Anthropology has shown with increasing clarity how social life in the archaic period normally rests on the antagonistic and antithetical structure of the community itself, and how the whole mental world of such a community corresponds to this profound dualism. We find traces of it everywhere. The tribe is divided into two opposing halves, called ‘phratriai’ by the anthropologist, which are separated by the strictest exogamy. The two groups are further distinguished be their totem – a term somewhat recklessly jargonized out of the special field to which it belongs, but very convenient for scientific uses. A person may be a raven-person or a tortoise-person, thereby acquiring a whole system of obligations, taboos, customs, objects of veneration peculiar to raven or tortoise as the case may be. The mutual relationship of the two halves is one of contest and rivalry, but at the same time of reciprocal help and the rendering of friendly service. Together they enact, as it were, the public life of the tribe in a never ending series of ceremonies precisely formulated and punctiliously performed. The dualism that sunders the two halves extends over their whole conceptual and imaginative world. Every creature, every thing has its place on one side or the other, so that the entire cosmos is framed in this classification.
Basing his reconstruction on an anthropological interpretation of ancient Chinese ritual songs, Granet was able to give an account of the early phases of Chinese culture as simple as it is convincing and scientifically accurate.
He describes the earliest phase of all as one in which rural clans celebrate the seasonal feasts by contests devised to promote fertility and the ripening of crops. It is a well-known fact that such an idea underlies most primitive ritual. Every ceremony well performed, every game or contest duly won, every act of sacrifice auspiciously concluded, fervently convinces archaic human that a boon and a blessing have thereby been procured for the community. The sacrifices or sacred dances have been successfully executed; now all is well, the higher powers are on our side, the cosmic order is safeguarded, social well-being is assured for us and ours. Of course this feeling is not to be imagined as the end-result of a series of reasonable deductions. It is, rather, a life-feeling, a feeling of satisfaction crystallized into faith more or less formulated in the mind. Granet’s conclusions, however, go far beyond this picture of a pastoral, almost idyllic existence lived by scattered tribes against a background of pure nature. With the rise of chieftains and regional kingdoms within the immense spaces of China there developed, over and above their original, simple dualisms each comprising a single clan or tribe, a system of many competing groups covering an area of several clans or tribes put together, but still expressing their cultural life mainly in the festal and ritual contests. From these age-old seasonal contests between the parts of a tribe and then between whole tribes, a social hierarchy was born. The prestige won by the warriors in these sacred contests was the beginning of the feudalizing process so long dominant in China. ‘The spirit of competition’ says Granet, ‘which animated the men’s societies or brotherhoods and set them against one another during the winter festivities in tournaments of dance and song, comes at the beginning of the line of development that led to State forms and institutions'.