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The Tomb of Chi You1

发表日期：2018年11月4日共浏览1079 次出处：中华旅游网【编辑录入：中华旅游网】
字体颜色：【字体：放大正常缩小】【双击鼠标左键自动滚屏】【图片上滚动鼠标滚轮变焦图片】

The Tomb of Chi You

The Tomb of Chi You stands at the eastern end of Yejie Village, Shililiyuan Town, Yanggu County. Its base forms a square of roughly 50 metres on each side, topped with a hemispherical mound.

Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1974, 1994 and 2006. The total height of the tumulus was measured at 7.6 metres, including 4.1 metres above ground and 3.5 metres underground.

The lowest cultural layer, 2.1 metres thick, belongs to the Dawenkou Culture with traces of the Yangshao Culture. The middle layer, 4 metres thick, dates back to the Longshan Culture. The uppermost 1.5 metres is a cultural stratum of the Han Dynasty.

Outside the tumulus lies a city site of the Longshan Culture, 150 metres wide from southeast to northwest and 400 metres long from southwest to northeast, covering an area of about 60,000 square metres.

Ancient historical records contain relevant descriptions:

Huang Lan: Epitaphs of Ancient Tombs records: "The Tomb of Chi You is situated inside Kanxiang Town, Shouzhang County, Dongping Commandery. It rises seven zhang high. Local people offered sacrifices here every tenth lunar month. A streak of crimson vapour would rise from the mound like a bolt of red silk, known by the locals as the Chi You Banner. His tomb containing shoulder and thigh bones lies in Chongju, Juye County, Shanyang Commandery, of the same scale as this Kanxiang tomb."
Book of Han: Treatise on Geography notes: "The Chi You Shrine of Shouzhang stands on the upper reaches of the Su River in the northwest."
Ten Prefectural Chronicles states simply: "There is a Chi You Shrine in Shouzhang."

In Supplement to Selected Yuan Poems, there survives a poem titled Drinking with Shentu Bo Ji on the Tomb of Chi You in Shouzhang in the Ninth Lunar Month, written by Wang Yi, a poet of the late Southern Song Dynasty.

Local folk legends in Yanggu include The Legend of the Ancient Willow, which tells the same story as the tale of "Qiongsang". The traditional ancestor worship festival on the first day of the tenth lunar month originates from the ancient custom of "offering sacrifices to Chi You in the tenth month", coinciding exactly with the Miao New Year when western Miao communities in Guizhou hold rituals for Chi You on the same lunar date. Moreover, local residents’ animal worship of cattle and dogs shares identical origins with Miao religious traditions.

Based on these findings, experts and scholars attending the two National Symposia on Chi You Culture held in 2006 and 2008 reached a consensus:

The cultural layers of this tumulus correspond chronologically to the era of Yan Emperor, Huang Emperor and Chi You. The city enclosing the tomb, the large earthen mound, and its geographical location north of the Ji River and northwest of the Han-era county seat of Shouzhang (present-day Huozhuang Village, Xinhu Township, Dongping County) perfectly match the geographical descriptions and features recorded in ancient texts.

In short, this tomb is backed up by written historical records, archaeological evidence and folk cultural heritage. It has been confirmed as the Head Tomb of Chi You documented in Huang Lan: Epitaphs of Ancient Tombs. The three Longshan Culture city sites within Yanggu once served as capitals of the Dongyi tribes. In remote antiquity, Yanggu was the political, economic and cultural centre of the Dongyi confederation and an important birthplace of China’s farming civilisation.

In front of the tumulus stands a memorial stele 4.3 metres high, 1.2 metres wide and 0.3 metres thick. The three large characters "Tomb of Chi You" were inscribed in May 2007 by Wang Chaowen, former Chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, former Governor of Guizhou Province and former President of the Guizhou Miao Studies Association.

On each side of the stele stands a 4.3-metre-high pavilion.

The west one is named "Pavilion of the Drinking Feast", housing the full text of Wang Yi’s poem from the Southern Song Dynasty.

The east pavilion bears the title "Pavilion of Chi You’s Tomb", and enshrines Ode to Chi You, personally composed by Duan Baolin, Vice Chairman of the China Folklore Society, Peking University Professor and Honorary President of the Yanggu Chi You Culture Research Association.

The square before the stele stretches 30 metres north to south and 26 metres east to west. On the southern end of the central axis stands a simple memorial archway, 4.8 metres tall and 4 metres wide, with 40-centimetre-square bluestone pillars and beams. The tumulus is enclosed with blue bricks, presenting an antique, solemn and dignified appearance.

The unveiling ceremony for the memorial stele was held on 26 November 2008. Xie Yutang and Yang Guanglin, leading officials from Shandong and Guizhou provinces, unveiled the stele. Professor Duan Baolin delivered a sacrificial oration. Ethnic compatriots attending the 2nd National Chi You Culture Symposium in Yanggu held a collective public worship ceremony, with young Miao people staging traditional sacrificial performances.

(Text compiled by Local Chronicles Office of Yanggu County; Photos by Li Jian, Cultural Centre of Yanggu County)