Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/36

24 he may first feed it with the bread and then, if necessary, drive it away with the stick.

Coffins are of various prices, according to the wood and varnish used. It is common for elderly people to have their coffins lying ready in the house for many years. The provision of a good coffin and an expensive funeral gets over many a difficulty in family relationships.

The body is encoffined 入殮 ju lien as soon as everything is ready. The sealing of the coffin lid 封棺 fêng kuan or 閉殮 pi lien takes place three days later, the delay being to give the spirit time to return if it will. Black varnish is generally used for sealing, and a charm is pasted on at the top and bottom. The stick and bread are taken out before the sealing. Three days later the coffin is placed in position in the central room, preparatory to the chanting for the dead. It may remain there for three months 三月殯 san yüeh pin, or for a year.

To show the importance of burial, there is a saying 亡人得土如得金. Earth is to the dead what gold is (to the living).

Funeral rites are counted more important than care for the living. The Li-chi 禮記 ideal is for one mourning a parent to have a bed of straw and a pillow of clay 寢苦枕塊, and for three years the teeth must not be shewn in laughter; neither wine nor meat should enter the mouth, nor silks cover the body; but coarse weeds and coarse food must be the mourner's lot.

The rule to mourn a parent for three years is based on the mother's nursing of her child for that time.

Strips of white paper are pasted on the sign-board, etc., mourning scrolls over the door-gods and the sorcerer's chart over the family altar.

There is a custom confined to the mountain districts and decidedly aboriginal: old and young of both sexes sing and dance in a ring round a pot of wine 跳鍋椿 t'iao kuo chuang. After dancing, each person cuts a piece from a large lump of pork, sits on the ground and sucks wine from the pot through a long pipe stem. This goes on for two or three days and nights.