178 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



And describing the performance of such a dance the same author says : 



We witnessed the extravagances of two professional devil dancers, who were 

 performing a ceremony in front of a little altar, for the recovery of a patient who 

 was dying close by. It is difficult to imagine anything more demoniac than the 

 aspect, movements, and noises of these wild creatures; their features distorted 

 with exertion and excitement and their hair tangled in ropes, tossed in all direc- 

 tions, as they swing round in mad contortions.^" 



407. Geomantic compass (Chinese, lo-Jcing or lo-pan). — Consisting 

 of a disk of lacquered wood, beveled down at the bottom to the shape 

 of a saucer. The upper surface carries in its center a small compass, 

 around which run 17 inscribed concentric circles, containing the 

 sundry geomantic factors, as the 8 permutations of the trigram, the 

 12 signs of the zodiac, the 24 celestial constellations, and so forth. 

 It represents the ancient Chinese system of cosmogony and natural 

 philosophy, and forms the basis of a system of divination. 



Geomancy, or, as the Chinese call it, "wind and water," rules 

 (fung-sTiui) , is much used by the Chinese for divining future events, 

 or ascertaining the luckiness or unluckiness of any event, or selecting 

 sites for houses, cities, and especially burial places, which are supposed 

 to have important results on the prosperity of the living. The prin- 

 ciples of geomancy depend on two supposed currents running through 

 the earth, known as the dragon and the tiger; a propitious site has 

 these on its left and right. A skillful observer (fung-shui siensang, 

 or "wind and water doctor") can detect and describe such currents 

 with the help of the compass, also the direction of the watercourses, 

 shapes of the male and female ground and their proportions, position 

 of rivers, trees, and mountains, color of the soil, and the changes of 

 the elements.*! (New York, 1853, vol. 2, pp. 245-247). Diameter, 

 7K inches. China. (Plate 69, Cat. No. 126954, U.S.N.M.)*^ 



408. Divination slips (Chinese, cJii en-toong). — Consisting of two 

 bamboo tubes containing slips of bamboo which are inscribed with dif- 

 ferent characters. The person wishing to know the will of the gods or 

 his fortune shakes the tube and, with averted face, draws out a slip and 

 reads the answer on it. Shanghai, China. (Cat. No. 158304, U.S. N.M.) 



409. Divination hlocks (Chinese, cTiiao). — Consisting of two pieces 

 of split bamboo, kidney shaped, with one side convex and the other 

 flat. The supplicant tosses them into the air in front of the altars 

 of the gods he is supplicating. If both convex sides turn up, the 

 answer is yang-yang, which signifies the male principle of nature, and 

 means "indifferently good"; if both flat sides turn up it is yin-yin, 

 which signifies the female principle of nature, the answer is understood 

 to be negative and unfavorable; if one convex and the other flat, the 



<» Idem, vol. 2, p. 581. 



" S. Wells Williams, The Middle Kingdom. 



♦' For a detailed explanation of the geomantic compass see j. j.M. de Oroot, The Religious of China, Leide, 

 1897, vol. 3, p. 959, and Paul Cams, Chinese Thought, Chicago, 1907, p. 58. 



