Chapter XIII: Fables and Proverbial Lore (2)

Superstitions connected with death have in all countries obtained credence, and we need not therefore be surprised to find that China abounds with them. “Born hardly, die hardly,” is as much a Chinese as an English saying. Even the strange idea (as we deem it) of purchasing a coffin before death is a not uncommon practice in many parts of Germany, [38] and may be found existing, in remote country districts in England, so that the idea of securing a comfortable coffin is not so purely Chinese as some might think. [39] There is a striking similarity between many Chinese ceremonies and superstitions connected with the burial of the dead, and our own. One peculiar superstition of the Borders is, that for a cat or dog to pass over a corpse is fearfully ominous. The Chinese have a belief that if a pregnant female animal pass over the dead person, the corpse will rise up and pursue those nearest to it, and if it overtakes any one, strangle him. [40]

A home belief in the efficacy of burying the dead in woollen clothes, and originating in an Act passed in the reign of Charles II. “for the encouragement of the woollen and paper manufactures of the kingdom,” has its parallel in China. They here think that every one should be buried in his best clothes, but in some localities except the use of satin or a girdle, on account of the characters which signify those articles being pronounced in the local dialect the same as words signifying “to cut short—sons,” and so implying the speedy death of the sons of the family. The usual rule is to select silk, crape, or the finest cotton for grave clothes, [41] care being always taken to put two more articles of dress on the upper than on the lower part of a corpse: thus it will have 3 jackets and 1 pair of trowsers, 5 jackets and 3 pairs trowsers, and so on, the very rich being buried in as many as nine upper garments. The corpse is then bound with long strips of cloth, two of which must be white and one red. After swathing, the ends are tied in an “auspicious knot;” and as many of these knots are tied at various places on the body as the material used will allow.

I have already alluded to the custom of using lights at marriages and traced a faint resemblance to a European custom in that observed by the Chinese. But as regards burials the parallel is much more exact. In the lowlands of Scotland a candle is waved thrice round a corpse as it is “sained” or blessed. In China candles are kept burning round the coffin after the body has been laid out, “to light the spirit of the dead upon his way,” and a similar custom appears to have obtained amongst almost every people in the European world. [42] As everybody knows, the coffins of those lying in state are surrounded by wax tapers, which are kept burning until the day of interment. A candle used to be set upon a dead body in Northumberland, and a similar practice prevailed in the Isle of Man; while the modern Jews set a light at the head of one recently departed. Still more exact is the analogy between the Chinese custom of carrying torches before the dead at funerals and that which always existed amongst the ancient Jews, and until very recent times obtained amongst ourselves. Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, Vol. II., p. 276 et seq., gives a long account of the uses of torches and lights in this connection.

Amongst the curious superstitions attaching to death in China is one that, if two “cash” be placed in the sleeve of the dead man and then shaken out, the result of the “toss” will signify the feeling of the departed. Thus, if both turn up obverse or reverse, it is concluded that the defunct is perfectly satisfied, while, if one be obverse and the other not, it signifies that something has been wrongly done. These cash are religiously preserved for similar use after the corpse is buried, when a mode of divination by tossing is resorted to, if it be desired to learn the wishes of the dead man as to family arrangements, the respect paid to his manes, &c. It is also customary in China to carefully reverse the direction of the body before putting it into the coffin—a practice to which I cannot find any Western parallel.

During the blessing or “saining” of a corpse in Scotland all the windows of the house are opened so as to give the soul free egress. In Fuhkien (where the windows are not quite so large as in European houses) they carry out a similar idea by making a hole in the roof. [43] Even the superstitious respect accorded to the cock, as capable of being influenced from the unseen world (evidenced by the carrying of a white cock or its paper image on Chinese coffins, so as to allure the soul of the departed to enter it) finds a parallel in western Europe. The Ischortzi of Ingria (Finland) burn a white cock on the festival of St. John, when they visit the tombs of their departed friends. A French receipt, by the bye, for raising the devil given by Mr. S. Baring-Gould directs one to go to where four cross-roads meet, with a black cock under your arm; call out Poule noire! three times and the devil will come and take the cock and leave you a handful of money. Scandinavian lore also is full of allusions to the same bird.

A superstition prevails amongst the Chinese regarding “watching spirits” to which I am tempted to accord a rather lengthy notice. The unwillingness of the natives to help a drowning man, or any one in absolute peril of life, is based upon a belief that the ghost of the last man killed, always acts as watchman of the purgatory into which, according to Chinese belief, the spirit of the departed first enter, and from which he can only be relieved by the arrival of a fresh defunct. If, therefore, a man’s life be saved, the spirit of the person who died last before him is, in a manner, cheated out of his relief, and will assuredly haunt the person whose misplaced humanity has condemned it to a fresh term of dismal servitude. Now this belief in a “watching spirit” is essentially Gaelic: and the following extract from a recent issue of the Inverness Courier shews a parallelism so close as to be very singular. A correspondent writes:—“I was sailing past the beautiful island of St. Mungo, in Loch Leven, the burial place for many centuries of the people of Nether-Lochaber and Glencoe, when the following conversation took place between myself and an old man who managed the sails while I steered. It was all in Gaelic, of course, but I give the substance in English:—‘You were at the funeral on the island the other day, sir?’ interrogatively observed my companion. ‘I was, indeed,’ I replied. ‘John ——,’ he continued, naming the deceased, ‘was a very decent man.’ ‘He was a fine old Highlander, shrewd and intelligent,’ I replied, ‘and, what is more, I believe a very good man.’ ‘Donald ——,’ naming a person we both knew, ‘is very ill, and not likely to last long.’ ‘I saw him to-day,’ I observed, ‘and I fear that what you say is true: he cannot last long.’ ‘Well, sir, it will be a good thing for John —— (the person recently buried): his term of watching will be a short one.’ ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ I observed, with some curiosity. ‘The man is dead and buried; what watching should he have to do?’ ‘Why, sir, don’t you know that the spirit of the last person buried in the island has to keep watch and ward over the graves till the spirit of the next person buried takes his place?’ ‘I really did not know that,’ I replied. ‘Is it a common opinion that such is the case, and do you believe it yourself?’ ‘Well, sir, it is generally believed by the people; and having always heard that it was so, I cannot well help believing it too. The spirit whose watch it is is present there day and night. Some people have seen them; my mother, God rest her! once pointed out to me, when I was a little boy, an appearance, as of a flame of light on the island, slowly moving backwards and forwards, and she assured me it was the watching spirit going his rounds.’ ‘What particular object has the spirit in watching?’ I asked. ‘Well, I don’t exactly know,’ was the answer. ‘He just takes a sort of general charge of the Island of the Dead, until his successor arrives.’ I have since found that a belief in this superstition is common among the old people. The spirit or ghost is supposed to be to a certain extent unhappy and impatient of relief while in the discharge of this office, and thus, it is considered that the sooner after a funeral there is occasion again for the opening of a grave, the better it is for the spirit of the last person interred, who then, and not till then, passes finally and fully to his rest.” [44]

The Chinese idea of watching the dead—a duty which amongst them devolves upon the eldest son and his brothers until the coffin is removed for interment, finds expression also amongst ourselves. Mr. Henderson, in his Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, says: “The corpse must be watched till its burial by one of its kindred and a stranger, who may be relieved, when weary, by another relation and another stranger.” In China the incense stick which is straight (emblematical of the “straight road” which the spirit of the deceased ought to travel) must not be allowed to go out lest the spirit lose its way. With us the “Saining Candle” must be kept burning during the night.

The idea of furnishing the dead with food, arms, clothing, money, etc., is essentially Chinese, but by no means confined to them. Mr. D. Forbes states that the Aymara Indians supply the dead with food and clothing. [45] Horses are sacrificed at the funerals of the Red Indians, and dogs used to be at the funerals of the Aztecs, while camels formed the funeral sacrifices of the Bedouins. The Chinese, less extravagant, consume paper models of money, animals, and boats, with a similar object; and the reminder of the Stygian ferry in the use of paper junks is at least odd. [46] The belief that the spirits of the dead pass over routes used by the living is in like manner a superstition common to both East and West. The ceremonials observed in this country to facilitate their passage, and the beatings of gongs to frighten away evil spirits are equally observed by the Kasi Indians, who, when the funeral cortege happens to pass a puddle, lay down a straw for the dead man’s soul to use as a bridge. An ancient Chinese practice is, by the way, curious. They used to bury the dead in the same position as the fœtus assumes in the womb. I have nowhere met with any modern mention of this custom. According to the Chinese ritual the relations of one deceased assume mourning (made of white hempen cloth) seven days after his death. Though in our own case there is probably no superstitious origin in the custom it may be noted by way of coincidence that we usually bury people after the expiration of that interval, which is the first time the mourners appear publicly clad in the habiliments of woe.

A number of curious practices connected with burial and mourning are without doubt purely Chinese. Thus, on the sixtieth day after death, the family place on a table a number of plates containing offerings of food, &c., accompanied by the never-absent incense. Besides these they place on the table a wash-bowl full of water in which is floating half a duck’s egg. A paper and bamboo duck, astride of which is a paper human image, is then placed on the water beside it. The image personifies the deceased, the duck his means of transport and the egg-shell a boat. The use of both duck and boat to cross the Chinese Styx is not very clear, but they are probably intended to give the deceased a choice of conveyance. A yet more inexplicable practice is that of placing a paper image of the departed in a wheeled sedan-chair of similar material, to which is attached a paper crane as if in the act of drawing the sedan. Ranged in front of the crane are numerous articles of dress, money &c. (all of course in paper), and in some way the crane is supposed to convey both the spirit of the deceased and the goods on their onward passage.

Our own custom of throwing earth upon the coffin when the solemn words “earth to earth, ashes to ashes” are pronounced by the clergyman, is closely paralleled in China. Directly the coffin has been lowered, “the sons of the deceased hasten to scatter earth into the grave. This earth they have previously put into the lap of their sackcloth mourning garments, and they manage to shake it out so as to fall upon the coffin if possible.” [47] The idea thus symbolized is in both cases the same. It is, by the way, to be noted that, in China, when husband and wife are buried side by side, the grave of the husband must be on the left side (the place of honour). The water coming from a hill on which a grave has been dug is esteemed peculiarly lucky for use and is termed “dragon’s water”—in reference to the term usually applied to the hill near to or on which, when possible, sites for graves are always selected. [48] The superstitious aversion shewn in China to permitting a corpse to enter or be buried within the walls of a city has obtained at various times in many parts of the Western world. The Moors never bury their dead within the bounds of an inhabited place, and the inhabitants of Thibet used, it was said, to be similarly particular, always exposing them on the tops of mountains.

Most who have read anything about China are aware of the great importance attached to selecting a lucky place for a grave. Dr. Williams, in writing on this subject, laments the way in which the Chinese are befooled by the doctrines of Fung-shuey in this regard; but we are not so certain that Englishmen, at best, can afford to look down upon China from any very high elevation. A spot free from water and white ants, and commanding a good view, while at the same time under favorable geomantic influences, is what the Chinese aim at. Our people of the Border counties, more enlightened, (?) prefer the South side of a churchyard as the “holiest ground,” reserving the North for suicides and stillborn infants. A rare tract, published in 1589, sneers at a deceased man because he would not be laid East and West “for he ever went against the hair.” The South wind, says the same authority, ever brings corruption with it. [49] It is quite certain that traces of a very widespread superstition as to the depth, direction and general lucky aspect of graves still exists in England, though now-a-days surviving only in remote districts.

A native practice universally quoted in Europe as illustrative of the contradiction between Chinese customs and our own is that of wearing white for mourning—white being, in China, “an emblem of evil or sorrow.” But the practice is not so opposed to European ideas as some may think. At the funerals of unmarried persons of both sexes, as well as infants, the scarves, hatbands and gloves given in England as mourning used always to be white. The Chinese do not present mourners with these adjuncts of the funeral, but give in place of them white “crying cloths” or, as we should say, pocket handkerchiefs. It may be interesting here to note also that black is not of universal use even in the West. The Egyptians use yellow, the Syrians, Armenians and Cappadocians light sky-blue, and the Ethiopians grey. Henry VIII. is referred to in Hall’s Chronicle as wearing white mourning for the unfortunate Anne Boleyn; while Plutarch (Langley’s Translation) writes that, “The women in their mournynge laide a parte all purple, golde, and sumtuous apparell, and were clothed both they and their kinsfolk in white apparell.” * * * “Of this ceremonie, as I take it (adds the translator) the French quenes toke the occasion, after the death of their housebandes, the kynges, to weare onely white clothying.” The motives however of the Italians in adopting this colour were diametrically the opposite of those influencing the Chinese.—“The white colour was thought fittest for the ded, because it is clere, pure, and sincer, and leaste defiled.”

The student of Chinese folk-lore will search in vain for any expression of the old superstition regarding female apparitions as harbingers of decease. [50] The Chinese theory of death is that it takes place in accordance with the reckoning of Heaven, exercised through the power of the God or Goddess controlling the special disease from which the patient suffers. To this latter, therefore, prayers and offerings are addressed, and if they prove unsuccessful the petitioners comfort themselves by remarking that it is the decree of fate. The absence of supernatural ghostly portents in this connection amongst a people so superstition-ridden as the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom is quite as curious as the existence of its numerous beliefs.

Finally, it may be interesting to point out that the extreme dislike entertained by the Chinese to disturbing a grave, based on the supposition that the spirit of the person buried will haunt and cause ill-luck or death to the disturbers, has been felt amongst Englishmen. Aubrey, referring to the disinterment of the body of Mary, Queen of Scots, says, “it always bodes ill to a family where bodies are removed from their graves. For some of the family will die shortly after, as did Prince Henry and I think Queen Anne.” The Chinese also, like ourselves, deem certain hours of the twenty-four more fatal to life than others. Recorded statistics in England give them as from 5 to 6 a.m., (maximum) 11 p.m. to 12 midnight, and 9 to 10 a.m. The Chinese hold that noon and midnight are the two most fatal periods. [51]

III.—DAYS AND SEASONS.

The superstitions of the Chinese concerning lucky and unlucky days are so numerous that, though they scarcely exceed, they certainly equal those which, some 300 years ago, existed amongst our own ancestors. To commence with those referring to periods rather than dates, we may note that the seventh day is reputed to possess much the same mystic properties by the Chinese as it was by the Western ancients. This may arise from its being an astronomical period—the moon’s phases being always spoken of as changing every seven days. But whatever the reason, both the seventh day and the period it begins or terminates is constantly observed in Chinese ceremonies. Thus, for example, the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth days after a person’s death are specially set aside for mourning observances. The seventh day is critical in fevers; and the seventh evening of the seventh month is the great worshipping time for women. But, more than this, we find that the Chinchew edition of the Imperial Almanack invariably marks the Christian Sabbath with a character, signifying “rest or quiet,” though simply taken by the natives to mean unauspicious for work. Dr. Carstairs Douglas thus wrote on this subject in Vol. 4 p. 38 of Notes and Queries on China and Japan: “In the edition of the Imperial Almanack published at Chinchew (Tsʻuên-cheu-foo) and at Amoy and all the country round, the Christian Sabbath is invariably marked by the character mih (pronounced in Amoy bit), which means ‘secret,’ ‘quiet’ or ‘silent.’... I have not met with any heathen who can throw any light on the meaning or history of this remarkable character as it stands in the Almanack, though I have made enquiries both among the literati and at the office in Chinchew where it is published. The only trace of its meaning (excepting of course the plain and unmistakable sense of the word itself) as used by the Chinese at present, is that it is always placed in that part of the page which contains the inauspicious elements of each day, which make it unlucky for doing work. This seems clearly to prove that the original use of the phrase was to indicate ‘a day of rest.’” Dr. Douglas then goes on to shew that the assumption of its having been introduced by the Jesuits is scarcely tenable, inasmuch as it is not found in the almanacks published at Peking, where Jesuit influence was greatest; while if its introduction were so recent it would not probably have found its way into the category of the criteria of lucky and unlucky days, which are always supposed to rest on the highest antiquity. The discussion was finally set at rest by Mr. Wylie, who explained “mih” as being a transcript of the Persian “mitra” for Sunday introduced into the Chinese Calendar through Indian astronomers. [52] It is noteworthy that the day always coincides with the Christian, and not the Jewish Sabbath.

The fifteenth day of the eighth moon is a day on which a ceremony is performed by the Chinese which of all others we should least expect to find imitated amongst ourselves. Most people resident in China have seen the moon-cakes which so delight the heart of the Chinese during the eighth month of every year. These are made for an autumnal festival often described as “congratulating” or “rewarding” the moon. The moon, it is well known, represents the female principle in Chinese celestial cosmogony, and she is further supposed to be inhabited by a multitude of beautiful females; the cakes made in her honour are therefore veritable offerings to this Queen of the Heavens. Now in a part of Lancashire, on the banks of the Ribble, there exists a precisely similar custom of making cakes in honour of the “Queen of Heaven”—a relic, in all probability, of the old heathen worship which was the common fount of the two customs.

The Chinese carry out the idea of lucky days to a remarkable extent. While we now saddle only one day in the week with ill luck, they have selected a number of days in each month as uncanny for work, or even amusement. [53] On the 7th and other days you must not start on a journey, change your dwelling place, plant or sow, go to school for the first time, repair your house, purchase landed property, &c. The superstition as to not starting on a journey seems to be common to all nations. We know the origin of Friday being an unlucky day amongst ourselves, as being that of the Crucifixion. [54] But it is evident, that an older superstition is the basis of the tradition, and a thorough investigation would probably give us some common starting point for both the Aryan and Mongolian families.

A book in popular circulation in Southern China called the 黃歴通書 (hwang-li-tung-shu) gives an exhaustive return of lucky and unlucky days, from which I extract the following information. It must be premised that the 365 days of the year are divided into sets of twelve days, each being under the supposed influence of a certain planet, a certain zodiacal sign, [55] a certain terrestrial element and one of the twenty-eight “lunar mansions.” There is a further series of twelve terms, expressing the lucky or unlucky characters of given days which in the eyes of the people embody the result total of the astrological bearings of any given day. They are thus arranged and named, though it does not follow that the terms will in any given month agree with the dates here stated:—

+---+------------+-------------------------------------------------+
| 除 | 1 13 25 | Very lucky. |
| 滿 | 2 14 26 | Neither lucky nor unlucky. |
| 除 | 3 15 27 | Neither lucky nor unlucky. |
| 定 | 4 16 28 | Very lucky. |
| 執 | 5 17 29 | Neither lucky nor unlucky. |
| 破 | 6 18 30 | Very unlucky. |
| 危 | 7 19 .. | Very unlucky. |
| 成 | 8 20 .. | Very lucky. |
| 收 | 9 21 .. | Neither very lucky nor unlucky, rather unlucky. |
| 開 | 10 22 .. | Neither lucky nor unlucky. |
| 閉 | 11 23 .. | Unlucky. |
| 建 | 12 24 .. | Neither lucky nor unlucky. |
+---+------------+-------------------------------------------------+

The foregoing table shews the practical application of this system.

Thus it may happen that in a given month the 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 18th, 23rd, and 30th days of a month are very unlucky.

The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 27th and 29th are neither lucky nor unlucky.

The 9th and 21st are rather lucky; while the 1st, 8th, 13th, 20th and 25th are very lucky.

From the explanations affixed we learn that the 6th, 18th and 30th of the month shewn, though unlucky in other respects, are lucky for hunting and fishing, calling in a doctor, or pulling down a house. The character 破 pʻo means “to rend,” “break,” or “take by storm.” The 7th and 19th again, to which the character 危 wei, signifying “danger,” is prefixed are not quite so unlucky as the 6th, 10th, 18th, 22nd and 30th. The 11th and 23rd, unlucky for general purposes, are particularly so to white ants and other vermin, as those days are lucky for their destruction, filling up holes, &c., the character given 閉 pi meaning to “shut,” “close,” or “obstruct.” The 2nd, 3rd, 14th, 15th, 26th and 27th are good for meeting friends, and (as well as the 9th and 21st) are peculiarly suitable for taking a baby out for its first airing. [56] On the 5th, 17th and 29th one can cut wood, hunt, fish, and, if you find them, catch wild animals. Not long since a party of gentlemen resident in Hongkong went over to the mainland to look for a tiger which was reported to have visited the neighbourhood of Deep Bay, but as they neglected to choose a “lucky” day their success (as the natives observed) was not remarkable. One is hardly prepared to find the 12th and 24th, noted as “neither lucky nor unlucky,” recommended as propitious days for worshipping at the temples, making proposals of marriage and moving house. “Cutting out clothes,” which is perhaps not a very interesting occupation at any time, is also recommended on these dates.

The 10th and 22nd in the month above given do not carry an invariably lucky status with them, it depending very much upon the month in which they occur. They are, however, always propitious for hunting and fishing. The 9th and 21st, in addition to being, as above noted, good for babies, are fortunate for building, cutting wood, seeing friends, proposing in marriage, marrying, and making and mending drains—a sufficiently incongruous selection of employments. Finally upon the 1st, 4th, 8th, 13th, 16th, 20th, 25th and 28th, anything can be done, while the 8th and 20th are the luckiest days of all.

But New Year’s day is for certain things the day of luck. According to Chinese belief you may on this date, in almost any year, present religious offerings or vows to heaven, put on full dress, fine caps, and elegant attire; at noontide one should “sit with one’s face to the south;” may make matrimonial matches, pay calls, get married, set out on a journey, order new clothes, commence repairs to a house, lay foundations, or raise up the framework of it; set sail, enter into business contracts, carry on commerce, collect accounts, pound, grind, plant, sow, &c. Nor are other superstitions connected with this auspicious day wanting. Like our own old women in the more remote country districts, the Chinese attach considerable importance to the “first-foot” or person first seen after the New Year has set in. A fair man is a lucky first-foot in the North, while a woman is peculiarly unlucky. In China a Buddhist Priest is regarded as the most ill-foreboding mortal it is possible to set eyes on as a first-foot. Another similarity is to be found in the common superstition that the first words heard in the year will affect the fortune of the hearer for the coming twelve months. In Lincolnshire they arrange with the “first foot” to repeat a lucky rhyme. [57] In China the women go out secretly and listen to persons talking in the street. The first sentence heard is held to contain a prediction, good or bad, of the listener’s luck for the ensuing year.

Another curious coincidence between Chinese and British belief is afforded in the fact that the former people have a sort of “St. Swithin’s Day.” [58] Our own popular rhyme is sufficiently well known

St. Swithin’s day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain;
St. Swithin’s day, if thou be fair,
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair:

and I need not more particularly allude to the legend concerning him—how the violation of his grave was followed by the “40 days rain.” A correspondent of the Shanghai Courier and China Gazette thus writes on the 5th March 1875:—“The first prediction as to the fortunes of the New Year rested on the state of the weather on the first day of spring, which coincided with our February the 3rd. ‘Heaven grant that it may not rain a drop to-morrow,’ said a boatman to me on the evening of February 2nd. ‘If it does,’ he continued, ‘the crops will be below average for a certainty; and the price of rice will go up.’ ‘Why so?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you know,’ he replied, ‘that if it rains on “lih chʻing,”’ (the first day of spring) ‘it will rain more or less for forty days afterwards.’ A curious coincidence this with our St. Swithin’s Day; and it is observable that the Chinese prophets, as well as the authors of the memorial prophecies of the irate Saint Swithin, make their predictions sufficiently elastic to save their credit—‘more or less for forty days.’” It is noteworthy that the Chinese prediction is seldom verified, and that our own popular prediction is almost equally sure to be false, special observations taken at Greenwich for twenty years having shewn that rain fell in the largest number of days when St. Swithin’s Day was dry! With amusing agreement there were more wet days than dry ones following the recent 3rd February in China, although that day was distinguished by “a bright sun and a cloudless sky!” Weather predictions in either country are evidently of equal value. [59] The Hakkas (and also many Puntis) believe that if in the night of the 15th day of the 8th month (mid-autumn) there are clouds obscuring the moon before midnight, it is a sign that oil and salt will become very dear. If, however, there are clouds obscuring the moon after midnight, the price of rice will, it is supposed, undergo a similar change.

IV.—PORTENTS OR OMENS, AUGURIES, LUCKY NUMBERS AND DREAMS.

Portents or omens exert, as might be expected, a telling influence on Chinese everyday life, and implicit belief is placed in the effect which will follow certain unintentional acts on the part of any individual. Spilling the salt is held to forebode ill-luck amongst ourselves, and similarly the upsetting of the oil jar foretells misfortune to the Chinaman. The appearance and flight of birds seems, again, to have been regarded as an augury by every nation of whose social life details have come down to us, and it is not therefore surprising that the crow should in China be regarded as an omen of evil, just as it is looked upon amongst ourselves. Our North Country children cry when they see one

“Crow, crow, get out of my sight
Or else I’ll eat thy liver and light;”

while a Chinese mutters an invocation against the evil harbinger, its cry being considered so unlucky that when any one about to undertake an affair hears it, he generally postpones action. On the other hand, while our old superstition concerning magpies is adverse to the appearance of a single bird—

“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
And four for a birth,”

the Chinese consider the solitary visitor an omen of good luck. A duck quacking as one passes is, they hold, just the contrary. Regarding dogs the agreement of English belief with that of China is singular. For a strange dog to follow a person is regarded in most parts of our own rural districts as lucky. The Chinese say that if a strange dog comes and remains with one, it is an omen of good to his family and indicates that he will become more wealthy. [60] Cats, on the other hand, are inauspicious beasts, and a display of sudden attachment, such as that just noted, foreshadows poverty and distress. “May kittens should be drowned,” according to English folk-lore; but I am not aware that the full-grown animal is deemed particularly objectionable except by sailors, who aver that when a cat becomes unusually frolicsome it portends a storm. Hens also come in for a share of the feeling expressed in the distich

“A whistling woman and crowing hen
Are neither fit for Gods or men.”

“In China the crowing of a hen is considered ominous of something unusual about to happen in the family to which it belongs. In order to ascertain whether this event is propitious or unpropitious, the relative position of the fowl, while crowing, is to be observed. If the hen crows while her head is toward the outside, or the front of the premises, it is an unpropitious prognostication, foreshadowing poverty or ill luck of some kind; whereas, if her head is pointing toward the rear of the premises while crowing, it is an omen of good, indicating a more prosperous state of the family. Few families will keep a crowing hen, even should she betoken future good, as extraordinary omens like this are deemed undesirable. The unfortunate fowl is either sold or killed as soon as possible after she has commenced to crow. It is said that if a cock should crow about ten or eleven o’clock in the evening, he is not allowed to remain on the premises long, being killed or sold, as such crowing denotes future evil to the family of the owner.” [61] A precisely similar belief obtained amongst our own ancestors. “Moresin ranked the unseasonable crowing of a cock amongst omens,” says Brand; and in Morier’s Journey through Persia, p. 62, we read: “Amongst the superstitions in Persia, that which depends on the crowing of a cock is not the least remarkable. If the cock crows at a proper hour, they esteem it a good omen; if at an improper season, they kill him. I am told that the favourable hours are at nine, both in the morning and in the evening, at noon, and at midnight.” The flight of birds, more especially swallows, is also an omen in Chinese eyes. Classical scholars do not need to be reminded how often this augury was consulted amongst the Greeks and Romans. A Chinaman never wilfully kills swallows. The French of the Mediterranean term them ames damnées and have also a superstitious regard for them—a queer coincidence, to say the least of it. Bats again in China afford omens of good fortune. The Chinese name of the animal is fuk shil (in Cantonese) or “Rat of Happiness,” and its erratic dashes into a room or summer-house are held to augur coming luck to the occupants. With us, similar conduct on the part of a robin red-breast is an omen of calamity.

But these agreements of superstition are not confined to crows, dogs, bats, cooks, and hens. The owl occupies the same position in Chinese esteem as it did in ancient Roman eyes, and as it still does in Great Britain. Pliny called it “inauspicata et funebris avis,” while similar epithets are applied to the bird by Ovid, Lucian, and Claudian. Chaucer described it as

“The Oule eke, that of deth the bode bringeth,”

and Spencer speaks of it as the bird “that whoso heares doth die.” Butler, in his Hudibras, p. 2. Canto III. l. 707, refers to the lustration which Rome underwent because an owl had strayed into the capital. Bourne describes it as “a most abominable and unlucky bird,” whose hoarse and dismal voice “is an omen of the approach of some terrible thing: that some dire calamity and some great misfortune is near at hand.” Brand devotes several pages to quotations, ancient and modern, in the same sense. [62] Now let us see what the Chinese have to say of the bird of Minerva. “The voice of the owl is universally heard with dread, being regarded as the harbinger of death in the neighbourhood.” I shall perhaps be pardoned if, for the sake of making this notice exhaustive, I quote the following from Mr. Doolittle’s interesting chapter on this and kindred subjects.

Some say that its voice resembles the voice of a spirit or demon
calling out to its fellow. Perhaps it is on account of this notion
that they so often assert having heard the voice of a spirit, when
they may have heard only the indistinct hooting of a distant owl.
Sometimes, the Chinese say, its voice sounds much like an
expression for “digging” the grave. Hence, probably, the origin of
a common saying, that when one is about to die, in the neighborhood
will be heard the voice of the owl, calling out, “dig, dig.” It is
frequently spoken of as the bird which calls for the soul, or which
catches or takes away the soul. Some assert that if its cry is dull
and indistinct, as though proceeding from a distant place, it
betokens the death of a near neighbor; whereas, if its notes are
clear and distinct, as if proceeding from a short distance, it is a
sure harbinger of the death of a person in a remote
neighborhood—the more distinct the voice, the more distant the
individual whose decease is indicated; and the more indistinct the
voice, the nearer the person whose death is certain! It is a common
saying that this bird is a transformation of one of the servants of
the ten kings of the infernal regions, i.e., is a devil under the
guise of a bird. It is also frequently referred to as a “constable
from the dark land.”

To pass from birds to eggs, it may be noted that a Lancashire superstition that to set a hen on an even number of eggs will result in their being addled, or in the chickens not thriving, exists also in South China.

I have already referred to shoes in connection with birth and marriage, but can find no precise analogy to the “shoe omens” in vogue in Europe—such as the ill luck which it is feared will befall the person who puts a left shoe on a right foot and vice versa. Mirrors, however, share in China the superstitious respect paid to their preservation at home. To break a looking-glass is in most parts of Europe deemed a very unlucky accident. “When a looking glass is broken it is an omen that the party to whom it belongs will lose his best friend. Grose tells us that breaking a looking-glass betokens a mortality in the family, commonly the master;” [63] and Buonaparte, having once broken the glass over Josephine’s portrait, could not rest till a special courier had informed him of her safety. This belief exists in full force in China. To break a mirror augurs a separation from one’s wife by death, or otherwise, and is only second in ominous portent to breaking an oil jar. And this superstition of a connection existing between the mirror and its owner’s life is evidenced also by its use in cases of sickness to form the head of a sort of figure made of one of the sick man’s coats which, suspended to a bamboo with the end leaves still on it, is carried about in the vicinity of the house in the hope of attracting the departing soul back to its body. Mirrors are also used as charms, under which head their use will be described.

Who has not noticed or heard of the bizarre arrangements of Chinese gardens and rockeries? The motive for this laying out the pleasure grounds attached to large houses is not simply ornamental. No doubt the Chinaman is one of the most ingenious of landscape gardeners, but the crooked walks and abrupt turns not only economize space but are “lucky,” inasmuch as they discourage the advent of evil spirits, who like the “broad way” in China much as they are reputed to do in Europe. Now in England, says a recent writer, “Good luck seems to be attached to everything deformed or crooked. Thus, a crooked sixpence, all England through, is lucky; also placing crooked pins in walls is a very common custom. I never could learn the reason why, although I have known it extended to highways and lanes, such as being cautioned never to build a house in a straight lane, but always to choose (because lucky) a crooked or lane with many curves and turnings.” It looks very much as if the two superstitions were identical, but fearful of being too dogmatic I leave readers to draw their own inference.

A recent English writer remarks that “throughout our history, and even in our own day among the vulgar, every eclipse or comet is regarded as the harbinger of some storm, or inundation, or some contagious disease.” The sentence may stand as it is to describe the Chinese sentiment, with the slight omission of the words “amongst the vulgar;” for prince and peasant alike believe that the astrologers do not lie. But more astonishing still is it to find that an able writer, Dr. Forster, in his Illustrations of the Atmospherical Origin of Epidemic Disorders, gives tables occupying 40 closely-printed 8vo. pages, to shew that the visits of these scourges have really been concurrent with the appearance and approach of comets. He in fact gravely supports the theory held by the Chinese (who by the way say, the longer the comet’s tail, the greater the disturbance), so far as it relates to disease. The natives consider a comet to portend war also, and as rebel fighting is generally going on somewhere in the Middle Kingdom, have no great difficulty in proving their case. Stars have, since the remotest antiquity, been held by this people to serve as portents or warnings, generally on the side of order and good government. Some eight years ago the Southern rebels had advanced from Tsao-chow to capture Chi-ning-chow, and as the city was badly defended they would have had an easy task, but for one circumstance that intervened. They fancied they saw on the Eastern road “an enormous red star of an inexplicable nature, within which was plainly visible Kwan-ti in armour, and with a helmet surmounting his fiery face and mighty beard. He darted about at the head of his legions just as he is represented as doing in paintings, and the tumult of his innumerable host was distinctly heard.” The rebels were affrighted and fled, and it was officially recorded that “the spirit of Kwan-ti had preserved the city of Chi-ning-chow.” As regards eclipses, the popular belief of the Chinese in the fact that the sun or moon is then being devoured by a dragon, and the means adopted of beating gongs and firing crackers to frighten the dragon away, have been held up to Western ridicule ever since books about China have been written. But precisely the same beliefs and practices prevailed amongst the Romans, Macedonians, Medes, Turks, Italians, Irish and Welsh! I need not here quote authorities at length, as they will all be found in Brand (Vol. III. p. 152–3). But I may note that the Spartan belief that the appearance of shooting stars signified that the king had offended the gods is not very far removed from the Chinese idea that an eclipse is an omen of ill luck to the reigning emperor—a belief curiously verified but a few months back when the attack of small-pox from which the young emperor Tung Chih died was concurrent with the occurrence of a solar eclipse.

Superstitions regarding bells may be classed under the heads both of auguries and charms. The two largest bells in the empire—those at Canton and Peking—are held to possess peculiarly portentous virtues. A native account of the City of Canton states that the kin chung or “tabooed bell,” as it is called, was cast in the beginning of the reign of Hung-wu (therefore shortly after A.D. 1468, or five centuries ago), but in consequence of a prophecy foretelling calamity to Canton whenever it should give forth sound, was deprived of a clapper and the means of access to it removed. At length one day a rash official directed a man to strike it. No sooner had its reverberating boom been heard, than upwards of a thousand male and female infants died within the city. Some evil spirit had evidently been irritated at the bell being rung, and to ward off his influence infants have, ever since, worn bells upon the clothes. But the prophecy thus vindicated was still supposed to hold good, and advantage was taken of the circumstance by our bombarding force in 1857. It was suggested to the commander of one of H. M’s. ships to aim a shot at the bell, and the result was that, as calamity was indeed befalling the haughty city, the unwonted boom was once again heard. A portion of the lower rim was fractured, and the superstition thus recalled to the popular mind undoubtedly contributed to a general belief in foreign prowess. [64] The belief regarding the Peking bell is less deep-seated, being only to the effect that, if struck by an unauthorized hand, the rain-god will immediately visit the offence by sending down unneeded rain. Some years since, on the writer with a party of friends, visiting the great bell-temple outside the City, the Priests refused to strike the enormous specimen therein hung (it is, by the way, the largest suspended bell in the world), lest the rain-god should be offended. A small present from one of the party however induced them to let the visitors draw back the heavy wooden ram which did duty as a clapper. Strangely enough, as the first blow was struck, a heavy rainstorm came on, and the shaven-pated attendants roared out in high glee, “We told you so!” For once superstition carried the day. It is unnecessary to remind at least London readers that grave disaster to the Royal family is believed to follow the unexpected tolling of the great bell of St. Paul’s. Bells, especially if blessed by a priest, were formerly thought efficacious to scare away evil spirits. Church bells have ever been regarded in a similar light; and the passing-bell tolled for a dying man was of old supposed to frighten off the demons who stood at the foot of the bed ready to seize, or at least molest, the departing soul. The latter thus got a fair start, or what sportsmen call “law.” “Hence,” says the authority I am quoting, “the high charge made for tolling the great bell of the Church,” as being more efficacious than smaller ones heard to a less distance.

A writer in Notes and Queries states that a Scottish plan for securing good luck, for the space of twelve months at least, is to draw a bucket-full of water from the village well, at midnight, on New Year’s eve, and, after throwing a handful of grass into it, to carry it carefully home. If the drawer be a cow-keeper, he uses part of the water to wash his dairy utensils, and gives the remainder to his cows, in the rather dishonest hope that he will thereby obtain the cream of the cows of such of his neighbors as use the well, and have not been so wise as himself. Now this custom finds an exact counterpart in China. Natives living in the neighbourhood of Canton believe that water drawn on the night, or rather after midnight, of the seventh day of the seventh moon, possesses special efficacy in the cure of cutaneous diseases or fevers, if used in the cooking of gruel for a patient. It is, moreover, believed that such water will not get putrid even if kept for years, its efficacy indeed increasing with age. The date above given is reported to be that of the descent of the female genii of the Pleiades (possibly because the constellation is formed of seven stars).

Omens of personal sensation are as commonly accepted in China as in England. With us burning or itching sensations on the body forebode ill luck or calamities; thus, if you have a shivering fit, some one is walking over your destined grave; if the right ear burns, you will hear good news, but if the left, you are being defamed by an enemy. The Chinese believe that if one of the eyelids move involuntarily, it forebodes good or evil luck according to the hours at which the sensation is experienced, and the eyelid (right or left) affected. As a rule it is an ill omen. Sneezing indicates that some one is talking ill of the person so relieving himself. Any twitching of the flesh or a jumping sensation in the region of the heart always forebodes serious ill fortune (the latter symptom, by the way, often needs no prophetic interpretation); and if a man’s second finger shakes, it is a sign that he will shortly be invited to a grand feast. Clothes again, especially trowsers, have ominous properties. Our own goodwives tell us that it is very unlucky to sew a button on a pair of breeches while wearing them. The Chinese give a pair of the same indispensable articles of dress to a young girl commencing to learn sewing, her successful efforts to stitch them together foreboding wealth. Our saying that if two men wash in the same bowl they will quarrel before sunset has a Chinese parallel in the belief that sitting down in a chair still warm augurs that you will shortly fall out with the last sitter.

It has always been deemed unlucky to meet a funeral in most parts of England, and the Chinese entertain an exactly similar idea, especially if the person meeting it is going to a wedding. In fact, many natives will turn back from any business visit they are about to pay if they come across either a funeral or a coffin. There is a quaint saying at home that “Trouble will never come near folks whose eyebrows meet;” and it is also alleged that ladies with overmuch down and gentlemen with overmuch hair upon their arms and hands, carry about them Nature’s own guarantee that they are born to be rich some day—as rich as those happy individuals whose front teeth are set wide apart. The Chinese say that “people whose eyebrows meet can never expect to attain to the dignity of a Minister of State;” that “ladies with too much down or hair are born to be poor all their lives;” but that “bearded men will never become beggars.” In fact, it is scarcely possible to take up the most ordinary magazine article on European folk-lore without noting in almost every paragraph strange coincidences either in actual belief or in the subject of a superstition. Even the appearance of a white speck upon the finger nail or an itching sensation of the palm of the hand (both ominous of coming gifts in England) bear significance in the eyes of this mysteriously isolated people. The Chinese note that both the foregoing are omens of coming evil.