English translations of the ceremonial shi 尸 include personator, impersonator, representative, medium, and shaman. Carr reviews the choices. > Obviously, rendering this into English is problematic because there is no > Western analogy for the ceremonial shi 'corpse.' Personator is chosen as the > nearest English translation.
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This is quite absurd. The second opinion is that the personator was not the agent of the departed, but merely its metaphorical representative or shenxiang 神象 "image of the spirit". The Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu explains: > The personator is found in the ceremony wherein sacrifice is offered to > ancestors, because the soul emitting no perceptible sounds and having no > visible form, the loving sentiment of filial piety finds no means of > displaying itself, hence a personator has been chosen to whom meats are > offered, after which he breaks the bowls, quite rejoiced, as if his own > father had eaten plenty. The personator, drinking abundantly, imparts the > illusion that it is the soul which is satiated.
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During a shi ceremony, the ancestral spirit supposedly would enter the personator, who would eat and drink sacrificial offerings and convey spiritual messages.
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The shi () was a ceremonial "personator" who represented a dead relative during ancient Chinese ancestral sacrifices. In a shi ceremony, the ancestral spirit supposedly would enter the descendant "corpse" personator, who would eat and drink sacrificial offerings and convey messages from the spirit. James Legge (1895 IV:135), an early translator of the Chinese classics, described shi personation ceremonies as "grand family reunions where the dead and the living met, eating and drinking together, where the living worshipped the dead, and the dead blessed the living." In modern terms, this ancient Chinese shi practice would be described as necromancy, mediumship, or spirit possession.
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Oracle bone script for shi 尸 Bronze script for shi 尸 Seal script for shi 尸 The word shi 尸 "corpse; personator; inactive; lay out; manage; spirit tablet" can be discussed in terms of Chinese character evolution, historical phonology, semantics, and English translations.
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The modern character 尸 for shi "corpse; personator" is a graphic simplification of ancient pictographs showing a person with a bent back and dangling legs. The first records of shi are on oracle bones dating from the late Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1046 BCE).
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Now, men being all of the same > kind, the father and the children being all of one family and of the same > stock, the soul of the departed person is requested to come and establish > its seat in one of them as in an agent. His follower Zhu Xi concurs: > In ancient times all employed a personator when sacrificing to the dead. > Since the descendants continue the life of their ancestors, the personator > shares, therefore, in the life of the departed person, and the ancestor's > soul descends undoubtedly upon his descendants, and reposes therein to enjoy > the sacrifice offered. Carr (2007:387–388) offers a contemporary explanation for shi "corpse" personation: Julian Jaynes's psychological bicameralism hypothesis.
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Zhou Dynasty classic texts (c. 11th–3rd centuries BCE) use the word shi 尸 hundreds of times. Lothar von Falkenhausen contrasts the frequently recorded shi "personator" with the rarely noted wu 巫 "shaman; spirit medium". > At ancestral sacrifices, the ancestral spirits descend into individuals > designated from among their descendants, the "Impersonators" (shi 尸).
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Chinese scholars have long disagreed about when and how shi personation originated. Henri Doré (1914 1:99–102) summarizes the four principal opinions, which are worth quoting in full. The first opinion is that personation was a bygone superstition. The Tang Dynasty historian Du You criticizes the shi: > The ancients employed a personator.
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This rite deserves censure, and has been > abolished by our great Worthies. One vied with the other in practicing it. > Now that an era of progress has set in, and these silly customs have > disappeared, it is important not to revive them; common sense bids to > refrain from them. Some half-baked literati of our days would fain re- > establish this ceremony of the personator.
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Several early texts and commentaries reiterate a traditional history of personation beginning in the second millennium BCE as a sacred communion with ancestral spirits, but ending as a drinking party in the late 1st millennium BCE. When the personation ceremony supposedly originated during the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 – c. 1600 BCE), a personator would make contact with the dead ancestral spirit before sitting down to eat and drink.
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During the Yin or Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE), a personator would sometimes sit down without having contacted the spirit, and by the late Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BCE), a personation ceremony became a revelry with several personators repeatedly making toasts and drinking sacrificial wines. Two Liji chapters describe how personation rituals changed during the Zhou period. > Under the [Zhou] dynasty the representatives of the dead sat.
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Wolfram Eberhard (1968:338) explained that a child makes the best personator owing to the ancient Chinese belief that a soul is small. Julian Jaynes (1976:344–345) mentions a Greek parallel: the philosopher Iamblichus wrote that "young and simple persons" make the most suitable mediums. Stephen Bokenkamp mentions examples besides shi rituals. > In China, possessions by spirits that occurred outside of this ritual > scenario often involved younger members of the family as well.
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The Julian Jaynes Society was founded by supporters of bicameralism in 1997, shortly after Jaynes's death. The society published a collection of essays on bicameralism in 2007, with contributors including psychological anthropologist Brian J. McVeigh, psychologists John Limber and Scott Greer, clinical psychologist John Hamilton, philosophers Jan Sleutels and David Stove, and sinologist Michael Carr (see shi "personator"). The book also contains an extensive biography of Julian Jaynes by historian of psychology William Woodward and June Tower, and a foreword by neuroscientist Michael Persinger.
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The Chinese surname Shi is commonly written "stone", "history", "teacher", "time", or "scholar" – but hardly ever written shi "corpse; ceremonial 'personator' of a dead person". Besides Shi Jiao, there are few examples other than Shi Cong and Shi Bo , who served Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424). The given name Jiao or Xiao can be pronounced jiǎo "handsome; beautiful; excellent", jiāo "associate; have intercourse with", or xiáo "imitate; false". Although Tang dynasty scholar Sima Zhen first noted the jiǎo in Shi Jiao was pronounced like jiǎo "twisted", some sources misspell his name as "Shi Xiao".
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Impersonator would be possible, but this word > implies falsehood, which was not originally associated with the shi. > Representative is too general in meaning, and does not usually have a sense > of spirituality, unless modified by of the dead/ancestor. Paper [1995] > suggests Incorporator of the Dead, which has a parallel 'one who embodies' > etymology, but the derivate words incorporate and incorporation commonly > have other meanings. Medium and shaman are similar with shi in meaning and > are part of Chinese traditions; however, the descriptions of a dignified > personator are unlike the spirit-possession of either.
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Compare these gongshi translations: "representative of the (dead) princes" (Karlgren), "personators of your ancestors" (Legge, admitting 1895 IV:447, "The expression 公尸, 'ducal personators,' is somewhat difficult to account for"), "impersonator of the Ancient", "ducal Dead", or "Dead One" (Waley, noting 1937:215, "Impersonator of a former Duke or ruler"). Ode 247 (Jizui 既醉 "Already Drunk") describes a sacrificial feast for ancestral spirits, and says "the representative of the (dead) princes makes a happy announcement". Ode 248 (Fuyi 鳧鷖 "Wild Ducks") describes another feast, which commentators say was held on the following day to reward the personator, and details sacrificial offerings and ancestral blessings.
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The Chinese terms sānshī and sānchóng compound sān 三 meaning "three, 3; several, many" with shī 尸 or 屍 "corpse, dead body; ritual personator representing a dead relative during Chinese ancestral sacrifices" and chóng 蟲 or 虫 "insect; worm; bug". The usual English translation of sanshi is "three corpses" or "Three Corpses". However, this Daoist term does not literally refer to "corpses; dead bodies" within the human body, but is linguistically causative meaning the eventual "death; mortality" produced by these demonic agents (Arthur 2013). Compare the English slang verb corpse meaning "to make a corpse of, to kill" (Oxford English Dictionary 2009). More accurate translations of sanshi are "Three Deathbringers" (Kohn 1993), "Three Death-bringers" (Komjathy 2007) [cf. the video game Death Bringer], "three corpse-demons" (Strickmann 2002), or "three corpse [evils]" (Zhang & Unschuld 2014).
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Burning of incense during a veneration at Mengjia Longshan Temple, which is dedicated to Guan Yu, Mazu, and others In China, ancestor veneration (敬祖, pinyin: jìngzǔ) and ancestor worship (拜祖, pinyin: bàizǔ) seek to honour and recollect the actions of the deceased; they represent the ultimate homage to the dead. The importance of paying respect to parents (and elders) lies with the fact that all physical bodily aspects of one's being were created by one's parents, who continued to tend to one's well-being until one was on firm footing. The respect and homage to parents is to return this gracious deed to them in life and after. The shi (尸; "corpse, personator") was a Zhou dynasty (1045 BCE-256 BCE) sacrificial representative of a dead relative.
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Wright, p. 212. He made donations to help set up an annuity for Robertson when she retired in 1848. He first appeared in London at the Theatre Royal Lyceum and English Opera House on 20 July 1837 as Tommy Tadpole in The Haunted Inn, followed, on 24 July 1837, as Robin in the musical farce The Waterman and as Paul Shack in Master's Rival. On the 27 July he was Frolick in The Mountain Sylph and as Simon in The Rendezvous. A Quarter to Nine by Peake was written to introduce Compton (Frolick) as an imitator or personator, and performed on 5 August. On 17 August he played Jean Jachere in Blanche of Jersey. On 24 August, he was Tranquille in The Little Laundress and Alessio in La Sonnambula! He added Sampson in Guy Mannering on 27 September.
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A funeral procession in Zhejiang province Funerals are considered to be a part of the normal process of family life, serving as a cornerstone in inter- generational traditions. The primary goals, regardless of religious beliefs, are to demonstrate obeisance and provide comfort for the deceased. Other goals include: to protect the descendants of the deceased from malevolent spirits and to ensure the proper separation and direction of the deceased's soul into the afterlife. Some common elements of Chinese funerals include the expression of grief through prolonged, often exaggerated wailing; the wearing of white mortuary clothes by the family of the deceased; a ritual washing of the corpse, followed by its attiring in grave clothes; the transfer of symbolic goods such as money and food from the living to the dead; the preparation and installation of a spirit tablet or the use of a personator, often symbolic.
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