Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/168

 deities to be invoked. The altar is sometimes set up in a temple, but sometimes in a booth for the purpose. The idolatries practised and the rites performed are much the same as in sorcery. In each family the kitchen god is specially worshipped.

A boat is made of a bamboo frame covered with paper, for carrying away the demons of fire and plague. At the end of the feast it is carried out and destroyed. The following is the tablet pasted on the door of the temple where the fast bureau is situated; at the close it is carried away (火墀分遞四值功曹傳送土地) to the piazza where the offerings are burned, also to the spirits of the four points of the compass, and to the precinct god.

The tablet Wên ho p‘ai, to the god of fire and pestilence is set up at the door of each house where they have contributed to the funds of the fast. It is presented by the managers of the fast and is carried out along with the other paraphernalia at the close: 當年太歲瘟火二部至德尊神各家本宅廚竈神君. To the spirit of pestilence and fire of the current year. To the kitchen god of each family.

Ch‘ao fan (朝幡). To visit the streamers. Each 10 or 20 families besides having streamers stretched across the street, have a small flag staff set up in their vicinity, some 15 to 2O feet high; during the day a long yellow streamer is suspended from it, and at night a light is displayed there. The officiating Taoist sorcerer visits each of these poles morning and night throughout the fast. On the first visit he burns an official dispatch to the god of fire and pestilence, and afterwards burns paper each morning and evening and kneels and worships the fire spirit of the vicinity. The tablet written and pasted on the pole is as follows: 幡桿使者樹幟大神. To the angel of the pole, the great spirit who unfurls the flag.

It is said that this fast was instituted by a priest at Niang tzŭ ling named Ch‘ên Chung-yen soon after the Chinese subjugated the Chin Ch‘uan (金川) district; at that time, whole armies of Chinese and aboriginal troops were