Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/137

 more complicated. A very little of each of the following articles is permanently deposited under the stone on which the tablet rests;—gold, silver, iron, brass, salt, tea, rice and beans. The feast may last for days, and two or three pigs may be killed for the occasion, but I have noticed that families who make much of this altar soon come to poverty. The following are some of the gods of this altar of the lemuria:

The general of the gods of the lemuria. The two lieutenants. The female general of the altar. The twelve flowery women who rule the women of the house for the year, each ruling one month. The three braves who fight for the family. Lo Kung of great mesmeric fame. Thousands of thousands of soldiers and horses. Myriads of myriads of leaders of spirits. The guardian of the east and west granaries. The governor of the tea and wine shops. The guardian of the farmyard.

When the altar is being pacified the gods of the cow, horse, sheep, chicken, dog, pig and cats have all to be dealt with and pacified. For this an animal-skin or an imitation animal is produced, someone gets inside it and imitates the cry of the animal.

Pa man chin pao yu ssŭ, 八蠻進寶游司. This is the guardian of the family wealth and is one of the gods of wealth, which are thus included in the altar. The Tibetans are mentioned because they are supposed to abound in the precious metal and the number eight is a lucky one, hence the saying, 要得發不離八, if a thing is to prosper you can't do without the number eight.

Conjuring (耍霸氣).

Tight-rope walking is common, ch‘ai so ch‘iao (踹索橋). The rope may be a hundred feet long and fifty above the ground. The performer is a girl of about ten, who carries a sandbag in each hand.

A woman stands on her head on a table and balances a wine cask first on one foot and then on the other, têng t‘an tzŭ (登𦉡子). Sometimes a child is put inside the cask and crawls out and sits on the top of it while it is balanced in the air.