FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



meat made of plums, and on our leaving presented me with a 

 book of Mosso prayer. By his coLirtesy also we were provisioned 

 for our journey with pork and edible fungi. 



Bidding farewell then to Vetche, we proceeded to Dekou, 

 another Mosso villaafe, where in the evening we witnessed the 

 ceremony with which the medicine-men ward off evil spirits 

 and sickness from the dwellings. Each wizard wore a circular 

 head-dress with spreading fan-like rim, from the back of which 

 hung ribands ; in one hand he held a cymbal with bells on the 

 concave side, and in the other, one of those Thibetan double 

 tambourines which are shaken from side to side. Behind them 

 marched one of their number beating a tom-tom with a curved 

 stick. The procession entered each house in turn ; the family 

 altar was decked, and cinders were placed on the tripod. When 

 the leader had tasted a proffered cup of wine, he held it alolt 

 while pronouncing a parenthetical litany, in each pause of which 

 children, covered with flour and holding torches, chanted a word 

 in chorus meaning "present." I imagine these to have repre- 

 sented the good and evil spirits invoked. The incantation over, 

 the instruments were given a final shake, a circuit of the room 

 was made, and cxcmit. At the chief's they have to per- 

 form a dance in addition, which they execute with a bowing 

 motion, stooping with outstretched hand as if to pick some- 

 thing up, in a manner precisely similar to what I have 

 seen in Thibet. The function ended round an obo outside 

 the village, where torches were fixed to a post, and children 

 flung into the flames a powder which produced a white flash. 

 The whole observance was a continuation of the Hopatie, 

 which though in China of only one day's duration is here pro- 

 longed over several. 



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