Tangxi county gazetteer1 (Text)

Tangxi county gazetteer1

Tangxi county gazetteer, 1604 edition
2.8b-9a

There are offerings to spirits, as in Buddhist and Daoist temples, whose magnificence parallel to the temples to the uncrowned king Confucius and which for generations have been offering vegetarian sacrifices rather than blood sacrifices. As for the multitude of shrines and informal temples, many of them mystify the stories about them in order to delude the foolish common people, so that they all rush to seek the assistance of the spirit-power. How could it be thus?

In addition the people of Tangxi frequent the City God Temple. Every year before the 15th day of the 4th month, those in charge collect crowds, some put on operas and create a clamor, some decorate frames with festoons as lofty artificial mountain to the point that the sound of flute and drum reaches into the suburbs. This goes on for several days without stop. They collect precious objects to put on display in the main hall, some of which are worth hundreds, to say nothing of the glut of other offerings, such as sacrifices of millet and ham hocks. Could it be the spirit-power of the god that causes this, or is it in fact a local custom that has continued, a precedent that has been honored, and which no one has abolished. Alas. Certainly a god with spirit-power could not bear that our people should be so wasteful.