Read Michael Carr's Early Chinese Body: The Body/Derogate Ceremony.
If you hear the word "mortem," the first reaction is probably a corpse.
But in the early Chinese rituals, there was a more strange meaning to the dead body: a living man would sit in his ancestral seat, receive drinks, represent his ancestors, and possibly even speak for the dead.
This man, who is often translated into English. The Chinese language can be called the "screw" or the "Zurin's".
Michael Carr's article is really interesting, and it's here: instead of treating the funeral as a strange superstition, he put it in a longer historical clue. The body of the deceased, the voice of his ancestors, the surrogate of the living and the subsequent placards may be the same issue
How does the ancestors continue to "be present"?
Ceremonial scene
Let's start with conclusions.
The core judgement of Carr can be summed up in one sentence
"The body" is not simply a word for the body, but a historical hub linking the body of the deceased, the ritual role, the voice of the ancestors and the god's name.
This article can be read in four steps
Read Guide
The body is not just a body.
In modern Chinese, the body almost only reminds you of the body. But Carr reminds us that the body in the earlier text has at least a few dimensions
The first level is the most intuitive "casus, remains".
The second level is the "substitutes" of the ancestor: a living man temporarily occupied the place of his ancestor and was sacrificed on his behalf.
The third level is later, the "gods of God, the wood, the ancestors' tablets": the ancient spirits are no longer called through the living, but are placed on a token that is to be displayed and worshipable.
And that's how these things come together.
The semantic chain is crucial. It explains that "casual" is not a dead word, but a changing institutional term: it starts from the body, goes through the role, and ends up in the system of protocol and symbols.
What happened at the funeral site?
According to materials such as the verse, the rite, the rite, the ceremonial gift may be understood as follows
In the sacrifice of their ancestors, a offspring, who are, ideally, grandchildren, are placed in their ancestral place. He received alcohol, participated in rituals, and became a visible place for his late ancestors.
Ceremonial Relationship Chart
The most misleading point here is that the surrogate is not an "actor" in the modern sense.
Actors play a role on stage; the surrogate takes a ceremonial place in the temple. This position has its true effect: the Holy Father salutes him, gives him wine and brings to him respect for his father.
So the real anomaly is that it turns family class temporarily.
Inverted family level
In everyday life, the father is higher than the son, and the ascendants are higher than the ascendants.
But if the grandson acts as his grandfather's surrogate, then the moment of the sacrifice, the father must salute his son. The respect is not for the child himself, but for his ancestral place.
This is precisely the issue repeatedly touched upon by Monkot and the Diary: the "position" of the ritual, which can temporarily overwhelm everyday identity.
What leads have been left in the literature?
Carr's article is extensive, not based on one story. He put together all the characters, the scriptures, the books, the apostasy and semantic changes.
In order to avoid being dilated by the name of the successor, you can place the corpse gift on this timeline
Timeline for the dead.
Of these, poetry is particularly important.
Modern corpses are often associated with wine, food, the blessing of the spirits, intoxication and speech. That is to say, the ritual is not an abstract "ceremonial ceremony", but rather a way of being present with wine, body and sound.
These elements are interesting together
Wine and food make ancestors not just "reminiscent", but rather as part of a feast.
The dead make their ancestors not just "in heaven", but a visible place in the temple.
Words and blessings leave the ancestors not only to be worshiped, but also to be able to respond.
This brings the ritual from the ritual to the deeper question: Do the ancients really believe that their ancestors speak in some way?
Why did Jaynes' dichotomy get pulled in?
Carr's article is in a collection discussing Julian Jaynes. Jaynes' most famous idea is the "diverse mind" hypothesis.
In short, Jaynes believes that the subjective introspection in the modern sense is not complete from the very beginning. At an earlier stage of culture, when faced with pressure, orders and major choices, people may experience certain internal psychological processes as voices from outside authorities: the voice of God, the voice of kings, the voice of ancestors.
A dichotomy model.
It is certainly a highly controversial theory.
But, in Carr's opinion, the gift of corpses provides a cut-in point to this theory in Chinese material.
If it had been easier for the early society to refer to the inner voice experience as an ancestral or divine voice, the funeral may have documented a transition
From sound to card
At the earliest, the voices of the ancestors may be heard directly or seen as being directly communicated.
Later on, society needed a more stable ritual role to carry the ancestors, and then the modern corpses.
And then, when people became less convinced that the Zojin really spoke through the living, the rituals were further institutionalized, and the ancestors were turning to the Wood, the Lord and the Cards.
In other words
The ancestors didn't disappear from protocol, but the way they were there changed.
If you keep reading this book
"Reflections on the Dawn of Conscience" is not an easy reading. It is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that revolve around Jaynes's dichotomy of mind, from the perspectives of vision, language, self, mythology, ancient civilization.
If you just want to grab the main line, you can read in that order
If your interest is focused on the Chinese material, chapters 12 and 13 deserve to be read together: chapter 12 deals with the dragon and the hidden face, chapter 13 deals with the dead. Both are asking the same question
Have ancient images, ceremonies and words preserved some sort of mental structure different from modern inner experience?
End: The place where the funeral is truly charming.
It's the most charming place in the body gift, not its strangeness.
But it makes an abstract question very specific
How can a person remain in the family after his death?
How do people keep their voices when their ancestors don't speak?
When a living man sits in the position of the dead, is he performing, representing, or carrying a real presence?
We're looking at the ancestral tablets today, and we think it's just a wooden card, a symbol.
But if you look back on Carr's clues, it may have been connected to older things: corpses, voices, drinks, temples, descendants, and the way humans understand "the dead are still alive".
This is where the word "mortem" is most worth rereading.
References
Michael Carr, "The Shi 'Corpse/Personator' Ceremony in Early China," in Marcel Kuijsten ed., Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited.