DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



from them to himself the full measure of their ill-luck. Then 

 he receives certain presents from the government a white 

 horse, a white dog, a white bird, with other smaller gifts of 

 provisions and offerings from the people. Finally, he is 

 hunted out of the town amidst the yells of the mob, towards 

 the Samye monastery, where he may (if he survives his 

 treatment at the hands of the people) be accommodated in the 

 Lhakang, or dead house."* 



Certain animals, such as foxes and dogs, are considered 

 by Buddhists to be able to appear in human shape and to play 

 the part of the were-wolf, or incubus, of mediaeval legend. 

 Consequently, it is not surprising to find in Chinese and 

 Japanesejust as in European legend, that " the devil appears 

 in the horrible shape of some black dog or other frightful 

 hairy fraybuggs," and that the black dog which sits upon the 

 back of the sulky, Faust's black poodle, the Gabriel Hounds 

 which hunt along the tree-tops on dark and stormy nights, 

 and Sir Walter Scott's Mauthe dog a " large black spaniel 

 with curled shaggy hair " have analogies in Chinese super- 

 stition, often as intergrowths with the old Chinese empirical 

 system of natural science called Feng Shui, used by Chinese 

 astrologers and diviner fortune-tellers to the present time. 

 They classify all beasts of astrological importance as subject to 

 the yang (male) influence of the sun this category includes 

 the dog or the ying (female) influence of the moon com- 

 prising the cat. The Chinese do not appear, however, to use 

 the traditional cat and dog antipathy in hate-charms as in 

 Palestine, where the putting of hatred between the members 

 of a family is attained by the giving of one half of the egg of a 

 black hen to a dog and the other to a cat, with the recitation of 

 appropriate charm-words; nor have they the old legend of 

 Palestine, which states that once upon a time when the world 



* " Tibet the Mysterious," by Sir Thomas Holdich, p. 310. 

 4 



