[ { "id": 213656, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 9, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ..... ix\n\nHON AUDITOR'S REPORT ..... xx\n\nARTICLES\n\n1 Patrick Hase - Traditional Life in the New Territories: The Evidence of the 1911 and 1921 Censuses\n\n93 Chan Wing Hoi - From Langming Ordination Names to Gongming Imperial Degrees: Study of a Hakka Religious Practice and its Decline\n\n129 Fred Dagenais - John Fryer's Early Years in China: III. Account of Three Days Excursion on the Mainland of China\n\n151 Yip Hon Ming and Ho Wai Yee - The Hou-wang Cult and Tung Chung's Communal Culture\n\n185 Peter Ng Tze Ming - A Study of the Objectives of Church Involvement in Education as Perceived by the Various Protestant Denominations in Hong Kong..\n\n195 Stephanie Chung Po Yin - Business Investment in Politics: Overseas Returned Chinese, Hong Kong Compradores and the Canton Government, 1911-1924\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n223 Carole Morgan - Traces of Houtu's Cult in Hong Kong..\n\n231 Keith Stevens - The Han Lin Academy and a Chinese Deity\n\n235 Keith Stevens - Impermanence of Images in Chinese Popular Religion Temples...\n\n239 Keith Stevens - Supplicating the Deities in Mainland China's Temples.......\n\nviii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213897, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 249, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "223\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nTRACES OF HOUTU'S (后土) CULT IN HONG KONG\n\nCAROLE MORGAN\n\nI first became aware of Houtu stones in the course of my research on geomancy at the Aberdeen and Diamond Hill cemeteries. One of the earliest references to Houtu is found in the Zuozhuan, a work compiled in the III century BC. Under the 29th Year of Duke Zhao (昭), a commentary states that Earth is the ruler of all things, that his divine persona is generally called Houtu, and that his spirit is named Dragon Gouji. During the Han dynasty, the skeptic Wang Chong (王充) (-27c - 100 AD) amplified this definition by remarking that: “The digging of graves disturbs the Earth... [hence] the Earth god must be propitiated with offerings of millet, rice-cakes and soup”. (A Forke, 1925, vol II, p. 400 & 510). I was therefore not surprised to find traces of this once powerful deity in the cemeteries I visited.\n\nYet these traces were puzzling. Almost every grave featured a small stone with an inscription which stated “X family's Houtu shan (山)”. Given that in this context shan means \"burial site”, the text appeared to imply that Houtu should not be read as the name of the deity, but as two words hou tu (土) meaning \"[boundary of the] land behind the grave\", even though many stones were aligned with the grave's headstone. It could be argued that this contradiction represents an unavoidable concession to the non-standard size of certain plots, and should not detract from the stones' boundary marker function. The accuracy of this impression was confirmed by two grave diggers, who indicated that the stones were meant to prevent one grave from encroaching on the plot of another. When I questioned these men on the use of the graph 后 for \"at the back of\" instead of the more common 後, they replied that it was a matter of convenience, the first graph being easier to carve than the second. Though the explanation sounded plausible, I found it unconvincing. By then I had noticed that in front of almost every stone, small metal tubes had been permanently fixed to serve as incense stick holders. At the very least, the presence of these tubes suggested the performance of some kind of ritual.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213898, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 250, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "224\n\nMy doubts about the purely utilitarian nature of hou fu stones were reinforced at the Diamond Hill cemetery. Space at this burial ground is at a premium and plots are often so tiny that stones, where they exist, are jammed together at the back of graves, which relegates them to the role of token boundary markers. Given the overcrowding at Diamond Hill, the discovery of a tomb which by virtue of its size and age had little in common with its neighbours was unexpected. The tomb belonged to the Liang family and was probably built at a time when graves were not yet piled up on top of each other. Not only was the Liang plot a good deal larger than that of the surrounding graves, but the family had clearly tried to ensure that it would always remain so. Set into the ground was a plaque which announced \"Domain of the Liang [family's] funeral abode\". (Liangzhai shanjie). More unusual still was a stone in front of the tomb which bore the words \"quantu\" or \"front of the grave\". What is relevant in this connection is that one expects to see such a stone in front of other graves, since it is both the logical counterpart of hou tu and a confirmation of its marker function, but that is not the case. For reasons that will become apparent below, the stone is unique.\n\nBut the tomb's most remarkable feature was located at the back of the grave. Here a small-scale replica of the main tomb, adorned with the usual inscription (Liangshan Houtu), had been erected. In view of the special nature of the Liang tomb, it was reasonable to assume that the structure represented a shrine to Houtu.\n\nBy installing a plaque, a quantu stone and a shrine, the Liang had attempted to reproduce, above ground, a funerary document called diquan. This was a land contract, written on a durable surface (clay, stone or jade) which included a plot's exact measurements. As of the first century BC, diquan were interred with the deceased to attest his or her ownership of the land in which s/he was buried. According to A. Seidel:\n\n\"From the third century on, the religious character [of the contracts] becomes more pronounced; supernatural beings start to appear as sellers of the land or as witnesses.\n\n(A. Seidel, \"Traces of Han Religion in Funeral Texts found in Tombs\" in Dokyo to shukyo bunka, ed. by Akizuki Kan`ei Hirakawa)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213899, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 251, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "225\n\nshuppansha, 1987, pp. 21-57)\n\nTo my mind, it follows from the above quotation, that the Liang considered Houtu the land contract witness and hoped that by constructing a shrine in his honour, they could prevail upon him to preserve the plot's integrity.\n\nThe Liang tomb, however, is not the only trace of Houtu's survival in Hong Kong. Other, less elaborate examples of his cult also exist at Aberdeen. Here, two very similar stones, from different graves, show clear traces of a religious dimension. One of these is engraved with the words, “Houtu spirit of the Xu family's site” (Xu shan Houtu zhishen). The other is even more explicit though worded somewhat differently. Its inscription reads, “Houtu longshen”.\n\nIn the absence of a family name and since \"long\" is another geomantic term for site, the text can be taken to mean “Site of Houtu's spirit”. While it is tempting to see in the juxtaposition of “dragon” and Houtu an echo of the Zuozhuan's definition, such an interpretation would stretch the bounds of credibility. What is plain from the stones' inscriptions is that they function as simple shrines.\n\nOn the basis of the evidence outlined above, I am now convinced that all Houtu stones are first and foremost shrines at which family members propitiate the Earth god for the disturbance they have caused him - just as Wang Chong recommended. The proposition that stones are boundary markers is a tribute to the creative power of folk etymology. It should, however, not be allowed to obscure the fact that Houtu stones embody vestiges of an ancient cult which originated more than two thousand years ago.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213900, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 252, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "如魏母梁\n\n李門黄氏\n\nJBL\n\nAberdeen Graves and Houtu Stones\n\n后\n\n226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213902, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 254, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "228\n\nAberdeen Xu Family Houtu Stone", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213903, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1996", "page_number": 255, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "Diamond Hill Liang tomb Houtu shine and claim to the plot\n\n229\n\nPage 255\nPage 256\n\n42", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 } ]