Seasonal Regulations on Woodcraft and Agriculture
Continuing my research into woodcraft in the classics, I have made a summary of seasonal regulations regarding woods or the office of Forest Warden. Whether or not these specific regulations were ever put in place, they give us a clear sense of the classical landscape and its transformations.
I want to emphasize two related revelations:
- There is no clear division between land used exclusively for farming and land used exclusively for woodcraft. Hunting in particular was practiced in all manner of environments, but so was fuel collection. Instead of being a principally spatial division, land was subject to rotational uses along seasonal lines.
- Control of fire is central to almost all of these rules. Fire was the main way that land was rotated through different uses, and that different uses were cycled through the land.
Combining these principles, we see instances of both what Stephen Pyne calls “the farm moving through the landscape” (i.e. “swidden”) and what he calls “the landscape moving through the farm” (i.e. “crop rotation”) with fire central to both modes of transformation (see Pyne, Fire: Nature and Culture, p. 68).
In the “Monthly Regulations” (yueling 月令) chapter of the Rites Records, and in a similar chapter in the Huainanzi, we find a set of twelve monthly rules based on the phases of the solar calendar. The seasons are observed through a complex mix of phenology (observation of events like flowers blooming or the first frost) and astronomy. The regulations are themselves based in their own complex mix of observations on “what works,” and correlative cosmology based on the transformations of yin, yang and the five phases. They have bearing on everything from the proper order of sacrifices, to the clothes the ruler should wear, to the proper behavior of farmers and woodsmen. They are presented as if the regulations are issued top-down by the ruler and his court, and enacted by a staff of bureaucrats, but many of the regulations — especially those pertaining to agriculture and woodcraft — were almost certain the result of grassroots knowledge-generation and enforcement that bubbled up through the imperial hierarchies.
I will present a brief summary of only the regulations most pertaining to woodland, or to the offices most closely associated with woodland — the Forest Wardens.
The regulations for spring restrict any activities that might harm young animals or new plant growth. Starting with Early Spring (mengchun), both texts hold that:
The canons of sacrifice are examined and set forth, and orders are given to sacrifice to the hills and forests, the streams and marshes, care being taken not to use any female victims. Prohibitions are issued against cutting down trees. Nests should not be thrown down; unformed insects should not be killed, nor creatures in the womb, nor very young creatures, nor birds just taking to the wing, nor fawns, nor should eggs be destroyed.
乃修祭典。命祀山林川澤，犧牲毋用牝。禁止伐木。毋覆巢，毋殺孩蟲、胎、夭、飛鳥。毋麑，毋卵。
Sacrifices are made to the spirits of the wild, but with a prohibition against female victims to ensure replenishment of the animal populations. Broader restrictions are against anything that damages plant or animal life, or that stops the flow of streams. In Mid-Spring, prohibitions are issued against burning the mountain forests (毋焚山林), which would probably be done for the purpose of flushing out game for hunting (at least according to the Legge translation). This can be read as a continuation of the ban on both hunting and damaging plant life. In Late Spring, the hunting prohibition continues:
The nets used in hunting animals and birds, hand nets, archers’ disguises, and injurious baits should not (in this month) issue from (any of) the nine gates
田獵罝罘、羅網、畢翳、餧獸之藥，毋出九門
There is a special rule against cutting mulberry trees and silk-worm oaks (柘), as this is the season when rearing of silkworms begins. All of these prohibitions are framed in terms of the seasonal rituals or justified based in yin-yang correspondences, but they have clear roots in a program to allow the wealth of nature to restore itself through the birth of young animals and the blossoming of flowers and trees.
Summer regulations continue the emphasis on promoting growth, with a particular focus on protecting the maturing grain crops; at the same time, concerns about dry conditions lead to some of the strongest prohibitions against fire. In Early Summer, there are restrictions on cutting tall trees, as “ in this month what is long should be encouraged to grow longer” (是月也，繼長增高…毋伐大樹). This prohibition may be consideration of yin-yang correspondences not to cut off flourishing yang, but perhaps also because the early summer is the peak of the growing season. In any case, it shows continuity with the spring rules against cutting.
In Early Summer, the Forest Wardens are also sent to encourage the farmers on behalf of the emperor (命野虞出行田原，為天子勞農勸民), and to chase wild animals away from the grain crops (驅獸毋害五穀，毋大田獵). Mid Summer is seen as a time of great heat, and the peak of flourishing yang. To prevent uncontrolled burning, there is a prohibition on burning charcoal and lime (毋燒灰), and a broader rule against lighting any fires out-of-doors in the southern regions (毋用火南方). In Late Summer, both texts give general prohibitions on cutting trees, again to promote growth (樹木方盛，乃命虞人入山行木，毋有斬伐).
Yet the Late Summer is seen as the ideal time to burn grassland to prepare it for farming, perhaps because the heavy rains of this period prevent fires from getting out of control:
The ground lies steaming and wet beneath the heats, for great rains are (also) continually coming. They burn the grass lying cut upon the ground and bring the water over it. This is as effectual to kill the roots as hot water would be; and the grass thus serves to manure the fields of grain and hemp, and to fatten the ground which has been but just marked out for cultivation.
土潤溽暑，大雨時行，燒薙行水，利以殺草，如以熱湯。可以糞田疇，可以美土強
Again, these regulations are presented as functions of the flourishing yang influences of the summer — to nourish them but prevent them from getting out of control. Yet it is clear that the specifics are products of accumulated experience — that the summer is a good time to allow trees to grow, and that it is a time when fire needs to be closely managed.
Autumn is principally seen as a time of harvest, and when the other affairs of the year are completed. The Early and Mid-Autumn was probably the busiest time of the agrarian calendar, with most work oriented to bringing in the harvest; these months have few regulations regarding woodcraft, and the woods were largely ignored in this period. Only after the work of agriculture was largely completed in the late autumn do the regulations show a shift to the hunting and woodcraft that were major winter activities.
Indeed the work of foresters probably peaked in the Late Autumn. This was the month when the imperial hunts took place in the fields cleared by the grain harvest:
In this month the son of Heaven, by means of hunting in the fields, teaches how to use the five weapons of war, and the rules for the management of horses. Orders are given to the charioteers and the seven (classes of) grooms to see to the yoking of the several teams, to set up in the carriages the flags and various banners, to assign the carriages according to the rank (of those who were to occupy them), and to arrange and set up the screens outside (the royal tent). The minister of Instruction, with his baton stuck in his girdle, addresses all before him with his face to the north. Then the son of Heaven, in his martial ornaments, with his bow in one hand, and the arrows under the armpit of the other, proceeds to hunt. (Finally), he gives orders to the superintendent of Sacrifices, to offer some of the captured game to (the spirits of) the four quarters.
天子乃教於田獵，以習五戎，班馬政。命仆及七騶咸駕，載旌旐，授車以級，整設於屏外。司徒搢撲，北面誓之。天子乃厲飾，執弓挾矢以獵，命主祠祭禽于四方。
With the fall of leaves in the Late Autumn, charcoal burners were also permitted to enter the woods and practice their craft (草木黃落，乃伐薪為炭). The near absence of hunting and woodcraft until after the harvest, and the practice of hunting in the cleared fields, suggests the close interweaving of activities and the absence of a clear divide between agrarian and sylvan zones.
While it goes largely unstated, the winter was the season of woodcraft — including both hunting and woodcutting. The Early Winter also has no specific regulations for the woods. Nonetheless hunting and fuel-gathering certainly continued from the late fall, as revealed by the various seasonal ritual. Early Winter was the time for making sacrificial vessels (命工師效功，陳祭器); both pottery and metallurgy would have required a large supply of charcoal. This season also meant that “an ox, a ram, and a boar [were presented] at the public altar to the spirits of the land” (大割祠于公社及門閭). Recall that these altars would have been enormous trees. Finally, “three days after the winter solstice the spoils of the chase were presented to all ancestors” (臘先祖五祀) indicating a continuation of ritual hunts.
If Late Fall was the peak period for royal hunts, Mid-Winter was the time for hunting among the common people:
If there are those who are able to gather wild edibles from the hills and forests, marshes and meres, or to capture game by hunting in the fields (田獵), the wardens and foresters should give them the necessary information and guidance. If there be among them those who encroach on or rob the others, they should be punished without fail.
山林藪澤，有能取蔬食、田獵禽獸者，野虞教道之
Mid-Winter was also the peak time for cutting wood, so long as the springs are running to help transport the lumber and bamboo out of the hills (水泉動，日短至，則伐木，取竹箭). The Late Winter brings another round of sacrifices to all the major cults; it was also the time when the royal offices calculate the tribute due from the various outlying regions to supply the sacrifices:
Orders are given, moreover, to the chief minister to make a list of (the appanages of) the various high ministers and Great officers, with the amount of the land assigned to the common people, and assess them with the victims which they are to contribute to furnish for the sacrifices to (the spirits presiding over) the hills, forests, and famous streams. All the people under the sky, within the nine provinces, must, without exception, do their utmost to contribute to the sacrifices: to God dwelling in the great heaven; at the altars of the (spirits of the) land and grain; in the ancestral temple…and of the hills, forests, and famous streams.
命太史次諸侯之列，賦之犧牲，以共皇天、上帝、社稷之饗。乃命同姓之邦，共寢廟之芻豢。命宰歷卿大夫至于庶民土田之數，而賦犧牲，以共山林名川之祀。凡在天下九州之民者，無不咸獻其力，以共皇天、上帝、社稷、寢廟、山林、名川之祀。
The need for a prohibition on hunting starting in the spring also suggests that it continued through the winter. The winter represented the low-point of agricultural work, but the corresponding high-point of hunting, gathering, and other woodcraft activities; it was also the most important period for the ritual worship of the spirits of the land and wilds.
The seasonal regulations presented in Monthly Regulations in the Rites Records and the Guide to Seasonal Rules in the Huainanzi help construct a much more nuanced picture of the use of land in the classical period — usage that was far more flexible and fluid than other accounts would suggest. These regulations are far more specific and likely much more accurate to contemporary practice than those in the Rites of Zhou. Indeed, the sharp division of professions and the enumerations of duties presented in the Rites of Zhou looks more and more like a fiction. The seasonal regulations suggest that most commoners were farmers in the summer and hunter-gatherers in the winter. The king and royal officers also saw their duties change with the season: foresters guarded wood in the spring, drove away wild animals and prevented fires in the summer, prepared for the royal chase in the autumn, and oversaw hunting and woodcutting in the winter.
The seasonal regulations also belie the neat spatial division of the land into settled zones and wilds. Instead, flat portions classical landscape appear to have been roughly split between parkland (ye 野) — open grassland with trees — and fields (tian 田) which did not have as many trees, but which was not necessarily farmland. We see seasonal conversion of fields (tian) between grain production from planting until harvest, and hunting zones from harvest to planting. The burning of fields in the late fall clearly shows that other fields were left fallow for one or more years at a time, to grow grasses and perhaps small trees which were then burned to fertilize crop production. Parkland (ye) was likewise burned seasonally on multiannual cycle to keep woody growth to a minimum. Otherwise it was probably used for both herding and hunting, with the trees pollarded to provide fuel. Thus the flat landscape was divided between areas that primarily produced grain, and those that primarily produced fodder and fuel, but both these areas were managed on seasonal and multiannual cycles, largely through the use of fire.
Areas called “mountains” or “woods” (shan 山 or lin 林) in classical texts were areas on slopes that were too steep’s for farming. These too were a managed landscape, albeit with less-intensive interventions than flat areas. Woods were restricted to most uses in the growing seasons, but they were a major source of food in the winter. Some were burned seasonally, probably on mutiannual cycles, to promote open parkland like in the flats (although these would not be called ye). Other woods grew bamboos and large timber cut in the winter; because parkland trees make poor timber, these lumbering areas were almost certainly distinct, although hunting (especially trapping of small game) was probably practiced here as well. As we have seen, still other areas were subject to stricter, year-round prohibitions, with the oldest, largest timber off-limits entirely.
