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52LEWIS MAYO193 See Danielle Eliasberg, "Les signatures enforme d'oiseau dans les manuscrits chinoisde Touen-houang," in Michel Soymie, ed.,Contributions aux etudes sur Touen-houang(Geneva and Paris: Libraire Droz, 1979),pp.29-44.194 See ibid., p.30.195 Radical no.l62 in the traditional sequenceof 214 radicals for classifying Chinesecharacters. Eliasberg, "Les signatures en formed'oiseau dans les manuscrits chinois de Touenhouang,"p.33.196 Yaya ("Officer") was one of the key ranksin the Guiyi jun administration. See FengPeihong, "Wan Tang Wudai Song cllU Guiyijun wuzhi junjiang yanjiu," in Zheng Binglin,Dunhuang Guiyi jun shi zhuanti yanjiu,pp.100-9. The post of yaya was associatedwith the administration of the officialresidences of the provincial military governorsof the Tang era. See Yan Gengwang, "Tangdaifangzhen shifu liaozuo kao"[A study of theassistant officials in the offices of the provincialmilitary governors of the Tang], in YanGengwang, Ta ng shi yanjiu conggao[Collected papers on the study ofTang histolY](Hong Kong: Xinya Yanjiusuo, 1969), pp.228--32. In addition to being the personal guardfor the residence (and thus the family withinit), the office of yaya expanded to deal withthe various domains relevant to the militarygovernor's administration, combining thefunctions of personal retinue with precisedivisions of administrative responsibilitiesfor separate domains relevant to the office ofthe military governor. According to theexplanation of Lu Xiangqian, in addition tothe yaya officers responsible for guardingthe governor and his residence, there was awhole network of "Departments" (si )headed by people of yaya rank which dealtwith various key spheres of activity relevantto the work of government, such as irrigation,banquets and granaries. All yaya came underthe jurisdiction of four Superior Officers (duyaya WWf!i). Taken together, this groupconstituted the administrative stream of themilitary governor's bureaucracy, one of thethree basic streams making up the centralgovernment of the Guiyi jun, the other twobeing the supervisory or investigative streamand the military stream (distinguished fromthe personal guard for the military governor)respectively. See Lu Xiangqian, "GuanyuGuiyi jun shiqi yi fen buzhi poyong Ii destability'. It is registered in and produced by a constant output of documentsof all kinds-from texts for the annual exorcism, to contracts for the sale ofland, to circulars for meetings, to letters of thanks with accompanying giftsto local monks. The foundational violence of Zhang Yichao's conquest wasthus converted into the 'common sense' of 'legitimate rule', immune fromobvious challenge. The micro-conflicts of everyday life become the primaryform of politics: moments of extra-ordinary reinvention of the political andgeographical order, like the avian historical 'events' of the ninth and earlytenth centuries narrated above, were rare.In this environment birds became literally one of the Guiyi jun's signaturesof power.193 During the rule of the longest-serving of Cao Yijin's successors,his son, Cao Yuanzhong lf7CJ' (head of the Guiyi jun from 944-74), and hisgrandson, Cao Yanlu lft (Guiyi jun head from 976-1002), bird-shapedsignatures appear as marks of endorsement on a range of official documents.In the 950s and 960s, during Cao Yuanzhong's tenure as head of the Guiyi jun,the signature has the form of a slender, upright bird with a long beak. 194 Fromthe 970s to the 990s, when Cao Yanlu was in charge, the authorising avian signis a more rounded bird, nestled in the 'foot radical' 195 Two different birdsdenote two different ruling hands, each exerting the same power of authorization.These bird signatures conferred efficacy upon documents, endowing themwith the power of recognised authority.Administrative domination required such recognised and recognisablesigns. These authoriZing marks appear on official writings stretching overmore than 40 years, the span of two governing lives. They cover a range ofcontrol relations between the central authority of the Guiyi jun and agentsempowered to carry out tasks on its behalf: for the most part they areverificatory signatures placed on lists of expenditure submitted by functionariescharged with supervising the storage, collection or reproduction of thingsand lives of use to the government, which constitute 'sources' of itsdomination over the oasis and the beings inhabiting it.In the summer of 951, during the rule of Cao Yuanzhong, the slenderupright bird was appended to statements of account recording distributionsof firewood submitted by the Officer (yaya t(jl ffij) 196 Song Qiansi *m, ofthe Department of the Inner Household197 of the Guiyi jun.198 These/yanjiu," in Lu's Dunhuang Tulu/a n wenshulungao, pp.156-8. Comments on the Englishtranslation of yaya can be found in my article"The order of birds in Guiyi ]un Dunhuang,"EastAsianHistory 20 (Dec. 2000): 1-60, pp.l1-12, n.21.197 Neizhai si p.gEt. This was the departmentresponsible for the household affairs ofthe Guiyi jun's ruling family. On the neizhaisi,see the discussion by Lu Xiangqian, "GuanyuGuiyi jun shiqi yi fen buzhi poyong Ii deyanjiu," pp.120-1, n.44, and p.126, n.n. In/Lu's analysis of the structure of the Guiyi jungovernment, the neizhai si is under thejurisdiction of the household guards for themilitary governor, rather than being one of the"Departments" with jurisdiction for variousclassified sectors (see Lu, id., p.157).198 P.3160. Eliasberg, "Les Signatures en formed'oiseau dans les manuscrits chinois de Touenhouang,"p.31. A transcription of the manuscriptis found in Tang Geng'ou and Lu Hongji,Dunhuang shehui jingji wenxian zhenji shilu,vol.3, pp.614-15.
BIRDS AND THE HAND OF POWER53statements of account take the form of petitions to the head of the Guiyi jun,for which the petitioner requests a judgement. The avian signature isappended with words that indicate approval: the formulae used in thisdocumentary form have a quasi-legal character. In the petition, Song lists therecipients of the distribution by name, and details the quantity of firewoodthey have received. The ornamental mark of the bird thus attaches itself tothe interchange between a steward and his superior, in which the formermust give precise account of how the things in his command that have beengiven to others have been deployed. The approving sign affirms that thesedeployments of wood have not been wasteful, but constitute legitimateoutgoings, necessary for the smooth conduct of both government and theaffairs of the ruling household. The ratification of expenditure is a necessityfor the reproduction of domination. But so too is expenditure itself: the birdmark gives assent to the use of fuel for the entertainment of guests such asan emissary from Khotan who is a beneficiary of the hospitality of the Guiyijun government, which is part of the household administration of the Caofamily.199 Such things are too important to be left to chance: statements ofaccount are submitted for approval by the avian sign in orderly successionevery few days, detailing what wood has been given to whom and for whatpurpose. If the signature suggests the transcendent ornamental power ofbirds-above mundane transactions like collecting and distributing firewood,or burning it to cook someone's food-it cannot detach itself from managingthe material demands that underlie the symbolic work of providing diplomatichospitality or supplying servants with what they need. Rather the bird mustexert a constant surveillance over these things to keep its own house in order.The collection and distribution of firewood in an ordered and consistentfashion is one of the central concerns of government in the oasis. In 955 themark of the bird appears in like fashion on the accounts submitted by theOfficer An Youcheng {;t:; RIG, the person in charge of the Department of theCourt of Firewood (Chaichang si ;l:qj), a department of the Guiyi jungovernment with special responsibility for the collection of wood for fuel(which was supplied to the government by compulsory levy) and for itsjustified disbursement 200 The long, upright bird confers its authority on acomplex range of contributions and distributions, involving a large numberof different individuals: a diverse group of people are tied into this networkof firewood exchange, extending to troops stationed at the Guiyi jun'sdefensive outposts. In a context where the maintenance of border securityinvolves signal fires, the accumulation and maintenance of combustiblematerial is clearly a central political and military task, and subordinates mustbe delegated to carry out this work. But the interest of government infirewood is not limited to this dimension. The list of purposes for whichfirewood was given by the office in question extends from the smelting oftin to the cooking of food for sacrifice to local deities. Processing by fire isfundamental to symbolic relations: food must be cooked, and, as thebounded community formed around the shared hearth makes clear, physicalFigure 6Avian signature from the era of CaoYuanzhong. 5. 5571 . By permission ofthe British Library199 Emissaries from foreign places were thusconsidered to be recipients of the hospitalityof the military governor and kept under theprotection of his household, and thusprotected by his own guard. See LuXiangqian, "Guanyu Guiyi jun shiqi yi fenbuzhi poyong Ii de yanjiu," for analysis ofthe divisions of responsibility within thegovernment.200 S.3728. Eliasberg, "Les signatures enforme d'oiseau dans les manuscrits chinoisde Touen-houang," p.31; also Tang and Lu,Dunhuang shehui jingji wenxian zhenjishilu, vol.3, pp.618-20.
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