The ancients called the gods of heaven and earth 'shenqi'.
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history
祇 is not used alone in modern Chinese; it survives chiefly in 神祇 ('the gods of heaven and earth'), where it specifically names the earth deity. The altar radical 礻 marks it as a worship word; 氏 supplies the sound.
register
Archaic and literary. Note the look-alike 只; 祇 (earth god) is a distinct character met only in classical and ritual texts. An older dictionary also files a separate stone-related reading, but the earth-god sense is the standard one.
