CHAPTER XII

DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

An essential point in the Chinese conception of Filial Piety is that a father's death does not set the son free from the obligations of duty and reverence: it merely changes the outward form or expression of those obligations. He can no longer watch over his father's physical welfare and anticipate his material wants, but he can still bring peace and happiness to his father's spirit by living an upright life and bringing glory and prosperity to the family. If his abilities or opportunities are not such as to enable him to earn for his father posthumous honours (such as the Emperor confers upon the ancestors of those who have deserved well of the State) it is probably within his power to preserve intact the inherited property, to keep the family temple and tombs in good repair, to carry out with propriety and reverence the orthodox ancestral rites during his own lifetime and to provide for their continuance during future generations by bringing up a family of his own.

The Chinese belief with regard to the souls of the dead (or rather the ancient beliefs on which the ancestral ceremonies are based) are rather complicated. According to one doctrine every man has no less than ten souls, of which three are _yang_ and seven are _yin_;[213] it is also said that what is called the _hun-_soul goes to heaven, while the _p'o_-soul descends into the earth. The most popular view appears to be that every man has three souls allotted to him: of these one remains in or around the tomb, another hovers about the ancestral tablet, while the third wanders away and, after amalgamating itself with other mysterious forces, is finally reincarnated in another mortal body, which--unless the soul behaved very badly in its last incarnation--will be a human one. For the purpose of the ancestral cult the souls that are of importance are the grave-soul and the tablet-soul. The grave-soul receives its due share of "worship" at the great annual tomb-festivals of spring and autumn. The tablet-soul is supposed to take up its abode, by ceremonious invitation, in the spirit-tablet as soon as the body has been consigned to the grave. "From this very moment," as Dr. De Groot says, "the tablet is considered to be imbued with the afflatus of the dead, and to have become his perpetual duplicate, to serve as a patron divinity in the domestic circle and there to receive the offspring's sacrifices and worship."[214]

The soul-tablets (_shên-chu_) of father, grandfather and great-grandfather are, in Weihaiwei, preserved in every private house, while the tablets of the earlier ancestors are deposited in the family temples. They are not exposed, either in house or in temple, except on ceremonial occasions, such as the first fifteen days of the first month of the year and the festival of the winter solstice (_Tung Chih_) at or about the time of the European Christmas. The _Chia Miao_ or Ancestral Temple is usually the largest as well as the cleanest building in the village. The front gate, abutting on the main village street, leads into a small courtyard in which there is generally at least one cypress tree.[215] The temple itself consists of a large room containing little or nothing but a few carved chairs, a table, and--last but not least--rows of boxes containing ancestral tablets. Each tablet consists of an oblong piece of hard wood (_catalpa_ is chiefly used at Weihaiwei) about eight inches high and two inches broad, fitting into a wooden stand three inches broad and one inch high. The tablet has a recessed front, which bears an inscription more or less similar to that which appears on tombstones.[216] Into the recess slips a sliding front, on the outside of which the inscription is repeated in a slightly altered form. The outside of the tablet is often painted white, but the recessed front is left plain. Both inscriptions are written in black ink, but there is an important dot of red ink[217] on the top of the important character _chu_, which comes last.

The process of "dotting the chu" (_tien chu_) with red ink is an essential part of the ceremony whereby the wooden tablet becomes the abode of an ancestral soul. As a rule the tablet bears two names--those of husband and wife--so that each human soul is not necessarily supposed to have a tablet to itself. Just as the bodies of husband and wife share a single grave, so do their spirits (according to the theory accepted in Weihaiwei) share a single tablet, and the prayers and sacrifices that are offered to the one are intended in equal measure for the other.

The inscription on a tablet now before me[218] may be translated as follows. _Outside._ "The Spirit-tablet of my deceased honoured father and mother. I their son Yüeh-hsiang reverentially make obeisance and offer sacrifice."[219] _Inside._ "The Imperial Ch'ing Dynasty. The Spirit-tablet of Yao Fêng-chu, the eldest son of his generation,[220] and his wife Chang Shih." Sometimes dates are added on the tablet but these are not essential, as all such records are preserved in the genealogical table or pedigree-scroll. On ceremonial occasions the tablets are set out in due order, so that the spirits may be comforted by the sacrificial offerings and by the sight of the many prosperous-looking descendants who have assembled to do them honour. In front of the tablets are set up sticks of fragrant incense, and all the members of the family present themselves in turn and bow reverently towards the souls of their dead forefathers.

The little ceremony is as simple and yet as impressive as could well be imagined. For the first few days of the New Year the pedigree-scroll (_chia p'u_), which is carefully wrapped up and put away at ordinary times, is unrolled and hung on the wall, where it receives a share of the reverence paid to the tablets. The scroll is often a beautiful work of art, painted to represent a temple or a grand family mansion,[221] while the names of the past generations are inscribed in successive rows so that the space devoted to each name looks a spirit-tablet in miniature. In some parts of China, but not in Weihaiwei, it is customary to have family portraits painted for the purpose of preserving the "shadow-semblances" (_ying hsiang_) of ancestors as sacred heirlooms in the family temples. Like the pedigree-scroll, such portraits are exposed to view on solemn occasions only. They are often painted while the subject is on his death-bed or immediately after his death. De Groot[222] compares these family portraits with the _imagines maiorum_ of the ancient Romans.

A Chinese who emigrates to a foreign land rarely fails to make an agreement, either with his employers or with his compatriots, that if he dies while abroad his body is to be taken back not only to China but to his native town or village, wherever that may be. This peculiarity on the part of the Chinese is so well recognised by every one concerned that most European shipping firms trading in the Eastern seas are obliged to make special arrangements for conveying cargoes of coffins at moderate rates up and down the coast of China and from the various countries bordering on the Pacific where there are Chinese merchants and labourers. Probably it is generally supposed that the Chinese--like the people of other countries, only more so--are so sentimentally attached to their old homes that they will not venture to go abroad unless they are sure of returning to it some day as dead men if not as living ones. This is true to a certain extent. The average Chinese dearly loves his old home, and considering that it has been the home of his ancestors for a length of time that would make the oldest ancestral estate in England ashamed of itself, it is no wonder that he should regard it with affection.

But there is another reason why it is considered important that every Chinese--at least every Chinese who has sons of his own and has maintained connection with the old stock from which he sprang--should lay his bones beside those of his fathers. The Chinese theory is that some mysterious sympathy exists, even after death, between the soul and the body, and that unless the body is brought to the place where the ancestral _sacra_ are carried out it will be impossible to provide for the sacrificial rites that ought to be rendered to the soul. The family at home will thus lose one of its ancestral links, and the dead man's spirit will wander homeless and lordless in the world of shades: an ancestral ghost separated for ever from communion with its fellows.

It is partly because of this supposed connection between soul and body that the Chinese abhor the idea of descending to their graves in a mutilated condition. Thus in China decapitation is a more serious punishment than strangulation, because it is thought that the headless man may become a headless ghost. The danger of appearing in a mutilated condition in the next world is, however, lessened or averted if the severed members can be buried along with the body to which they belonged. A Chinese servant in Weihaiwei not long ago begged for an old biscuit-tin from his foreign master in order that he might give it to a friend who wished to use it as a coffin for his amputated foot.[223]

It is the hope of every Chinese, then, that when he dies he will be laid in his ancestral graveyard, and that he will be laid there in a state of organic completeness. But there are occasions, of course, when it has proved impossible to convey dead men's bones from one end of China to another, or home from a foreign land: sometimes the family cannot afford the expense, sometimes there are overwhelming difficulties with regard to transport. Chinese ingenuity long ago set itself to devise a means whereby even such bad cases as this might have a happy ending, and it succeeded. The body itself, it was argued, is of no real importance: for sentimental reasons it is satisfactory to be able to bury the bodies of the dead in their ancestral graveyards, but otherwise there is no urgency in the matter provided only the dead man's souls--in spite of the absence of the body with which they were associated--can be persuaded or induced to take up their respective abodes in the ancestral graveyard and in the spirit-tablet. The problem was solved by calling in the aid of religion, and the ceremony observed is in outline something like this.

The members of the deceased's family, clad of course in funereal garb, call in a priest who, in accordance with the data provided by them, prepares a scroll containing the dead man's name and age and the date and place of his death. They then make a very rough effigy of a man--a few twisted straws are quite good enough--and on the effigy they pin the scroll. The priest now performs the ceremony of "calling the soul back"--that is to say, he recites certain charms which are supposed to reach the wandering spirit, wherever it may be, and to draw it to the place where the ceremony is to take place. The utterance of a few more charms is supposed to be sufficient to attach the spirit to the effigy-or rather to the scroll--which is then placed in a miniature coffin and buried with the rites observed at ordinary funerals. The man himself, to all intents and purposes, now lies buried in the ancestral graveyard, and all that remains to be done is to evoke the spiritual presence that will in future inhabit the _shên-chu_ or spirit-tablet. When this has been done (just in the same way as when a real corpse lies buried) the ceremony is at an end: the soul, or rather the combination of souls, has been saved from homelessness, and will in future assume its proper position as an ancestral ghost both in the family graveyard and in the ancestral temple.

This remarkable custom is obviously such a convenient means of avoiding the trouble and expense of conveying dead bodies from distant places, that its comparative rarity may well be a matter of some surprise. Certainly, if the practice were to come into common use it would indirectly give a great impulse to emigration: for which reason it may perhaps be hoped by some Western peoples that it will for ever remain unfashionable. The custom is, however, an exceedingly old one, and was practised even at the Imperial Court nearly nineteen centuries ago.[224] There seems to have always been a strong prejudice against it, partly because it was a foolish superstition and partly because it would tempt the people to cease troubling themselves about the burial of their parents or bringing home their bodies from a distance, and would thus tend to the degradation or weakening of the ideals of filial piety. Hence we find that the practice of burying souls without the bodies was in 318 A.D. condemned by Imperial Decree as heretical;[225] yet this condemnation by no means brought about its discontinuance, and the present legal position is that the "violation of a grave in which an evoked soul is interred shall be punished just as severely as the violation of a grave occupied by a corpse,"[226] that is to say the offender may be sentenced to death.

In his interesting section on this strange custom Dr. De Groot remarks that as it has been "of common prevalence for at least eighteen centuries" its occurrence even nowadays can hardly be doubted. It certainly exists at Weihaiwei, though it is not in very common use. One reason for practising it in this little corner of China is based on the very strong belief that husband and wife should always be buried in the same grave. If the husband dies while he is abroad and the body is lost or cannot be brought home, nothing is necessarily done until his widow (who has remained at home) dies also. When she is buried, her husband's soul is ceremonially summoned to take up its residence in a paper scroll bearing the _pa ko tzŭ_ ("eight characters" naming the year, month, day and hour of birth), and this, with or without a straw effigy, is formally placed in the grave by the widow's side.

A practical reason for this proceeding at once suggests itself if it has happened that the couple were childless and were the owners of property. It then becomes necessary for the elders of the clan to select an heir; and as an adopted heir--who must be a "spare" son of a relative--is obliged to separate himself from his own branch of the clan and to regard the dead man and his wife for the future as his proper parents, matters must be so arranged that he can become possessor of his adoptive father's spirit-tablet. As the dead man's spirit is not supposed to take up its abode in the tablet until he has been interred with the proper rites in the family graveyard, it is necessary, if his body is missing, to evoke and inter its spiritual representative. If this were not done, the adopted heir would be unable to carry on the ancestral rites except in an irregular way, and this might lead to serious legal difficulties later on in the event of another member of the clan disputing the genuineness of the adoption and heirship.

A point worth noting in connection with ancestral worship and adoption is that (in this part of China at least) the mere fact of childlessness does not necessarily lead a man to adopt a son: it is childlessness combined with the ownership of property that induces him to do so. We will suppose that a man has obtained his share of the family inheritance; that it is too small to support him; that he has sold it to relatives and with the cash proceeds has gone abroad to make a living; that he returns as an old man, childless and penniless: this man will in all probability show no desire to adopt a son, nor indeed is it likely that he could succeed in doing so if he wished it. The ancestral worship will not suffer by his childless death provided he has brothers and nephews to perpetuate the family _sacra_. Even if it happens that he is actually the last of his house and that his death will bring the ancestral cult of his line to an abrupt conclusion, it is not likely that, for the sole purpose of carrying on the sacra, the last of the line will bestir himself to go through the formalities necessary for the adoption of a son. The fact is that the possession of property--especially landed property--is regarded in practice as an inseparable condition of the continuation of the ancestral rites. This theory is often expressed in the formula _mei-yü ch'an-yeh mei-yü shên-chu_--"no ancestral property, no ancestral tablets." If the spirits of the deceased ancestors have been so regardless of the interests of their descendants that they have allowed the family property to pass into the hands of strangers, it is thought that they have only themselves to blame if for them the smoke of incense no longer curls heavenward from the domestic altars. Indeed, there is a vague idea that as the family line dwindles and finally becomes extinct on the material plane, so on the spiritual plane the ancestral ghosts gradually fade away either into non-existence or into a state of Nirvana-like quiescence.

A childless old man who has property is in China, as in the West, the object of the most tender solicitude on the part of brothers and cousins with large families. They are continually impressing upon him the gravity of his offence in not providing for the succession and for the suitable disposal of his property, and unceasingly urge the claims of this nephew or that to formal adoption. If the old man has chosen a boy or young man for whom he happens to have affection, and if the choice meets with general approval, then every one is happy, and an adoption deed is drawn up and attested by all the near relatives. But if his choice falls on one who is considered to be too distant a connection for adoption, or if the elders of the clan for some other reason object to the proposal, then the old man is in a difficulty, for he is not entirely a free agent in the matter. He might get an adoption deed drawn up without consulting any one, but if it were not properly attested by his relatives it would be treated by them as null and void. Adoption, no less than the sale of land, is an affair not of the individual but of the family.

Disputes of this kind are the not infrequent cause of lawsuits. An old man once complained before me that though the youth he wished to adopt belonged to the proper generation (that is, the generation immediately junior to that of the adopter) and was not an only son, and though both the youth and his father had agreed to the adoption, yet the other relatives had held aloof when they were invited to sign the adoption deed, and had absolutely refused to take any part in the proceedings. This implied, of course, that when the time came they would refuse to recognise the legality of the adoption. He therefore besought me to compel or persuade the obstinate relatives to come to a more reasonable frame of mind. "I am now eighty-one years old"--so ran the preamble of his petition--"and I do not know how long I have to live. When morning dawns I cannot be sure that I shall see the evening; in another day my eyes may be closed for ever; and if I die with the bitter knowledge that for me there will be no ancestral sacrifices, then, indeed, miserable shall I be down in the Yellow Springs [of death]." It is of course impossible to decide such cases without taking into full account the nature of the objections raised by the relatives: they are often selfish, but as a rule they are not baseless or frivolous.

Ancestral spirits are regarded as beneficent beings who never causelessly use their mysterious powers to injure the living; but if their descendants lead evil lives, or neglect the family sacrifices, or treat the sacred rules of filial piety with contempt, then the spirits will in all probability exercise the parental prerogatives of punishment. The power of a father in China to castigate his son is theoretically as absolute in the case of a grown-up son as in the case of one who is still a child: similarly it is supposed that the father does not, by the mere accident of death, divest himself of his patriarchal rights of administering justice and inflicting punishment on his sons and grandsons. Provided a man carefully observes the traditional ceremonies and leads a good life according to the accepted ethics of his race, he knows that he has nothing to fear from the souls of his ancestors.

But there are in China various classes of ghosts who are supposed to be highly malevolent and to constitute no small danger to the community. There are, for example, the ghosts whose tempers have been soured by calamity and misfortune; those whose bodies have not been buried; those who were drowned at sea; those who ended their mortal lives by unjustifiable suicide and haunt the place where they died until they can, by ghostly suggestions, prevail on one of their earthly neighbours to follow their example;[227] those who died before accomplishing a vow or completing an act of vengeance: these and many others are ghosts or evil spirits which the wise man who walks warily through life will do his best to avoid.

The curious and cruel superstition which sometimes prevents a Chinese from helping a drowning comrade even when he could save the man without danger to himself has its origin in a fear that he will incur the deadly hostility of a spirit that demands the toll of a human life. It is even thought in some places that by saving your friend you may be condemning yourself to be his future substitute. This superstition has existed in many parts of the world--from Ireland to the Solomon Islands.[228] It need hardly be said that educated opinion in China is altogether opposed to the heartless abandonment of drowning men: the superstition is an active force only in a few localities, and only to a minute extent, if at all, may it be said to exist in Weihaiwei.

A vestige of it is possibly to be traced in the fact that "wrecking" is not regarded as a very serious breach of sound ethics. When British rule was first established at Weihaiwei pitiful scenes were to be witnessed during the tempests of winter, when junk after junk was hurled against the rock-bound coast. No great effort was made to save human life; indeed, there is reason to believe that men were allowed to freeze to death on the shore or to be battered to death by the merciless waves while those who could and should have come to their rescue actually stepped over their bodies while on the eager search for remnants of wrecked cargo. All this has been so greatly changed that storm-driven junks in the Gulf of Chihli have been known to make deliberately for the coasts of Weihaiwei, their crews believing that if disaster must come there would be a greater chance of safety for themselves and less risk of having their cargoes looted on the shores of British territory than anywhere else along the coast of Shantung. Two or three of the village headmen have shown great loyalty in accepting and carrying out British policy in this matter, and have been personally instrumental in saving numbers of lives and in helping the crews of wrecked junks to salve their cargoes and to repair the damage done to their vessels. The headman who has shown himself most energetic in this good work deserves special mention. He is Ch'ê Shuo-hsüeh, the district headman of Hai-hsi-t'ou. To him the Government of Weihaiwei has presented a _pien_ or carved complimentary tablet.[229] The inscription reads _Chêng jên yü wei_--"Human lives rescued from peril." Tablets of this kind when presented by the official authorities are highly valued by the Chinese, and are preserved as heirlooms.

But the spirits that drag men into the waters of a river or down to Lung Wang's palace in the depths of ocean at least make a practice of confining their activity to their chosen element. Far more dangerous are the gloomy homeless souls that stalk the country fields and prowl round villages, always on the look-out for victims and always ready to deceive the ignorant. There are terrible vampires and devil-foxes that throw mists over men's eyes and minds and make them believe they see before them damsels of bewitching beauty. It is difficult indeed to save any one who has once passed under the dominion of a fox-wife: he is a doomed man. A prevalent belief on the subject of ghosts and goblins and evil spirits is based on a kind of theory of predestination. The man who is fated not to be bothered by such beings will escape them; he who is fated to be their prey cannot by any possibility avoid them. The Chinese popular saying puts it more neatly: "He who is born lucky can laugh at demons; the unlucky wight becomes the demon's plaything."

The Weihaiwei Annals tell a story of a man who must have been born lucky. His name was Kuo and he belonged to Ch'in Ts'un, a village that lies a few miles from Port Edward. One evening he was returning from the sea-side with a load of fish. On the way he met a ghost, who pressed Kuo to allow him to carry his load. Kuo, not in the least dismayed, congratulated himself on a welcome relief and promptly placed his burden on the ghost's shoulders. Man and ghost trudged along contentedly side by side for some distance, but on arriving at Ch'in Ts'un the dogs began to bark, and the ghost, thinking this was no place for him, suggested that he must say good-bye. Kuo refused to hear of such a thing and insisted that the ghost should accompany him home and share his evening meal. On reaching home Kuo asked his unearthly visitor to sit down, and ordered his wife and child to set about getting supper ready. When the water was boiling he furtively threw into the cooking-pot some fragments of decayed wood and an old nail. The whole party, including the ghost, enjoyed a hearty meal, and when it was over the ghost took his leave without having done the least harm to any one.

"If men are not afraid of ghosts," adds the Weihaiwei chronicler, "ghosts will not be able to do them any injury. When this story is attentively considered the truth of that statement will become increasingly evident." But he tells the story with perhaps the suggestion of a twinkle in his eye: for in the course of the narrative he interjects the remark, to which he adds no comment, that Kuo's besetting weakness was strong drink. It is remarkable that he offers no explanation of Kuo's action in throwing pieces of decayed wood and a nail into the cooking-pot, though this was just where Kuo showed his cunning. To put rotten wood and old iron into one's porridge will appear a meaningless rite to the uninstructed. It is a practical illustration of a popular Chinese belief that marvellous efficacy in destroying the evil influences of ghosts and demons and other ill-omened beings is inherent in rotten wood and nails taken from _old coffin-boards_ which have been actually used for the burial of a corpse. Kuo's rotten wood was--though the chronicler leaves that important point to his reader's intelligence--wood that had once formed part of a coffin.[230] This little story shows conclusively that though in Europe if one sups with the devil one must use a long spoon, in Weihaiwei one wants nothing more than a piece of coffin-wood and an old nail.

As it is no one's special business to propitiate malevolent spirits, the obligation is one that is understood to rest with the Government. Among the numerous religious duties of the district-magistrates is that of quieting the evil propensities of all bad ghosts or spirits. In the district-city of Jung-ch'êng, for instance, among the altars at which official rites must periodically take place is one called the _Li T'an_, a phrase which may be translated as an Altar to Evil Spirits. Three times a year--namely at the three great festivals of the Dead or Souls' Days[231]--the district-magistrate and other local officials attired in ceremonial robes proceed to the _Li T'an_ and there offer up sacrifices of propitiation to all harmful spirits. The process consists in issuing to all homeless and tablet-less ghosts a solemn invitation to a banquet. The viands provided are three sheep, three pigs, three measures of grain and an indefinite quantity of paper-money. All this is supposed to satiate or pacify the spirits so that they cease to do harm to mankind at least until the arrival of the next sacrificial festival.

In China, as in Europe, there are various strange beliefs connected with the mysterious powers supposed to be inherent in corpses. As soon as a man or woman is dead the family take care that no dogs or cats (especially cats) shall be allowed into the mortuary chamber, as it is believed that so long as the coffin has not been closed the approach of one of these animals will cause the corpse to jump. This is a well-known superstition in Weihaiwei; and from De Groot's work, which deals more particularly with a portion of the southern province of Fuhkien, it may be gathered that it exists in other parts of the Empire also.[232] De Groot (who mentions cats only, not dogs) accounts for the idea by referring it to the domain of tiger-lore. Each member of the feline race, he says, is supposed to have on its tail a miraculous hair, which has the power of bringing the soul back to any human body from which it had already departed. But why should this be objected to, seeing that, as De Groot has himself pointed out, the main object of the tearless howling at Chinese funerals, which has so often rather unjustly excited the ridicule of Europeans, is to call back the soul of the departed?

The explanation that has been given me in Weihaiwei, with regard to the cat and dog superstition, is that the hair or fur of these animals (especially that of the cat) contains so much "lightning" (electricity) that the corpse is liable to be galvanised by it into an uncanny though only temporary activity. Whatever the true explanation may be, it is interesting to note that here we have one more of those very numerous fragments of folk-lore that connect the far East with the far West. In the Orkneys and Shetlands, when a death has taken place and the corpse has been laid out, _all cats are locked up_.[233] It would be interesting to know what the local explanation of the custom is in that corner of the British Isles. Similar beliefs as to the malign influence of cats on corpses exist in the Border country. On the Scottish side it is believed to be so unlucky for a dog or cat to pass over a corpse that the poor animal, if it has been seen doing so, is--or used to be--killed without mercy.[234] Mr. G. L. Gomme, who cites this Scottish superstition from Pennant, states that the same belief is to be found in Northumberland. "In one case," he says, "just as a funeral was about to leave the house, the cat jumped over the coffin, and no one would move till the cat was destroyed."[235] A dog, too, was killed on another occasion for a similar reason. That there is a close connection between cats and evil spirits may be taken as one of the elementary doctrines of "black magic," both in China and in Europe;[236] but popular antipathy to the unfortunate animal on this account has never become so intense in China as at one time it became in Europe, where--in Paris and other places--cats used to be burned alive in bonfires.[237]

Among other superstitions connected with corpses may be mentioned that relating to mirrors, though in Weihaiwei it is very nearly extinct. In many parts of China, when a death occurs all mirrors in the house are immediately covered up. One explanation of the custom is that if the dead man happens to notice a reflection of himself in the glass he will be much horrified to find that he has become a ghost, and much disappointed with his own appearance as such. Another explanation is that every mirror has a mysterious faculty of invisibly retaining and storing up everything that is reflected on its surface, and that if anything so ill-omened as a corpse or a ghost were to pass before it, the mirror would thenceforth become a permanent radiator of bad luck. In some Chinese households mirrors are covered up or turned upside-down, not only when a corpse is in the house, but after sundown every day: for it is thought that evil spirits and other unlucky influences are free at night to wander whither they will, and that if they pass in front of a mirror that is not covered, that mirror will become a source of danger and unhappiness to the family that owns it. The mirror superstition, like that of cats, is not confined to China. In Orkney and Shetland, when a death occurs, not only are all cats locked up, as already mentioned, but covers are put over all looking-glasses.[238] The same custom exists on the Scottish mainland[239] and also in many other parts of Europe, including England, Belgium and Germany; and it is also to be found in Madagascar and in India.[240]

But the cat and mirror notions sink into insignificance when we contemplate another corpse-superstition to be found at Weihaiwei and in other parts of China: a superstition of so extraordinary a nature that it is almost certain to be received with incredulity by all who are not in a position personally to verify the fact of its existence. It is said that when a death has occurred the face of the corpse and all other exposed parts (such as the hands) should be carefully covered with a cloth, in order to prevent the tears of the mourners from coming in contact with the dead man's flesh. To make doubly sure, it is considered advisable for the mourners not to weep over the corpse, but at some little distance from it. If these precautions are neglected and tears do by some chance fall on the corpse, and if this happens on an "unlucky"[241] day, the results may be disastrous, not only to the family chiefly concerned, but also to the whole population of the district. The tears, it is said, find their way through the dead man's skin into his heart, where they are liable to create in him a kind of quasi-vitality long after he has been consigned to his grave. On his body will grow wings and white feathers, and though he remain in his grave he is able to use these feathers and wings with extraordinary effect. Just as he absorbed the tear-drops of his weeping friends, so he is supposed to attract to his own grave all the moisture that should be distributed in the form of rain over the whole country round, and by moving his wings to and fro he so fans the clouds that no rain descends except on his own grave. Some say that the horrible feathered creature is able to leave his grave at night and fly through the neighbourhood in the terrible guise of a malevolent demon. If he knocks at a door, it is believed that one of the inmates of the house is doomed to a speedy death.[242] If the locality is visited by a prolonged drought and the usual official prayers have been unavailing, the people petition the magistrate to send out his runners to inspect all the graveyards of the neighbourhood.

As soon as they have found one on which the soil is soft and moist while all the surrounding grass-mounds are parched and brown, this is regarded as a proof that a _han-pa_ (such is the technical name of the feathered corpse) lies in that spot. The wet grave has no sooner been discovered than the magistrate or some person authorised by him leads thither a crowd of the local people armed with brooms[243] and hooks. The coffin is exhumed and the lid opened. No sooner is this done than all the bystanders rush forward with their weapons to strike down the corpse or to trip him up or hook him if he attempts to run or fly away: for this, according to the story, is what the _han-pa_ always tries to do. As soon as he has been carefully secured and recoffined, the dreaded _han-pa_ is placed on a heap of firewood and burned to ashes. Copious rain is certain to fall the same evening or the following day. Faith in this remarkable superstition seems to be well rooted in Weihaiwei. One of my informants, himself a believer, expressed amazement at hearing that no such notions existed in England. On being asked why it was considered necessary to open the coffin-lid, he said it was to enable the relatives of the dead man to see for themselves that the corpse really was a _han-pa_, and that there was no alternative but to burn it: otherwise they might feel that their dead relative had been grievously maligned and his remains treated with unpardonable disrespect. "What happens," I asked, "when the dead man turns out to be just an ordinary corpse?" "But that could never be," was the decisive answer. "The moist grave in a time of drought is an infallible sign of a _han-pa_. There can be no mistake."

I have described this superstition as it exists at Weihaiwei, but it is by no means confined to that locality. The word _han-pa_ means "demon of drought," and the earliest mention of it in extant Chinese literature is in the beautiful hymn of King Hsüan, preserved in the Book of Poetry (_Shih Ching_) edited by Confucius.[244] It is there mentioned as being the cause of a great drought that appears to have occurred about the year 821 B.C. The drought-demon is also referred to in the _Shan Hai Ching_, a curious quasi-geographical work of disputed date. A certain Taoist Book of Marvels tells us that "in the southern regions there is a man-like creature two or three feet high, with a naked body and an eye on the top of its head. It moves with the swiftness of wind, and wherever it is seen a calamitous drought is sure to occur. It is called _pa_."[245] From none of these authorities do we gather that there was any connection between the drought-demon and a human corpse over which tears had been shed. Wang Ch'ung (first century A.D.) writes of "flying corpses" (_fei shih_),[246] but this does not bring us much further. How the superstition as it at present exists grew up is far from clear, and it seems likely that it represents a coalescence of several beliefs that were once quite separate. De Groot discusses the subject with his usual thoroughness,[247] though he does not appear to have come across the superstition in the form in which it is known at Weihaiwei.

It might well be supposed that in the _han-pa_, if in nothing else, we have come across a piece of Chinese folk-lore that has no parallel in Europe; but perhaps our supposition would be unwarrantably hasty. I find that in the Highlands of Scotland "it was thought wrong to weep, lest the tears should hurt the dead."[248] Then again there is, or was, an English superstition against the use of certain feathers in feather-beds and pillows. The feathers of the domestic fowl, goose, pigeon, partridge, and sometimes those of wild birds generally, were tabooed.[249] No reason has been given so far as I know for this singular and apparently senseless idea, any more than for the Highland notion that tears were hurtful to the dead. It may be far-fetched to suppose on the strength of these old wives' tales that the shedding of tears over corpses was once believed by our own remote ancestors to turn dead men into feathered demons like the Chinese _han-pa_; but perhaps it might appear less unlikely that there is some extremely ancient and now forgotten connection between the British and the Chinese superstitions if we were able to find some traces of similar beliefs in the intervening countries of Europe or Asia.

For long I despaired of finding anything that might be regarded as a missing link; but Bohemia is the country that seems to have supplied it at last. The following letter will show that in Europe, as well as in Far Cathay, there still exists in our own generation the remnant of a belief that drought may in certain circumstances be caused by a human corpse, and that such a corpse is in some mysterious way associated with feathers.

"In the Bohemian village of Metschin," says a writer in _Folk-lore_,[250] "the body of the schoolmaster, who was buried early in May amid many marks of respect from the inhabitants, is to be exhumed. There, as elsewhere, a great drought prevails, and the story has got about that a cushion with feathers was put under his head. Nine-tenths of the population believe that this is the cause of the drought, hence the proposal to exhume him and remove the cushion, which is in reality filled with hay. Is this case parallel to the prejudice against the feathers of certain birds in beds and pillows, or is there some special connection between feathers and rain? More particularly in Australia feathers and hair are associated with rainmaking."

It will be noticed that in China the drought-causing demon grows the feathers on its own body, whereas in Bohemia it merely lies on a feathered pillow. That the two beliefs had a common origin, and that the two British superstitions already cited may be connected with them, will not, perhaps, be regarded as altogether beyond the bounds of possibility.

FOOTNOTES:

[213] See pp. 262 _seq._

[214] _The Religious System of China_, vol. i. p. 212. For full details as to the procedure at Chinese funerals and the religious ceremonies connected therewith, the reader is referred to Dr. De Groot's monumental work, which deals minutely with this and kindred subjects.

[215] See p. 263. Needless to say, the ancestral temples of great or wealthy families are on a very much grander scale.

[216] See p. 256.

[217] Instead of red ink it is in some parts of China customary to use blood extracted from a cock's comb. For an explanation of this, and for a full description of the ceremony of dotting the tablet, see De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 214-19.

[218] See illustration.

[219] The terms used are honorific.

[220] That is, the eldest son of his father.

[221] See illustration facing next page, and that facing p. 278.

[222] _Op. cit._ vol. i. p. 114.

[223] We may smile at Chinese simplicity in such matters, but exactly the same ideas have existed in the West. "A woman in our parish," writes a resident in Wiltshire, "had her leg amputated and got a little coffin made for it. She caused it to be buried in the churchyard"--with the view of joining it there at some future day. Many similar cases have been observed in Ireland, and doubtless in many other parts of western Europe. (See _Folk-lore_, March 1907, pp. 82-3, and June 1907, p. 216.)

[224] De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. iii. p. 848.

[225] De Groot, _loc. cit._ p. 849.

[226] De Groot, _loc. cit._ p. 854. The punishment under the Penal Code for opening a grave and exposing the corpse is strangulation (subject to confirmation).

[227] See p. 222.

[228] See Grant Allen's _Evolution of the Idea of God_ (pp. 265-7); Tylor's _Primitive Culture_ (4th ed.), vol. i. pp. 108-11; W. G. Black's _Folk-Medicine_, p. 29; and Dennys's _Folk-lore of China_, p. 22. The superstition sometimes takes the form of a belief that the rescued man will some day do some terrible injury to his rescuer--perhaps at the instigation of the evil spirit who was balked of his prey. It is quite erroneous to suppose that this superstitious objection to saving the drowning is prevalent throughout all China. De Groot (_op. cit._ vol. v. p. 526) states that he never found a trace of it in the province of Fuhkien; "while, moreover, all the Chinese we interrogated on this head protested against their humanity being thus called in question."

[229] For the headman in question and his _pien_, see illustration.

[230] For an account of the popular belief with regard to old coffin-wood and nails, see De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. i, pp. 328-9. See also Doolittle's _Social Life of the Chinese_, p. 561; and Dennys's _Folk-lore of China_ (p. 48), where it is said that "a nail that has been used in fastening up a coffin is a sovereign charm. This is sometimes beaten out into a rod or wire and, encased in silver, worn as a ring round the ankles or wrists." It is very curious that even in this matter of coffin-nails we can trace a close connection between Chinese and Western European folk-lore. In the Shetland Islands (which seem to possess many remarkable parallels with Chinese folk-lore) it is said that toothache can be cured by picking the tooth "with the nail of an old coffin." (_Folk-lore Journal_, vol. iii. p. 380.) In parts of Yorkshire it was once the custom to take some coffin-lead or other coffin-metal from a churchyard and have it made into a ring; it then became a cure for cramp. (_County Folk-lore_, vol. ii. [North Riding of Yorkshire] p. 171.) Similar beliefs existed elsewhere in England--in Devonshire, for example. (See W. G. Black's _Folk-Medicine_, p. 175.) It may be noted here that a thoroughly "orthodox" coffin in China is supposed to have no nails at all, or as few as possible. The various planks are fitted into grooves and notches with the deliberate intention of avoiding the necessity of nails. This doctrine is well understood at Weihaiwei and followed there as far as practicable. The explanation of the nailless coffin given by De Groot is that it dates from a period in extreme antiquity _when iron was unknown_. The form of coffin that was adopted in a primitive age from necessity is used in modern times from a spirit of conservatism, or from reverence for a custom that time has sanctified. (_See_ De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 95 and 286-7.) In Weihaiwei and many other places a single nail _which serves no practical purpose_ is driven in (only far enough to make it immobile) on one side of the coffin-lid, and this nail is decorated with parti-coloured threads. The people of Weihaiwei seem to have no explanation of this custom, but it is evidently a kind of charm to bring wealth, happiness and an ample progeny to the family. The charm is based on a play on the word _ting_, "nail," which also means _a man_, or _male offspring_. As the nail (_ting_) is driven into the parent's coffin, so, it is thought, will there always be males (_ting_) to carry on the family; and as these five-coloured threads are wound round the nail, so will wealth, prosperity, honours, long life and many children be the portion of the sons of the family for all time to come.

[231] See p. 192.

[232] De Groot, _op. cit._ vol. i. pp. 43-4; vol. v. p. 750. See also Dennys's _Folk-lore of China_, p. 20.

[233] _County Folk-lore_, vol. iii. (Orkney and Shetland), p. 216.

[234] Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_. See also Brand's _Antiquities_, vol. ii. p. 233.

[235] G. L. Gomme's _Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life_, p. 116. I cannot agree with Mr. Gomme's interpretation of the superstition. He regards it as connected with the "primitive hearth sacrifice." The Chinese parallels seem to have been unknown to him.

[236] For China, see Dennys's _Folk-lore of China_, pp. 48, 90-91.

[237] See Frazer's _Golden Bough_ (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 324 _seq._

[238] _County Folk-lore_, vol. iii. (Orkney and Shetland), p. 216.

[239] _Folk-lore Journal_, vol, ii. p. 281.

[240] Frazer's _Golden Bough_ (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 294 _seq._

[241] Every day in the Chinese calendar is either lucky, unlucky, or indifferent; and very many people will undertake no duty or work of importance until they have consulted the fortune-telling almanac (a new one is issued for each year), or have at least consulted temple oracles. The Jewish Sabbath is now believed to have originated in a similar superstition.

[242] Cf. the Irish and Scottish banshee.

[243] All evil demons are supposed to be afraid of brooms. See p. 190 (note).

[244] See Legge's _Chinese Classics_, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 532. The passage referred to is translated by Legge thus: "The demon of drought [_han-pa_] exercises his oppression, as if scattering flames and fire."

[245] This passage is quoted in the K'ang Hsi dictionary, s.v. _Pa_.

[246] _Lun Hêng_, transl. by Forke, pt. i. p. 243.

[247] _Op. cit._ vol. v. pp. 516-20, 761. For remarks on human spectres in the shape of birds, see vol. v. pp. 634 _seq._ For a reference to the spectres known in Europe as Vampires, see vol. v. p. 747 _seq._ For evidence as to the supposed existence of vampires and grave-demons in the Malay States, see Skeat's _Malay Magic_, pp. 103 and 327.

[248] _Folk-lore Journal_, vol. ii. (1884), p. 281.

[249] _Folk-lore_, September 1900, p. 243.

[250] Mädi Braitmaier in _Folk-lore_, December 1900, p. 437.