At the beginning of the article, this paper describes and systematically summarizes the complex customs related to tools by Chinese folk craftsmen in architectural construction, such as tools belief worship, tools taboos, tools legends, tools advantageous and adverse witchcraft. Afterwards, this paper elucidates tools’ symbolic connection with the original body of Trade God (Progenitor) Lu Ban. Furthermore, by means of Marcel Mauss' theory on the form and significance of exchange behaviors, this study focuses on the custom of tools transferred by generations and the symbolic ritual of returning to the Trade God Lu Ban. Revealing the actions and sense of the craftsmen trade group centered on the inheritance and exchange of the Progenitor's body and soul in the inheritance of skills, it explains how tool etiquette creates and maintains a socially identifiable group of craftsmen, and how a closed-loop system of technological inheritance with legitimacy is formed. Furthermore, this paper extends to the scope of ancient social and economic life beyond the group of craftsmen, and describes the forms of obligations and contracts between craftsmen and employers under the premise of the legitimacy of ancestor-originated technology, and then analyzes the general mode and significance of technology's circulation in ancient Chinese commodity society. This paper also attempts to showcase the diversity of Chinese folk intangible heritage.
