Australian Journal of Asian Law, 2016, Vol 17 No 1, Article 1: 1-21
Sorcery Crimes, Laws, and Judicial Practice in
Traditional China*
Xiaohuan Zhao 1
Wugu is a general term for all sorts of black magic in China, just as ‘sorcery’ or ‘witchcraft’ is understood in a
Western context. Wugu sorcery is a living tradition that has been practised for more than 3,000 years and has
been strictly prohibited and severely punished since ancient times. This study will examine rules and
punishments laid out against sorcery crimes in traditional China from the pre-Qin (221-206 BC) period through
to the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), followed by a case study of relevant judicial practice. I argue that sorcery was
treated primarily as a heretical or political crime in early and early medieval China, before politically
motivated sorcery crimes were distinguished from non-politically motivated ones. The distinction made between
them led to a sharp drop in political sorcery charges and trials in China’s later dynasties but did not do much to
prevent miscarriage of justice from occurring from time to time, mainly due to wide judicial discretion, lack of
specific legal penalties, and the absence of effective means of gathering and verifying evidence.
Wugu is a living tradition that has been practised in China for more than 3,000 years, as seen from
the inscriptions on oracle bones from the Shang dynasty (circa 1600 to circa 1046 BC) (Cho, 2011:
258-60; Deng 1998). The word wu is a general term to refer to (people who practise) magical arts,
white or black. Gu refers to a particular type of black magic that involves breeding and using
poisonous insects or evil spirits through wu sorcery and ritual, or which involves the maleficent use
of human images in combination with the casting of spells and curses. This is a kind of black magic
commonly referred to in post-Tang (618-907) texts as yanmei, the subduing or summoning of ghosts
and spirits. When wu is combined with gu into wugu, the resulting compound word will become an
umbrella term for various types of black magic. Thus, the word wugu will be treated in this study
as an equivalent to ‘maleficium,’ ‘sorcery’ or ‘black magic’ as understood in Western contexts unless
otherwise noted. 2
There has never been a shortage of scholarly interest in Chinese sorcery. A good example is The
Religious System of China by the eminent Dutch Sinologist Johann Jacob Maria de Groot (18541921). In this multi-volume work, de Groot (1964: 320-425) offers an encyclopaedic survey of
various forms and types of sorcery and magic in traditional China. He (1964: 826-69) has a chapter
dedicated to gu sorcery under the title of ‘Sorcery by means of small reptiles and insects’ but the
great bulk of this chapter is filled by a wugu incident that happened during the reign of Emperor
*
1
2
This study was graciously supported by a University of Otago Research Grant (UORG) 2011. My
gratitude goes first to Dr Jiefen Li for her expert assistance, without which I would never have been able
to complete this project. At the XIX Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies
(EACS), Paris, 4-8 September 2012, I presented a first draft of this article, which, after being revised, was
read at the Univesity of Sydney School of Languages and Cultures (SLC) Research Day, 26 June 2014. I
benefitted greatly from feedback from the audiences at these two events. I am also grateful to Professor
Geoffrey MacCormack of Aberdeen University in Scotland for reading an earlier version of this paper and
kindly offering me his insightful thoughts and comments, which have been incorporated into this much
enlarged and revised version. Similar thanks are due to the AJAL editors for their editorial advice and
also to the two anonymous referees for their thought-provoking comments. Needless to say, any errors
that remain are my alone.
Senior Lecturer in Chinese Literature, Department of Chinese Studies, the University of Sydney;
Overseas Professor of the One Hundred Talents Scheme of Shanxi Province, School of Theatre, Film and
Television, Shanxi Normal University.
It must be pointed that no single Chinese term that covers all the meanings of sorcery or witchcraft
simply because neither ‘sorcery’ nor ‘witchcraft’ is a concept native to Chinese culture, as noted by Kuhn
(1990: 95–96). In this paper I will use ‘sorcery’ rather than ‘witchcraft’ to refer to ‘wugu’, following the
distinction made by Evans-Pritchard (1937: 21) between magic power or skill that can be learned (sorcery)
and that innate to the practitioner (witchcraft).
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Wu of the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), which had hardly anything to do with the ‘sorcery by
means of small reptiles and insects’.
Other major research on wugu has been conducted mostly from an anthropological perspective,
with a focus on the making, keeping and using of gu poison (Feng and Shryock, 1935), and
practising poisonous gu magic as a living tradition in Southwest China (Deng, 1998), or from a
historical point of view, exploring the political significance of wugu sorcery in Han times under
Emperor Wu (156-87 BC) (Loewe, 1970; Poo, 1987; Cai, 2014).
Jurisprudential enquiries into wugu are fairly inadequate, except for a few studies of a limited
set of its legal aspects, including those by T’ungtsu Ch’u (1961: 222-25), Edwards Thomas Williams
(1907: 61-96), Philip Kuhn (1990), and Barend J ter Haar (2006). In his monumental work on Law
and Society in Traditional China, Ch’u provides a sketchy introduction to the ancient crime of
black magic and the legal punishment under traditional Chinese law, whereas Williams offers a
more substantial review in his pioneering research on ‘Witchcraft in the Chinese Penal Code’. In
this seminal article, he discusses various traditional Chinese folk beliefs and practices, including
wugu and feng shui (literarily ‘wind-water'), from a cross-cultural perspective. He also introduces
legal stipulations regarding witchcraft in Qing China with a view to demonstrating that the
practice and punishment of witchcraft was not exclusive to late medieval Europe but very much a
universal phenomenon of primitive societies. His article, however, covers too wide a range of
traditional Chinese folk beliefs to allow for an in-depth investigation of wugu sorcery. Likewise,
when it comes to legal punishments for practising sorcery and witchcraft in imperial China,
Williams largely confines his investigation to the Da Qing lü li (The Great Qing Code, hereafter
The Qing Code).
In contrast, Kuhn (1990) deals with a particular type of sorcery known as jiaohun (soul
stealing), with focus on a nationwide sorcery panic that took place in 1768, under the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911). Most significantly, in this celebrated book Kuhn (1990: 73-93) devotes an entire
chapter to discussing the crime of sorcery and its punishment as stipulated in the Qing Code. His
study offers precious insight into different attitudes and responses of the Emperor, local officials
and commoners to soul-stealing sorcery and the panic it caused. Through rigorous analysis of
concrete evidence, Kuhn convincingly shows the social and political rationales for sorcery being
dealt with by (i) the Emperor as a sedition that might cause the disruption of his government; (ii)
as a disturbance to social order that would undermine their authority by local officials; and (iii) and
as the cause of their personal misfortune by commoners. As this book is primarily concerned with
the sorcery of stealing souls and the panic it caused across the country in 1768, Kuhn does not offer
a historical examination of sorcery crimes and punishments in traditional China.
Another major contribution to Western scholarship on sorcery and society in pre-modern China
is Barend J ter Haar’s (2006) Telling Stories: Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History. In
this book, ter Haar provides an innovative analysis of how the imperial state maintained social
control, when dealing with sorcery activities at the community level. Like Kuhn (1990), ter Haar
adopts a bottom-up perspective to examine social and state control, with a focus on how witchcraft
related rumours came about, how they spread among community members, and what kind of
consequences ensued. While ter Haar concentrates his attention on witchcraft stories and rumours
and their spread, he does not pay enough attention to a deep, systematic analysis of types of
threats and scapegoats and their legal and political implications, let alone the broad socio-historical
background against which the sorcery rumours developed and spread (Katz, 2008: 191-92).
These studies all offer insightful findings but there has not yet been any systematic
jurisprudential study of sorcery crimes and punishments and, as a result, we are still not very clear
about the evolving nature and scope of the crime of wugu and wugu-related judicial practice in
imperial China. This article therefore proposes to explore the origins and evolution of the crime and
crime concept of wugu sorcery, with focus on lawmaking and law enforcement regarding wugu
sorcery under imperial Chinese legal system. This will be the first attempt ever made in any
language to investigate the origins and evolution of the crime and crime concept of wugu sorcery,
and relevant legal punishments and judicial practices in Chinese legal history. The jurisprudential
study of sorcery crimes will be informed by a case study of sorcery charges and trials, and
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complemented by historical inquiries, to present a broader social and political background for
sorcery crimes and punishments.
This study will thus start with a historical survey of the evolution of the concept and scope of
wugu sorcery crimes under the imperial legal system before proceeding with a case study of judicial
practice concerning sorcery crimes. The study of judicial practice concerning sorcery crimes will
revolve around the decision-making process, including the application of law and the free discretion
of imperial judges in deciding wugu cases. This top-down approach is particularly important to
reveal the nature of imperial Chinese legal system as an instrument for state and social control
(Bodd, 1963), and to understand traditional Chinese legal culture in terms of widespread use of
analogy and discretion in judicial practice in general, and judicial procedures, evidence rules and
decision-making at wugu trials in particular.
My examination of the changing concept of the crime of wugu sorcery focuses on the distinction
between wugu as a political zuodao (left way) crime and wugu as a non-political budao (depravity)
crime, and the implications of the distinction for judicial practice. The article goes on to reconstruct
a legal framework for dealing with sorcery crimes. Based on a thorough search of legal texts and
dynastic histories of China, this article argues that the depoliticisation of sorcery crimes that first
appeared in the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) Codes helps account for a sharp drop in
politically-motivated sorcery charges and trials in post-Tang China. Based on a case study of
sorcery criminal charges and trials, the article demonstrates that law enforcement against sorcery
crimes was largely ineffective in imperial China, and that miscarriage of justice occurred from time
to time mainly because of a differential treatment of religions and rituals in the imperial legal and
justice system. It also shows that other reasons included: excessive judicial discretion; lack of
specific laws and rules to regulate sorcery crime investigations and prosecutions; and a lack of
means of collecting and checking evidence for sorcery crime charges and trials.
This study draws on five types of legal sources: first, codified laws including articles (lü),
precedents or sub-articles (li), and ordinances (ling); second, history books including ‘chronological
history’ (biannian shi) and ‘dynastic history’ (zheng shi), particularly a chapter entitled ‘Treatise on
Penal Law’ (‘Xingfa zhi’); third, administrative (legislative, executive and/or judicial) compendia
(zhengshu) such as the Tong dian (Comprehensive Statutes), and the Yuan dianzhang (Statutes
and Sub-statutes of the Yuan Dynasty, the ‘Yuan Code’); fourth, legal handbooks and casebooks;
and, last but not least, literati anecdotal accounts or jottings (biji), represented by the Yijian zhi
(Records of Yijian) by the great Southern Song scholar Hong Mai (1123-1202), which have,
unfortunately, been widely ignored by legal historians. 3
Wugu as a Heretical and Political Crime in Early and Early Medieval China 4
The Chinese black magic generally known as wugu has long been rejected as zuodao (left way) by
the institutional religions (Daoism and Buddhism), and condemned by Confucianism as a black art
of “disturbing the government” (luan zheng). The earliest extant legal definition of the wugu crime
is found in the chapter of ‘Wang zhi’ (Royal Regulations) of the Li ji (Book of Rites), 5 where zuodao
is listed as one of the ‘four felonious offences punishable by death’ (si zhu) for its threat to
government stability:
3
4
5
For example, in his nearly exhaustive introduction to Chinese legal sources, the world-renowned scholar
of Chinese law and legal history, Derk Bodde (1973: 99-103), makes no mention whatsoever of literati
jottings, although they are valued highly for containing factual and reliable information by prominent
scholars of Chinese religion and (social and economic) history such as Kuhn (1990), ter Haar (2006), and
Shiba (2011). For more about literati jottings, like Hong Mai’s Yijian zhi, as important source material for
historical studies of Chinese society and religion, see Valerie Hansen, 1990: 19.
In this study, I follow Western scholarship on the periodisation of Chinese history, using ‘early China’ to
refer to the period from the beginning of human history in China to the end of the Han dynasty in 220
AD; ‘early medieval China’ to the period of disunity commonly referred to in Chinese history as the Six
Dynasties (220-581); and ‘late imperial China’ to the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911).
The Li ji, one of the five Confucian classics, is a collection of texts about the social norms, administration,
and ceremonial rites of the Zhou dynasty, and is attributed to disciples of Confucius (551-479 BC) and
Confucian scholars of the Warring States period (475-221 BC).
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The Minister of Crime adapted the punishments (to the offences for which they were inflicted), and made
the laws clear in order to deal with criminal charges and litigations…. Those who practise the left way
[zuodao] so as to disturb the government [luanzheng] shall be executed…; those who assume the
appearance and voice of ghosts and spirits, give false reports about seasons and days, and consult the
tortoise-shell and yarrow stalks, so as to confuse the public (huozhong), shall be executed. (Li ji zhengyi,
2003: 13.1342c-44a) 6
The categorisation of wugu as a political crime of zuodao in the Li ji was confirmed by the
influential Han dynasty Confucian commentator Zheng Xuan (127-200 AD), who interpreted
zuodao as ‘wugu sorcery and taboo customs’ (wugu sujin) (Li ji zhengyi, 2003: 13.1344a). This was
reinforced by the great Confucian scholar Kong Yingda (574-648) of the Tang dynasty, who
described it as the ‘evil way’ (xiedao), as opposed to the ‘correct way’ (zhengdao) or ‘right way’
(youdao) (Li ji zhengyi, 2003: 13.1344c). 7 Zuodao is further specified in the Han shu (Book of Han
Dynasty) as
turning one’s back on the correct way of benevolence and righteousness [renyi], and disobeying rules
and principles of the Five [Confucian] Classics, zealously advocating anomalies, ghosts and spirits,
seeking high and low for ways of offering sacrifices to ghosts and spirits, and praying for divine
blessings at unholy places of worship… which are all [wugu crimes] committed by wicked people to
confuse the public and cheat the lord of the world’ (Ban, 1997: 25.1260).
The Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) witnessed the establishment of Confucianism as the state
ideology with ‘benevolence and righteousness’ at its core. Thoughts and beliefs that were contrary
to, or seriously disagreed with, official dogma would be rejected as heretical, not to speak of
‘prodigies, force, disorder, and gods ‘the Master did not speak of’ (Analects 7.21, in Lau trans, 1979:
88). Wugu sorcery was identified in Han times as practising zuodao, a very vague and broad
political crime of violating both positive laws and natural laws by worshiping proscribed
supernatural forces and using them to disturb the government and confuse the public. Hardly any
distinction was made in judicial practice between practising sorcery for political purposes and
practising it for personal gain because, in either case, wugu sorcery was considered blasphemous of
state ideology and a transgression against heavenly principles and human sentiments (tianli
renqin), even if it was performed only against an individual.
In China, legal punishments for wugu sorcery can be traced as far back as the Shang dynasty,
when a crime called wufeng (literally, ‘sorcerous wind’) was written into the ‘Penal Law of King
Tang’ (‘Tang zhi guanxing’), 8 which imposed a punishment of tattooing the forehead (moxing) of the
accused (Shang shu zhengyi, 2003: 8.51). We are not able to describe what kind of magic wufeng
was or how it was practised but we know a good deal about gu sorcery practised during the Zhou
dynasty (circa 1046-256 BC). As recorded in the Zhou li (Rites of the Zhou Dynasty), 9 an
office/officer called Zhu was established under the Qiu guan (Autumn Ministry with the Overseer of
the Penal Affairs) to deal with gu magic (Zhou li Zhengyi, 2008: 65.2924).
6
7
8
9
I consult Legge (2006) when translating this passage from the Li ji.
It is interesting to note that ‘the left side’ is deemed negative and ‘the right side’ positive in many
cultures. The English word, ‘sinister’ (French Sinistre, Portuguese and Italian sinistro, Spanish siniestro,
and Latin sinister) originally meant ‘left’, or ‘left-hand’ but later acquired meanings of ‘evil’, ‘malicious’,
‘dark’, ‘corrupt’, ‘bad’, ‘base’, ‘unlucky’, ‘harmful’, ‘misleading’, ‘astray from the right path’, and the like.
This is also the case with the Sanskrit word Vāmamārga/Vamacara (left-hand path), which refers to
tantric practices that are transgressive and heterodox, as contrasted with the pure and orthodox
Dakshinachara (right-hand path).
Tang was the founding king of the Shang dynasty. For this record in the chapter ‘Fei yue’ [Against Music]
of the Mozi, a collection of philosophical texts compiled by Mohists of Mozi's (circa 468-circa 376 BC)
thought, see Mozi xiangu, 2001: 8.259-60. Here, the word wu in the phrase wufeng is interpreted as
‘serving ghosts and spirits’ (shi guishen), according to the commentary to the old text of the Shang shu
[Book of Documents], conventionally attributed to the Han dynasty Confucian scholar Kong Anguo.
The Zhou li is basically a collection of lists of Zhou dynasty bureaucrats, explanatory notes and short
treatises on their social, religious, legal and administrative functions. The book started to be compiled
during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), was completed around the third century BC, and has
since been listed as one of the Five Classics of the Confucian Canon (Wujing).
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While Han law-makers followed their Qin (221-206 BC) predecessors, they also drew heavily on
the rites, rules and regulations in the Zhou li, the Li Ji, and the Yi li (Etiquettes and Rites). 10 The
categorisation of wugu sorcery as a zuodao crime punishable by the death penalty in the Li ji was
absorbed into the Han ‘Statues on Crimes of Violence’ (‘Zei lü’), where it is stated that ‘those who
practise gu magic or instruct others to do so shall be executed in public places’ (Li ji zhengyi, 2003:
70.2924). 11 This Han law was later reiterated and reinforced during the Wei dynasty (220-265 AD)
in an imperial ordinance (ling) issued by Emperor Wen (187-226 AD) in 225:
From now on, whoever dares to perform illicit sacrifice or practise sorcery and divination shall be
punished as for committing the crime of zuodao. This is now a law. (Chen, 1997: 2.84)
From Han times onwards, however, wugu sorcery, once a zuodao crime, tended to be classified
in a broader category of crime called budao (depravity), which covered all serious political and
moral crimes such as treason, rebellion and great impiety (da bujing; for example, regicide,
patricide, and matricide), 12 later grouped into the ‘Ten Abominations’ (shi’e) in the Sui (581-618)
and Tang (618-907) Codes. Under the catch-all crime of budao, going against the way of being a
minister or a subject was regarded as turning one’s back on ‘the correct way’ (zhengdao), which was
a criminal offence punishable by death for causing civil disorder and undermining the monarchy
and the state. Likewise, the zuodao crime of practising wugu sorcery, namely, making and using
poisonous gu or resorting to black magic to kill or harm people, was also regarded as a budao crime
punishable by death. As a result, wugu sorcery was not regarded as a zuodao crime in itself but as
budao - an all-inclusive yet heterogeneous crime associated with such heretical and political
felonious offences as treason and rebellion. It thus became an easy (and often false) allegation for
the purposes of political persecutions (Cheng, 2006: 4.93-94) .
The crime of budao defies any clear and coherent definition or delimitation. As Zhao Zengshou,
a Han Chamberlain for Law Enforcement, put it when commenting on the Marquis within the Pass,
Chen Tang, being accused of committing the crime of budao against the Emperor:
There are no proper rules to follow in deciding what a budao offence is and what is not, and what
punishment should be meted out. Therefore, when the case is reported [and] the local magistrate feels it
difficult to decide, so he will refer it to the Office for Law Enforcement. (Ban, 1997: 70. 3026)
It comes as no surprise that arbitrary discretions occurred frequently in law enforcement
regarding the crime of budao during the Han dynasty, and that the law was abused and
manipulated by heavy-handed judicial officials to gain the imperial favour and fulfil their political
ambitions (Sima, 1997: 122.3131-54; Ban, 1997: 60.2659-61). In Han times, as Hulsewē (1955: 157)
notes:
[P]u-tao tended increasingly to be applied very loosely; so much so that when for some reason it was
considered expedient to have a person removed - and preferably removed for good through execution - any
misdemeanour was construed to have been ‘impious’.
Recorded in the official histories of the Han dynasty are numerous wugu cases involving a wide
range of people from empresses, crown princes, and princesses to military generals, court officials,
and their families, friends, relatives, and runners, who were put under arrest or put to death on the
charge of ‘high treason and heresy’. The wugu scandal of 91 BC, for example, resulted in ‘no less
10
11
12
The three Confucian rite and ritual books are collectively referred to as the ‘Three Rites’ (San li) and were
included in the Thirteen Confucian Classics during the Song dynasty.
The late Qing (1644-1911) jurist Shen Jiaben (1985: 5.1462) notes that this Han rule dates from Zhou
times and later became the basis for the stipulation of the crime of making and keeping gu poison in the
Tang Code (653).
Among the criminal offences categorised as budao crime were a range of offences against the Emperor
including: ‘treason against the Emperor’, ‘deceiving the Emperor’, ‘covering subjects’, ‘deceiving
behaviour’, ‘political proposals lacking consistent principle that confuse the Emperor and his Court
sessions’, ‘libelling the Emperor and current politics’, ‘taking a great amount of money by illegal means or
wasting/embezzling public money’, ‘confusing the public and other misconducts that result in riots’,
‘actions that damage imperial grace’, and ‘malfeasance that brings about serious harm to the Emperor,
the imperial household or the state’. On this, see Oba, 1987: 114-18.
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than nine long months of bloody terrorism, ending in a tremendous slaughter’ (de Groot, 1964: 836).
Over five years from 91 BC to the death of Emperor Wu in 87 BC, more than thirty powerful court
ministers and aristocrats were charged with wugu sorcery crimes, purged, and executed or forced to
commit suicide (Poo, 1987: 523-25). Politically-motivated wugu sorcery investigations, accusations,
persecutions and executions continued throughout the Six Dynasties (220-581) (Shen, 1997: 26.749,
71.1848 and 72.1875; Xiao, 1997: 23.433; Wei, 1997: 24.636, 28.693, 46.1035-36; Li, 1997a: 14.38688; Li, 1997b: 14.532, 25.907 and 30.1107) until the Sui dynasty (581-618), when there appeared a
tendency to distinguish political wugu sorcery from non-political wugu sorcery, with the crime of
budao written into the Kaihuang Code (583) as one of the ‘Ten Abominations’.
Wugu as Political Zuodao Crime and Wugu as Non-political Budao Crime
The Ten Abominations are a list of the most abhorrent offences under traditional Chinese law.
First formally laid out in the Kaihuang Code of the short-lived Sui dynasty, the Ten Abominations
includes budao and nine other serious crimes, such as treason and rebellion, that used to be
categorised into the once catch-all crime of budao. The Kaihuang Code has not survived in its
original form but is well preserved in the Tang Code (653). Under art 6 on the Ten Abominations in
the section of ‘Names and General Rules’ (‘Ming lü’) of the Tang Code, budao is defined as a highly
reprehensible crime committed by ‘those who are cruel and malicious and who turn their backs on
morality’. Criminal offences listed as budao in the Tang Code include ‘to kill three members of a
single household (jia) who have not committed a capital crime, or to dismember someone’, and
‘making or keeping of ku, or sorcery [zao yanmei]’ (Johnson, 1979: 68-69). 13 This latter offence is
further specified in the section of ‘Violence and Robbery’ (‘Zei dao’) under art 264 to include all
cases of ‘making written charms’ (zao fushu)’, ‘cursing by means of spells’ (zhouzu), and ‘using
magic, summoning demons’ (zao yanmei) by means of ‘drawing likenesses, or carving images and
stabbing the heart, putting out the eyes, or tying the hands and feet of the likenesses or images’,
‘because of a desire to kill a person’ (Johnson, 1997: 267-69).
The content and concept of budao as defined and specified in the Tang Code remained largely
unchanged in the Codes of later dynasties from the Song (960-1279), through the Qing (1644-1911),
except that from the Yuan (1271-1368) onwards ‘mutilating living persons for sorcery purposes’
(caisheng zhege) is criminalised as budao under the Ten Abominations, and added to the section of
‘Violence and Robbery’ of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Codes (Chen et al, 2011: 41.1422-25; Jiang,
2005: 172; Jones, 1994: 274). 14 The principles and specifications on the crime of budao in the Tang
Code are entirely incorporated into the Song xingtong (The Unified Penal Code of the Song Dynasty,
hereafter the Song Code), and later found their way into the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Codes. With all
the major criminal offences, which used to be collectively grouped into the category of budao, now
listed separately from each other under the Ten Abominations, budao is neither a catch-all clause
nor a heretical/political crime any more. Instead, it has been narrowed down to specifically refer to
the non-political crime of killing or harming people through extreme and cruel methods, including
wugu sorcery. This is the first legislative development concerning black magic.
The second such development is that zuodao, in post-Tang Codes, tends towards a general
category of heretical/political criminal offences involving the use of black magic against the royal
family or the state or for religious or political purposes. This is significant in that politically
motivated sorcery crimes start to be differentiated from non-politically motivated ones, with the
former usually categorised as zuodao and the latter as budao.
In the year of Xinhai (591), Emperor Wen (541-604) of the Sui dynasty issued an edict:
13
14
Throughout this essay, the Tang, Ming, and Qing Codes are cited according to the numbered articles of
their English version, which were added by their translators, rather than provided in their original
Chinese texts.
The crime of ‘mutilating a living person as a sacrificial offering to demons, or as a means of making and
keeping gu poison’ was first listed as a budao offence in the Yuan Code, and was later adapted into the
Ming and Qing Codes. For a detailed introduction to the sorcery crimes of caisheng and relevant articles
in the Qing Code, see Williams, 1907: 64-66.
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Those households that make and keep maogui [literarily cat ghost] and gu poison, perform yanmei magic,
and practise the wild way [yedao] must be exiled to the four frontiers. (Wei and Zhangsun, 1997: 2.43)
‘The wild way’ (yedao) is most probably meant to denote zuodao rather than budao, in that the
Xinhai edict was issued in the wake of an wugu incident in which Dugu Tuo, half-brother of
Empress Wenxian (544-602) was accused of indulging himself in zuodao, and punished for making,
keeping, and using cat-ghosts to harm the Empress (Wei and Zhangsun, 1997: 36.1108-109,
79.1790-791; Li, 1997b: 61.2172-73; Sima, 2008: 178.5560-61). Forty-one years later, Emperor
Xuanzong (685-762) of the Tang dynasty issued an ‘Imperial Decree Strictly Prohibiting the Left
Way’ (‘Yanjin zuodao zhao’), condemning zuodao for ‘corrupting the government’ (du zheng) and
dictating the death penalty for practising zuodao (Dong et al, 2007: 31.148c). Almost all the
offences described as zuodao in the ‘Imperial Decree’ find themselves listed under art 268 on
‘Making Magical Inscriptions and Magical Incantations’ (zao yaoshu yaoyan) in the Tang Code
(Johnson, 1997: 274-76). Interestingly, other sorcery crimes such as ‘making or keeping gu poison’
are labelled as budao under art 6 on the Ten Abominations in the section of ‘Names and General
Principles’ but also as zuodao under art 262 in the section of ‘Violence and Robbery’. While the
distinction made between zuodao crimes and budao crimes may be seen as a result of growing
differentiation of criminal concepts, there is no denying a lack of consistency in the Tang Code in its
categorisation of sorcery crimes in terms of zuodao or budao. Upon further examination, whether a
sorcery crime is qualified as zuodao or budao in the Tang Code seems to depend more on the degree
of seriousness than on the (political or non-political) motivation.
It was not until the Song dynasty (960-1279) that zuodao was re-established primarily as a
political crime that involves black magic (Dou et al, 1998: 330). Categorised as zuodao in the Song
and Yuan (1271-1368) Codes is a list of criminal offences such as ‘[propagating and distributing]
magic incantations’, ‘forging scriptures’, and ‘fabricating auguries to confuse the public’ (Toqto’a et
al, 1997: 199.498; Song et al, 1997: 105.2684), complemented by the crime of ‘sorcery of wizards and
witches’ (shiwu xieshuo) in the Ming (art 181) and Qing (art 162) Codes. Although named
differently, they are all considered zuodao crimes involving the use of black magic for political
purposes. It is its political and heretical nature that separates zuodao from budao.
This two-tier legislative development relating to black magic distinguishes political wugu
crimes as zuodao from non-political wugu crimes as budao, with the former involving using black
magic and other folk beliefs to organise political activities against the Emperor and the State, and
the latter involving using black magic to commit crimes against human individuals in a heinous,
cruel, and depraved manner. As a result, there appeared a sharp drop in politically-motivated
sorcery charges and trials in post-Tang China. 15
Legal Framework of Wugu Sorcery Crimes
The Tang Code is the earliest Chinese Code that has survived to date in its entirety. Tang
lawmakers synthesise legalist and Confucian interpretations and complement the Code with civil
statutes and regulations. They demonstrate advanced skills in using social harmful consequences
as a main measuring indicator to define wugu-related crimes, to apply ‘collective liability’ (lianzuo)
to those who were involved in making and keeping gu poison, and to adjust the penalty degree by
the method of analogy to murder. While the Tang Code provides a model for later dynastic Codes,
significant developments continue to be made in many areas. With respect to criminal offences such
as wugu sorcery activities, the Ming Code begins to differentiate principal suspects from secondary
suspects based on the level of harmful results. Accordingly, the principal suspect is punished with
death, while a lighter sentence may be imposed on an accomplice. This distinction is faithfully
observed in the Qing Code. Another distinctive feature of the Ming and Qing Codes with reference
15
In his note on ‘the apparent scarcity of case material’, Kuhn (1990: 85) correctly points out that all the
‘Sorcery [Crimes] under the “Ten Abominations”’ are budao ‘acts or conspiracies against persons, not the
state’, and are thus ‘wholly non-political’, but when he comes to the conclusion that ‘the ancient statute’
on ‘harming people by magic’ ‘had fallen out of use by late imperial times’, he (1990: 89) seems to overlook
the distinction made between zuodao and budao in post-Tang (618-907) legislation on sorcery crimes.
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to wugu sorcery crimes is the shift in emphasis from punishing sorcery crimes against individuals
to preventing sorcery-related sect and cult activities from developing into heretical organisations or
political movements.
Kuhn (1990: 84) notes that sorcery is a multi-category crime in the Qing Code. In fact, it has
never been treated as a single-category crime in Chinese legal history. In the Codes from the Tang
through to the Qing periods, statues and regulations regarding sorcery crimes are listed separately
under different headings/subheadings and distributed across a number of sections with a wide
range of denotations and connotations attached to them. From them we may safely infer six major
types of black magic: namely, ‘making and keeping gu poison’; ‘using magic, summoning spirits’;
‘making written charms’; ‘cursing by means of spells’; ‘making magical inscriptions and magical
incantations’; and ‘dismembering a living person for sorcery purposes’. In most cases, harsh
punishments are meted out because a small sorcery incident may quickly cause widespread panic
and fear, and develop into a political crisis, as seen in the sorcery scare of 1768 that originated in
Jiangnan (Kuhn, 1990).
Jiangnan, a region to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is historically known
for its widespread supernatural beliefs and sorcery practices. Records of shamanistic and sorcerous
activities in this area are abundant in dynastic histories and literati anecdotes, and many of them
tell of a bloody end, with hundreds of people losing their homes and lives. For example, during the
reign of Emperor Renzong (1010-1063) of the Song dynasty, more than twenty households in
Quzhou were exterminated for practising gu magic to kill people (Toqto’a et al, 1997: 426.12703).
Back in 964, Emperor Taizu (927-976), the founder of the Song dynasty, issued an order that 326
households in Yongzhou should be punished by life exile to remote areas for making and keeping
gu, and that no locals should be allowed to marry people from these households, to prevent gu
spreading out and stirring up the public (Toqto’a et al, 1997: 1.17; Li, 1773-1784: 5.12b). Judging by
the text and the context, the imperial decree was issued more out of fear of panic over gu magic
spiralling out of control into a social and political crisis than out of concern for community safety
and security. This is reminiscent of The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, in which Kuhn (1990: 77)
makes a point that there were two dimensions to the threat and challenge posed by sorcery to the
state and the society, namely a supernatural dimension and a political one. The usual response to
the former is to take action to protect society from being harmed by sorcery, and, to the latter, to
exercise caution to prevent public panic over sorcery from destabilising the government. At times of
wugu crisis, as shown in the 964 imperial edict and the 1768 sorcery scare, what concerned the
ruling elites most was not sorcery activity or the sorcery rumours themselves but the political
motivations behind them and their implications for social and state control.
In imperial Chinese law, gu magic was generally regarded as a capital offence, and accordingly,
those who made or kept gu, or instructed others to make it, were punished by strangulation (Tang
Code, art 262; Dou et al, 1999, 18.320-2) or by decapitation (Ming Code, art 312; Qing Code, art
289). Those who lived with the offender in the same household, even though unaware of the
circumstances, were punished by life exile for 3,000 li, 16 unless they were victims themselves. Any
national amnesty did not apply to such cases; and if community heads were aware of the
circumstances, but made no investigation or failed to report the case to government authorities,
they were punished by life exile for 3,000 li according to the Tang (art 262) and Song (Dou et al,
1999: 18.320-2) Codes, or received 100 or 200 strokes of beating with a heavy bamboo cane,
according to the Ming (art 312) and Qing (art 289) Codes, respectively.
As mentioned above, yanmei was generally referred to as wugu in early and early medieval
China. This type of black magic involved calling up demons or using captive spirits in order to kill a
person. Yanmei was considered to be associated with numerous evil customs, ways of the left, and
magic arts, such as ‘drawing likenesses, or carving images and stabbing the heart, putting out the
eyes, or tying the hands and feet of the likenesses or images’ (Tang Code, art 264). Punishments for
yanmei were thus different from those for gu magic. For example, in the Northern Wei dynasty
(386-534), a wugu or yanmei offender was punished by being drowned in the river with a sheep on
16
One li is roughly equivalent to one third mile or 572.4 metres.
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his back and a dog in his arms, whereas offenders of gu magic, whether male or female, were
beheaded, and their house burned (Wei, 1997: 111.2874). The punishment clearly contained
cleansing rituals to clear any evil spells and spirits resulting from such black magic (Ch’u, 1961:
223).
In the Tang through the Qing Codes, if yanmei sorcery was performed in an attempt to kill a
person and if no injury was inflicted on the victim, the offender was punished two degrees less than
the penalty applied for an attempted murder; if death ensued, the offender was punished for a
murder; and if the victim of the sorcery fell ill as a result, the offender was punished four degrees
less than the penalty for an attempted murder (Tang Code, art 264; Dou et al, 1999: 18.223; Huang,
1988: 166; Ming Code, art 212.2; Qing Code, art 289.3). The Yuan Code also stipulates that those
who applied yanmei against a minister should be put to death, and that if a wife applied yanmei
against her husband, or a son did so against his father, the son should be punished by life exile, but
in the case of the wife, it would be up to her husband to decide whether to remarry her or sell her,
during a national amnesty (Song et al, 1997: 104.2653). The emphasis on social status and
relational elements is clearly shown in the distinctions made in legal punishments for sorcery
crimes against ministers, husbands and fathers. There is nothing strange about differentiation in
judicial practice based on social and family status and gender, because traditional China was a
male-dominated, hierarchical society (McKnight, 1981: 53-57).
This kind of emphasis also appears in laws regarding other forms of magic. For example, legal
punishments for ‘making written charms’ and ‘cursing by means of spells’ were the same as for
performing yanmei in imperial Chinese law, and a distinction was usually made between cases in
which death follows as a consequence and cases in which the criminal intent was to cause sickness
or suffering to a person. In addition to criminal motives and consequences, the relationship
between the criminal and the victim was also considered in any relevant judicial decision. If the
sorcerer had cursed his paternal grandparents, parents or his master, there could be no reduction
of punishment (Tang Code, art 264; Dou et al, 1999: 18.323-25; Ming Code, art 312.2; Qing Code,
art 289.3). Even if the sorcerer used magic or spells for the purpose of retaining the affection of
one’s senior or superior, he or she was still punished for performing meidao (erotic magic or love
charms) by life exile for 2,000 li (Tang Code, art 264; Dou et al, 1999: 18.324-25). 17 If the sorcerer
cursed the Emperor, however, then, irrespective of motives or consequences, and even if the cursing
was solely to obtain his affection, the sorcerer had to be executed by decapitation, because the crime
fell within the Ten Abominations (Tang Code, art 264; Dou et al, 1999:18.324-25).
Even harsher punishments were applied for the zuodao crime of ‘making magical inscriptions
and magical incantations’. In all such cases, offenders were punished by strangulation (Tang Code,
art 268; Dou et al, 1999: 18.329-30) or by decapitation, according to the Ming (art 279) and Qing
(art 256) Codes, because their actions were seen as violating the way of ‘being a proper subject of
the emperor’.
‘Extracting vitality by mutilating a living person’ is a sorcery crime with written records
datable to, at the latest, the early years of the Song dynasty (960-1279), when official and anecdotal
accounts started to appear of dismembering living persons or removing their inner organs after
cutting them apart as sacrificial offerings to gods or ghosts (Kawahara, 1967). This type of black
magic has its roots in animism and human sacrifice, and is found in primitive cultures all over the
world (Williams, 1907: 71). In China, the first officially recorded case of dismembering a living
person for sorcery purposes took place in 991 during the Song dynasty but it was not until the Yuan
dynasty (1271-1368) that it was formally criminalised. The Yuan Code prohibited extracting
human organs, body parts, skin, hair and the like from a living person to use them for the purposes
of sorcery, such as making an anthropomorphic figure that could then do one’s bidding or be
sacrificed to an evil spirit, or to concoct medicine of extraordinary efficacy from bodily organs and so
17
This sub-article contained in the Tang and Song Codes is not seen in the Ming and Qing Codes, nor is
there any report about meidao scandals in the official histories of the Ming and Qing dynasties. In
contrast, there are numerous records of palace women practising meidao sorcery in the dynastic histories
of the Han (206 BC-220 AD), through the Tang (618-907). For a brief analysis of the politics of the sex and
sorcery scandals from the royal court in early and medieval China, see Zhao, 2013: 154-55.
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on (Boulais, 1924, cited in Bodde and Morris, 1973: 327, fn 14). In all such cases, the offender was
18
punished by being sliced to death (lingchi), his property was confiscated, and the people who
dwelt in the same household, even if unaware of the crime, were exiled to remote areas. If the
committed crime caused no death, the punishment was 107 strokes of beating with a rod plus three
years of imprisonment, the same as for robbery without killing or taking property. If the crime had
been plotted but not carried out, the punishment was 97 strokes of beating with a rod, plus two and
half years of imprisonment. Where a person was liable to be punished by death for committing this
kind of crime but confessed his guilt or helped catch other accomplices, the confiscated property
could be returned to him in full, or at least half (Song et al, 1997: 104.2653; Chen et al, 2011:
41.1385, 41.1424-25).
In contrast, the Ming and Qing Codes distinguished cases in which the offender cut apart a
living person out of hatred or desire to kill the person (zhijie ren) from that in which the offender
committed the same act for sorcery purposes (caisheng zhege ren), making it clear that the latter
case deserves ‘particularly severe’ punishments (Ming Code, art 311 and Qing Code, art 288;
original emphasis). Accordingly, the principal was sentenced to death by slicing, and the accessory
by decapitation. Their confiscated properties were delivered to the victim’s families, and their
wives, children and those living in the same household exiled for life to 2,000 li. Moreover, even if
the offender’s action caused no injuries, the principal was still be beheaded, his family members
exiled for life at a distance of 2,000 li, and any accessory received 100 strokes of beating with a
heavy stick before being sent into life exile at a distance of 3,000 li (Ming Code, art 311; Qing Code,
art 288).
Judicial Practice: A Case Study
In early and medieval China from the Han (206 BC-220 AD) through to the Six Dynasties (220581), black magic was considered primarily to be a threat to imperial authority, state ideology, and
social order, and was classified under the catch-all crime of budao, punishable as for political
offences. Later, the crime of budao was listed as a non-political offence under the Ten Abominations
in the Sui and Tang Codes, in which cases and specifications were provided as (part of)
commentaries and sub-commentaries on sorcery-related laws. All of these greatly helped define and
clarify the nature and scope of sorcery crimes and helped reduce the number of politically
motivated sorcery trials and prosecutions. 19
Sorcery crimes come, however, in various, subtle forms, and involve a great many ‘dark’
methods so they ‘cannot be described in detail’ (Tang Code, art 264). Indeed, it is difficult in real
judicial practice to investigate and prosecute black magic crimes according to normal procedural
and evidential principles, because of their elusive, mysterious, and supernatural/superstitious
nature. In the process of administering criminal justice in sorcery cases, problems arise from time
to time as to how to investigate and identify such crimes, how to apply the law or pass sentences
proportional to the offences, or how to collect and check evidence. A case in point is the sorcery of
‘soul stealing’ (jiaohun), which ‘is not mentioned in the [Qing] Code, so prosecutors would have
required analogic reasoning, a common recourse when a particular variant of a crime was not
covered by specific legal penalties’ (Kuhn, 1990: 91).
It is especially difficult to follow the normal judicial rules and procedures to gather, test, and
verify evidence in these cases. Under the imperial legal framework, two important principles
18
19
Death by slicing is reserved in the Ming and Qing Codes as a punishment for such Ten Abomination
crimes as ‘rebellion’, ‘high treason’, ‘contumacy’ including parricide, and ‘depravity’, that is, ‘killing three
persons in one family or mutilating a living person, and mutilating a living person for sorcery purposes’.
A thorough check of the Ershiwu shi quanwen jiansuo xitong [Online Search System of the Complete Text
of the Twenty-five Official Histories] (2015), 6 July <http://202.114.65.57/net25/> shows no more than five
political sorcery cases reported in the Ming shi [History of the Ming Dynasty] and the Qing shigao [Draft
History of the Qing Dynasty], which cover a span of 544 years from 1368 to 1911. This contrasts with the
two official histories of the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) – the Han shu [Book of the Han Dynasty] and
the Hou Hanshu [Book of the Later Han Dynasty] – in which more than thirty political sorcery cases are
recorded over 446 years. For more about politically-motivated sorcery charges and prosecutions during
the Han dynasty, see Loewe, 1970, Poo, 1987, and Cai, 2014: 113-51.
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underpinning most modern criminal justice systems, namely, ‘the assumption of innocence’ and
‘reasonable doubts’, simply do not exist. Nevertheless, the imperial Code still requires strictly that
a formal sentence accurately cite the relevant legal articles from the Code and that discretion or
assumption in judicial decision be avoided (Tang Code, art 484). Likewise, rules are set out in the
Ming (art 439) and Qing (art 415) Codes to prohibit the judge from citing and considering by
analogy as laws imperial decrees that deal with individual cases but are not made into the law. 20 As
for cases of doubtful offences in which testimony about the truth or falsity of the accusation is
equal, and the reasoning for and against the accused’s having committed the crime is balanced, the
Tang Code (art 502) allows the accused to redeem by payment of copper. It also allows the legal
officers up to three deliberations to reach a verdict if they differ from each other on this issue. This
provision is not included in the Ming and Qing Codes, and the reason for this is probably that
doubts were seen as not something that should prevent a judge from deciding a case as he could
still secure confession from the accused by torture as a last resort (MacCormack, 1990: 89). Torture
as a method for extracting confessions was not uncommon in the traditional Chinese legal system,
especially when it concerned difficult and doubtful cases involving murder, maiming, adultery,
robbery, and human trafficking.
This is particularly true of the Ming-Qing period (1368-1911). As Park (2008: 37) notes:
The dominant view within the official culture [in late imperial China] was that the measured use of
torture could result in more substantive justice in the sense that the guilty were more likely to be
convicted and the innocent allowed to go free.
In modern Chinese criminal law, it is necessary to satisfy three elements in order for the court
to find a crime has been committed: (1) there must be clear subjective intention of the suspect to
harm the plaintiff; (2) such harmful action must breach the law and be illegal; and (3) there must
be a causal relation between the suspect’s action and the harmful consequence. Even in modern
civil tort law, to adjudge a civil act to be null and void requires the following elements to be taken
into consideration: (1) whether the charged action caused psychological pain and other damage to
the applicant; and (2) whether the defendant acted intentionally in order to harm the applicant.
There was a similar emphasis on the importance of legal evidence, particularly forensic
evidence, in homicide cases in traditional Chinese law. 21 Most noteworthy among the various
forensic manuals produced in traditional China is the Xiyuan lu (Records of Washing away
Wrongs). This was the first handbook on forensic medicine in the world, and was written by the
famous Southern Song (1127-1279) jurist and forensic medicine expert Song Ci (1981). The received
text of the Xiyuan lu contains fifty-three short chapters in five juan (fascicle), with the first juan
given to statutes and ordinances on the inspection of bodies and injuries; the second to methods
and notes on autopsies; and the remaining three to signs and symptoms of corpses from various
causes of death, including gu poison. The methods and principles given in the book set the measure
for forensic practices and are absorbed into Codes of later dynasties to govern the types of evidence
that are admissible in judicial proceedings.
In general, there are seven types of legal evidence recognised and required in traditional
Chinese trials: (1) oral confession; (2) witness testimony; (3) documentary evidence; (4) material
evidence; (5) inquest records; (6) inspection and verification; and (7) divine revelation. A successful
homicide prosecution thus requires evidential elements such as the dead body of the victim, the
wounds of the victim, the disease of the victim, footprints, traces of whereabouts and movement,
and so forth, to be considered and double-checked against written evidence including witness
testimonies, forensic reports and any confessions by the defendant.
20
21
This is significant, in that imperial decrees and edicts were held in high regard during the Song dynasty
(960-1279) as ‘imperially approved rules’ (zhun) that were placed above all other articles in the Song
Code.
The emphasis is richly attested to by the pre-Qin (206-221 BC) legal texts inscribed on the bamboo strips
unearthed in 1975 at Shuihudi in Hubei province, and also by the large body of administrative and legal
documents from late imperial China, including casebooks and handbooks written by magistrates and
their professional legal advisors. See Bodde, 1982; Bailey, 2009; and Li, 2012.
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Occasional reports about sorcerers being acquitted of criminal charges because of the difficulty
finding evidence can be found in legal casebooks and anecdotal collections. For example, in Song
(960-1279) times, there lived in Huazhou a wizard who was believed to possess magic power. When
the wizard cursed a person, that person would have whatever he was eating at the time of being
cursed grow in his abdomen, and his abdomen would then expand and eventually explode, causing
the person to die. His cursing was even more effective when applied to a pregnant woman. If she
was eating beef when she was cursed, she would give birth to niu’er (literarily bull’s child). Later,
someone brought a charge against the wizard, who defended himself at the trial, saying that it was
impossible for a human being to give birth to niu’er, and that the fact that a woman had given birth
to niu’er should be seen as the punishment by enraged gods for the failure of her family to
accumulate enough merit in secret (ji yinde). In the end, the magistrate had to release him because
there was no way of proving or disproving the sorcery charge, although the magistrate and the
locals all believed that his sorcery activity was real and effective (Hong, 2006: 4.4.1498-99). This
case also shows that the Song Code did not, nor could it, provide the magistrate with a practical
guide to handle sorcery crime charges.
Imperial Chinese law also did not specificy which types of evidence were acceptable for sorcery
crime convictions. In most cases, the material evidence used for prosecuting a sorcery crime
comprised magical objects such as gu spirits (often in the form of insects, worms, and animals), gu
poisons, human images, or idols of evil spirits made out of paper, wood, metal, clay or cloth but,
because of their mysterious, ambivalent, and supernatural nature, magical objects were not
necessarily more reliable and convincing than plaintiff’s complaint or the oral confession extorted
by torture of the defendant. As a result, the judge would have to look into the criminal intent, or
mens rea, for ‘criminal evidence’ and, once the evidence was established (usually through tortured
confessions), the accused would be punished for plotting a murder, no matter whether the action
had really taken place or not. 22 In other words, a person might be found guilty of committing a
sorcery crime for what was in his or her mind, and even for what he or she believed, or even worse,
on the basis of rumours, assumptions and speculation. Judicial decisions regarding black magic
crimes for which no hard evidence was available were thus left to the discretion of the judge, given
that guilty intent or mind was impossible to prove unless accompanied by an actus reus, or ‘guilty
act’.
A case in point is recorded in the Xing’an huilan (Conspectus of Criminal and Penal Cases)
(2004: 21.799-800). 23 In 1813, the governor of Shu reported a case in which Zhang Yongfang, after
learning that Mrs Xu, née Quan, desired to curse her husband’s seven-year-old brother Xu Yao’er to
death out of her hatred for her husband, decided to take this opportunity to cheat Quan out of
money. Zhang claimed that she was able to curse the child to death. Quan believed her and paid
her 3,000 coins. Zhang later changed her mind and attempted to kill the child by strangulation
because the cursing failed. The case was reported to the governor of Shu, who decided that Zhang
be punished by decapitation for plotting to kill a person by means of yanmei, and that Quan be
sentenced to 60 strokes of a heavy bamboo rod, plus one year of imprisonment, for her accessory
role in this case. When the case was submitted to the Board of Punishment for further review,
Quan was resentenced to 100 strokes of the heavy bamboo and exile to 3,000 li. This case shows
that people could be punished severely for plotting to kill a person by black magic, regardless of
22
23
As stipulated in the commentary and sub-commentary to art 256 in the Section of ‘Violence and Robbery’
of the Tang Code, ‘[Plotting] refers to where there is a real plot but the conspirators are not able to cause
harm. Or, where a person describes himself as being able to bring about “favorable verification” or cause
wonders [by means of magic]…, [or where] they display their evil strength and power’. In this case, ‘even
if investigation shows there are no real circumstances, it is self-evident that this is following a calamitous
way that the person involved are punished by strangulation...’. This article together with the
commentaries and sub-commentaries is almost entirely absorbed into the Ming and Qing Codes.
The Xing’an huilani, compiled in 1834 with two sequels dated 1840 and 1866, respectively, boasts the
largest casebook ever published in imperial China. This work together with its two sequels contains
reports of more than 7,600 actual cases decided by the Board of Punishment in Bejing for the period from
1736 to 1885. For an English translation of 190 cases from the Xing’an huilan, see Bodde and Morris,
1967: 203-489.
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whether they were, in fact, able to kill by black magic or whether they had committed sorcery
crimes.
In actual practice, as Kuhn (1990: 27) notes, when a sorcery case was reported, a judge might
be faced with three possibilities: (1) the sorcery crime was ‘pure bunk’, because there were no such
activities; (2) even if there had been such activities, sorcery beliefs and practices were ‘mere folk
superstition’, incapable of causing actual or potential harm; and (3) sorcery activities were real, and
‘were, and could be, effective’. Whatever the mental state of the judge, his attitude towards magic
and sorcery was frequently a decisive factor in handling a sorcery case, particularly if there was not
sufficient hard evidence at his command to prove or disprove the criminal charge.
Under such circumstances, the law often gave way to the personal beliefs or attitudes of a judge
– whether he was a believer or an agnostic. One such case is about a sorcerer in Deqing prefecture
performing a kind of black magic known as tiaoqi (extracting vital force) (Hong, 2006: 2.1.542). The
sorcerer was charged with calling the name of his victim outside the door at night in an attempt to
extract his vital force (qi). The person inside answered his magic call and instantly fell victim under
the spell. His abdomen became swollen and his skin turned so thin that his inner organs were
visible under the skin. Eventually he died of loss of vital force. The prefect ordered the accused to
be beaten on the back and sentenced to a life exile to Hainan, a remote island off the southern tip of
the empire, but he decided not to put it down in the official Register of Criminal Cases (dianxian)
because it involved strange and occult powers. The prefect did not have any specific laws to follow,
nor did he have any hard evidence to convict the magician for practising tiaoqi magic except that
the victim fell ill and died after he supposedly responded to the magician’s night call. As a
Confucian scholar-official, the prefect did not believe in magic, sorcery and witchcraft but he still
convicted the magician and sent him into exile for fear of the sorcery scare spreading out of control
in his jurisdiction.
Another such case arose in the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). Hu Shibi, a Confucianscholar judicial official, did not believe in the supernatural power of black magic to bring illness or
death to its victim. When a local district Confucian school tutor surnamed Li accused Master
Magician Huang the Sixth of casting spells and cursing his father to sickness, Judge Hu refused to
accept it as a criminal charge that merited investigation and prosecution. Rather, he dismissed his
accusation as a nonsense and a nuisance to public order, and decided that Li be suspended from
teaching at the Confucian school because of his ignorance of the natural cause of his father’s
disease and his superstitious belief in supernatural causality, of which a Confucian scholar should,
in his view, be ashamed. The case, however, did not end up with the acquittal of Huang the
magician. Ironically, he was still found guilty not of performing yanmei magic to curse Li’s father to
sickness but of practising zuodao or ‘the left way’ to ‘confuse the public’ by offering sacrifices to
deities that were not in the official Registers of Sacrificial Rituals (sidian). Huang was then
punished by 100 strokes of beating with a light stick and exiled to another prefecture (CASS, 1987:
14. 548-49).
This case clearly shows that the law served in the hands of Confucian scholar-officials as a
safeguard against heretical religious cults. The nature of imperial Chinese law as a political tool to
uphold Confucian values and maintain state and social control expresses itself even more fully in a
case that happened during the Liu Song period (420-479). In 460, the imperial court received a
report about gu poison (Shen, 1997: 181.2080; Du, 1773). Tang, a native of Xiangxian county of Pei
prefecture, felt a sharp pain in his belly after coming back from a dinner with a relative of his. He
vomited up over ten gu worms and died shortly afterwards. He suspected that he had been gupoisoned by his relative. Before breathing his last, he asked his wife Zhang to dissect his belly after
his death to find out what kind of gu had caused his death and to produce it as evidence for filing a
sorcery charge against his relative. Zhang followed her husband’s will, cut open his belly and sued
the relative for killing her husband with gu but the relative made a counter charge against Zhang
for damaging her husband’s corpse. Her son was also accused of failure to behave as a dutiful son to
stop his mother from cutting open his father’s dead body. The local magistrate found it hard to
decide the case as a gu sorcery crime committed by the relative against Tang or as a non-sorcery
crime committed by Zhang against her husband. As per the Code of the time, a person who inflicted
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harm on a corpse should be sentenced to four years in prison; a wife who did so to her husband to
five years; and a son who failed in his filial duties was punished by public execution and public
display of his dead body (qishi). It seems, however, that none of the three articles were applicable to
this case, so the magistrate reported it to the prefect, who forwarded it on to the imperial court for
verdict. When reviewing the case, Liu Xie, Director of Judicial Affairs for the Three Dukes
(Sangong lang), rejected the sorcery charge brought by Zhang against the relative because of a lack
of sufficient evidence. He also rejected the counter charge brought by the relative against Zhang
and her son because they did not have any criminal intent or any motive to damage Tang’s corpse.
Rather, he thought that Zhang and her son had displayed Confucian virtues of female and filial
piety and should be commended for following Tang’s instructions to the letter. Gu Kaizhi (392-467),
the Minister of Personnel (Libu shangshu), thought differently. He insisted on punishing Zhang for
insulting the corpse of her husband, and her son for filial impiety (buxiao). Gu cited the law,
arguing that anyone who moved corpses on the road would be dealt with as committing the crime of
depravity or budao, not to mention Zhang and her son having done what ordinary people viewed as
‘intolerable’ to the dead body. The debate ended with no result, so the case was referred to Emperor
Xiaowu (430-464), who gave the final verdict in favour of Gu’s advice that both Zhang and her son
be sentenced to death.
This case went through a full judicial review from the local magistrate court to the imperial
court but eventually was left to the discretion of the Emperor, who enjoyed a virtually unlimited
arbitrary power. Initially, it was a sorcery crime charge brought by Zhang against the relative but
it ended up being decided as a budao crime, with Zhang and her son sentenced to death for
violating Confucian ethics for women and sons. Liu Xie and Gu Kaizhi seem to have polarised into
completely opposite opinions on this case but there was actually no difference between them in
their indifference to the cause of Tang’s death and their emphasis on what they saw as the wider
Confucian moral and ethical issues behind this case.
In addition to the three possibilities facing a magistrate when a sorcery case was brought in for
trial (Kuhn, 1990: 27), there was also a possibility that the magistrate treated a zuodao sorcery
crime as a non-political or non-sorcery one and imposed a lenient sentence, not because of a lack of
evidence or laws to deal with the case but for fear of being called to account for the sorcery incident
that happened in his jurisdiction. Imperial China established its official accountability system as
early as Qin (220-206 BC)-Han (206 BC-220 AD) times, and the system reached its highest level of
sophistication after a series of laws passed during the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) (Chen,
2008: 31). Under this system, an imperial official, no matter how high his rank, would be faced with
disciplinary or even legal action against him if found guilty of wrongdoing. This was particularly
the case for the period from the reign of Shunzhi (1643-1661) to Qianlong (1736-1795) of the Qing
dynasty, when hundreds and thousands of officials were demoted, purged and prosecuted for
negligence and abuse of power (Chen, 2008: 312). There was then a zero tolerance policy against
officials involved, innocently or otherwise, in zuodao offences. For example, Fang Shiyi (? -1741),
Minister of Revenue (hubu shangshu) and concurrently Governor-General of Jiangsu and Zhejiang
Provinces during the reign of Yongzheng (1723-1735), was removed from office simply because of he
allegedly had intimate association at one time with Zhang Yunru, a court runner (bukuai)
convicted of ‘practising zuodao to confuse the public by cursing and casting spells’ (Zhao, 1977:
232.9537).
The zero tolerance policy against zuodao sorcery crimes was a double-edged sword, however.
Under this policy, a magistrate often found himself on the horns of a dilemma – he was required by
law to refer a zuodao sorcery case to a higher-level court for review and verdict but if he did as
required by law, he might be punished for allowing such a crime to happen in his jurisdiction. If he
did not, he would surely be punished, once found out, for sympathising or colluding with the
sorcerer, just as was Fang Shiyi. As a result, many magistrates chose to keep such cases from being
submitted to his superiors, instead deciding them as civil cases so as to leave no record of sorcery
charges and trials in the Register of Criminal Cases (Huang, 1982: 125). A case in point is found in
the Archives of Baxian County of Sichuan Province from the Qing dynasty (ASP, 1991: 238-239). In
1771, Chen Shijun asked Zhang Junde and Zhang Zutai to chant the ‘heretical’ scripture of the Big
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Dipper for his son who was ill. Both Zhang Junde and Zhang Zutai were shaman-sorcerers
(duangong), and they were caught practising the ‘sorcery of wizards and witches’ (shiwu xieshuo).
This was a very serious zuodao criminal charge. As stipulated in the Qing Code (art 162), the
principal was liable to death by strangulation and the accessory to 100 strokes, plus life exile for a
distance of 3,000 li. Instead of punishing them according to the law, the county magistrate modified
the indictment and changed the case into a civil one, sentencing Chen Shijun, Zhang Junde and
Zhang Zutai each to 30 strokes. The case was closed, with Zhang Zutai being exempted from the
corporal punishment because he was very young.
Evidence for sorcery crimes involving the casting of magic spells and curses is usually more
difficult to collect and check than for sorcery crimes involving image magic, because the latter is
visible and identifiable once found, and may be produced as material evidence at trial. In practice,
image magic was almost always used in combination with cursing and casting spells. The finding of
images immediately led to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved, as seen in the case of the
Changshu Masons (Changshu wuzhe) recorded by Hong Mai (2006: 2.10.452). In this case, Wu
Wenyan, a native of Dezhou, retired from his position as Grand Master of the Palace (zhong
daifu). 24 He was greatly disturbed by strange things that appeared in his dream every night after
he moved into his newly-built house. In the dream, he saw seven figures all dressed in white come
down from the ridge of the house. When he revealed the strange dream to his family, none of them
could tell whether this was a bad omen or not. Soon afterwards, Wu became sick and was confined
to bed. In order to solve the mystery behind the strange dream, his son got a handyman to turn
over the tiles on the roof only to find seven paper figurines underneath the ridge that were
assumed to have been placed there by dissatisfied builders of the house. Rumour has it that the
builders complained about Wu having treated them badly and that they had cursed him for his
being parsimonious with pay. Upon hearing this, the prefect of Changshu, Wang Xiandao, had the
builders and craftsmen arrested and tortured for confession. All involved were punished with heavy
beating on the back (zhang ji) and a life exile to remote areas for performing image magic against
an imperial official. Apparently, the popular belief in the efficacy of image magic, Wu’s dream and
sickness, the rumours and the confessions, albeit obtained through torture, and, in particular, the
paper figurines found under the tiles on the roof, all became the evidence for the prosecution.
There were also magistrates who believed that sorcery crimes were real and viable for inflicting
harm on communities and individuals, and who tried every possible means, lawful or unlawful, to
hold the accused accountable at criminal law. Although laws were made to prohibit legal officers
from bypassing legal procedures or breaking evidentiary rules to investigate, prosecute and
sentence crimes, or extorting confessions from the accused by overuse of torture, cases in which
magistrates violated the rules in handling criminal cases were plentiful. These cases vary but were
almost always decided according to the principle of ‘presumption of guilt’. If a sorcery crime was
deemed to be conceivable or plausible, the accused would, contrary to the principle of in dubio pro
reo, receive legal punishment, even if there was not sufficient evidence to prove it.
Take for example a judicial decision made by Liang Shi (1000-1070), when he served as
Recommendation Evaluator at the Judicial Control Office during the reign of Emperor Renzong
(1010-1063) of the Song dynasty (Toqto’a, 1997: 285.9623). A sorcerer by the name of Bai Yanhuan,
a native of Zizhou, was arrested on charges of killing several people by means of yanmei magic. The
district magistrate felt it hard to decide the case because he had found no wounds on the dead body
of the victims. When Liang Shi reviewed the case after it was referred to the Judicial Control Office,
he decided that Bai Yanhuan be sentenced to death by decapitation with the heavy axe (zhongpi)
on the grounds that ‘there is a possibility of resisting someone who kills with a knife but is there
any possibility of escaping from being cursed to death?!’ Bai received capital punishment for
committing sorcery crimes, although no physical evidence, such as magical objects or wounds on
the dead body of the victims, was ever found. Judge Liang seems to suggest that there was no need
24
Hong Mai got wrong the official title of Wu Wenyan, who, in fact, retired from his positon as ‘Zuo zhong
daifu’ or ‘Grand Master of the Palace on the Left’ rather than ‘Zhong daifu’. For a short biography of Wu
Wenyuan in Juan 159 of the Jianyan yilai xinian yaolu [Concise Records of the Chronology since the
Reign of Jianyan (1127-1240)], see Li Xinzhuan, 1773-1784.
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to prove whether the sorcery crime had acutally been committed or not, because the several deaths
(allegedly) caused by Bai through yanmei magic were convincing and sufficient evidence for Bai to
be sentenced to death. 25
Sometimes a judicial official took the law into his own hands to bring the accused to justice. In
some extreme cases, he even went so far as to execute the accused with his own hands, for fear of
the accused getting off scot-free. One such case involved a sorcerer called Huang Gu, a native of
Gutian county in Fujian province. He was arrested on the charge of killing people and seizing their
valuable possessions through gu magic. Every time Huang was brought to court for trial, he would
feign death, and would miraculously come back to life after he was released. Assistant Magistrate
Yu Jing was put in charge of this case but he did not know how to deal with Huang’s faked death.
Worrying about his being acquitted of the criminal charge, Yu cut off his head and carried it in a
basket to the prefecture, asking for punishment for his breaching of legal procedures. The prefect
dispatched his Judicial Commissioner to search Huang’s house, where massively-sized centipedes
were found as evidence of Huang’s committing the crime of breeding and keeping centipede-gu for
sorcery purposes. The case was then reopened for trial and, three days later, both Huang and his
wife were sentenced to death for causing death to 11 people by means of gu magic, thus confirming
and justifying the earlier execution of Huang by Yu. Many local scholars and officials wrote poems
to praise Yu for getting rid of evil that threatened the people (Hong, 2006: 4.23.1761-63), despite
the fact that he had seriously violated the legal procedure.
This case clearly shows that substantial justice was far more important than procedural justice
in Chinese legal culture. It also shows that there was a wide margin of judicial discretion. By and
large, the Code was designed to deal with all the possible serious or doubtful criminal acts, and to
allow judges as little discretion as possible, so as to prevent miscarriage of justice and to overly
lenient or harsh sentences from being passed. 26 Numerous cases in which punishment and
sentence were administered disproportionally to criminal offences, nonetheless, occurred. For
example, in 980, during the Song dynasty, a wizard in Wenzhou called Old Man Deng was
sentenced to death by being cut in half at the waist (yaozhan). His offence was breeding and
keeping yangui (cursing ghosts) and cursing by means of casting spells to kill people. His family
and relatives were punished by life exile to remote areas (Li, 1773-1784: 21.3b). Obviously, the
punishment Deng received exceeds the crime he was accused of having committed, for which the
Song Code dictates the death penalty by strangulation (jiao), or by decapitation (zhan), if death
follows as a result (Dou et al, 1999: 18.320-22) rather than by yaozhan, which is ‘mostly applied to
persons guilty of crimes qualified as impious [bu jing] and refractory [da ni]’ that are ‘considered to
be of a particular heinous nature, often directed against the ruler’ (Hulsewē, 1955: 111, 156). 27
Reports about the mutilating or maiming of living persons started to appear in the Song (9601279), grew in number in the Yuan (1271-1368), and multiplied in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing
(1644-1911) dynasties. This type of sorcery is rooted in the traditional Chinese folk belief that a
person’s life force is concentrated on certain human body parts such as foetuses, inner organs, eyes,
ears, nails, hair and the like, and can be made into medicine or immortality pills or offered as
sacrifices to gods and ghosts. 28 As mentioned, this type of offence was first criminalised in the Yuan
Code, which prescribed capital punishment by slicing for principal criminals (Song et al, 1997:
104.2653; Chen et al, 2011: 41.1385; 41.1424-25). The Ming (art 311) and Qing (art 288) Codes
distinguished dismembering a living person in order to kill the person from dismembering a living
person for sorcerous purposes, and imposed more severe punishment for the latter offence.
25
26
27
28
In his comment on this case, the famous Song (960-1279) legal scholar-official Zheng Ke (1864: 4.179-80)
suggests that ‘cases [like this] should be decided by analogy when there are no laws available’.
For rules and measures set out in imperial Chinese law to impose limits on judges’ discretion, see
MacCormack, 1990: 88-91.
Yaozhan was a most horrible way in traditional China of executing the death penalty and seems to have
been seldom applied after the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD). The victim lay down on a block with an axeshaped huge blade hinged on it, and then the blade was pressed down to cut him or her into halves.
For a well-documented discussion of the sorcerous practice of ‘organ-snatching and foetus-theft’, see ter
Haar, 2006: 92-153.
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In spite of the distinction, problems arose from time to time in judicial practice as to which
cases involved black magic and which did not, because whether sorcery was involved in criminal
actions was not always black and white. The grey area between them was a common cause of
miscarriage of justice, as shown in a case from 1811, under the Qing dynasty (Yao, 1964: 25.2483a84a). A leper called Liu Gongyue in Xiangshan county of Guangdong heard from a village doctor
that a medicine known as danmi (literally ‘gallbladder rice’, perhaps gallstones) 29 could cure his
disease. He mentioned it to Liu Ruizheng, who lied to the leper, saying that he happened to have
the rare medicine. The leper knew that Liu Ruizheng was lying to him but he chose not to expose
his lie. Instead, he agreed to pay Liu Ruizheng 120 taels of silver for the danmi if the medicine
proved to be a good cure. Liu Ruizheng then cut apart Ruan Yazhu’s abdomen but found no danmi
in the gallbladder. The victim died two days later, and Liu Ruizheng was then caught and
sentenced to death by slicing for killing a person by dismembering the person ‘in order to practise
witchcraft and to confuse others’ (Qing Code, art 288). Obviously, Liu Ruizheng eviscerated Ruan
Yazhu for medicinal purposes rather than for sorcery purposes. Liu Ruizheng should, however,
have been aware of the probable consequence of causing death to the victim. Seen in this light, it
would seem to have been more appropriate for this case to be decided as ‘dismembering a living
person to cause his death’ (zhijie ren) according to art 287 of the Qing Code, an offence listed
separately from that of ‘dismembering a living person for sorcery purposes’ (caisheng zhege ren).
In judicial practice concerning the sorcery crime of casting spells and cursing, there was often a
lack of verifiable means of proving criminal charges. The well-known ‘Ghost Case Referred to the
Legislative Bureau of Government’ (‘Zhongshu gui an’) that took place in Shaanxi in 1314 during
the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) is a good example (Tao, 2008: 13.155-57; Song, 1922: 12.2.2-3). Wang
Bi had a row with Wang Wanli, a fortune-teller originally from Jiangxi, when inquiring about
Wang Wanli’s past. Days later, Wang Bi felt his house was haunted at night. With the help of a
Daoist Master surnamed Li, the ghost of three children (two girls and one boy) appeared each at a
different time, revealing to Wang Bi their tragic death in the hands of Wang Wanli, accusing him of
having bewitched them, cut off their body parts, removed their inner organs, and snatched their life
force so as to enslave their ghosts and imprison their souls in order to make magic and money.
Wang Bi filed a complaint against Wang Wanli based on the testimony given by the ghosts. A
search of Wang Wanli’s house followed, leading to the discovery of a great variety of magical objects
in his possession such as wooden seals, black ropes, iron nails, a small gourd and eight female
paper figurines made of five-coloured cloth and five-coloured silk, all wrapped up with human hair.
Wang Bi was a retired official, and was well connected with local government officials, so he quickly
got ten witnesses to testify in court to support his sorcery charge against Wang Wanli. After several
rounds of trial and judicial review, Wang Wanli was sentenced to death by slicing for his ‘cruelty
and depravity’ (canren budao), and his wife and sons were exiled to Hainan Island. The fortuneteller died in prison, however, before the gruesome execution was carried out.
This case was decided primarily based on the testimony of the ghosts, who revealed to Wang Bi
the story of their former life through the medium of the magician Master Li. Clearly, the criminal
evidence against the defendant was gathered by means of magic, and was impossible to verify
because the ghosts would make themselves physically felt by no one but Wang Bi. It is hard to tell
for sure whether Wang Wanli was helped to his death before the execution by someone who
believed his innocence but, based on ‘the circumstances of the case’, it is very likely that Wang Bi
brought a false accusation against Wang Wanli because the fortune-teller was a nuisance to Wang
Bi, who enjoyed close social connections with the local elite, including the district magistrate. 30
Conclusion
In his thoughtful study of The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code, Jiang Yonglin (2011:
Chapter 3) classifies religion and ritual-related rules and regulations in the Ming Code into three
29
30
The author of this paper is unable to find the exact meaning of danmi.
For an inspiring discussion of the Chinese oral tradition and folk belief surrounding this case, see ter
Haar, 2006: 95-106.
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categories in correspondence with three categories of belief systems and ritual practices in imperial
China, namely: laws that promote official rituals performed to worship ancestors and nature deities
such as Heaven, Earth, soil and grain (sheji), mountains, rivers, clouds, wind, rain, and thunder;
laws that regulate officially approved popular and religious (Buddhist and Daoist) rituals; and laws
that proscribe ‘heretical religious rituals’. Jiang’s tripartite division of ritual and religion related
laws in the Ming Code holds true for the legal codes of all other dynasties throughout imperial
China. From the outset, wugu sorcery was deemed an immoral, inhuman criminal offence - a
transgression of Confucian principles and virtues punishable in the same way as ‘heretical religious
rituals’.
In imperial China, magic and sorcery were never treated as an enemy of institutional religions.
Neither Buddhism nor Daoism had ever become so powerful a force as Confucianism to dominate
political processes. The interplay between sorcery crime and political conspiracy was mainly related
to individual ruling class members such as the emperor, and his women, ministers, and generals.
With Confucianism adopted as state ideology during the Han dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) to provide a
foundation for social norms, sorcery beliefs and practices became a frequent target of attack, as
forms of heretical action and evil teachings (yiduan xieshuo). They were relentlessly punished, as
shown in the numerous wugu prosecutions that took place in the imperial court, the harem and the
officialdom in early and medieval China.
For several hundred years from the Han through the Six Dynasties (220-581), court politics and
power struggles dominated the scene of sorcery trials and prosecutions. During this period of time,
lawmakers regarded black magic as primarily a threat to imperial authority, social stability, and
state ideology, so they classified it under the catchall crime of budao (depravity) punishable as for
heretical political offences. Not until the Sui (581-618)-Tang (618-907) did there appear a tendency
to depoliticise black magic crimes. With the crime of budao listed as one of the Ten Abominations in
the Kaihuang Code (583) of the Sui dynasty, budao ceased to cover political or heretical offences
but was narrowed down to refer specifically to such atrocious criminal offences as ‘killing three
people from the same household’, ‘dismembering a person’, or ‘making and keeping gu’, and
‘summoning demons, casting spells and cursing’. In the meanwhile, other types of offences
involving black magic, such as ‘making magical inscriptions and magical incantations’, ‘forging
scriptures’, and ‘fabricating auguries to confuse the public’, were classified as zuodao (left way) and
punished for confusing the public and destabilising the government. Thus, the nature and scope of
sorcery crimes began to change, with the sorcery crimes committed against the Emperor, the state
and the state ideology (Confucianism) categorised as political zuodao crimes, and those committed
against human individuals as non-political budao crimes. When black magic was divorced from the
category of political crimes, the law, rather than politics, was applied as the primary means to deal
with sorcery charges. In accordance with these legislative developments there was a sharp decrease
in the number of cases reported in post-Tang dynastic histories of the political use of sorcery in
power struggles or for social and state control.
That said, law enforcement to control black magic crimes in imperial China was largely
unsuccessful. There were many factors contributing to this but the most crucial of them was the
popular belief in sorcery and witchcraft among people from all walks of life, be they high-born or
low-born, learned or illiterate. In practice, not all forms of magic, ritual, sorcery and witchcraft
were distinguishable from each other, nor were they, as a whole, distinguishable from those listed
in the official Registers of Sacrificial Rituals. Some of them were blended, justified and even
legitimatised through official ritual practice and legislation (Williams, 1907: 81). This left a huge
room for arbitrary adjudication on sorcery charges. To make matters worse, judges often found
themselves short of effective means of gathering and verifying evidence, and of specific legal rules
they could cite and apply to sorcery crimes. In the absence of evidence and law, sorcery trials would
be left largely to the discretion of the judge: rumours, assumptions, speculations and legal officials’
attitudes towards sorcery would count, disproportionally, for criminal convictions and, hence,
miscarriages of justice.
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Imperial Law Codes
The Kaihuang Code 583 [Kaihuang lü]
The Tang Code 653 [Tanglü shuyi]
The Unified Penal Code of the Song Dynasty 963 [Song xingtong]
The Statutes and Sub-statutes of the Yuan Dynasty 1322 [Yuan dianzhang]
The Great Ming Code 1397 [Da Ming lü]
The Great Qing Code 1646 [Da Qing lü]
Cases
A relative of the family of Zhang in Xiangxian county of Pei prefecture, accused by Zhang of poisoning Zhang’s
husband Tang to death with gu-poison; and the relative bringing a countercharge against Zhang, accusing
her of damaging her late husband’s corpse, in 460 during the Liu Song dynasty (420-479) (Shen, 1997:
181.2080; Du, 1773)
Old Man Deng, a wizard in Wenzhou charged with breeding and keeping yangui (cursing ghosts) and casting
spells and cursing people to death, in 980 during the Song dynasty (Li, 1773-1784: 21.3b)
Bai Yanhuan, a sorcerer in Zizhou, charged with performing yanmei magic to kill several people during the
reign of Emperor Renzong (1010-1063) of the Song dynasty (Toqto’a, 1997: 285.9623)
A wizard from Huazhou, charged with cursing a pregnant woman, in the Song dynasty (960-1279) (Hong Mai,
2006: 4.4.1498-99)
‘Changshu wuzhe’ (‘Changshu Masons’), charged with performing black magic using small paper figures, in
the Song dynasty (Hong Mai, 2006: 2.10.452)
Huang Gu, a sorcerer in Gutian county of Fujian province, charged with killing 11 people and seizing their
valuable possessions through gu magic in the Song dynasty (Hong Mai, 2006: 4.23.1761-63)
A sorcerer in Deqing prefecture, charged with performing a kind of black magic known as tiaoqi (extracting
vital force), in the Song dynasty (Hong Mai, 2006: 2.1.542)
Li, a Confucian student, accusing Master Magician Huang the Sixth of casting spells and cursing his father to
sickness, in the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) (CASS, 1987: 14. 548-49)
Wang Wanli, accused by Wang Bi of dismembering three children, enslaving their souls for sorcery purposes,
in Shaanxi in 1314 during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), known as the ‘Zhongshu gui’an’ case (‘Ghost
Case’, referred to the Legislative Bureau of Government) (Tao, 2008: 13.155-57; Song, 1922: 12.2.2-3).
Zhang Junde and Zhang Zutai, charged with chanting the ‘heretical’ scripture of the Big Dipper and practising
the ‘sorcery of wizards and witches’ (shiwu xieshuo), in 1771 during the Qing dynasty (ASP, 1991: 238-239)
Liu Ruizheng, charged with cutting apart Ruan Yazhu’s abdomen to find danmi (gallstones?) for
sorcery/medical purposes, in Xiangshan county of Guangdong province, in 1811 during the Qing dynasty
(Yao, 1964: 25.2483a-84a).
Zhang Yongfang, charged with cursing and strangling a seven-year boy to death in 1813, in the Qing dynasty
(1644-1911) (Conspectus of Criminal and Penal Cases [Xing’an huilan], 2004: 21: 799-800)
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