IncenseRice wineFruitThe first fruitsA bowl of riceThree cups of teaA sweet at the new year
Invocation Approach
Tone
Neighbourly plain local
Address
Tudi GongLord of the SoilThe Earth GodTudi Ye
Relationship
A tenant speaking to the landlord of the ground
Warning
He is the smallest god and he is the one who actually holds the deed
Resonance
Householders farmers shopkeepers builders those who keep a roadside shrine
Symbols
The small shrineThe staffThe ingotThe land tabletThe stoneThe local register
Mythology Summary
The Earth God is the smallest and most local deity of the Chinese pantheon: not the Earth itself but the god of one defined patch of ground — a village, a street, a field, a building site — who is the landlord of the place and keeps the register of its dead, reporting upward to the City God, who reports to the Jade Emperor. An altar to the soil is ancient, going back to the she altar of the Zhou, but the familiar Tudi Gong with a wife (Tudi Po) and a roadside shrine is a late-imperial popular development, and in Fujian and Taiwan he is also a god of money, which is why a business keeps him by the till. The second and sixteenth of every lunar month are his days, and his birthday is kept on the second day of the second month in much of Fujian and Taiwan.
Modern Practice
The practice is the little shrine and the small offering: incense, wine, fruit, the first fruits, three cups of tea on the second and sixteenth of the month, a sweet at the New Year, and the rite before breaking ground on a new building. He is asked for the ordinary things — the business to hold, the household to stay well, the ground to bear.