180 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



423. Ancestral tablet. — Wood, lacquered and gilt and inscribed. 

 Height, 9% inches. China. (Cat. No. 329759, U.S.N.M.) Gift 

 of Miss Alice Tracy Thayer. 



424. Ancestral tablet. — Inscribed with the name of a noted Chinese 

 scholar of a great and powerful family from Western China. China. 

 (Cat. No. 331672, U.S.N.M.) 



425. Paper money. — Paper money, as also paper clothing, is burned 

 at the grave of a Chinese funeral. This custom is a transformation 

 of the original rite when real money and clothing were buried with 

 the dead. The paper money and clothing are forwarded, as it were, 

 to the deceased through the fire. China. (Cat. No. 329763-329764, 

 U.S.N.M.) Gift of Miss Alice Tracy Thayer. 



426. Paper clothing. — See under the preceding number. China. 

 (Cat. No. 329765, U.S.N.M.) Gift of Miss Alice Tracy Thayer. 



427. Confucius. — Seated statue of old bronze. Confucius^ — in 

 Chinese, Kung-fu-tze, or also, Kung-tze — was a celebrated Chinese 

 sage and teacher who lived 551 to 479 B. C. His system, preserved 

 in the "Four Shu," or classical books, consists mainly in the worship 

 of spirits, especially of deceased ancestors, and in the observance of an 

 elaborate morality adapted to practice, and applied to private, social, 

 and political life. His authority as moral teacher is also very great 

 among the educated classes of Japan and Korea. Height, 30 inches. 

 Chma. (Cat. No. 316322, U.S.N.M.) Collected by Maj. Murray 

 Warner and presented through his widow, Mrs. Gertrude Bass Warner. 



428. Chinese sage. — Seated statuette of bronze. Perhaps Mencius 

 (Meng-tze), a follower of Confucius of the fourth century B. C. 

 Height, 15}^ mches. China. (Cat. No. 316323, U.S.N.M.) Col- 

 lected by Maj. Murray Warner and presented through his widow, 

 Mrs. Gertrude Bass Warner. 



429. Chinese sage. — Seated statuette of bronze. Perhaps a dis- 

 ciple of Confucius. Height, 13 inches. China. (Cat. No. 316324, 

 U.S.N.M.) Collected by Maj. Murray Warner and presented 

 through his widow, Mrs. Gertrude Bass Warner. 



VII 



OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIAL OF PARSEEISM 



INTRODUCTION 



PARSEES 



The Parsees are the descendants of the ancient Persians, who, at 

 the overthrow of their country by the Arabs in 641 A. D., remained 

 faithful to Zoroastrianism, which was, for centuries previous to the 

 Mohammedan conquest, the state and national religion of Persia. 

 They derive their name of Parsees from the Province of Pars or 

 Fars, broadly employed for Persia in general. According to the 

 census of 1911 the number of Parsees in India, including Aden, the 



