[
    {
        "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": 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": 216064,
        "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-2002",
        "page_number": 363,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "297\n\nbandits to seek their fortune. Mesny explained that the opportunity occurred for 'the four bold adventurers' to leave the city together with the bandits together with several old Taiping chiefs, amongst whom was a brother of the Shou Wang, the Taiping leader who formerly had held Ningbo. The four, Jerome, a cripple having had one of his legs damaged during the [Opium] war; Captain O.P. Damström, a Swede; Anthony Fiamin, an Austrian from Fiume; and Beeman, a Britisher from London. Mesny believed that they were the only foreigners who actually served with the Nian rebels. Mesny went to see them off and Jerome embraced him very affectionately after the manner of his country. They had not been gone very long when Mesny received a letter from Damström saying that he had been wounded in a cavalry charge against some 'trainbands' who had attempted to cut them off from the main body. The Four Bold Adventurers had then accompanied the Nianzi in their revolving rambles all over the country lying between the Yangzi and the Yellow River from Hankou to Zhifu and back again until the whole body of the bandits had been beaten and dispersed. At the dispersion Damström had been taken prisoner by the Imperial forces and as such had been brought down to Zhenjiang in a cage, or so Mesny understood, and had it not been for Captains Welsh and Macdonald who had been in charge of the artillery and rocket batteries in one of the Imperial camps Damström would very likely have been done to death like his three companions none of whom, though they had surrendered to the Imperial forces, ever returned to the [treaty] ports. Beeman was said to have been buried alive in Shandong, Jerome and Anthony appeared to have been murdered by their captors in northern Jiangsu [province], having become separated during the last few days march.\n\nWe know remarkably little about Mesny's life during the 1880s. A very serious famine ravaged Anhui province during 1888/9, and Mesny, then aged 46, made two long journeys through Anhui and northern Jiangsu provinces to judge and report on the extent of suffering. During his journeys, Mesny later wrote, he discovered that Earl Zeng [Guochuan], the Viceroy of Nanjing, needed the funds raised earlier by a Shanghai charity, the Renjishan Tang, to appease and pay off the Cantonese bandits, the Shap-ng Tsoi,33 who were very active in the Yangzi valley at the time. Mesny added that he, Mesny, in 1889, had assisted in the pacification of the excited populace at Zhenjiang where he had arrived a few hours after the British Consulate and other buildings",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]