NATURE 



[November S, 1S94 



SymjDds, Paterooster Row, iSoS. Their titles, which I briefly 

 gi»e, will amply prove his professional position : — 



(1) " Medical Admonitions to Families." 5th edition. 



(2) " Observation-; on the Excessive InJuIgenceof Children." 



(3) "The Village Friend and Physician." 2nd edition. 



(4) "The Way to Health." 



15) "The Chemical Pocket-BoDk." 

 .(6) " Hints for the Improvement of Trusses." 



(7) "The Hospital Pupil." 



(8) "Observations on the Nature and Cure of Gout." 



(9) "Remarks on Mr. Whitbread's Plan for the Education 

 of the Poor." 



(10) "Organic Remains of a Former World." Volume the 

 First. 



In additio.n to his "Organic Remains," Parkinson produced 

 '• Elements of Oryctology, an Introduction to the Study of 

 Fossil Organic Remains," which appeared in 1S22. .\ third 

 edition was published in 1S40. 



Whatever may have been Parkinson's lack of interest in 

 natural history when he acquired the museum, he certainly 

 showed no deficiency in that respect when he produced his 

 " Organic Remains of a Former World," one of the most 

 valuable and interesting works of the kind that I know. For 

 farther information with regard to Parkinson, see the Introduc- 

 tion to Manlell's " Atlas of Fossil Remains," published by II. 

 G. Bohn in 1850, in which Parkinson's splendid plates are 

 reproduced. See also Allibone's " Dictionary of British and 

 American Authors " ; London, 1870. 



SPE.NCER George Perceval. 



Heobury, Bristol, October 29. 



On Chinese Beliefs about the North. 



From a review in Nature for the 27th ult. (p. 522) I have 

 been led to conclude that the " Theory of the Northern Origin 

 of the Chinese " enjoys the confidence of scienlihc men. .Should 

 this conclusion really be correct, the theory will give strong 

 support to the view which occurred to me while reading the 

 review. 



By Sze-ma Kwang, a Chinese Prime Minister of great classic 

 knowledge (died 1086), the Rite of " Fuh " {i.e. bringing back), 

 anciently observed before changing the clothes of deceased 

 parents, is detailed as follows : — "Take a clean suit of clothes 

 prepared for the corpse up to the ridge of the roof; then 

 toviards till north call three times ' Pray, return ' ; then fold 

 up and being down the suit to clothe the corpse ; to detain t)u 

 j(7u/thus brought back, fasten the suit with silk (silken band) ; 

 bclore the burial offer to it viands and utensils with as much 

 reverence as is due to the parents alive " (l). In this ritual I 

 notice three primitive beliels unitedly preserved : firstly, that 

 the soul of the deceased could return if called, the belief current 

 among the Hos, the Bank's Islanders, and the Fijians of 

 modern times (2) ; secondly, that one could detain the soul 

 from departing by fastening a garment while addressing to the 

 deceased, as is meant by an old Japanese u-age on occasion of 

 meeting the passing soul, i.e., i^nis fatuus {t,). In the third 

 place, as is the case with the Kookies (4), this ritual indicates 

 the primitive Chinese belief in the existence of their other world 

 in the north. 



The Eiily Chinese system of cosmogony, which is now 

 fragmentally but uniformly preserved in the books of two 

 antagonistic religions, viz. Confucianism and Taoism, has its 

 God uf the North named " Hiuen-.Ming," i.e. "Entering 

 Other World "(5). 



Chan^ Hwa, a Piime Minister of encvclopa:dic erudition 

 (killed 303 A. D.), mentions in his work a Taoist belief in the 

 other wurld as extensive as 200,000 lis square, situated under- 

 ground in the north (6). Another Tauisi Kschatology, written 

 in the 9lh cenluiy a.Ij., relates that "the Emperor Vcn-tch, 

 who wa< ocated the ' Grand Imperial Master of the North,' 

 governt all spiritual beings" (7). .Mo.st probably connected 

 with theie beliefs is a folk-tale of the " ' South Dipper,' the 

 life-re.:islrar, and the ' -N'orth Dipper,' the dealh-regislrar " (8), 

 from whi^h is derived a popular romance of Chau Yen's bribery 

 to the latter star-god in order to have hi> destined longevity 

 increased from nineteen years to ninety-nine (9). 



The Vo^.itcharya mystic< of Chin* define the north as " the 

 point wh:rea' ad the works are doomed to finish," and hence 

 "the point of enlerin,; Nirv.ana" (10). A dispute about 

 whether Chinese Buddhism in this case is entirely free from the 

 taint of Celeilial gloss, I am not qualified to decide. 



Now let us return to Confucian literature. Confucius's own 

 opinion regarding the other world appears of quite agnostic 

 character, as is implied in his answer to Tze-lu (who inquired 

 about the slate of death) — " While you do not know life, what 

 can you know about death ? " (11^ ; as well as in his answer to 

 Tze-kung (whose question was about whether the deceased had 

 consciousness) — " If you die, you will know ; even then it will 

 not be too late to know " (12). But it is in those ancient sages' 

 tenets, which ihe great master preserved in his doctrine, that 

 the early Chinese belief in the northern spirit-land had been so 

 predominant, ihough tacitly implied, as to have caused an all- 

 reaching association of the North with everything related to 

 Death. So, early they styled the rooms containing ancestral 

 tablets the "North Temples" (13), and by the name " North 

 Hill" the graveyard has always been understood. 



According to the " Tang-kung " (a portion of the Book oj 

 fiiles), Confucius was buried in the northern part of the capital 

 of Lu, and " the burial in the northern sides of towns 

 was the persistent custom of the three 'classic dynas- 

 ties,' i.e. Ilia, Ving, and Chau" (14). Forcibly this state- 

 ment reminds us of the Damaras, who place the corpse with 

 the face towards the north, to remind them whence they 

 originally came ; and also of the Vncas, who, expecting to go 

 to the east whence they came, turned the face of the corpse to 

 the east ; while the aboriginal Peruvians did not follow the 

 same usage (15). In fact, we find in Chinese records certain 

 abnormal examples, which indica'.e the stocks distinct from 

 original Chinese ; thus, two ciriises of different sexes discovered 

 from the mound of Prince Tsiikii, a Hiung-nii by descent, are 

 said to have had their he.ids turned eastw.ards (l6). 



Mr. Herbert Spencer, after reasoning from materials exten- 

 sively collected, remarks: "Immigrant races have for their 

 other-worlds the abodes of their fathers, to which they journey 

 after death" (17); and unless they are an exception to this 

 general rule, the Chinese, whose old customs and traditions 

 have been shown to tend so much towards evincing their early 

 belief in the northern spirit-land, must have originally entered 

 their present domain from the North. 



Also, in early Chinese speculations the north had been fixed 

 on as the store and source of the originating principle " Vin ' 

 tor Negativity), and it has ever since been associated with 

 everything of " negative " characters — e.g. reposing, obscuring, 

 destroying, &c. Thus, in the symbolism of " Wu-h.ing ' (the 

 /■i:e Elements), v/Mex and winter are posted at the north (18); 

 of the nine divisions of the heavens the northern and the north- 

 western are named respectively " Dark Heaven "and " Dusky 

 Heaven" (19) ; of the five mountains worshiped by emperors 

 the northernmost one is called " Eternal Mountain " {Nan 

 Shan), because all beings are doomed to eternal repose in the 

 north (20>; and referring to the then admitted axiom — "the 

 north is the realm of slaughters and assaults" — Confucius once 

 reproved Tze-Iu for playing on a stringed instrument in the 

 " northern tones " (21). 



.\s there should be nothing other than Death that might 

 combine in itself all conceivable characters of Negativity, 

 it would seem quite reasonable to trace the origin of these 

 associations of North and Negativity of Chinese speculations 

 into the old custom of burying in grounds lying towards the 

 north, which custom in its turn is easily traced to the early 

 Chinese entrance from the north. 



Bibliography. — (1) ICiimazawa, "Sosai Benron,' Tokio, 

 1890, p. 4. (2) Spencer, " Principles of Sociology," 3rd edition, 

 vol. i. §83. (3) Terashim.a, " Wakan Sansai-dzue," 1713, tom. 

 Iviii. sub. " Hitotama." (4) Spencer, § II2. (5) Pan Kii, Peh- 

 hulling," 79 A.D. tom. ii. chap. i. (6) " Pcihwuh-chi," 

 tom. i. chap. ii. (7) Twan Ching-shih, " Vii-y-ing Tsah-tsii," 

 tom. ii. (8) Sie T>.aikang, " Wu Isah-tsii," circa 1610, tom. 

 i. (9) " Ven-i-S.in kwiih-chl," Kin's edition 1644, tom. xxxv. 

 pp. 4-5. (10) In-yii, " Maiidara Shisho, ' 1491, torn. i. (ll) 

 " Coniucian Analects," chap. xi. ; " Kncyclopxdia Britannica," 

 9lh edition, vol. vi. p. 265. (12) Ving Chau, " Fung-nih- 

 liing," 2nd cent. A.D., tom. ix. chap. ix. (13) " Siun-tze," 

 .■/><-ij 255 li.c. xxviii. (14) " I'ehhii-iiing," tom. iv. chap. x. 

 (16) Li Shih, " Suh Piih-wuh-chi, ' 13th 

 (17) Spencer, § 115. (18) " I'eh-hvi- 

 i. (19) "Liishi Cliiin-isiii," circa 239 

 (20) " Fung-siih-tiing," tom. x. chap. i. 

 .Shwohyuen," 1st cent. 11. c:. tom. xix. 



KUMAGUSi; Ml.SAKATA. 



15 Blithfield Street, Kensington, W., October 16. 



(15) Sp.nccr, § 112. 

 lent. A.D. tom. viii. 

 liing,"tom. ii. chap. 

 U.c. lorn. xiii. chap. i. 

 (21) Liu Hiang, 



NO. 1306, VOL. 51] 



