Lion and Dragon in Northern China

by Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

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.

SPIRIT-TABLETS.
In the illustration on the left the slide has been removed.

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.