The Cult of the Fox by Kang Xiaofei

Author:Kang, Xiaofei.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS008000, History/Asia/China, HIS003000, History/Asia/General
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 2005-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.2 A literati visit to a fox shrine hosted by a female medium. Lü Zhan’en, Xiangzhu liangzhai zhiyi tuyong (Liaozhai’s Record of the Strange with annotations, poems, and illustrations), “Shangxian the Xian on High),” 15.6a

Mr. Niandong and his followers showed little reluctance to seek the help of a fox deity when one of them fell ill. They were attracted by its reputation and paid due homage to the fox. The communication between the medium and the human solicitants, described by both the medium and Pu, was conducted through informal yet polite conversation. To Pu and his friends, the visit to the fox shrine was not merely a search for cures, it was also an opportunity to explore literary and religious questions and to verify their own learning with a divine source. With the medium as go-between, the fox and the literary men might not seek the same things as their fellow villagers, and in fact the men did not even care whether they received an efficient cure. Instead, they and the fox communicated in a pleasant relationship characterized by the exchange of questions and answers, drinks and meals, and mutual respect. It was a kind of meeting that differed little from the social gatherings of the literati.

The official stand against popular religion was also tested in this account. Like Little Three, Woman Liang worked for money. Also, as Huntington has rightly noted in her discussion of this story, there must have been a gender and class tension in such a visit by a group of male literati to a woman without the company of her male relatives.54 However, no financial transaction was mentioned, which seems at odds with Pu’s otherwise extremely detailed description of the entire visit. Nor did the presence of a village woman affect the subjects of conversation between the old fox man and the scholars. These characteristics of the narrative indicate that Pu and his partners preferred to view their encounter with the fox as a spiritual experience on its own merits, free from the involvement of the medium. Pu’s silence echoes the previously discussed elite disdain of spirit mediums, for their monetary gains and their female gender were the focus of elite attacks. By leaving out the role of the medium, literati like Pu Songling played down the illicit aspect of the shrine as well as the gender and class tensions in the encounter between the male literati and the village woman. They revered the fox cult as individualistic, without intermediaries, and therefore kept their communication with the fox spirit personal.

We can also explore the simultaneous fascination with and caution about the fox cult through an important figure in Pu’s record, Mr. Niandong. Pu specified that the questions they asked the fox were actually formulated by this man, a prestigious member of the local gentry and the only one among the three who had held office. Yet Mr. Niandong himself avoided direct contact with the fox and let his disciples ask questions on his behalf. It seems that it was inappropriate for him to address the fox in person.

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