g, though
the Chou brought with them the novelties of felt and woollen fabrics,
old possessions of their earlier period. The only fundamental material
change was in the form of the graves: in the Shang age house-like tombs
were built underground; now great tumuli were constructed in the fashion
preferred by all steppe peoples.

One professional class was severely hit by the changed
circumstances--the Shang priesthood. The Chou had no priests. As with
all the races of the steppes, the head of the family himself performed
the religious rites. Beyond this there were only shamans for certain
purposes of magic. And very soon Heaven-worship was combined with the
family system, the ruler being declared to be the Son of Heaven; the
mutual relations within the family were thus extended to the religious
relations with the deity. If, however, the god of Heaven is the father
of the ruler, the ruler as his son himself offers sacrifice, and so the
priest becomes superfluous. Thus the priests became "unemployed". Some
of them changed their profession. They were the only people who could
read and write, and as an administrative system was necessary they
obtained employment as scribes. Others withdrew to their villages and
became village priests. They organized the religious festivals in the
village, carried out the ceremonies connected with family events, and
even conducted the exorcism of evil spirits with shamanistic dances;
they took charge, in short, of everything connected with customary
observances and morality. The Chou lords were great respecters of
propriety. The Shang culture had, indeed, been a high one with an
ancient and highly developed moral system, and the Chou as rough
conquerors must have been impressed by the ancient forms and tried to
imitate them. In addition, they had in their religion of Heaven a
conception of the existence of mutual relations between Heaven and
Earth: all that went on in the skies had an influence on earth, and vice
versa. Thus, if any ceremony was "wrongly" performed, it had an evil
effect on Heaven--there would be no rain, or the cold weather would
arrive too soon, or some such misfortune would come. It was therefore of
great importance that everything should be done "correctly". Hence the
Chou rulers were glad to call in the old priests as performers of
ceremonies and teachers of morality similar to the ancient Indian rulers
who needed the Brahmans for the correct performance of all rites. Th