SUPERSTITIONS
The superstitions of China are countless, and of course differ in
different parts of the Empire, but you will like to hear of some that
touch the lives of the boys and girls.
When boys and girls are born, their fortunes are told. The baby’s
father gets the child’s ‘eight characters’ written down on a piece of
paper. Two of the ‘characters’ tell the year, two the month, two the
day and two the hour when the little one came into this world; these
he takes to the man who ‘looks at people’s lives,’ who he believes can
tell from them whether the child will be fortunate or unhappy in this
world. This fortune-teller, who is very often blind, has a great deal
to do with baby’s fate. If, for instance, he says that fire enters
into its disposition, and someone else in the family has a fortune
connected with wood, then the child will surely bring bad fortune to
that person, for fire burns wood. The people believe what the blind
man says, and so poor little baby is given away, or even in some cases
put to death, to prevent its bringing trouble upon the family. When
baby grows older it is supposed to be in danger from wicked spirits.
Little gilt idols are put in its cap, to frighten away these demons,
a favourite figure being that of a roly-poly bald idol, called ‘Fat
Strength.’ When a little older, a tiny round tray, foot-measure and
pair of scissors are sewn on the front band of its cap, for the same
purpose. Coins, charms of copper and silver, and little square bags of
incense powder, with the names of idols written on them, are also hung
round children’s necks to keep away the evil spirits.
If a little one takes ill the father sometimes begs one cash from a
hundred different people among his neighbours and friends. With these
coins he has a chain made to go round the child’s neck and a padlock
to fasten it tightly. In this way he hopes, poor man, to fasten baby’s
soul firmly to its body, and so prevent it from dying. If, in spite of
this, baby gets worse, its father thinks some idol is enticing its soul
away from its little body. After finding out which idol is probably the
thief, he takes one of the child’s little garments and puts it into an
empty basket, which has a length of dry straw rope tied round it. Then
he goes to the temple, and, after offering things which he thinks will
please the idol, and make it willing to let baby’s spirit go again,
he spreads out the little jacket, believing that the tiny soul will
recognise its own garment and get into it. Then he puts the garment
carefully into his basket and lights the straw rope that it may burn
slowly, and lead the little wandering spirit safely home.[5]
In some places the father goes about with the tiny jacket hung on the
end of a stick, calling baby’s name aloud, hoping to find the little
wandering spirit in this way.
Boys and girls early come to know the stone lions, which stand opposite
points where straight lanes or streets enter other streets, or in front
of temples and yamens. These curious images have broad noses and tufted
manes and tails. Some crouch close against a block in a wall, with
round eyes and long teeth, looking as if they were going to walk out
of the stone. Many have their heads on one side, with a double string
hanging down from their mouths. Some have a baby lion in front of them
or a carved ball under one paw. A few have a ball inside their stone
jaws and some are crouching as if to spring. The children are told that
these stone lions stand in front of houses to prevent evil spirits
or ghosts from coming along the lane to hurt people inside. They say
that in the middle of the night the lions come down from their stone
pedestals and play about the streets with their balls, rolling over and
over one another! One lion, which was supposed to change himself into
a man and roam about the streets, has been caged with bars and is kept
safely shut up in a little temple of his own in Chinchew.
Then children are also told that coffins, which have been shone upon by
the moon, turn into ghosts and walk about the streets, trying to catch
people. They think there are demons who call and howl whenever anyone
is going to die. They say, too, that the spirits of drowned people
turn into duck demons, which swim near the edge of ponds. If anyone is
foolish enough to try to catch them, they drag him under the water and
drown him. The drowned man then becomes the duck demon, and the first
man can escape. Then children are told of serpent demons and foxes that
turn into people, and bring hurt to those who take them into their
houses. A famous story is that of a man who met a beautiful lady and
married her. One day he came home rather sooner than his wife expected
him, and could not find her anywhere. At last he peeped through a hole
in an old shed, and there he saw a hideous demon, painting its skin,
which was stretched on a board. Looking at the skin the man saw that it
was his wife’s, and so knew he had married a fox-demon and not a woman.
“If you could stretch your hand three feet above your head you would
touch the spirits,” is a common saying.
Fork-like prongs stick out from the roofs of the houses to drive away
demons. Streets and roads often, for no reason, turn a sharp corner,
and the furrows ploughed in the fields are awry, so that the spirits
may lose their way and not come along them to hurt people. They think
there are spirits of the door and spirits under the eaves, spirits of
the rafters and spirits of the bed.
Sometimes you will see a head with a shining sword in its mouth above a
door; sometimes a sword, made of round brass cash, tied together by a
red cord, hangs in a bedroom. If a wicked spirit comes to hurt anyone
inside the room the spirit of the sword is supposed to flash out and
drive it away.
In the hills and waters, in graves and in houses, in great stones and
in old trees, in the moon and in the stars, there are, the Chinese say,
spirits and spiritual influences. There is the earth spirit in the
ground and there are dragons which may be made very angry if the soil
is dug too deeply. If an earth dragon is angry and moves his tail, half
a city may fall down. There are dragons too of air and water. When an
eclipse took place, the people used always to go out with drums and
pans and brass gongs to frighten away the Celestial Dog, which they
thought was eating up the sun or moon. In 1909, however, when the
Prince Regent was asked to give orders for the usual ceremonies to
drive away an eclipse, he refused, saying that now these foolish ways
must cease.
Numbers of superstitious practices are connected with the idols. The
spirits inside them are supposed to eat the spirit of the food offered
upon the altar. Inside some of the images there is a mirror, in which
the idol is supposed to see all that passes before it. On certain days
idols are carried through cities and villages and round the fields to
let them see how their worshippers are faring. On great festivals men
may be seen bare to the waist, with their hair floating down their
backs, and thin, flat swords in their hands. The spirit of the idol
is thought to enter these men. They foam at the mouth, they whirl
round and rush about, they cut themselves, striking wildly over their
shoulders with their swords. Though they do not wound themselves badly,
yet thin streaks of red show where the skin is cut. Guns are fired and
piles of paper money send up clouds of smoke. The ‘mediums,’ as these
men may be called, put their swords between their teeth and leap on to
the carrying poles of the idols’ sedan-chair, and thus standing behind
the image, they are carried through the streets.
Chinese boys and girls are also taught to believe that the spirits of
the idols go into women, who turn very white and ill-looking, and then
begin to speak in a strange, thin, muttering voice. The people think
that when the idol spirit is in these women, they can bring dead people
back to speak to their friends and children, just as the witch of Endor
brought back Samuel to speak to Saul.
In southern China, a man named It-sai-peh, who was a Christian, died
before his wife had learned to believe in God. His widow was very sad
when he died, and wished to burn money, clothes, houses, servants,
horses and other things, all made of paper, so that the spirit of all
these things should be of use to her husband in the unseen world.
Before going to the expense, however, she went to ask one of these
women, who was said to be a spirit medium, whether she ought to make
the offerings or not.
“Shall I make offerings for It-sai-peh’s soul?” asked the widow.
“It-sai-peh is in heaven,” said the woman, “he does not need your
offerings.”
It was a strange answer for the witch to make, but it did good, for
It-sai-peh’s widow was much comforted; she did not waste her money on
useless offerings, but she went to church to hear the doctrine which
had saved her husband, and in time herself believed in Christ.
In addition to consulting these idol mediums, people often go to the
temples to cast lots themselves, and to divine. They first offer
incense and paper money, then they tell the idol what they want to do,
and ask it whether they may do so or not. After this they take two
curved bamboo roots, round on one side and flat on the other. They
wave these before the image, and then throw them down upon the floor.
If the two round sides or the two flat sides turn upwards, that means
_No_, but if one round side and one flat side are uppermost, that means
_Yes_. They throw three times; and twice yes, or twice no, settles the
matter. Sometimes they go to certain temples or shrines to sleep, in
the hopes that the idols will tell them in a dream the winning number
in a lottery, or something else they want very much to know. When they
have had the dream they go to someone wise in explaining dreams, to
find out its meaning.
The idols are supposed to do strange things at times. Once when the
officials were putting out a great fire at Pekin, they said they saw
a boy with a red face, in the midst of the flames, helping their
men; everywhere the boy went the fire died down, till soon it ceased
altogether. Search was made for the useful boy, but he could not be
found. Afterwards it was said that in a distant province there was a
boy idol, deified when he was eleven years old, represented with a red
face, and sitting on a throne. This idol was now honoured with a title
and special offerings, because it was believed that he had gone all the
way to Pekin to help to put out the fire.
The people think that sometimes idols get down from their seats and go
about in the way just described. Here is a story which will make this
superstition plain.
In the West Street of a certain Chinese city a man kept a cake shop.
The shopkeeper began to notice that very early every morning two chubby
children used to bring some cash to buy cakes. What further surprised
him was that every night he found some sheets of yellow paper money
(such as is offered to idols) at the bottom of the till. Nobody put the
paper money into the box, but every night, as surely as he counted over
his gains, there was the yellow paper lying at the bottom. Sometimes
he wondered whether this paper money had to do with the boys who came
to buy cakes in the morning. But let him watch ever so closely, he
never saw them put anything into his till. They brought him good luck,
however, for more people came to buy his cakes every day, and he made
plenty of pennies. But the cake man could not give up wondering about
the paper money, and, at last, he made up his mind that the children
certainly had to do with the mystery. Nobody knew where the pair of
chubby-cheeked boys came from, or where they went to, and they were not
quite like ordinary boys, there was something distinguished in their
look and ways.
One day the shopkeeper could restrain his curiosity no longer, so he
waited until the boys left the shop, and then he followed them along
the pavement, carefully keeping at a distance and noticing where they
went. After walking along the West Street for a little distance, they
turned up a narrow lane; their pursuer quickened his pace and followed
them along the lane, and out into another street, and yet another,
until they disappeared round the corner of a small temple. A minute
later the inquisitive man followed them. Inside the temple were two
images of chubby-faced child idols. The secret was out! The boys were
no ordinary children, but idol spirits which had taken to frisking
about the city. The secret was out, but the boys came no more to the
cake shop. There was no more paper money lying at the bottom of the
till at night, and, for some reason, fewer people went to buy cakes, so
that the prying shopkeeper’s business fell off from that day. That, at
least, is the legend.
It would not be easy to tell one hundredth part of the superstitions
of a country which has followed heathen ways for so long as China has
done. It may be said that no one can be born, reared, taught, married;
no one can study, farm land, keep a shop, work or govern; no one can be
doctored or nursed, die or be buried, without numberless superstitious
customs, which entangle the lives of the Chinese people as the meshes
of a spider’s web entangle a fly.
Who is that blind man who strikes a cow’s horn with a bit of wood as he
walks along? Kok, kok, kok, goes the horn. It is the fortune-teller,
upon whose words the fate of so many people depends. There--a woman
has stopped him. The sound of the horn is stilled. He leans his head
to one side, listening, while his poor, empty eyes stare vacantly.
Now he is speaking. You cannot hear his words, for he has lowered his
voice. Probably he is telling the old lady her fortune, or advising
her about a new daughter-in-law, or some business matter. On we go.
There, at a corner of that temple under the shadow of the red brick
wall, sits a learned-looking man with wide-rimmed spectacles. He has
a table in front of him, on which there are two small cages. Wait a
moment and you will see something of interest. Up come some people
from the country. You can tell that they are villagers by their new
clothes and the circles of silver pins which the girls have stuck in
their hair, beside their general look of being on holiday. One of them
wishes to have her fortune told. See! the old gentleman has put some
slips of folded paper, about the size of playing-cards, upon the table.
There are different fortunes written on them. If you looked closely
enough at the edge of the folded papers you would see that one of them
has a little double fold. But this is a secret of which these country
folk know nothing. Now which of the fortunes will be chosen? Wait and
you will see. Old Spectacles opens the door of one of the cages and
out hops the most friendly speckled brown bird. He stands in front
of the folded papers and looks at them, one after the other, in the
wisest way; he turns his head, down dives his clean, black bill. See,
he has picked up one of the papers. His master takes the paper and
gives birdie a grain of rice before putting him back in his cage. Now
he reads off the fortune from the paper and explains its meaning. The
country folk are much impressed, especially by the wise bird, and pay
their money willingly before they go away. They are so superstitious
that they really believe the bird chose their fortune for them, but
birdie only picked out the paper with a fold in the edge, because he
hoped to find a grain of corn in the crease. If you followed its master
home, you would see him constantly teaching his little brown pet to
choose the paper with a fold, by putting a grain of rice just inside
the crease. So when customers come to have their fortunes told, the
bird looks over the papers until it finds the one folded at the edge by
the fortune-teller, and then picks it up and gives it to be read by him.
This account of a few of their superstitions will serve to show you in
what constant trouble and dread the Chinese children live, for fear of
the demons and spirits all round them, because they do not know and
trust in God. When living among them one cannot but feel that they are
like the people long ago, “who, through fear of death, were all their
lifetime subject to bondage.” Yet we may learn something from them too.
The constant sense of the unseen world among the Chinese and their
dread of offending the invisible spirits, should make us ask ourselves
if we remember the unseen God as often, and are as careful not to
offend against our loving, watchful Heavenly Father, as they are not to
offend the spirits.