successful encounter with the enemy, the commanding general, or even
the emperor, would shoot ghost arrows in four directions. Sometimes the
shooting of ghost arrows was accompanied by the sacrifice of an animal like
a white horse. This martial arts ceremony drove away misfortune through
the power of archery.
Archery also had the power to summon rains, demonstrating again that
this martial art had a meaning within some steppe cultures all out of pro-
portion to its simple physical practice. During droughts, the Liao emperor
would“shoot the willow”in an attempt to bring rain. In one version of this
ceremony, a willow branch would be planted in the ground and the emperor
and the rest of the court would take turns shooting at it. In another version, a
willow branch was planted, consecrated with a libation of wine, offered
crops and fodder, and then prayed to. Following this, members of the royal
family would try to shoot the branch. If rain fell within three days, the
officials were rewarded.
The Jurchen had a similar ceremony in which a double line of willow
branches was set into the ground, and each participant marked one with a
piece of cloth. Each man then galloped toward the branches and attempted
to sever his designated branch with an arrow, and then grab the cut top as
he rode by. This required considerable skill but shows what was possible
for a steppe archer. In these very public displays in front of the emperor, a
man could distinguish himself and win favor. The spiritual and ceremonial
context connected with these archery displays directly tied martial arts skill
to spiritual power. Bows and arrows and archery were spiritually power-
ful, and a highly skilled archer was someone who possessed and directed
that power.
These ceremonial practices were also used among the Tanguts and
Mongols. The Tanguts would take captured men and shoot them, calling
it“killing the ghost, targeting the ghost.”^3 Alternatively, they would make
a straw man, plant it in the ground, and then have everyone shoot it.
Particularly in the situation described for the Tanguts related to this specific
instance, it seems as if the point was to embody a military defeat in a straw
man or captive, and to expiate that failure by a ritualized killing. Perhaps
the ghost in question was the spirit responsible for the defeat. This would
make sense of the Kitan practice of shooting ghost arrows at the inception of
acampaignasawaytodriveawaythreateningspirits.
The Yuan emperors employed much the same ceremony in the last ten-
day week of the twelfth month of the year. Straw effigies of a man and a dog,
complete with inner organs rendered from cloth, were shot to pieces by
aristocratic members of the court. This was all part of a religious process
144 The Yuan Dynasty