Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 Read Free Page A

monastery.

    Making their way along a village street, Chu-ch'eng and Chinghsin saw two boys, aged eleven or twelve, playing in front of a house.
One saw Chu-ch'eng's name inscribed on his bronze begging bowl
and, to the monk's surprise, recited the ideographs aloud. "So, Mr.
'Official'-you can read!" chuckled the delighted monk. "You study
a few more years and you'll certainly get an official post. What's your
name? After you've become an official, don't forget me," he added,
hoping to please the youngster so he would fetch his parents from
the house to give alms. The boys paid no attention. Seeing no adults
around, the monks gave up and resumed their progress.
    A few minutes down the road, a frantic couple came running up
behind them. "Why did you ask our child's name?" they wailed.
"You're a soulstealer!" Once a sorcerer knew a victim's name, who
could say what incantations he could work upon it? Chu-ch'eng
explained that they had come only to beg. "What's `soulstealing' about
saying a few words to your child because he could read?" Agitated
villagers quickly crowded around. Some had learned that these
days "soulstealers" were coming around from far places, casting spells
on children so that they sickened and died. "These two are bad eggs
for sure!" The mob, angrier than ever, tied them up and searched
them roughly. Finding nothing, they began to beat them. As the
hubbub drew a larger crowd, some shouted "burn them!" and others,
"drown them!"
    In the crowd was a local headman who managed to quiet the
furious peasants but shrank from handling so serious a matter himself. He therefore took them to the imperial post station (the nearest
agency of the official establishment) to be questioned. The monks were searched again, but no proof of soulstealing could be found.
(What would such proof consist of? Books of sorcery? Tools of
magic?) Just to be sure, the literate child was brought in, inspected,
and found to be in good health. Nevertheless the distraught parents,
trusting in the omnipotence of the written word, demanded that the
post-station clerk draw up a formal document stating that all was
well. This responsibility the clerk was unwilling to assume. Instead,
he wrote up a memorandum for the county authorities. Soon the
magistrate's attendants came to haul Chii-ch'eng and Ching-hsin
away to the fearsome county yamen of Hsiao-shan. There the two
monks found that their companions, too, had been arrested and had
been interrogated under torture.

    It was persistent rumors of "soulstealing" that had brought Cheng-i
and Ch'ao-fan to grief. In surrounding counties, public fears were
running high. In Hsiao-span, Ts'ai Jui, a county constable (pu-i), had
been instructed by his superiors to arrest "vagrant monks" from
outside the county who might be responsible for "clipping queues."
A sorcerer with the right "techniques" could say incantations over
the hair clipped from the end of a man's queue and so extract the
soul of its former wearer.
    Lurking in the background, unmentioned by anyone connected
with the monks' case, was the political meaning of hair: the queue,
worn behind a shaved forehead, was the headdress of China's
Manchu rulers. It was also universally prescribed, on pain of death,
to be worn by Han Chinese males as a symbol of allegiance to the
ruling dynasty.
    Patrolling outside the city's west gate, constable Ts'ai heard streettalk that two monks from "far away" with strange accents were
lodging in the old God-of-War Temple. As Ts'ai later reported to
the magistrate, he then entered the temple and began to question
Ch'ao-fan and Cheng-i. Getting no satisfaction, he began to search
their baggage. From Ch'ao-fan's he pulled clothing, a bronze begging
bowl, clerical robes, and two certificates of ordination. In Chii-
ch'eng's, which he had to break open with a stone, he found three
pairs of scissors, a pigskin rain-cape, an awl, and a cord for binding a
queue.
    An