Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-11-04
SUPERSTITIONS OF CHINESE.

New York SUM: A sympathetic for
eigner, recently writing to an American
newspaper, bewailed the heartlessness
OF Chinese sons and daughters, who in
the parents lifetime Lrepare his coffin
ana shrOud, and openly tank with him Oh
ms demise. The facts do not justify the
sympathy, for there can be no truer evil
dence of flial piety in China than for q
child to present to his parent a burial
outfit. Let the head of the family be as
sured, by the indisputable evidence of the
coffin in the house, that a respectable
burial will be his, and one Of the greatest
anxletles of his life is relieved. The cof-
mn Is proudly displayed to each guest, the
latter never failing to add his testimony
70 the hllal piety to the younger genera
tlon. m force of the Irish bull that
hopes you may live to eat the hen that
scratches on your grave is quite lost
in China.
1t is singular to note with what GER
talnty a Chinaman who is old or i'll will
prepare for his demise. Premonitions OF
coming fate seem to enter into his soul,
and he sends word to mis- relatives and
friends that he is about to die-what day
can they come to his funeral? If he has
not been fOrehanded enough to secure
ms burial outfit, there is a great commo-
tlon among the households till money
is collected for a coffin and also for feast
ing and music; for a funeral is a great
social event. The evil spirits must be
propitiated with food, clothing and furni-
ture must be burned for the use of tha
departed spirit lii the realm of shades.
When he is assured. that his obsequies
will be properly conducted the patient
calmly s%urrenders to the inevitable.
When a mar has made up his mind to
die it is not often that he recovers,
though it sometimes happens that vigor-
Gus protest and eXhortation on the part
of some influential relative will induce
him to delay shutting off this mortal coil.
Vastly more shocking than the ubiqul-
tous grave is the unburied coffin. 1t is
everywhere. Every village has it's
houses for storing collins for which no
suitable burial place has been found, and
whole hamlets are given over to this
CHASTITY use. The interment depending
on the good will of the Wind-and-Wate
Devil, F~ong-Shui, and his favor being
closely intertwined With that of the
priest who is employed to choose the site,
it sometimes happens that the ancestral
remains occupy a corner OF the dwelling
house for 80 years before the two powers
that be can agree upon a proper resting
place. Even after the zones are laid in
the ground it is by no means certain
that they are finally disposed Of; for il
the relatives have money the priest is
apt to discover that tie site is not a
good one, or perhaps tn, F~ong-Shul mas
changed his mind, ana up comes the an
cestor. Ii the coffin mas decayed the
tieshless bones are slowed in a covered
jar, and these frighttui objects. awaiting
reinterment, dot the country thickly.
That China is being changed tinds ad-
ditional proof in the fact that not even
her graves remain i%nviolate. Thousands
of them have recently been destroyed to
| max room for improvements. Even the
ancestors who for centuries have enjoy
ed undiSturbed repOSe, who in their lite-
time opposed ali reform and advance
ment, and in their death went to swell
the long list of those who are nothing
less than an incubus to their descend
ants. must now share in the fate of the
old empire for whose blind conservatism
they are so largely responsible.
One of the most fruitful sources of dis
pute is these same graves. A little
man came running into the compound of
the writer some weeks ago, in great dis
tress because his buffalo was accused OF
exercising it's horns upon a grave belong
ing to mother man. In c~onsequsnc OF
such rude disturbance If the Fong-Shul
the mans wife was very iii, and ne de-
manded Sc damages from the owner OF
the buffalo. The little man protested
that it was not his beast that did the
mischief, and the writer's teacher e
literary g%raduate), who was sitting by,
made the apparently state
ment: We'll, if it wasn't your buffalo
won't have to pay Wnereupon some
friend of the aggrieved graveholder took
the case before the magistrate, accusing
the graduate himself of interfering
against him, and the c>se is till unset
tiled. But time is nothing-a thousand
wears, more or less, are but as yesterday
when it is past to a Chinaman.