Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/211

 vats, also yin ch‘i, spoiled for lack of sun to dry it. If a woman during her forty days after confinement should venture near a paper factory, she will need to stand surety for the peace and prosperity of the factory for 120 days.

Fishermen dread the words fan wang, the net upset, also chiao jao, to implicate, by fishing up a human head or something else bad. The distiller dreads the words huai kang, that is, the butt is broken, as the wine will then lose its savour. He also fears tuan tso, which means that wine will be short weight.

On the fifth of the fifth moon every person reckons to lay aside work for a time; the fear is that sickness may overtake them if they don't. On the fifteenth of the seventh moon no guests are kept in the house, as the spirits of the ancestors are expected back to partake of the family feast. No debts are collected at this feast as it is purely an ancestral worship feast, and the ancestors must have their dues paid to them. This is called t‘ao ya pa chang (討啞巴帳), the dumb asking for accounts to be paid. Perhaps readers may have noticed that in the first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth moons funerals and marriages are very rare, and no official likes to go to a new position during these months unless he is absolutely forced to by circumstances.

The first-born son of the family is never allowed to talk to or play with a pregnant woman, for fear the child's spirit should be called to be the other woman's son. Some sick persons will not see people, chi jên (忌人). Women avoid visitors on even days and men on odd days; there is some superstitious dread that visitors might call away their spirits.

At such times a bamboo with a flag on it is stuck outside the door, and people seeing it know not to enter the house. When a new animal has been bought and taken home, a dirty person is not allowed to lead it into the stable, nor is a lazy person allowed to feed it, for fear the animal should get degraded through contact with them.

In arranging the position of a bed in a bed-room, it is never put facing the door as that is how a coffin is placed.