Soulstealers: The Chinese Socery Scare of 1768

Philip Kuhn's book, Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 gives us an interesting view into the world of 18th Century China, right at the height of the Qin Dynasty.

  And so, the stories begin...

Early 1768

  In 1768, A mason named Wu Tung-ming was hired to rebuild a water gate and bridge in the city of Te-ch'ing, Chekiang Province. On January 22, the mason and his crew started to drive the pilings(necessary to support the bridge)into the river bed/ This was hard work, but they finished driving the pilings by March 6.
  Since his crew was running out of food, Wu Tung-ming went back to his hometown to buy food for his men. When he returned he was told that a peasant had been asking to see him.
  This peasant, named Shen Shih-liang, had an offer for him. He lived with two nephews who treated him very badly. They beat him, cheated him of his money and even abused his mother. Peasant Shen had heard that the men driving pilings were having a hard time and that they were seeking for the names of individuals whose souls they could use to increase the power of their hammers. They would place a piece of paper, with the person's name written upon it, on top of the piling and when they stuck with their hammers, the person's soul would be drawn out and it's life force added to the strike. In this way the pilings could be pounded more deeply into the river bed.
  Of course, the person whose soul was thus used would eventually die.
  Peasant Shen had copied the names of his nephews onto a paper that he now offered to the mason. Wu,was afraid to be caught up in rumors of soulstealing. He refused the peasant's offer and summoned the local headman to arrest Shen and take him to the Magistrate for questioning. 
  The Magistrate sentenced peasant Shen to be beaten with 25 strokes and released (hopefully a little wiser). Unfortunately for Mason Wu, this was not the end of his troubles.
  This sort of incident happened several times in the first half of 1768. Later that spring, a Te-ching man, named Chi Chao-mei, who had been helping to arrange a funeral came home a little drunk. His uncle accused him of drinking and gambling and beat him. So, the young man left his home and walked to the provincial capital, Hangchow, where he planned to beg for his living. 
  Late one night in early April, a local grew suspicious of his accent and when he learned that he was from Te-ching, he accused him of having come to steal souls to help build a bridge. He was beaten and dragged off to the local headman's house.
  Scared, he confessed to soul stealing when the headman threatened to beat him. He said he'd had a bunch of paper charms but that he'd thrown all but two into West Lake. He made up the names of two children and said that he'd used the charms to kill them. So, he was sent to be questioned by higher officials until he ended up in front of the Magistrate.
  The magistrate ordered him to tell who had ordered him to steal souls.Having heard of the bridge, and the rumors of soul stealing, the young man said it was the head mason, Wu Jui-ming. Unfortunately for Mason Wu, this was to close to his name and he was arrested. Unfortunately for Chi Chao-mei, he had never seen the mason and couldn't pick him out of a line up. So, he was tortured until he admitted he'd made up the story.
  The Governor ordered the local officials to make an end of this. All the involved parties were re-questioned and when no evidence of soul stealing was found peasant Shen, Chi Cao-mei and an Herbalist (who'd been caught trying to frame the bridge builders for soul stealing)were all punished. That was expected to be the end of the matter- after all, no one had died. Public order was restored. End of story...well, not quite.

  The rumors of soul stealing spread. 4 wandering monks were arrested in Hsiao-shan,for soul stealing when one of them asked a little boy for his name. They insisted that they were innocent and that the local constable had framed them when they couldn't pay him a bribe. Even under torture, the monk who'd asked the boy's name, Cheng-i, stuck to his story. So, they was sent up the ladder until they ended up before the provincial judge. He thought their story sounded believable and, when the constable was left to kneel before the judge all day long, he confessed to having tried to frame them because they wouldn't give him a bribe. The constable was beaten and the monks were freed (with some cash to help until the bones broken during torture could heal).
  The monks were lucky. That same day, in that same province, a tinker was beaten to death by a mob who believed they had found soul stealing charms on him. And the incidents continued. In each case, the officials tried hard to find out the truth and to punish the wrong doers. What mattered most was that the public had to be kept from panic. The officials believed that, by punishing the ones guilty of starting rumors, or falsifying evidence, they could settle the issue quickly and quietly.

Definitions- Sorcery and Soul stealing

  So, what is soul stealing? In 18th Century China, there were believed to be three kinds of sorcery; Cognitive sorcery (foretelling the future), Telekinetic sorcery (moving matter through space)and Bio-dynamic sorcery (manipulation of life force). Soul stealing fell under the last category. What scared people most was that sorcery could be learned by anyone. All that was needed was the proper words and items. For soul stealing, the sorcerer needed something personal, like a name, hair, from a man's clipped-off que  or a piece of a woman's lapel. With any of these, the sorcerer could "call" the person's soul to him and then use it to augment his power.
  The Chinese believed that the soul had two parts, corresponding to the positive and negative aspects of the universe- the yin and yang forces. The yin part of the soul was the part that connected a person to the earth. The yang part of the soul was the part that animated a person. The Chinese believed that this "yang" soul could be, and often was, separated from the person it belonged to. Sometimes it wandered off during sleep. Sometimes it might be scared away. If a child was acting listless, the parents might decide that the child's "yang" soul had become lost. In one province the parents would take a set of the child's clothes outside and wave them in the air (so the soul would see them and know where to come back too)while they called out for the soul to return. This sort of "soul calling" was accepted and intended only to return the soul to it's rightful owner. Without the "yang soul", a person would sicken, and eventually, die. It was this "yang" part of the soul that soul stealing sorcerers were after. They would use the name, or hair (or lapel) as an anchor and "call" the person's "yang" soul out of the body. It would come to the hair (or name or lapel) and the sorcerer could us it as he pleased, while the soul's owner sickened and died. That is what soul stealing was all about.

Mid 1768 - The Emperor gets involved

https://wiki.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/uvu/images/a/a3/Map_of_China_1768.JPG

https://wiki.vm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/uvu/images/8/8c/Location_of_Soulstealing_incidents.JPG

  Just before he set out for his summer capitol, north of the Great Wall, Emperor Qianlong (whom the author refers to by his birth name, Hung-li)sent a letter to the provincial officials of the three provinces where soul stealing incidents had occurred. In a court document he orders the officials to, quietly, investigate reports of soul stealing and que clipping. If there was really sorcery going on, the officials were to stop it. If someone were spreading rumors, they were to stop them. He felt that such rumors could incite public and must be stopped. How he found out about these incidents, he didn't say. Obviously the Emperor had a good information network, because, none of his provincial governors had considered the incidents important enough to report to the Emperor.
  The governor of Shantung province sent a letter to the Emperor, dated July 24, (The Emperor's letter was dated July 25), to report on que-clipping in his province. Remember, with a man's que a sorcerer could call his soul from him. The timing of his letter is fortuitous- withholding information from the Emperor could be hazardous to your career (and health).
  Qianlong's officials had two ways to send him reports. Reports sent the official way went through many hands before the Emperor received them (if he ever did) and he could never be sure that they were not tampered with. So, officials were also required to send private reports to him. These reports would be delivered by a trusted vassal and came directly to the Emperor's hand. He would read the reports, make any comments he thought needed and then send the letter back to the official. Prior to July, not one of his governors had seen fit to send word of soul stealing incidents within their jurisdiction.
  Qianlong could see only possible reasons for this, his governors were more concerned with keeping their comfortable cushy positions than they were with sending their Emperor the vital information he needed to keep harmony in the Empire. His first letter was mild; his later letters were anything but mild. He accused his governors of withholding information and of being lazy and incompetent. Not what an Imperial Governor wants to hear.
  These governors were busy men and presided over heavily populated provinces- several times the size of European nations. In 1768 China had approximately 350,000,000 people living within it's borders (France had less than 35,000,000 and England had about 10,000,000). Busy or not, Qianlong found it suspicious that these men waited two months before reporting anything to him. The system of private letters meant that an official could report something to the Emperor without anyone else knowing. Such an official sent off his letters never knowing what his neighbor might have said to the Emperor about him. Being in charge of such vast populations meant that the Emperor had to give his governors a lot of lee way, but they were to keep him up to date on events. Furthermore, the Emperor expected his officials to take care of problems within their jurisdictions and to anticipate his needs by diligently working to further his royal objectives. These officials were the policeman, prosecutors and judges for their provinces, but, all capital crimes were referred to the Emperor. Since many types of sorcery were considered capital crimes, a governor could expect his Emperor to be upset if such a crime was referred to him, and he'd never heard about it.
  The first letters to the Emperor, weren't too concerned about soul stealing- they reported the incidents as (almost) minor occurrences. Qianlong didn't agree.