moving evenfifty or a hundred yards away from the overall commander,
let alone a much greater distance. Music also aroused the emotions, some-
thing Confucius noted, and prepared men tofight. Dance was an outward
demonstration of the coordination of the emotional states of a large group
of men by music, as well as a practical process for teaching them to act as a
unit. This last effect of music and dance is particularly important to
questions of individual versus group behavior.
We see in some early poetry the subjection of the army to the general
through the medium of musical instruments:
Fang Shu came to take the command. His chariots were three thousand, with a host
of well-disciplined warriors, Fang Shu led them on. With his jinglers and drum-
mers, He marshaled his hosts and addressed them. Intelligent and true is Fang Shu,
Deep rolled the sound of his drums; with a lighter sound he led the troops back.^19
The general is empowered through the use of music to order the troops.
They respond directly to his signals, a sure sign not only of his qualities as a
leader but also of their discipline. Even through the exaggerated medium of
poetry we can see that army organization and control are products of
music and drill.
The earliest physical evidence of any sort of dance is a drawing on a
Neolithic pot depicting severalfigures with linked arms. Whether this is in
fact a dance, we do have mentions of dance on Shang oracle bones. Why
these dances are performed is unclear, particularly whether they had any
relationship to martial arts. The Shang military mostly fought on foot, as we
have already discussed, very likely in an open formation that allowed them
to use their dagger-axes to best effect. During the succeeding Zhou dynasty
larger numbers of chariots and infantry fought coordinated battles. Most
infantry still used the dagger-axe, but increasing numbers usedji, which may
have allowed for more compact formations that relied upon the spear point
rather than the hacking point. Disciplined units of spearmen would have
been able to fend off chariot charges. Thus, Zhou emphasis on martial
dances may have been due to greater emphasis on training and unit coordi-
nation. This is speculative, of course, but worth considering as we try to
connect changes in technology, martial arts, and society.
Zhou dynasty martial dancers are reported to have held bows, arrows,
spears, axes, and dagger-axes when performing. On the one hand, this
affirms the connection between these dances and the actual skills of the
battlefield. All the performance weapons were the sorts of weapons in
actual use. On the other hand, however, the inclusion of bows and arrows
argues that many of the dances were abstractions that represented
Martial Dances 27