Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/139

 buzzing about, but as soon as they are caught they become pieces of paper again.

The leaves and twigs of a willow tree are broken into pieces and thrown into the river, where they appear to become fishes, but when caught they are simply the willow twigs.

A coin is placed on the upper side of a thick board with one hand and received on the lower side with the other.

A child is laid down with the stomach bent upwards, boxes full of heavy things are put on its stomach, then a man goes on to the top of the boxes, but still there is no sign of the distended stomach giving way under the weight.

A child is taken and rolled in red calico, the conjurer asks for money and, after a contribution has been given, a sword is displayed and the child yells, then another collection is taken up, after which the child's arm is cut off and thrown to the horrified crowd, and still another collection is taken up, then another arm is cut off and thrown out. The child is thus gradually dismembered before the gazing and credulous crowd, but the greatest wonder of all is that this child will be well and about the next day! This is generally the last and most exciting act of the conjurer in a place; for this he often gets large sums of money in collections.

Divination or Sorcery, Wu Shu (巫術).

A sorcerer is called tuan kung (端公); the classical name is nan wu (男巫), and the colloquial or slang name is kuei hsiang yo (鬼鄉約).

A witch is tuan kung p‘o (端公婆), tsou yin (走陰) p‘o, shên hsien (神仙) p‘o, or nü wu (女巫) (a bookish name). One term may be common in one place while another will be used elsewhere.

Though the art of divination is much the same everywhere, still the Tibetan art is more intense than that practised by the Chinese sorcerers. The Tibetan sorcerer does all the Chinese do and some things extra. So before dealing with