The Shang period had a religion with many nature deities, especially deities of fertility.  There was no systematized pantheon, different deities being revered in each locality, often under the most varied names.  These various deities were, however, similar in character, and later it occurred often that many of them were combined by the priests into a single god.  The composite deities thus formed were officially worshipped.  Their primeval forms lived on, however, especially in the villages, many centuries longer than the Shang dynasty.  The sacrifices associated with them became popular festivals, and so these gods or their successors were saved from oblivion; some of them have lived on in popular religion to the present day.  The supreme god of the official worship was called Shang Ti; he was a god of vegetation who guided all growth and birth and was later conceived as a forefather of the races of mankind.  The earth was represented as a mother goddess, who bore the plants and animals procreated by Shang Ti.  In some parts of the Shang realm the two were conceived as a married couple who later were parted by one of their children.  The husband went to heaven, and the rain is the male seed that creates life on earth.  In other regions it was supposed that in the beginning of the world there was a world-egg, out of which a primeval god came, whose body was represented by the earth:  his hair formed the plants, and his limbs the mountains and valleys.  Every considerable mountain was also itself a god and, similarly, the river god, the thunder god, cloud, lightning, and wind gods, and many others were worshipped.

In order to promote the fertility of the earth, it was believed that sacrifices must be offered to the gods.  Consequently, in the Shang realm and the regions surrounding it there were many sorts of human sacrifices; often the victims were prisoners of war.  One gains the impression that many wars were conducted not as wars of conquest but only for the purpose of capturing prisoners, although the area under Shang control gradually increased towards the west and the south-east, a fact demonstrating the interest in conquest.  In some regions men lurked in the spring for people from other villages; they slew them, sacrificed them to the earth, and distributed portions of the flesh of the sacrifice to the various owners of fields, who buried them.  At a later time all human sacrifices were prohibited, but we have reports down to the eleventh century A.D., and even later, that such sacrifices were offered secretly in certain regions of central China.  In other regions a great boat festival was held in the spring, to which many crews came crowded in long narrow boats.  At least one of the boats had to capsize; the people who were thus drowned were a sacrifice to the deities of fertility.  This festival has maintained its fundamental character to this day, in spite of various changes.  The same is true of other festivals, customs, and conceptions, vestiges of which are contained at least in folklore.