1. See Chang, K.C., “Food and Food Vessels in Ancient China,” chap. 7 in his Early Chinese Civilization: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976)Google Scholar, 115. Chang refers specifically to works by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Yvonne Verdier.

2. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Raw and the Cooked, trans. J. and Weightman, D. (New York: Harper and Row, 1969)Google Scholar.

3. The most representative books are: Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.R, La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec (Paris: NRF, 1983)Google Scholar; and Malamoud, Charles, Cuire le monde (Paris: La découverte, 1989)Google Scholar.

4. See Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Loewe, M. (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993), 25, 237 Google Scholar.

5. See Falkenhausen, Lothar von, “Reflections on the Political Role of Spirit Mediums in Early China: The Wu Officials in the Zhouli,” Early China 20 (1995), 280–81 Google Scholar, and Vandermeersch, Léon, Wangdao ou la Voie Royale, vol. 2 (Paris: Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1980), 426 Google Scholar.

6. Confucius's interest in ritual is beyond doubt. When Duke Ling of Wei asked Confucius about troop order, he answered: “I have often heard about side-board tables [used for the display of offerings] and vases [used for the consumption of offerings] but I have not studied the military domain” (). See Lunyu, (Shisanjing zhushu ed. [Beijing: Zhong-hua, 1983]), 15.60 Google Scholar.

7. See Loewe, Early Chinese Texts, 294–95.

8. See bowuguan, Jingmenshi, Guodian Chu mu zhujian (Beijing: Wenwu, 1998)Google Scholar.

9. I would like to thank Yuan Guohua of the Academia Sinica for his courtesy in providing me with a copy of the two strips. Unfortunately, information concerning the Shanghai Museum strips is still sketchy, and it is uncertain when they will be published in full.

10. The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Eliade, Mircea (New York: Macmillan, 1993), vol. 12, 549 Google Scholar.

11. Liji (Shisanjing zhushu ed.), 26.229. Unless mentioned, all translations in this article are mine.

12. Bilsky, L.J., The State Religion of Ancient China (Taipei: The Chinese Association for Folklore, 1975)Google Scholar.

13. The two terms tan and zhe refer to heaps of soil erected for sacrificial purposes. Commentaries explain zhe as a rectangular mound. See citations in Tetsuji, Morohashi , Dai Kan-Wa jiten (Tokyo: Taishūkan, 1957–60), vol. 5, no. 11890 Google Scholar.

14. In Liji, 46.360.

15. A knife with a jingle bell on its handle.

16. I have translated yan as “meat boiled in water” following the explanation in Zheng Xuan's (127–200) commentary.

17. Liji, 47.366.

18. I place the offering of raw meat before the offering of boiled meat based on the two text parallels cited below.

19. Liji, 25.266.

20. Xidan, Sun Liji jijie (Taipei: Wenshizhi, 1972), 597–98Google Scholar.

21. Zhouli (Shisanjing zhushu ed.), “Niuren,” 13.86.

22. Zheng Xuan explains that “what is close is familiar; what is far away [inspires] reverence.”

23. Liji, 24.211.

24. The offering of blood at the beginning of a sacrifice could be a custom as old as the Shang period. See Lefeu vre, J.: Several Collections of Oracular Inscriptions in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium. (Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1997), 321–23Google Scholar. On the same subject, see also Shaoming, Lian , “Jiagu kecizhong de xueji” , Guwenzi yanjiu 16 (1989), 49–66 Google Scholar. According to Lian Shaoming, blood offerings were made to ancestors, sometimes at the beginning of a ceremony and before the offering of other items or victims. This could be interpreted as a preliminary offering, intended as an invitation to the spirit. In some inscriptions, blood offerings were made in order to counteract inauspicious events.

25. The well-done offering seems to imply that it can be eaten precisely because it is cooked until well-done. The contrast between what is to be eaten and what is not suggests the categories raw versus cooked. I examine this aspect below. The Kong Yingda subcommentary, Liji, 26.211, introduces two other categories, disgust versus attraction: “The business of eating [cooked] meat is close to human feelings; the business of eating [uncooked] blood is the most distant [from human feelings]” (). Although the subcommentary reflects a Tang opinion about blood, which may not be that of the late Zhou period, it is not uncommon for blood to be regarded as a disgusting substance. This notion of a disgusting but sacred item is not so strange. Nowadays it would be very difficult for a devout Jew or Muslim to eat blood. It is to God, the most sacred being and the origin of life, to whom blood must be offered (for Jewish tradition see Genesis 9.3–4 and Leviticus 1.5 and 17.11–12; for Muslim tradition my information comes from several Muslim friends, Sunnits or Chiits). According to this very late interpretation, reverence is inversely proportional to the attraction, an idea that seems relevant to early China.

26. According to the Tang subcommentary, men were still hungry after having eaten the flesh and so consumed the hair. The subcommentary mentions the story of the Han envoy Su Wu , who was reduced by hunger to eating the fleece of sheep mixed with snow.

27. Liji, “Liyun” , 21.188.

28. For example, during banquets participants were seated on mats placed directly on the floor, which is still the custom in Japan.

29. This is the continuation of the passage cited immediately above.

30. Hanfeizi jijie (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), “Wudu” 19.339.

31. Zhuangzi jisji (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), “Daozhi” , 29.429.

32. Oppositions (in this case, in cooking) are defined by Lévi-Strauss as structures in the following way: “An arrangement is structured which meets but two conditions: that it be a system ruled by an internal cohesiveness and that this cohesiveness, inaccessible to observation in an isolated system, be revealed in the study of transformations through which similar properties are recognized in apparently different systems.” See Lévi-Strauss, C., Structural Anthropology 2, trans. Layton, M. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1978), 18 Google Scholar. In the present case, the different systems are textual.

33. For dating the texts, I follow the notices in Loewe, Early Chinese Texts. Archaeo-logical discoveries of early Chinese manuscripts will no doubt result in revisions of the dates of certain texts.

34. Chunqiu Zuozhuan (Shisanjing zhushu ed.), 5.39. The general context is a reprimand made by Zang Aibo to the duke of Lu for having accepted a bribe from the Song state. The duke is reminded that he must be an example of virtue. Virtue seems to imply parsimony, an idea that is developed by one of the Huainanzi passages below (text no. 8).

35. “Great banquet” translates daxiang , which is the same term used in the Liji passages already quoted above. I have used a consistent English translation, but one can observe that the offerings in the Liishi chunqiu passage differ from the great banquet offerings in the Liji passages. The Liji commentaries mention neither fish nor the great stew; and the Liishi chunqiu mentions neither blood nor raw meat. Keeping in mind that the Zhouli, “Niuren,” passage cited above (see p. 94) indicates that blood and ra w meat were offered in all sacrifices, I suspect that the two great banquet offerings in the Lüshi chunqiu passage belong to the four general offering categories associated with the great banquet: blood, raw meat, the great stew, and numerous tasty viands. Note that the Liji, “Jiyi,” passage gives three categories of offerings in the ancestral sacrifice: blood, raw meat, and yan “meat boiled in water” (see above, p. 93). It is tempting to equate the yan offering with the great stew, but the lack of direct textual evidence compels me not to do so. I therefore treat yan and the great stew as belonging to two parallel systems.

36. The commentaries say that the great stew is not enhanced with any kind of condiment, nor with the five flavors: acidic, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty.

37. Lüshi chunqiu (Zhuzi jicheng ed), 5.50.

38. Xunzi jijie (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), 13.234. The Xunzi passage also occurs, with minor variations, in Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1985)Google Scholar, “Lishu” , 23.1168–71; and Da Dai liji (Sibu congkan ed.), “Lisanben” , 1.6.

39. As explained in the Jia Gongyan (seventh century) subcommentary, xinggeng “tasty stew” designates the same food as shuxiu “numerous tasty viands”; the type of vessel in which these tasty viands are served accounts for the different names. In Zhouli, “Shanfu” , 4. 21–22, it is recorded that for royal sacrifices, the number of the dishes belonging to the tasty category (, as opposed to the great stew) was 120. The composition of viands was extremely sophisticated. For the details of ingredients and cooking, see Chang, “Food and Food Vessels in Ancient China,” 121, 124–25, 146–48.

40. Zhouli, 4.24.

41. Yili (Shisanjing zhushu ed.), 25.137.

42. Yili, 4.19.

43. Huainanzi (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), 20.365.

44. Huainanzi, 9.138.

45. Shiji, 24.1184–86. The passage also occurs in Liji, “Yueji” ,37.300. In the subcommentary to the Liji, Kong Yingda explains that the great stew has extra taste, “because it has virtue, [the virtue] of substance and natural components” ().

46. Liji, 26.227.

47. Liji, 23.205.

48. See Cheng, Zhao , Jiaguwen jianming cidian (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1988), 244–45Google Scholar. Zhongshu, Xu , jiaguwen zidian (Chengdu: Sichuan cishu, 1988), 1584–85Google Scholar, gives only the meaning “bring forward an offering.”

49. See Zhouli, “Xiangren,” 4.24.

50. See Zhouli, “Zhangke” , 38.262–63; Yili, “Pinli” , 20.108; Yili, “Gongshi daifu,” 25.137.

51. In text no. 7 from the Huainanzi, it is said that the great stew “can be eaten but not relished.” The subcommentary to the Liji, “Yueji,” 37.301, notes that, “[in the usual circumstances, the great stew] is not something that humans desire.”

52. Liji, “Yueji,” 37.301.

53. Lüshi chunqiu, “Zhongji” , 1.7.

54. The ideal of simplicity represented by Vao's reign is stated in a similar passage in Hanfeizi, “Wudu,” 19.340: “When the emperor Yao reigned, thatched roofs were not trimmed; rafters were not hewn; people ate raw millet, herbs, and bean soups; during winter they wore tunics of fawn skin, and during summer they wore canvas clothes” . Hanfeizi does not mention the great stew, but his main purpose is to use old stories as illustrations for his own theories and not to describe ancient ritual (whose value he rejected).

55. This is the point of the subcommentary to the Yili, “Gongshi daifu” passage (text no. 5): “Antiquity was simple [without sophistication]; that is why there is no seasoning added [to the great stew]” ().

56. The subcommentary to a passage in the Liji, “Yueji,” 37.301 (see above, n.45) alludes to the function of memory in sacrifice: “The flavor [of the great stew] is worthy of respect; men cherish it and do not forget it” (). This aspect will be developed below.

57. The Yili passages (texts nos. 5–6 above) make reference to the great stew in these rituals. I would note that the Yili, which might be thought to reflect early ritual practice, contains very few details about the great stew and does not even mention it in a sacrificial context. The sacrificial context is present in the Zuozhuan (as, for example, in text no. 1), but precise descriptive details are lacking. In my judgment, the lack of textual evidence in the Zuozhuan or earlier sources does not mean that the conception of the great stew I have proposed was not current perhaps as early as the Spring and Autumn period. The Yili is known to represent the ritual code for lower officers (see Loewe, Early Chinese Texts, 234–35); the great stew may have figured more prominently in parts of the now-lost ritual code for those of higher status. With regard to the Zuozhuan, I think it likely that its information on the great stew may be taken to represent Spring and Autumn ideas. The question of the antiquity of the ideas about the great stew is discussed further below.

58. See, for example, Liji, “Jiaotesheng,” 26.224: “[For the sacrifice to Heaven and the great ancestors in the south suburb] the soil is swept and the sacrifice is offered directly on the ground. For utensils one uses pottery and gourds” . The use of pottery and gourds during the sacrifice to Heaven is because they are less sophisticated than bronze. The sacrifice itself is performed “directly on the ground,” and the term used is zhi , the word I have rendered as “simplicity” in text no. 10 above.

59. Liji, 23.206. A part of the chapter “Jiaotesheng” (text no. 10; Liji, 26.227) is interpreted in a similar way in the subcommentary.

60. See pp. 97–98.

61. This statement immediately follows our text no. 2; Lüshi chunqiu, “Shiyin,” 5.50. Slightly different versions occur in Shiji, “Yueshu,” 24.1186; and in Liji, “Yueji,” 37.300.

62. The Liji subcommentary adds: “If men do not have ritual, what is the difference between them and mice?”

63. Liji, “Liyun” , 31.166–67. The Shijing quotation is from Shijing (Shi-sanjing zhushu ed.), “Xiangshu” , (Mao 52), 3–2.51. Whether this is a genuine saying of Confucius remains to be proven. However, the quotation from the Shijing is genuine, and its implicit differentiation between men and animals based on ritual alone surely reflects a point of view that was current in Confucius's time.

64. Liji, “Jiaotesheng,” 26.228.

65. Xunzi, “Lilun,” 13.237.

66. Liji, “Jitong” , 49.376–77.1 would note that in this passage the differences manifested by sacrifice (ji ) encompass every aspect of life. Thus, sacrifice seems to have the same range as the ritual li. Xunzi develops the same idea of the importance of differentiation in “Lilun,” Xunzi, 13.231:

The gentleman thus obtains [the ritual] cultivation, and appreciates [the ritual] differentiation. What is called differentiation? It is said that noble and ignoble have hierarchy; old and young are distinguished; poverty and richness, and what is futile and what is important, are all measured. That is why the brush mat is placed on the Son of Heaven's cart.

67. Liji, “Jiaotesheng,” 26.225.

68. There is a parallel between this text and the great stew/numerous tasty viands system. The ox for the sacrifice to the ancestor God Millet is selected from oxen immediately at hand and therefore close to men, but the ox for heavenly spirits must be prepared by removing it from the realm of men for a ritually specified period. We may also see an analogy between this isolation and the fact that the most remote substance from human taste, blood, is offered to Heaven in the jiao sacrifice. The two sets of linked associations are as follows: ox for the Heavenly Emperor, blood, height of respect, remoteness; ox for God Millet, boiled meat (edible dish), familiarity, closeness.

69. Liji, “Jiyi,” 47.367.

70. Liji, “Yueji,” 37.302.

71. We do not know much about the cosmological concepts of the Western Zhou or the Shang, and we should not ignore the possibility of a cosmological conception of sacrifice prior to the late Warring States, Qin, and Han periods that is not evident in the received sources. There are many examples in the anthropological literature showing that in cultures possessing relatively low technological expertise and no system of written scriptures, sacrifice was linked to and could not be interpreted without reference to an often complex symbolic system, embracing the whole cosmos. See, for example, Heuch, Luc de, Le sacrifice dans les religions africaines Paris: NRF, 1986)Google Scholar.

72. Lunyu, 6.23.

73. Shujing (Shisanjing zhushu ed.), “Lüxing” , 19.136.

74. See especially, Bodde, Derk, “Myths of Ancient China,” in Mythologies of the Ancient World, ed. Kramer, S. (New York: Doubleday, 1961),389–94Google Scholar.

75. I offer this speculation knowing that further study of the Shujing passage and other versions of the San Miao story is necessary. Nevertheless, my proposed interpretation is consistent with the evidence of differentiation and sacrifice discussed above. Thus, the political value of sacrifice is another aspect requiring further study.

76. Liji, “Yueji,” 37.301.

77. Falkenhausen, Lothar von, Suspended Music: Chime-bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 29 Google Scholar, makes the following observation about Zhou ancestral ritual: “Following the ancestral sacrifice, in which every word and movement was minutely regulated, a feast (yan ) took place in the temple, an occasion for the assembled male kinfolk to become roaring drunk.” For examples of relevant Shijing poems, see Falkenhausen, Suspended Music,26–28.

78. Dayu ding ( wang, Kang epoch), in Shang Zhou qingtongqi mingwen xuan , vol. 3, ed. Chengyuan, Ma (Beijing: Wenwu, 1988), 35–39 Google Scholar. According to the “Jiugao” chapter of the Shujing, 14.94, where King Kang admonishes his officers about their indulging in alcohol, such bad habits were hard to put an end to.

79. Jessica Rawson argues that the disappearance of earlier types of ritual drinking vessels in the late Western Zhou is evidence of a ritual reform that diminished the use of alcoholic beverage in sacrificial ritual. See Rawson, , Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Cambridge: Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 1990), vol. IIA, 102 Google Scholar.

80. See Bujard, M., Recherche sur les sacrifices au ciel à l'époque des Han antérieurs (Ph.D. diss., Paris III, 1994), 311–13Google Scholar.

81. For an analysis of the evidence of spirit mediumism in the Zhouli, see Falkenhausen, Lothar von, “Reflections on the Political Role of Spirit Mediums in Early China,” Early China 20 (1995), 279–300 Google Scholar.

82. I would note especially the following: Falkenhausen, Suspended Music; Edward Shaughnessy, L., “From Liturgy To Literature: The Ritual Contexts of the Earliest Poems in the Book of Poetry,” Hanxueyanjiu 13.1 (1995), 133–64Google Scholar; and Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes.

83. See above, p. 91 and nn.8–9.

84. See Bujard, “Recherche sur les sacrifices au ciel,” 132–50.

85. Maspero, H., “Le ming-t'ang et la crise religieuse chinoise avant les Han,” Mélanges Chinois et Bouddhiques 9 (1948–51), 1–71 Google Scholar.

86. See The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol.4, 82, for the Coptic church; and vol.5, 173, for the Ethiopian church.

87. Dumézil, Georges, Archaic Roman Religion, trans. Krapp, Philip (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996), vol.1, 13–14 Google Scholar, makes a similar point in discussing the reconstruction of archaic Roman religion.

88. See above, n. 45.

89. See above, n. 38.

90. Shijing, “Liezu” (Mao 302), 20–3.353.1 use the translation of Karlgren, B., The Book of Odes: Chinese Text, Transcriptions and Translation (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950), 262–63Google Scholar, except for the last character, which I have modified as “stew.”

91. See Ming, Gao , “Zhoudai yongding zhidu yanjiu” , in his Xian Qin liang Han kaoguxue lunji (Beijing: Wenwu, 1985), 73–75 Google Scholar. This is a revised version of Yu Weichao and Ming, Gao, “Zhoudai yongding zhidu yanjiu,” Beijing daxue xuebao 1978.1, 84–98 Google Scholar; 1978.2, 84–97; and 1979.1, 83–96.

92. See above, n. 39.

93. Gao Ming, “Zhoudai yongding zhidu,” argues for correlating the data in the Ritual Classics with the archaeological data. Ling, Li , “On the Typology of Chu Bronzes” (trans. Falkenhausen, Lothar von), Beiträge zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archäologie 11 (1991), 78–79 Google Scholar, remains skeptical.

94. See Li Ling, “On the Typology of Chu Bronzes,” 73–74. Li Ling notes that archaeological data from tombs of lower rank is insufficient to compare with the Ritual Classics.

95. See above, p. 112 and n. 78.

96. Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes, vol. IIA, 102.

97. See above, pp. 105–6.

98. Rawson, Jessica, “Statesmen or Barbarians? The Western Zhou as Seen through their Bronzes,” Proceedings of the British Academy 75 (1989), 89–91 Google Scholar (I have not been able to consult the original article, and take the quotation from Shaughnessy, “From Liturgy to Literature,” 161).

99. Shaughnessy, “From Liturgy To Literature,”158–64.

100. This last point was suggested to me by reading the introduction of Charles Malamoud, Cuire le monde, 5.

101. See J.E Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” in Detienne and Vernant, La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, 37–38, 60.

102. Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” 42.

103. See M. Detienne, “Pratiques culinaires et esprit de sacrifice,” in Detienne and Vernant, La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec, 20.

104. Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” 45, n. 1. Note also that the slaying of the victim, before the cremation of bones and grease, was done by slitting the throat. The blood represented life and belonged naturally to the gods.

105. Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” 62.

106. Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” 44.

107. Vernant, “A la table des hommes,” 43, 86.

108. Detienne, “Pratiques culinaires et esprit de sacrifice,” 14–17.

109. See the many articles collected in Granet, M., Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953)Google Scholar.