The Office of Forester
As noted in my last post, there are many references to woodcraft in the Classics dating from the early first millennium BCE; the earliest references to foresters as a type of specialist appeared sometime around then as well.
Most of the common terms for forester employ the character yu 虞. The seal script version of the character is a pictograph of a mythical beast, which the Shuowen describes as “white tiger with black stripes and a tail longer than its body; a humane beast that only eats meat that dies of natural causes.”
This sense of the word yields the compound zouyu 騶虞, which literally translates as the “groom” or “handler” of the mythical beast yu, but which is used to mean something like “master hunter” in the Ode “Zouyu”:
Strong and abundant grow the rushes;
He discharges [but] one arrow at five wild boars.
Ah! he is the Zouyu!Strong and abundant grow the artemisia;
He discharges [but] one arrow at five wild boars.
Ah! he is the Zou-yu!
This meaning of “hunter” or “forester” then applied to the character yu 虞 individually. The commentary to the hexagram zhun ䷂屯 in the Changes follows this sense: “The third line — SIX, divided — shows one following the deer without (the guidance of) the forester (yu), and only finding himself in the midst of the woods.” This sense of “forester” derived from “hunter” remains strong in other uses and compounds, including shanyu 山虞 — “mountain/forest warden,” and zeyu 澤虞 — “marsh warden” (see below).
The first explicit references to an office of forester are from sections of the Documents, the Rites Records and the Rites of Zhou that probably date to the Warring States. The first of these references comes in the Canon of Shun section of the Documents that purports to describe the rule of Shun, the second of the three Sage Kings. Shun supposedly lived in the third millennium BCE, but this passage can only conclusively be dated to around the third century BCE. The Canon of Shun, documents how Shun has been selected as the worthy successor to Yao, the first Sage King, and proceeds to delegate the tasks of government to his followers. Having appointed a General Regulator (i.e. a Prime Minister), and Ministers of Agriculture, Instruction, Punishments, and Works, Shun arrives at the office of Forester (yu 虞):
The Emperor said, “Who can superintend the grass and trees, the birds and beasts on my hills and in my marshes?” All [in the court] replied, “Is there not Yi 益?” The Emperor said, “Yes. Ho! Yi you will be my Forester.” Yi bowed his head to the ground and wished to decline… The Emperor said, “You go now [and attend to these duties]. You must manage them harmoniously.”
This brief passage tells us a bit about the understanding of the Forester’s perceived role as a high-level bureaucrat responsible for the plants and animals of the hills and marshes, an office seen as separate from both the Minister of Agriculture responsible for farmland, and the Minister of Works responsible for water-control and construction.
This role of Forester Yi is elaborated somewhat in the Documents chapter Yi and Ji where it describes Yi giving assistance to Yu, the General Regulator (and later successor to Shun as the third Sage King), as he labors to quell floodwaters and give sustenance to the people. This gives a somewhat elaborated version of the famous labors of Yu in taming the flood waters, as he “made paths through the mountains (sui shan 隨山) and cut down the trees.” Along with Yi, Yu showed the people how to get meat to eat, and with the Minister of Agriculture Ji, Yu showed them how to produce grain. This description, especially the parallel between Yi showing the people to get meat and Ji showing them how to get grain, suggests that the office of Forester was most concerned with hunting, much as we saw above.
A related passage is found in the Mencius, which specifies a slightly different division of labor. In his version, “Yi set fire to the mountains and marshes, and burned their woods (lie shanze er fen zhi 烈山澤而焚之) , so that the birds and beasts fled away to hide themselves,” and Yu divided and dredged the rivers and led them to the sea.” In other words, Mencius specifies a division of labor between taming the terrestrial wilds (Yi, the Forester) and taming the rivers (Yu, the Grand Coordinator), suggesting that both were necessary before agriculture could easily be conducted. In Mencius’s version, driving away wild animals is more significant than either maintaining a wood supply or overseeing hunting. Between the three versions, there is a general conclusion that there should be a high office in charge of Forestry, but there are differing opinions as to whether this office is mostly involved in woodcraft, hunting, or driving away wild animals. All three sources were written substantially after the era they purport to describe, and represent different imaginings of the normative role of the Forester rather than accurate depictions of wood management in either their contemporary era or the deep past.
The depictions of Yi, the first Forester, are not the only descriptions of the Forester’s role in the Classics. Both the Rites Records (Lji) and the Rites of Zhou list offices responsible for forestry or woodcraft. As with the variations of the Forester Yi story, there are substantial differences in the roles ascribed to these offices in the two Rites Classics. In the Liji, the office is called the “Superintendent of Wood” (simu 司木), which the Han commentator Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200 CE) took as the equivalent of the Forest Warden (shanyu 山虞). Yet the Liji groups the “Superintendent of Woods” within the six bureaus overseeing the royal estate (liu fu 六府) alongside Superintendents of Land, Waters, Grass, Tools, and Goods, not with the executive offices as it is grouped in the Canon of Shun. In the Canon of Shun the Forester is a high-level Minister on par with those of Agriculture, War, or Works; in the Mencius he is placed in parallel with Yu, the Prime Minister and future Sage King; in the Liji, the Forester is little more than the warden of the King’s forests.
The Rites of Zhou (Zhouli) presents a still different, and far more complex vision of the offices responsible for forestry and their places in government. First, there is oblique reference to “wardens and rangers” (yuheng 虞衡) who “produce goods from the mountains and marshes” among the nine professions assigned by the “Heavenly Offices” to the residents of the royal domain. The separate “Offices of Earth” listed in the Rites of Zhou are responsible for surveying and governing the feudal territories outside the royal domain. They too are responsible for assigning professions, including forestry. The “Earthly Offices” is more specific on this point, listing the two most significant forest officials as follows:
Forest Warden (shanyu 山虞): Enforce the regulations on mountains and woodlands. Closely restrict access to products [of the woods]. South-side timber can be cut in midwinter, north-side timber can be cut in midsummer. When [wood products] are needed for making tools, cut the timber appropriate to the season and submit it [to the court workshops]. The ordinary people can only cut wood at certain times, but if the state’s artisans need to remove timber, don’t restrict their access. In the spring and fall, access to the woods is restricted entirely. Punish timber theft. At the sacrifices to the gods of mountains and forests, prune and repair the spirit trees and clear the way for the king’s visit. When there are great hunts in the fields, prepare the hills and fields with fallow growth [i.e. to attract game], restrict access to the fields by planting the banner of the Forester at the center, and drive the beasts or lure them into [the hunting zone].
Forest Ranger (linheng 林衡): Patrol the woods to maintain the restrictions; count the wood in each period and assess rewards and punishments. When timber or wood need to be cut, receive instructions from the Forester and enforce his regulations.
These two offices are the main woodland administrators, tasked with general governance of the woods. But aside from the main wood administrators, the “Earthly Offices” includes a number of more specialized positions. There are provisioners (weiren 委人) tasked with supplying fuel and other products for rituals; horn and ivory suppliers (jaioren 角人); bird-plume suppliers (yuren 羽人); reed (zhangge 掌葛) and dye (zhang rancao 掌染草) suppliers; and lime- and charcoal-burners (zhangtan 掌炭). There are also a number of professions related to the hunt, including the Forest Warden, the Mash Warden (zeyu 澤虞), trackers (chiren 迹人) and park-keepers (youren 囿人). Each of these offices is given a number of functionaries under the main officer, fleshing out the image of a large and complex bureaucracy that almost certainly never existed.
There are several other offices related to woodcraft scattered throughout the Rites of Zhou in each of the six major divisions of government. Under the “Heavenly Offices” of the Prime Minister is the office of huntsman (shouren 獸人) responsible for snaring animals and overseeing the hunt. Several of the ritual-governing “Spring Offices,” including the Minister of Rites (da zongbo 大宗伯) himself, are are involved in sacrifices to the forests (my topic for next time). The “Summer Offices” of the Minister of War (sima 司馬), are quite naturally responsible for strategic knowledge of woodlands; they are also tasked with assessing the resources (shili 實利, probably referring to mineral ores) and rare products (zhenyi zhi wu 珍異之物) of the provincial woods. The “Autumn Offices” include responsibilities for restricting access to woods, but also for clearing woods and slopes. The “Winter Offices” responsible for crafts includes several types of woodworkers and a long list of regulations for the sizes and types of wood to use for buildings, carts, and various tools.
The specifics of the Rites of Zhou are almost certainly a fiction, based loosely if at all on the actual government of the time. The grouping of offices into six categories has stymied interpretation and translation for thousands of years. The six categories of office simultaneously reflect hierarchy (with “Heavenly Offices” at the top); spatial divisions of the administration into the royal domain, the domains of the feudal lords, tributaries, and enemy states; task-based specialization; and even temporal ordering of duties. This probably reflects an ideology of ritual correspondences more than any practical grouping of offices. Nonetheless, the range of professions listed in the Rites of Zhou probably does give a loose sense of the types of livelihoods pursued in the late Zhou, and a sense of how they were connected to the tasks of the state. We can safely conclude that there were charcoal-burners, horn merchants, and huntsman at the time the Rites of Zhou was written; but we cannot clearly say how their roles were organized relative to the state, let alone how they pursued their day-to-day lives.
Aside from giving a sense of the range of woodcraft professions available in the late Zhou, the Rites of Zhou makes several implicit arguments about the proper governance of woodland that we should take seriously. First, it implies that the whole range of professions, including woodsmen as well as farmers, justified their existence through service to the state. Second, from the state’s perspective, hunting was by far the most important use of woodland; supplying metals and wood for buildings and tools was secondary; fuel was hardly a concern at all. In fact, fuel supply is only mentioned with respect to rituals and the salaries of feudal lords, without reference to everyday needs. Third, it argues that there should be restrictions on access to resources — including access to wood, but also to game for hunting — enforced by a specialized staff of officials. Classification and partitioning of land and professions was seen as key to determining proper use and regulation. Fourth, restrictions on the woods mainly applied to commoners; official woodsmen had greater access to the woods to supply state needs. Fifth, worship of spirits of the land was a key aspect of administration, with most of the rules governing land use and resource distribution defined in terms of ritual.
As noted above, it is nearly impossible to confirm how far the norms for forestry promoted in the Rites of Zhou and the other texts reflected or reinforced actual woodcraft. However in one respect — the centrality of ritual to land management — the depiction of forestry in the Rites of Zhou was an accurate description of the actual institutions of the time. I will take up the topic of ritual and spirit trees in my next post.
