cultural heritage accruing to ritual archery in Warring States times included an element of magical power that echoed the activities of the archery Shamans of the distant past.
Further disjunctures are less acute. The weakening of ritual beliefs throughout the Han and Wei-Jin periods were replaced by the inclusion of the Confucian orthodoxy (in the form of the 'Archery Classic', which itself acknowledged archery magic though the theory of the hou target, rites of passage for males and ritual dance movements to music). The Confucian ‘Archery Classic' acted as centre of a major gravitational force. Once formally incorporated in the Imperial Examination System, not only did the Confucian system ensure that the traditions of the Zhou period remained alive, it even exerted an influence in maintaining archery as a semi-ritual pursuit outside the purely practical field of military affairs, despite being part of the syllabus of a supposed military examination'.
If this tradition has died out in China, it is not altogether lost. The practice of traditional archery in both Korea and China up to the present day recognises, preserves and respects aspects of the cultural tradition of Confucian ritual archery.
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