CHINESE AND CHINESE CUSTOMS.
The longer you live in China and the better you know the people, the greater do your wonder and amazement increase. Their superstitions are as numerous almost as your thoughts. Their religious customs are so many and intricate, that they make burdens for the people more grievous to bear than those the Pharisees laid upon the Jews. They spend as much money on those, to us, useless and silly customs—ten times as much, I fully believe—as we Christians spend on the Gospel. A rich man, I am told, recently spent on the building of a paper house, which was burnt, for the use of the spirit of the head of the family who had died, and on the ceremonies connected with it, $10,000 in hard cash.
This is a large sum of money to spend on paper to be burnt simply in what, to us, seem perfectly ridiculous rites. But that is only a tithe of the money spent by such a family, on this religion, which God hates. These people believe that every man has three spirits. When he dies, one spirit goes to hell, the second dwells in the grave, and the third by due ceremonies is invited to take up its residence in a wooden tablet, on which his name is inscribed. This tablet is kept in the house, and the worship of it is the ancestral worship, which is the last thing a Chinaman will give up.
No later than yesterday we had a good example of the ceremony for the dead of which I have spoken. This is the case of a Chinaman born in Penang, whose wife died in the latter part of last year, but the ceremonies for providing for her comfort in Hades were not performed till yesterday. He should have performed these services several months ago, according to the proper custom, and was very much blamed by the Chinese for having delayed. He told me the secret of the business, however. He did not believe in the thing, as he said, but his wife’s mother was near at hand and all her relations, and because he was going to neglect the matter apparently, they began to give him trouble. For peace, therefore, he made the preparations. In the meantime, the body of his wife was still in the house in the coffin. A Chinese coffin is thick and air-tight—at least, no smell escapes from the decaying body, which sometimes is kept for years in the house or in a temple. This man was not a rich man, but was in good circumstances.
He prepared a house about twelve feet square, built of bamboo and paper, most beautifully and carefully finished, the painting on it representing brick, stone, marble, and woods of different kinds. Silver and gold leaf were used profusely; fruits and trees in relief, and figures of all shapes. Inside the house, which was, by the way, beautifully furnished with miniature furniture, reclined the lady of the house, to represent his wife, on a handsome couch. In the house were all the household utensils and everything indicative of wealth. At the door was a handsome sedan chair, and four coolies standing by, ready at her call. Around her were men and women servants in figures about eight inches high, some engaged in one work, some in another. Some were preparing rice, some baking, some washing clothes, some cleaning rice with a fanning mill. All was most tastefully and elegantly made up.
Before this house on a table were spread out all kinds of provisions—a little pig roasted, whole chickens, ducks, &c., &c. The heads of these all pointed toward the place where the woman sat. It is, by the way, a Chinese custom, to point the head of an animal, cooked, at the guest to whom you wish to show honor.
Outside and over the door of the house, and extending across the whole front, was an elaborate framework of bamboo, covered with gilt paper. This was supposed to represent the grounds before the house, and there were dozens of little figures, all representing the lady’s retainers—some as soldiers, runners, tradesmen, &c. And why all these things? For the comfort and use of the spirit in hell, to mitigate her torments by providing her with comforts. All these things cost about $40 or $50.
In another room, the ceremonies in connection with this were performed. Here was a table covered with priestly symbols, food, liquor, candles, and peculiar priestly appliances. About the table stood three Buddhist priests, and sitting on benches were four men with drum, cymbals and horns. For two days nearly they kept up incessantly the most fearful din, reading and howling at the top of the voice. Every now and then, the priests would perform a sort of dance. On the walls were hung large pictures of the torments practised in hell—most hideous pictures of pulling out men’s tongues and eyes, and tortures you would hardly think men capable of imagining. The little children of the dead woman were there, clothed in coarse sack-cloth, and kept busy taking part in the ceremonies, directed by the priests. In the place where the house was they would come in and bow down to the ground several times to their mother. The father stood by, looking on like one troubled and ashamed of the horrid nuisance, as he evidently thought it to be. In the morning, the whole thing was taken out and set on fire, and thus spirited away to the spiritual regions for the use of the poor woman.—From Presbyterian Record, Canada.