Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (24 page)

Hungli immediately perceived that the Peking Gendarmerie, under
bannerman Toendo, must be incompetent if such criminals could
move about the city with impunity. After all, he wrote, Peking was
densely populated and at night its neighborhoods were sealed by
guarded barriers. What good were guards and barriers if these evil
creatures were free to come and go, stupefying and clipping at will?
Furthermore, he had heard through private channels that many
queue-clippings were performed while the victims were in a vulnerable posture, urinating against walls in Peking's narrow back alleys.
If local security forces were doing their job, how could the clippers
get away with this? Toendo had a concurrent rank of provincial
military commander (t'i-tu); what sort of job could he be doing? These
matters were best handled by a combination of vigilance and restraint.
Street security by the Gendarmerie was to be heightened-no
excuses. At the same time, the populace had to be calmed: the author ities must seem to take no notice of rumors. They were not to question
victims, nor even to insist that every clipping incident be reported.
Door charms, however foolish, were to be left alone. As the homely
saying had it, His Majesty reminded them, "See strange things but
not take them so, strange things themselves away will go."52

The insect rumors, however, were another matter. These were
obviously concocted by troublemakers who wanted to profit from
sorcery fears. The security forces should track down and prosecute
those responsible for printing and distributing the drawings.'s

Meanwhile, the grand councillors in Peking wrote to Ch'eng-te to
reassure Hungli that the queue-clippings in the capital were gradually
subsiding, perhaps because of vigilant police work. Vermilion: "Just
because they are hiding their tracks is no reason to close the case ...
Now Jehol [the vicinity of the summer capital] has turned up six
cases. You have to prosecute with utmost urgency." Sorcery was
creeping beyond the Great Wall and into the Manchu homeland."

Justice in Honan

jarred by these events close to home, and perhaps frightened by the
public hysteria reported from Hupei, Hungli's advisors in the
summer capital suggested a general roundup of suspicious characters
in the strategic crossroads province of Honan. Hungli agreed and
ordered a court letter sent to Governor Asha.55 That ingratiating but
incompetent bannerman immediately set about his task."'' Indeed, he
reported, rumors about the rise of sorcery had reached him as early
as mid-July. He had "verbally ordered" his provincial judge to pass
the word down to the prefectures. A few days later, three men were
clipped within the prefectural city of Chang-te, north of the Yellow
River near the ancient capital of An-yang. They had felt nothing at
the time and had discovered the crime only later. Though it was
generally believed that clipping victims would die (the three felt
"dizzy" with shock and fright), none had actually succumbed. It was
learned that one could avoid harm by washing the remaining hair
with cinnabar and the blood of 'a yellow rooster (both agents would
lend the red color that symbolized good fortune and shielded one
from death pollution in funeral rites). Where that idea came from,
Asha's agents could not discover; and no culprits were caught. "7

Soon afterward, in nearby Tang-yin County, a commoner named
Shen was asked directions by a monk on the road. When lie reached home, he discovered that his queue had been clipped. The monk, as
the only stranger he had met, was the logical suspect. A crowd from
Shen's village, along with county constables, gave chase and caught
the culprit. They found that at the end of his carrying pole hung a
dozen braided cords made of hair, each about six or seven inches
long. Shen's own stolen hair was not found among them. Fearing the
monk might escape, Governor Asha had him brought to his court at
Kaifeng, where he personally interrogated him under torture.

The monk, whose dharma-name was Hai-yin, said that his lay
surname was Jeri and that he came from near the western gate of
the city of Hsu-chou, some 16o miles downstream on the Yellow
River. There he had taken the tonsure at the age of fifteen in the
Shang-hsing Temple and studied under the monk Hsing-yuan. After
his master died, he set out wandering. He denied clipping queues or
practicing any other evil arts. The short lengths of hair he claimed
to have obtained in previous years. This story he clung to during
repeated interrogations. He pointed out that, if these lengths of hair
had really been stolen, he would hardly have displayed them at the
end of his carrying pole. But he was very evasive, reported the vigilant
governor. It was easy to see why it would be necessary to have cords
at the end of his carrying pole, but why should a monk find it
necessary to make them from human hair? The culprit could only
mumble, "I didn't steal them."

He was interrogated day after day, but still refused to reveal the
truth. Very suspicious, wrote Asha: such criminal queue-clipping
"must have an instigator behind it." It was necessary to apply torture
to find out who. But the monk, having been interrogated many times,
now seemed somewhat broken down. "If we torture him more just
now, he might die, and then we would be unable to uncover anything." (Vermilion: "Right.") Asha had his local authorities pressing
the investigation in the counties; "later we can put him to the torture
again." He pointed out that clipping in Honan had been limited to
Chang-te and Kaifeng, as reported. Popular fears had died down
and the people were tranquil. "It is because we have not caught the
main criminal, and the monk has not made a true confession, that I
have not earlier memoralized Your Majesty."

Hungli shot hack an urgent court letter agreeing that, in such cases,
torture could defeat its own purposes. "These traitorous villains are
very crafty." Though the evidence against them was obvious, they
continued to resist torture, "hoping to die from the rod or the presses." Thus there would be no discovering their secrets. "The
tricks of all these treacherous vermin are basically the same." Asha
should press the investigation, but should "not exclusively rely on
interrogation by physical torture" (hsing-ch'iu). He should continue
to round up suspicious characters, whether monks, priests, or
laymen.58

Indeed Hai-yin was not bearing up well under torture, and his
story became confused. Investigators failed to find a Shang-hsing
Temple in Hsu-chou, or any family surnamed Jeri in the west gate
area. Hai-yin now said he was from Yung-ch'ang County in Honan,
but was "evasive," Asha reported, about his address and temple affiliation. Yet he stubbornly maintained his innocence. "I hope to die if
those cords on my carrying pole were queues." Such resistance was
surely designed "to protect his confederates." Interrogation must
press on, wrote the governor, but unfortunately the prisoner had
"contracted a prevalent illness of the season" and suffered also from
festering infections (from his torture wounds) and was eating and
drinking rather little. It had become difficult to question him. A
physician had been summoned, and the search for Hai-yin's secret
would resume when he had recovered. Meanwhile, the roundup of
suspicious characters was proceeding. There should be more criminals with whom to confront Hai-yin, but none had been arrested,
and no further cases of queue-clipping had arisen. (Vermilion: "In
Peking this wind has not stilled, and cases have also been reported
in Jehol. How can your province alone have none? This shows that
you are not attending to duty. Highly improper.")59

In Chihli alone, seventeen clipping cases had been reported and
three suspicious monks and priests arrested. Asha's assurances that
no incidents had been reported in Honan simply would not wash.
"It is not consistent with what We have heard," wrote back Hungli,
invoking a standard imperial technique by which the monarch implies
that he has private, alternative sources of information outside the
chain of command. Under this kind of bullying, Asha felt he had to
make something of the Hai-yin case, even though the crafty monk
would not cooperate. Despite his obstinate denials, the evidence
against the wretch was plain. The trouble was that his illness grew
worse daily. Medicine was of no effect, and he gasped for breath.

The governor humbly observed that "everyone loathes this kind of
traitor who harms the common people." If such a villain were allowed
simply to die in prison, "we shall have no way to manifest the Dynas ty's laws and gladden the hearts of the people." Worse, "rumors will
arise in the minds of ignorant subjects": a fearful and angry populace
would interpret the disappearance of Hai-.yin as an ominous lapse of
state control-or perhaps a lack of commitment against sorcery?
"Better to publicly execute him in order to dispel the suspicions of
the crowd." This would have the added benefit of intimidating other
"traitors." Your minister therefore, "without estimating the personal
consequences," yesterday, "begging the Royal Order in advance
(ch'ing wang-ming), had the criminal taken to the public square and
beheaded, and the head exposed to show the crowd" (that is, hung
up on a pole and left there).f 0

So Hai-yin was out of his pain, and the governor was relieved of
his problem. Having a prisoner die in jail was cause for minor administrative punishment (a trifling fine for a governor), but to lose a
major criminal like Hai-yin without obtaining a confession would
suggest either incompetence or a cover-up (it might be suspected, for
example, that he had revealed a widespread conspiracy, long undetected by provincial officials). Asha's solution rested on the wide
powers granted provincial officials to execute criminals summarily,
although such powers were more generally used in cases of riot or
insurrection. In this case, to drag the dying monk before the market
crowd and cut off his head was a powerful message about the state's
commitment against sorcery-even in a case where the culprit's guilt
was not supported by a confession. It was not, however, the kind of
resolution Hungli was looking for. (Vermilion: "Even more futile!")

There had been so few arrests in Honan that Hungli naturally
suspected Asha's subordinates of another sort of cover-up: they were
withholding information from the governor in order to save themselves trouble or spare themselves prosecution for earlier neglect.
The governor showed his zeal, shortly after Hai-yin's execution, by
reporting sixteen cases of queue-clipping in the province. (Vermilion:
"Just as We suspected!") Three suspicious-looking monks had been
arrested, but against none was the evidence convincing. The campaign was at least impressing the local people with the governor's
serious intent, for innkeepers and temples were now refusing shelter
to wandering monks. But even such stern measures were not producing results, wrote Asha to the Throne, because these criminals
were, after all, sorcerers: the reason they leave no traces "must be
that they have evil arts that enable them to conceal themselves . . .
the better to carry out their hateful designs." (Vermilion: "What's all this stuff? How can such a thing be? If you think this way, it is no
wonder your subordinates do not prosecute the case conscientiously
and are deceiving you!")

The governor wrote back amiably, "Just as Your Majesty pronounced in your Sage Edict, `There must be gangs of persons with
seditious plots."' (Vermilion: "You wretched thing!") "Your humble
minister is extremely stupid." (Vermilion: "Indeed you are extremely
stupid.") Asha pointed out that "while at the triennial provincial
examinations, I have been using a blue brush. But I carry with me a
black brush so that I can be prepared to write memorials on this
case-even while engaged in my routine duties." (Vermilion: "Use
whatever you've got on you!") Anyway, fumed the monarch, in this
emergency Asha should have delegated the provincial examinations
to a subordinate. Asha "used to be a conscientious official" but even
he had been imbued with "the disgusting habit of indecisiveness" of
the provincial bureaucrat. The campaign had become such an irritant
between Throne and bureaucracy that official ineptness was itself
becoming one of its targets.li'

The Plot Thickens

"Throughout the month of August, Hungli (still summering amid the
lakes and hills of Ch'eng-te) received a mass of contradictory news
of sorcery. The spread of incidents from south to north, then from
north to west, showed that the criminals were keeping several jumps
ahead of his provincial officials. "Though numerous suspects had been
arrested, he perceived that they were all from the margins and dregs
of society-monks and beggars-and all had been recruited by ringleaders unknown. By the first week of September, he was convinced
that the threat was not limited to local society but might be aimed at
the dynasty itself'. Peasant Meng he had shown leniency by recommendation of his inquisitors. Nevertheless, commoners were getting
the idea that a clipping victim could counter a sorcerer's power by
severing his queue "at the root." What next?`'"

On September 7, Hungli issued a court letter to the heads of seven
provinces in which at last he broached the subject of the tonsure. All
the criminals caught so far, he pointed out, were obviously mere tools
of master-plotters with larger aims. On the one hand, these plotters
were offering vagrants and beggars cash for queues, without telling
them what the queues were for. To be sure, the belief about soul stealing and bridge construction was "absurd and heterodox," which
was enough to warrant rigorous prosecution. Yet who could say that
the rumor about "whole-queue" prophylaxis was not started by the
sorcerers themselves as a way of terrorizing people into symbolic acts
hostile to Manchu overlordship? The sorcerers must know that
"wearing a queue is an institution of this Dynasty, and that one who
cuts off his queue is no longer a minister or servant of the Manchus."
The plotters, however, are not in the northern provinces but in the
South. "They are either traitor-monks or else scholars who have lost
hope of advancement," and their crime is "ten times more horrible"
than that of the lowly queue-clippers themselves. Although the lower
Yangtze provinces are the source of this evil, upriver the inhabitants
of Hunan and Hupei are "crafty and dangerous." In the past they
have followed "deviant ways and perverse principles," and it is likely
that the rebels (ni-fan) will hide among them. Let the governors of
those provinces root them out.