Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/47

Rh Another account says they were written by 漢班超, Pan chao, also of the Han dynasty. Both men may have done it, but the former story is the more generally believed.

The writing of a family altar tablet is an important matter with many people. The wisest and most learned man available is asked to write it; he puts on his best official robes and breathes upon his pencil to give life to it and to the tablet.

The ancient ancestral tablet 門中歷代高曾遠祖位 mên chung li tai kao tsêng yüan tsu wei, has largely been ousted by the Heaven and Earth tablet; but some scholars still use it because they consider Heaven and Earth are only to be worshipped by the emperor. The ancestral tablet is only written to three generations next to the living head of the family, but in all, eighteen are included, nine ascending generations and nine descending. The nine dead are named, 鼻祖 pi tsu, nose ancestor, or first ancestor; so called because the nose is the part supposed to be first conceived isin [sic] the womb; 2, yüan 遠 or distant, 3, tʽai 太 great; 4, lieh 烈 illustrious; 5, tʽien 天 heavenly; 6, kao 高 high; each of these adjectives being joined to tsu, ancestor; the deceased great-grandfather, grandfather and father are respectively 7, tsêng tsu 曾祖, 8, tsu kung 祖公 and 9, hsien kʽao 顯考. The nine descending generations are the son, called nan. 男, and the rest are sun 孫 grandson combined with the following adjectives: ssŭ 祀, hsüan 玄, lai 來, kʽun 晜, jêng 礽 yün 雲, and êrh 耳; the last name being again on the supposition that the ear is the latest member formed.

These eighteen generations come within the scope of the family altar. Sometimes, for brevity, pi tsu represents the ancestors and êrh sun the posterity.

Thus in ancestral worship prayer is made to the departed heads of the family for a long continuation of the line; this is spoken of as 香爐灰不斷 hsiang lu hui pu tuan, to perpetuate the ashes in the incense pot. There can be no greater insult than to empty out the ashes from the incense urn; and for fear of this being done many old people will not permit the family altar to be touched by anyone.

To obtain sons they make pilgrimages to distant shrines; a man on changing his residence invokes the spirits of his