Worshipping
Totem

Family names and totem worship can be traced to the legendary Fu Xi who corrected names and defined matrimonial relationship. From then on, Chinese family names gradually became systematized and standardized before any other country in the word. Historians believed the Chinese had a close relationship between family names and totem worship, which was practiced by the early people of china usually in Xia, Shang and Zhou. A song in the Book of Odes(Shi Jing) recounted the birth of Hou Ji, the earliest ancestor of the Zhou people, shows clearly the family name-totem worship link. In this song, the consort of the Fiery Emperor, Jiang Yuan prayed to God for a son. She followed God's footprints which belonged to a bear which the Zhou people then worshipped. When she returned home, she became pregnant and later gave birth to Hou Ji.