Place, Administration, and Territorial Cults in Late Imperial China: A Case Study from South Fujian

Abstract

PLACE, ADMINISTRATION, AND TERRITORIAL CULTS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA: A CASE STUDY FROM SOUTH FUJIAN* Mingming Wang Throughout China's late imperial period (1368 to 1911), an integrated system of urban socio-spatial divisions, upujing" (wards or precincts), was practiced in the city of Quanzhou in southern Fujian. This spatial institution was invented by the Ming dynasty's regional magistrates in the 1370s. Its initial functions were militia organization (pubing zhi) and information gathering ; not long after its invention it came to be applied by the magistrates as an instrument of urban administrative control and a means of symbolizing the presence of imperial state structures in the locality. During the same period , local inhabitants under the rule of the imperial magistrates responded to the imposition of this spatial order through ceremonial appropriations and story-telling. Not surprisingly, the pujing system was adapted into a variety of different practices and conceptions. It was also turned into a spatial organization of territorial festivals, in which official spatial conceptions were altered. Documentary materials compiled by local historians and folklorists have confirmed that pujing played an important role in the social life of local inhabitants in traditional times. These materials, together with more recent investigations (Chen and Lin 1990; Wang 1992:132-63), provide clues from which we may be able to trace the origin and transformation of the system. This article represents my attempt to organize the available materials into a systematic analysis. "This study is based on a part of my research on popular cultures of time-space in China between 1988 and 1992, which has resulted in a Ph.D thesis (Wang, 1992). Funds for my fieldwork were provided by the Sine-British Friendship Scholarship Scheme administered by the British Council, and the Central Research Fund of the University of London, as well as the Research Award Scheme of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. I am grateful to these organizations which made my investigation possible. Among the individuals to whom I owe much are Stephan Feuchtwang and Stuart Thompson in London, Nich Tapp in Edinburgh, and Wang Lianmao and Zheng Zhenman in Fujian. I also want to thank three anonymous reviewers who gave many constructive comments on the earlier draft of this article. Last but not least, my warmest thanks to my wife, Yuehchen, for her valuable emotional support. Late Imperial China Vol. 16, No. 1 (June 1995): 33-78 33 34Mingming Wang At first glance, my inquiry seems extremely specific. However, the example is "specific" only in the sense of a case illustration of a more general point. Pujing as a spatial institution can be taken as representative of the general issue of Chinese place institutions and identity. In particular, it illustrates how a spatial institution could be invented, utilized to govern society, and applied to organize diverse localities into a centralized order, and, equally importantly, how the same institution could be remolded into an alternative spatial institution and altered in terms of its function and meaning. The specific example thus draws out general implications of the interrelationship and interactions between administrative space and ritual folk geography, and between means of local governance and grass-roots cultures in a complex society. Place, Order, and Territorial Cults My argument derives from the recognition that "place" (difang) is intrinsic to the Chinese formation of social space and the ritual construction of landscapes, and, as such, is intrinsic to Chinese ways of being in society. I shall analyze pujing from the perspective of place creation and conceptions of space. By so doing, I will identify the mechanisms that underlie the patterns of Chinese place systems, and attempt to specify the implications of place for the understanding of Chinese society. This is influenced by, and in turn bears on, anthropological and social historical studies of the role of place in China since G. William Skinner. In his celebrated studies of Chinese social space, Skinner (1964-65; 1977) presented a "functional" interpretation of place institutions. His theory of place was two-fold. On the one hand, he proposed that certain kinds of "central places" existed in rural China and that these were what was important in the spatial patterns of Chinese society...