沒有祖產就沒有祖宗牌位？－－E. Ahern溪南資料的再分析

NO PROPERTY, NO TABLET :A REANALYSIS OF EMILY AHERN'S CH'INAN DATA

Emily Ahern的'The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village'是一本備受爭議的著作。根據她的描述，溪南人的生活方式、言語行為、儀式、習俗和中國（或至少臺灣）其他鄉村地區的農民並無太大不同，可是Ahern的分析卻告訴我們溪南人保有許多和其他中國農民完全不同的理念：對於不留下祖產的祖先，溪南人可能不會讓他們的個人牌位奉於祠堂中；在決定某個祖先是否該被奉祀時，是以對該祖先負欠的程度而定；風水的靈力主要源於墓中的祖先，而非所謂的宇宙靈力；溪南的祖先是壞心腸的，且不時會作祟使子孫受到傷害；溪南的四個宗族都強調宗族的團結，所以宗族分裂的儀式性象徵在溪南是被壓制的。這些論點有一個確定的攻擊目標——M. Freedman; Freedman的研究發現若非受到否定，就是以溪南的資料企圖加以修正。可是不幸的Ahern本身的論點卻是自相矛盾的。例如，她指出溪南人認為他們的祖先是凶狠而反覆無常的，而祖先也控制著風水的靈力，則子孫對祖先應該是小心翼翼，祀奉唯恐之不周才對，他們會因為財產問題而不讓某些祖先的個人牌位置於祖祠中嗎？一個早夭的男孩或婚後不育的婦女能夠享有個人的牌位，若是因他們對宗族的財產及成員有潛在貢獻，則一個人如何能夠僅為了沒有遺下財產而被排除於祖祠之外？他生養的後嗣對宗族的成員之增加難道不是‘真正的貢獻’（actual contribution）？他在財產方面的貢獻潛力難道會低於未婚早夭的男孩？仔細地重新分析Ahern的資料及論辯後，可以發現Ahern誤解及誤用了她的民族誌素材。Ahern對臺灣民間宗教所知有限，因此她引來支持其論點的資料所觸及的遠超過其能理解的範圍，因此不論是交感巫術、法術、賭咒、風水、鬼的祭拜等等，她都以為祖先是其中牽涉的唯一超自然力，其次所有牌位的奉祀都被誤為是祖先牌位的奉祀，當然溪南人的祖先形象在Ahern的認知中會受到嚴重的扭曲。第二點必須指出的是Ahern描述的資料及引用自其他著作的資料，與她在論證中所涉及的常常不太一致，例如她為強調溪南宗族內不分化的傾向時宣稱每個宗族都只用一個木盒來容納所有的神主牌，但她的資料卻顯示李氏宗族中裝神主的木盒是每房一個共三個，而羅氏一族更多達八個。在提及D.H. Kulp的鳳凰村中宗族內部的分裂時，她告訴我們鳳凰村的神主牌是置於祖祠中的許多橱子中，而細察Kulp的資料卻令人詫異地發現鳳凰村中所有祖祠中都只有一個放神主的橱子。因此我們有充分的理由來懷疑Ahern的論點之有效性以及其對Freedman的批判之客觀性。

Emily Ahern's The Cult of the Dead in a Chinese Village (1973) is a controversial work (Li 1986). According to her, Ch'inan villagers differ little from Chinese peasants in other villages－－or at least other Hokkien Taiwanese－－in their livelihood, language, behavior, ritual, and customs. Be this as it may, Ahern's analysis tells us that Ch'inan villagers retain many ideas that are completely different from those held by Chinese peasants elsewhere:(1) ancestors who did not transmit ancestral property to their descendants may not be allowed to have their ancestral tablets placed in the lineage hall; (2) the decision to worship an ancestor is decided by the degree of debt owed to that ancestor; (3) geomantic efficacy is primarily attributed to the ancestor in the grave and not the grave site's cosmological efficacy; (4) ancestors are malicious, often inflict harm on the living, and even injure their own descendants; (5) the village's four lineages all stress lineage solidarity, and so suppress ritual symbols of intra-lineage segmentation. These points have a clear target－－Maurice Freedman; the Ch'inan Village data either invalidate or compel the revision of Freedman's findings. Unfortunately, however, Ahern's own arguments are mutually contradictory. For instance, if－－as Ahern thinks－－Ch'inan villagers consider ancestors fierce, capricious and malicious, and ancestors in the grave control that grave's geomantic efficacy, then descendants should be especially careful about and fearful of worshipping the ancestors improperly. How then can villagers dare to not allow tablets of some ancestors to be placed in the lineage hall simply because of those ances-tors' property problems? If a dead young boy or dead childless married woman has the right to an 'individualized place' of his or her own because of that person's 'potential contribution to the property or the membership of the lineage' (1973:121), how then is it that a man can be excluded from the lineage hall simply for not transmitting property? Is such a man's contribution to the increase of the lineage's membership not be an actual contribution? Is his potential contribution to the lineage's property less than that of an unmarried boy who has died?