Signature-marks, witnessing, and credit expression in private contracts from Gansu since the Qing Dynasty

Drawing on Gansu contract documents from the Qing Dynasty onward collected and compiled by this research group, this paper examines parties' modes of confirmation, witness participation, and written articulation of credit and liability by analyzing signature-marks on contracts, deed colophons, official and private seals, and postscripts appended to original deeds. The study finds that signature-marks on Gansu contracts take forms including bird-figure marks, symbols, written characters, and their combinations. Among them, composite character-based marks containing moral phrases such as haoxin (good intention), gongzheng (impartiality), ping liangxin (acting according to conscience), and gongzhengwusi (impartial and selfless) embed moral vocabulary into signing marks. Designations such as liyueren (contract-maker), zaizhongren (present middleman), zhongjianren (witness-middleman), fangqinren (clan-kin witness), and shuyueren (deed scribe) reflect the different roles of individuals involved in formulating and validating contracts. Supplementary notations for re-appreciation fees on land pawns, grain-tax payments and receipts, debt-repayment addenda, and inter-deed margin inscriptions for split duplicate contracts turn original deeds into verifiable, amendable, and reusable evidentiary instruments. Analyzing continuously reused contracts such as B2913 and B4262 shows that signing and witnessing were not confined to the moment of contract formation; new rounds of these practices could occur when transactional relations were adjusted. Credit expression in Gansu folk contracts combines moral utterances such as "acting according to conscience" with tangible practices: affixing signature-marks, identifying middlemen, documenting payments and receipts, and preserving duplicate contracts. These sources illuminate the historical practice in folk transactions whereby moral assertions operated alongside written liability confirmation.