this day, in spite of various changes. The same is true of other
festivals, customs, and conceptions, vestiges of which are contained at
least in folklore.

In addition to the nature deities which were implored to give fertility,
to send rain, or to prevent floods and storms, the Shang also
worshipped deceased rulers and even dead ministers as a kind of
intermediaries between man and the highest deity, Shang Ti. This
practice may be regarded as the forerunner of "ancestral worship" which
became so typical of later China.


3 _Transition to feudalism_

At the head of the Shang state was a king, posthumously called a "Ti",
the same word as in the name of the supreme god. We have found on bones
the names of all the rulers of this dynasty and even some of their
pre-dynastic ancestors. These names can be brought into agreement with
lists of rulers found in the ancient Chinese literature. The ruler seems
to have been a high priest, too; and around him were many other priests.
We know some of them now so well from the inscriptions that their
biographies could be written. The king seems to have had some kind of
bureaucracy. There were "ch'en", officials who served the ruler
personally, as well as scribes and military officials. The basic army
organization was in units of one hundred men which were combined as
"right", "left" and "central" units into an army of 300 men. But it
seems that the central power did not extend very far. In the more
distant parts of the realm were more or less independent lords, who
recognized the ruler only as their supreme lord and religious leader. We
may describe this as an early, loose form of the feudal system, although