Of all their cherished ceremonies, there are none the Chinese observe
with more scrupulous exactness than those connected with death and
mourning. We have just heard of the Governor of Kiangsu going into
retirement because of the decease of his mother; and so he will
remain, ineligible to any office, for the space of three years. He
will not shave his head for one hundred days. For forty-nine nights he
will sleep in a hempen garment, with his head resting on a brick and
stretched on the hard ground, by the side of the coffin which holds
the remains of the parent who gave him birth. He will go down upon his
knees and humbly kotow to each friend and relative at their first
meeting after the sad event--a tacit acknowledgment that it was but
his own want of filial piety which brought his beloved mother
prematurely to the grave. To the coolies who bear the coffin to its
resting-place on the slope of some wooded hill, or beneath the shade
of a clump of dark-leaved cypress trees, he will make the same
obeisance. Their lives and properties are at his disposal day and
night; but he now has a favour to ask which no violence could secure,
and pleads that his mother's body may be carried gently, without jar
or concussion of any kind. He will have her laid by the side of his
father, in a coffin which cost perhaps 100 pounds, and repair thither
periodically to appease her departed spirit with votive offerings of
fruit, vegetables, and pork.
Immediately after the decease of a parent, the children and other near
relatives communicate the news to friends living farther off, by what
is called an "announcement of death," which merely states that the
father or mother, as the case may be, has died, and that they, the
survivors, are entirely to blame. With this is sent a "sad report," or
in other words a detailed account of deceased's last illness, how it
originated, what medicine was prescribed and taken, and sundry other
interesting particulars. Their friends reply by sending a present of
money to help defray funeral expenses, a present of food or
joss-stick, or even a detachment of priests to read the prescribed
liturgies over the dead. Sometimes a large scroll is written and
forwarded, inscribed with a few such appropriate words as--"A hero has
gone!" When all these have been received, the members of the bereaved
family issue a printed form of thanks, one copy being left at the
house of each contributor and worded thus:--"This is to express the
thanks of . . . the orphaned son who weeps tears of blood and bows his
head: of . . . the mourning brother who weeps and bows his head: of
. . . the mourning nephew who wipes away his tears and bows his head."
It is well known that all old and even middle-aged people in China
like to have their coffins prepared ready for use. A dutiful son will
see that his parents are thus provided, sometimes many years before
their death, and the old people will invite relatives or friends to
examine and admire both the materials and workmanship, as if it were
some beautiful picture or statue of which they had just cause to be
proud. Upon the coffin is carved an inscription with the name and
titles of its occupant; if a woman, the name of her husband. At the
foot of the coffin are buried two stone tablets face to face; one
bears the name and title of the deceased, and the other a short
account of his life, what year he was born in, what were his
achievements as a scholar, and how many children were born to him.
Periods of mourning are regulated by the degrees of relationship to
the dead. A son wears his white clothes for three years--actually for
twenty-eight months; and a wife mourns her husband for the same
period. The death of a wife, however, calls for only a single year of
grief; for, as the Sacred Edict points out, if your wife dies you can
marry another. The same suffices for brother, sister, or child.
Marriages contracted during these days of mourning are not only
invalid, but the offending parties are punished with a greater or
lesser number of blows according to the gravity of the offence.
Innumerable other petty restrictions are imposed by national or local
custom, which are observed with a certain amount of fidelity, though
instances are not wanting where the whole thing is shirked as
inconvenient and a bore.
Cremation, once the prevailing fashion in China, is now reserved for
the priest of Buddha alone,--that self-made outcast from society,
whose parting soul relies on no fond breast, who has no kith or kin to
shed "those pious drops the closing eye requires;" but who, seated in
an iron chair beneath the miniature pagoda erected in most large
temples for that purpose, passes away in fire and smoke from this vale
of tears and sin to be absorbed in the blissful nothingness of an
eternal Nirvana.