The Mirror and the Brush: A Father’s Journey Through Grief in a Late Ming Séance
Abstract
On a dark and bitter night in the dead of one of the coldest winters in history, during the final failing years of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), retired scholar-official Ye Shaoyuan hired a Daoist priest to summon the spirit of his beloved daughter Xiaoluan. It was ten years since his beautiful, talented daughter had died on the eve of her wedding. Had she died a married woman, her spirit would have found a resting place on her husband’s ancestral altar, but as an unmarried maiden her spirit tablet could not be placed on either her father’s or her fiancé’s altars. But Ye could not believe that his daughter was just an ordinary spirit, destined to roam the land as a hungry ghost. Xiaoluan, a renowned beauty and talented poet in her own right, had been meant for greater things. Nor was this the first time that he had searched for her spirit. Ye and his wife Shen Yixiu had previously conducted spirit writing rituals to converse with Xiaoluan’s spirit through a spirit medium and had lit incense and called on her to visit them in their dreams, but Ye was not satisfied to talk with her; he wanted to see her again. So Ye hired a Daoist priest to summon the lost soul of his daughter into a mirror so that the priest could paint her portrait, something Ye could hold onto as his world fell apart.
This project centers on a close reading of the Ye Shaoyuan’s 1642 account of a séance for his deceased daughter—a complex text layered with literary references, historical allusions, and religious inferences—to explore grief, gender, family, and the supernatural during the turbulent final years of the Ming dynasty. Drawing upon scholarship from anthropology, religion, and literature, it explores how this bereaved Ming scholar-official used a séance to transcend ritual boundaries and transgress the normative gender and generational hierarchies of the Chinese family to resolve personal, spiritual, and emotional crises created by the death of his beloved daughter. Ultimately the séance demonstrates the critical role of ritual in resolving the emotional and spiritual crises created by the loss of an unmarried daughter and reveals how permeable the boundaries between the worlds of the living, the spirits, and the written word could be.
Keywords
China gender family religion Ming spirit writing Daoism Ancestor worship
The Mirror and the Brush: A Father’s Journey Through Grief in a Late Ming Séance
CASB 104
On a dark and bitter night in the dead of one of the coldest winters in history, during the final failing years of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), retired scholar-official Ye Shaoyuan hired a Daoist priest to summon the spirit of his beloved daughter Xiaoluan. It was ten years since his beautiful, talented daughter had died on the eve of her wedding. Had she died a married woman, her spirit would have found a resting place on her husband’s ancestral altar, but as an unmarried maiden her spirit tablet could not be placed on either her father’s or her fiancé’s altars. But Ye could not believe that his daughter was just an ordinary spirit, destined to roam the land as a hungry ghost. Xiaoluan, a renowned beauty and talented poet in her own right, had been meant for greater things. Nor was this the first time that he had searched for her spirit. Ye and his wife Shen Yixiu had previously conducted spirit writing rituals to converse with Xiaoluan’s spirit through a spirit medium and had lit incense and called on her to visit them in their dreams, but Ye was not satisfied to talk with her; he wanted to see her again. So Ye hired a Daoist priest to summon the lost soul of his daughter into a mirror so that the priest could paint her portrait, something Ye could hold onto as his world fell apart.
This project centers on a close reading of the Ye Shaoyuan’s 1642 account of a séance for his deceased daughter—a complex text layered with literary references, historical allusions, and religious inferences—to explore grief, gender, family, and the supernatural during the turbulent final years of the Ming dynasty. Drawing upon scholarship from anthropology, religion, and literature, it explores how this bereaved Ming scholar-official used a séance to transcend ritual boundaries and transgress the normative gender and generational hierarchies of the Chinese family to resolve personal, spiritual, and emotional crises created by the death of his beloved daughter. Ultimately the séance demonstrates the critical role of ritual in resolving the emotional and spiritual crises created by the loss of an unmarried daughter and reveals how permeable the boundaries between the worlds of the living, the spirits, and the written word could be.