Page 64 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

14 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

opportunity of exploring some of these caverns, and even suc-
ceeded in discovering some unrifled tombs, part of the contents
of which he brought over and presented to the British Museum.
The funeral furniture of these tombs varied according to the wealth
and status of the owner. In the poor man's tomb were unprotected
skeletons, small images in a niche, an iron cooking pot, and a few
coins. In the rich man's were, terra cotta coffins, encased in orna-
mented slabs, images apparently of the members of liis household,
a quantity of crockery, and a perfect menagerie of domestic animals

and birds. To quote Mr. Torrance's own words : ^ " Standing with

your reflector in the midst of a large cave, it seems verily an imitation
Noah's Ark."

The practice of burjdng with the dead the objects which sur-

rounded him in life has never entirely ceased in any country. Among

primitive peoples it has taken the revolting form of immolating,
or even burying alive, the household of a dead chieftain. Instances
of this practice in China occur as late as the third century B.C.,

and voluntary acts of sacrifice at the tomb are recorded much later

in China as in India. When humaner counsels prevailed figures

of wood, straw and clav were substituted, straw images being sug-

gested for the purpose by Confucius himself. In the Han dynasty

the tomb of the well-to-do was furnished with models of his house,

his shrine, his farmyard, threshing floor, rice-pounder, his cattle,

sheep, dogs, and poultry, besides his retainers and certain half-

human creatures which may have been his guardian spirits ; it

was provided Avith vases for wine and grain, models of the stove

—and kitchen range with cooking pots and implements the last
—merely indicated in low relief on the kitchen range besides the

more stately sacrificial vessels for wine and incense.^ All these
were modelled in pottery, and must have fostered a flourishincp
potter's trade, and given a tremendous impetus to the growth of
modelling and design. The underlying idea of all this was, no
doubt, to provide the spirit of the dead with the means of pursuing
the habits of his lifetime, and the modern practice of supplying
his needs by means of paper models Avhich are transmitted to the

^ Burial Customs in Szechuan, Journal of the North-China Branch of the Roj-al

Asiatic Society, vol. xli., 1910, p. 58, etc.

A* very large series of Han sepulcliral pottery, including most of the known types,

is in the Field Museum, Chicago; but most of our large museums possess specimens

enough to give a good idea of the ware.