Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/346

332 he is possessed of devils. Chills are the most common form of possession. What makes a man shake if he is not in the power of a devil? So the people believe, and a priest is called instead of a doctor, and prayers take the place of pills. Epileptic fits or convulsions are the devil in a malignant form; and if a man is taken thus in a crowded building, that building is rapidly deserted.

A good doctor could go among the Chinese and, by curing the sick, attending his physic by incantations, enthrone himself as a deity in the belief of that deluded people. When a man is dying, no money would induce a Chinaman to remain near him. I first met this fact on a Pacific steamer bound from San Francisco to Hong-Kong. I was walking on the deck with the ship's surgeon, when a stream of Chinamen came rushing on deck from the lower decks like a colony of ants when disturbed. I asked what had caused such a stampede. The doctor replied that a Chinaman was dying. He hurried below, and found a man gasping his last breath, with consumption. I discovered later, when pursuing my studies of Chinese religions, the secret of this strange stampede. The devil was after the soul of that poor consumptive, and the rest were not going to take any chances by remaining near him in the final struggle.

Not every wise-looking magpie or crow, which alights upon the bough of a tree to rest, is the innocent creature it appears to be; but a devil in disguise spying out the lay of the land. Nor do the frightened people seek relief by killing the bird of evil omen, but they call a priest to look into the matter. He generally advises that the tree be cut down in the night and removed.

Thus, when the devil, alias a magpie, returns to his perch, he is fooled, and thus thrown off the track.

The ceremonies so often observed on occasions of death all have their origin in the demonology of the Taouists. Paper suits, paper palaces, paper pipes and money are burned when a man dies, to provide the soul of the dead with means of bribing its way through the devil's kingdom to its rest, and the suits burned are often patterned after high officials' gowns, in order to impress more favorably the spirits encountered on the mysterious journey.

Taouist priests are called to consult the soul of the departed to ascertain its wishes. They discover the locality for burial, and indicate all details of this last service to the dead.

The Shanghai Railroad met its doom from this source. The priests informed the people that the rumbling noise of the cars and the steam-engine were distasteful to the dead who filled the numerous mounds along its course. To appease the wrath of the dead, Chinese capitalists bought the road with its equipments,