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Root / 中國漢文 / clean / 商殷朝 / 花園庄（洹北） / 花园庄东地甲骨 / 英譯文 / HYZ 474.3.txt
Divined on Yichou: Our lord will practice. 1 “Qiang”, however, is not an attested song and dance, and for this reason I interpret it as refer- ring to Qiang people. Divinations (1)-(2) are likely related. Since Ji Nai is a person in the HYZ OBI who is directly related to the handling and processing of Qiang (11, 137), it seems likely that the verb 學 in (1) is an action directed at living people (137), and not something more abstract. I suggest to read 學either as “instruct” or “practice”/ “train”. 241.11 mentions a Qiang stone cutter. 576 This compound graph is written with rock 石 over foot 止. ZSKY 2003 transcribes it 砋; I transcribe it zhi 跖 “sole (of the foot)”. The graphs 跖and zhi 蹠 “(v.) step on, jump; (n.) sole” are later variants spelling the same word (see Guxun huizuan, 2213). An alternative reading is to take 又(有)跖 as a toponym and as the object of 往wang; in that case 又would be a prefix “the”. 577 This day 1/10 divination concerns planning for upcoming rites for both the protagonist’s grandfather and grandmother. The sacrifice for Ancestor Yi was to take place on the next day, 2/10, day Yichou. Sui 歲-sacrifice and guan 祼-ale libation were the two main activities for an ancestor’s weekly worship (see HYZ 318). This seems to be an instance of joint offerings (Schwartz 2019: 30-32). Ancestor Yi is to receive the sacrifice and his spouse, Ancestress Geng, is to receive the 祼-ale libation. In the HYZ OBI, 祼were usually the occasion to make announcements. (It is notable that the HYZ OBI never record the protagonist performing a guan-ale libation for Ancestor Yi.) An alternative interpretation is that this divination is proposing what the protagonist himself wants to do for these two ancestors on their respective temple-days of the present week. If ances- tor worship was a cooperative royal family activity (see for instance 495.1), then other family members would have been responsible for other tasks and for performing other rites. HYZ 475 | 373