Often these appear to be war captives taken from rival lineages and – unlike the retainers – their bodies were systematically mutilated, usually in mocking rearrangements of the victims’ heads. For the Shang, this seems to have been a way of denying their victims the possibility of becoming dynastic ancestors, thereby rendering the living members of their lineage unable to take part in the care and feeding of their own dead kin, ordinarily one of the fundamental duties of family life. Cast adrift, and socially scarred, the survivors were more likely to fall under the sway of the Shang court.
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