Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities

Abstract

both Clark and Brindley are hampered by the fact that the textual sources are all written in Chinese. Unfortunately, the Yue left us no descriptions of themselves in their own language(s). But Clark not only reviews “Northern perceptions of the PreSinitic South” and summarizes the long process of Sinitic encroachment, he also teases out evidence of “cultural accommodation” and the echoes of pre-Sinitic indigenous culture that remain. Many of these echoes are found in religion. Clark observes that “the core of indigenous belief throughout coastal Fujian was the totemic worship of animal and fertility spirits” (p. 93), notably including such creatures as frogs, snakes, and dragons. Evidence of this pre-Sinitic past survives today in the form of scattered phallic stone pillars and petroglyphs. Clark also examines legendary textual accounts of snakes and dragons (long 龍, jiao 蛟, and the associated but decidedly less mythical crocodiles, e 鱷, that really do inhabit the southern coast) in the lore of the southlands. Clark looks especially closely at several examples of how native southern beliefs were rendered respectably wen during the Song dynasty. A particularly captivating example is the Divine Woman of Meizhou 湄洲神女, who was first recorded in 1150. This Divine Woman reportedly was born on Meizhou Island as a certain human Miss Lin 林. Miss Lin became a female shaman (wu 巫), and her spirit was later venerated as a protector of seafarers and others. Today, she is probably best known aMazu媽祖, who is surely one of the most famous of all “Chinese” religious figures. Yet Clark says she is typical of the numerous pre-Sinitic female deities credited with protecting mariners along the southeastern coast (p. 143). The pre-Sinitic origins of Mazu seem to me to be more assumed than proven, but that is, of course, an inherent problem when all of our texts are written in Chinese. Clark also finds in Daoism a form of anti-hegemonic resistance to Sinitic conformity, which, “by critiquing the discourse through the language of the discourse” (p. 35), itself became part of the Sinitic tradition. Both Daoism and Mazu certainly did become what we would today consider Chinese. That may be one reason why it is useful, as Clark prefers, to speak of Sinitic civilization rather than “China.” “China” implies something unitary, singular, and monolithic, while the reality is more complex, and continually changing. Hugh Clark’s new book helps us better understand some of these nuances, and makes a significant contribution to scholarship on pre-modern China.