The practice of burying with the dead the objects which surrounded him in life has never entirely ceased in any country. Among primitive peoples it has taken the revolting form of immolating, or even burying alive, the household of a dead chieftain. Instances of this practice in China occur as late as the third century b.c., and voluntary acts of sacrifice at the tomb are recorded much later in China as in India. When humaner counsels prevailed figures of wood, straw and clay were substituted, straw images being suggested for the purpose by Confucius himself. In the Han dynasty the tomb of the well-to-do was furnished with models of his house, his shrine, his farmyard, threshing floor, rice-pounder, his cattle, sheep, dogs, and poultry, besides his retainers and certain half-human creatures which may have been his guardian spirits; it was provided with vases for wine and grain, models of the stove and kitchen range with cooking pots and implements--the last merely indicated in low relief on the kitchen range--besides the more stately sacrificial vessels for wine and incense.[24] All these were modelled in pottery, and must have fostered a flourishing potter's trade, and given a tremendous impetus to the growth of modelling and design. The underlying idea of all this was, no doubt, to provide the spirit of the dead with the means of pursuing the habits of his lifetime, and the modern practice of supplying his needs by means of paper models which are transmitted to the spirit world through the medium of fire serves the same purpose in a more economical fashion. But a fuller note on the grave furniture of the Han and T´ang periods will be given in the next chapter. Little or nothing is at present known of the potteries in which the Han wares were made, but we may fairly assume that the manufacture was very general and that local potteries supplied local demands. An incidental reference in the _T´ao lu_ gives us one solitary name, Nan Shan, where the potteries of the Emperor Wu Ti (140-85 B.C.) were situated;[25] and there is a mention of potteries in Kiangsi in the place which was afterwards the site of the celebrated porcelain centre, Ching-tê Chên.