1837.] 



Chinese Feast to Disembodied Spirits. 



261 



their departure. The names of the contributors to the feast are read 

 aloud, and on a signal given by the priest, the spectators make a rush 

 at the table and carry off all the dishes they can lay hands on. The 

 pillars of rice and fruit are precipitated to the ground, and the whole 

 material of the banquet cleared off in an incredibly short space of 

 time, by hands infinitely less ethereal than those of spirits. Hence 

 this feast is termed by the Malays, Samhayang M err abut, the plunder 

 ceremony. The feast concludes by the burning of the images, paper- 

 houses and mountains, gold and silver paper which are consumed in 

 one large blazing pile, for the use of the departed spirits in the other 

 world. According to an article in the Indo Chinese Gleaner, (11. 360). 

 " The burning of paper (for a religious purpose) whether gilt or plain, 

 of whatever shape, appears to have been adopted immediately after the 

 abolition of human sacrifices on the death of Che kwang (who died 

 about 150 years before Christ), when he caused his domestics to be 

 put to death to attend on him in a future state.* At present the con- 

 sumption of paper which is annually used on all religious occasions, is 

 very considerable, and forms an extensive branch of trade with the 

 Chinese. The more usual offering is a piece of paper, about a foot 

 long and eight inches broad, in the shape of the front of a bonnet, 

 with a small piece of gold foil on its back ; besides which they have 

 representations of men and women, with various dresses, with houses, 

 servants, boats, boatmen, &c. which are burnt and passed into the 

 invisible state for the use of the deceased. Many well-disposed per- 

 sons in China, allow the priests a certain sum monthly to offer up 

 prayers, and burn the paper offerings for them ; and wealthy people 

 often employ men for the sole purpose of offering incense, burning 

 paper offerings, and letting off fireworks on their festivals." The 

 Chinese ordinary oath, as I have witnessed it taken in our Courts of 

 Justice, consists in the person holding in his hand a slip of yellow 

 paper, on which is inscribed an imprecation of divine wrath on his 

 head, should he declare what is false. The paper is set fire to and 

 burnt while retained in the hand. It, together with the inscription, is 

 supposed by this process to pass into the other world and be there re- 

 corded. 



* The Scythians, it is said, and some of the Tartar tribes, observed this horrid custom. 

 In China, they anciently made bundles of straw in the shape of human beings, and in the 

 time of Confucius, images of wood, which were interred with the dead. It is to this 

 practice that Mencius alludes in the Shang Mung (page 6). 



