[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.