The Han Chinese who lived in the area of what is today Vietnam during the time of the Han Dynasty were afraid of something. This is obvious from the houses that they built.
I thought of this recently when I read an article by Wei Weiyan, the author that I mentioned in the previous post who wrote a dissertation on Han tombs in Vietnam.
The article I read was called “Research on Courtyard Compound Spirit Goods Excavated from Han Tombs in Vietnam” (越南境内漢墓出土院落明器研究).
During the Han Dynasty period (206 BC – 220 AD), there was a custom among the wealthy elite of putting miniature houses in the tombs of the departed. No one knows for certain why this was done, but presumably the idea was to provide the dead with a (symbolic) home so that they could live peacefully in the afterlife.
These miniature clay houses are known as “mingqi” (冥器 or 明器), a term that has been translated into English as “spirit goods.” In fact, houses were just one of many different kinds of spirit goods that were placed in Han tombs.
In her article, Wei Weiyan examines such model houses, or what she refers to as “courtyard compound spirit goods” (院落明器), that have been found in Han Dynasty-era tombs in Vietnam.
As she did in her dissertation on Han tombs themselves in Vietnam, Wei Weiyan categorizes and periodizes the courtyard compound spirit goods that have been found in tombs in Vietnam. She does this by examining the styles of the houses, and how those styles changed over time.
At the same time, Wei Weiyan also demonstrates that there are at times clear connections between courtyard compound spirit goods in Vietnam and courtyard compound spirit goods in what is now Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in China, and in the process she illuminates the human connections that must have existed between those regions.
All of that is very interesting and important to know, but there is something even more basic about these miniature houses that intrigued me.
In a 2010 book entitled The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China 206 BC–AD 220, author Qinghua Guo argues that the houses that were made to serve as spirit goods were modeled after actual houses at that time.
If this is the case, then these courtyard compound spirit goods offer a view of what life might have been like for the Han Chinese in the area of what is today Vietnam during the time of the Han Dynasty.
Put simply, these houses look like little fortresses. They are surrounded by stone walls, and have upper stories from where one could defend against an attack.
But who or what were such houses meant to protect people against? Tigers? The indigenous people? Robbers? All of the above?
I’m not sure, but what these model houses reveal, is that the people who lived in them must have felt that they were living in a dangerous world, and they made a serious effort to protect themselves from perceived dangers.
