Editing Animal sacrifice (section)

==== Ancient China ====
During [[Shang dynasty|Shang]] and [[Zhou dynasty|Zhou]] dynasties, the nobles used to practice a complicated and hierarchical sacrificial system and only the king could sacrifice to heaven and earth and the four sacred mountains including [[Mount Tai]] including his nine temples for his family. The Dukes sacrificed to the altar of land and grain and to the various rivers and streams and mountains in their territory and their family temples. The common person didn't have a temple but sacrificed to their father or grandfather or relevant family in their apartment or house and could only sacrifice to family because of the burden of the luxurious animals. The noble would sacrifice pigs, goats or sheep, cows, mainly oxen, dogs or wild dogs, and other livestock at different times of the year; in bad years the sacrifices were less.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0102/china/ |title=Archaic Chinese Sacrificial Practices in the Light of Generative Anthropology |author=Herbert Plutschow |work=Anthropoetics |date=1996 |language=English |accessdate=2021-07-22 |quote=As we have learned above, Shang dynasty sacrifice consisted in humans and animals and, to a lesser extent, wine and food (millet), and sometimes, as practiced later in Japan, tools, weapons and clothing. Sacrificial animals included dogs (traditionally interpreted as guides for the spirits, to help them during their hunts), and also sheep, oxen and pigs. }}</ref>

The ancient kings, [[Confucius]] and Confucian scholars framed the sacrificing scale of every strata from the Zhou system, not including human sacrifice, in ''The [[Book of Rites]]''. The names of the offering scales from honorable to low are 'Tai-lao'(太牢), 'Shao-lao'(少牢), 'Te-sheng'(特牲), 'Te-shi'(特豕), 'Te-tun'(特豚), 'Yu'(魚), 'La'(臘), 'Dou'(豆) and else. The Tai-lao class, now only practiced in the ceremony of worshipping [[Yellow Emperor|Huang Di]] or [[Confucius]], use whole cows, whole goats and whole pigs in Taiwan
<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.tctcc.taipei/zh-tw/C/about/ceremony/1/8.htm?1 |title=祭孔的起源與發展 |publisher=Taipei Confucius Temple Governing Board |language=Chinese |accessdate=2021-07-19 |quote=...高祖十二年（前195年）十二月，漢高祖劉邦平定英布之亂後，於返京途中，路過曲阜孔廟，漢高祖以全牛、全豬、全羊之太牢重禮祭孔廟，為後世立下天子祭孔典範。}}</ref>

It is said [[Hou Ji|Hou ji]] offered a sacrifice with lamb millet and southern wood and black millet wine with fragrant herbs mainly southern wood.