SKETCHES IN ANN AM AND TONQUIN 631 



of the ceremonies, their tombs are cleared of weeds and given the re- 

 pairs which their condition may require. A long lacquered table is 

 set in the principal room, and above it a large red tableau, on which 

 are represented various personages, flanked by characters and sentences 

 enumerating the qualities that distinguished them or those which they 

 would have liked to have. On the table are placed a variety of offer- 

 ings to the spirit of commerce, who is invoked to bring prosperity. 

 The place of honor, which usually looks upon the door, and the most 

 generous offerings, are given to the ancestral altars. The grand repast 

 takes place at midnight on the 30th ; and as a result of what goes on 

 then, the Annamites, usually sober, begin the year in a very drunken 

 condition. In connection with this feast, a quantity of last year's 

 water is compared by weight with the same quantity of the water of 

 the new year. If the latter is the heavier, it is a bad sign, and inun- 

 dations may be expected ; if lighter, the air of the new year will be 

 pleasant, and the rivers will flow placidly. At the final repast, on the 

 4th or 5th of the new month, the departure of the ancestors, who are 

 supposed to have been present at all the ceremonies, is celebrated with 

 the burning of gold and silver papers. The houses are not opened 

 after the festival for the resumption of business if the w T eather is 

 bad ; for the sun must be the first to enter them, or something un- 

 pleasant might happen. 



M. d'Estrey, continuing his account, observes that there are no 

 public cemeteries in Annam. Every person seeks for a suitable place 

 of his own in which to bury his relatives. Not rarely families keep 

 the coffins of their relatives very solid and tight structures of wood 

 in their houses even for a considerable time. Poor persons are some- 

 times buried in grounds given by the more wealthy for that purpose. 

 Mourning is worn in white. Its duration is fixed according to the 

 nearness of relationship ; for father and mother, three years ; for 

 grandparents, brothers, and sisters, one year ; and so on. Persons who 

 are in mourning must not appear at public spectacles or dress elabo- 

 rately, or indulge in any gayety. After the mourning has terminated, 

 a family festival is celebrated at each anniversary, when a repast is 

 offered upon the ancestral altar. The formal visit to the tombs, the 

 keeping of them up, and the duty of attending to the rites of ancestral 

 worship, appertain to the heads of the family, the other relatives only 

 following their orders in the matter. After reaching fifty or sixty 

 years of age, parents who have children large enough to attend to 

 affairs leave the general direction of their houses to them, and devote 

 their attention to giving honors to their ancestors. The cost of ances- 

 tral worship in Annamite families is lighter than the cost of church 

 services in France. The heads of families are themselves priests, and 

 have only to say a brief ritual on the occasion of the anniversaiy of 

 the death of each member of the kindred. Besides the special family 

 altars to each ancestor, there exist temples consecrated to all the mem- 



