Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/244

236 despotic power over his person; but whether such be his sensations or not the prescribed grief must be exhibited, the prescribed routine of eulogistic ceremonies performed.

The Chinese theory of death is that it takes place in accordance with the reckoning of heaven, exercised through the power of the god or goddess controlling the special disease from which the patient suffers. To this delegate, therefore, the prayers for recovery are addressed. It may be here noted that noon and midnight are considered to be the two periods most fatal to life.

A curious aversion is exhibited by some to saving the life of a person in imminent danger—as from drowning, the belief entertained being that the spirit of the person near death is destined to relieve that of the last person deceased from keeping further watch and ward.

The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, with the North American Indians and many other savage tribes, have agreed with the Chinese in rendering religious homage to the departed, and in pacifying gratifying, and honouring their manes in the world of spirits.

The superstitious nature of the Chinese, ever prone to believe in the presence of the supernatural, renders them extremely susceptible to a belief in the power of the spirits of the deceased over the survivors. It is in this that their sacrifices to their ancestors, their deification of illustrious men of former times, the erection of orbate temples to the spirits of those who have no relatives, and the annual feeding of hungry ghosts, have their origin and their explanation.

So material indeed is the view taken by them of the spirit-world, that the practice instituted by Chi Hwangti, 250, of having his slaves killed and buried with him, to serve him in his future state, is still to be traced in the burning at the present day of mock paper-money, paper clothes, sedan chairs, bearers, &c. &c., for the service of the deceased in the spirit-world—fire, the great transforming power, being considered efficient to change these paper-representations into realities in the region of the shades.

In addition to thus supplying the bodily wants—if such a term may be permitted—of the spirits of their ancestors, the Chinese further consider it their duty to inform them—through the ancestral tablets—of any important family events which may be about to take place;