ABSTRACT
The image and incense-burner of a territorial cult may or may not be housed in a permanent shrine. But a territorial cult, celebrated on fixed occasions in a local calendar was, author think, a feature of social life throughout China until civil policies of republican governments began to transform or suppress them. So too was the tour of boundaries by procession. Occasions of relative relaxation in the agrarian cycle of work, even coinciding with points in the calendar marked for other kinds of ritual assembly, such as the Spring Festival, may also have been occasions for the celebration of a territorial cult, with or without procession. The official, imperial cults were organised as part of the territorial division of the empire, centred on administrative cities down through provinces and prefectures to counties.
